I get it. I have like zero sense of direction. I get this from my Mom who is in denial about her own bad sense of direction. Sure, she can be good sometimes but last time I was in the car with my brother and her with her giving my brother directions, we ended up on the opposite side of the freeway from where we wanted to be in, a bad neighborhood.

I think my problem with lack of sense of direction is that I’m a visual person (surprise surprise, seeing as I’m an artist by profession). Once I make it somewhere I can make it back to the place a second time without incident (usually). I impressed a former boss by remembering this random intersection in California when we went there six months after the original trip.

If you give me directions with street names I’ll get overwhelmed since I’ll need to pay attention to street signs and do you know I wear glasses or contacts? There is a reason for this since I have HORRIBLE VISION (all caps to put heavy emphasis on the point). If I don’t have my glasses or contacts on, the computer monitor a foot away is a total blur. The glasses help with the street signs but seriously? When I don’t know where I am, landmarks are the way to go since a small street sign is significantly trumped by say a 30-story building that is hard to miss.

Mack loves to tease me about my lack of direction. Many-a-time when we were living in Phoenix I’d call him up on my cellphone and ask where I was. Amused, he’d tell me he has no idea since he’s not in a car and can’t really give me a direction without cross streets. Usually, also, by the time I’d call Mack I’d be so far backwards and probably half way to Mexico. Another great part about Phoenix? It’s built on a grid (in case you didn’t know). The streets run north to south or east to west… and I still managed to get lost.

When we moved to Jacksonville I think Mack pretty much knew I was going to be screwed since a) Jacksonville wasn’t build on a grid and b) it wasn’t as flat and open as Phoenix. For my graduation present, he got me a GPS unit in hopes that he’d get a few less phone calls of “Where the hell am I!?” The plan backfired, of course, when I misplaced the GPS in the craziness of the Move From Hell™ and it went MIA in our apartment for a majority of our stint living in Florida.

My GPS unit and I kind of have a love/hate relationship with each other. Our friends and I put the GPS on the British male voice and it has since be dubbed “Sir Charles”. Charles, I swear, is very aware of the fact that he is owned by an idiot who gets lost very easily. The number of times I’ve got the tired voice of “recalculating” is too many to really own up to. I make up for Charles’ frustration by mocking his inability to pronounce “What-a-burger” or “Washington”. Charles, in retaliation, decides to fuck with me and lead me to the middle of no-where just to see me squirm.

my mortal enemy Sir Charles in action in the middle of no-where (or eastern washington)

Wednesday night, I drove up north to have dinner with my Mom (who was graciously letting me borrow her camera for a trip I’m taking). After dinner I decided— seeing as how I was in a semi-not nice part of town— that of course it would be a good idea to find a Petco or Petsmart to get a reload-able kitty litter tray for our automatic cat box. As I sat in the parking lot with my car running I searched for “Petco” and told Charles to lead the way and I would actually listen to him for once in my life.

This worked for about a block or two.

First off, the Petco in question was supposedly 3 miles away from my current location. I figured shoot, close enough and it would save me having to go to our local Petsmart to get the litter. As I was driving down the main drag, I underestimated when the street I was suppose to take a right on occurred. Unfortunately, I couldn’t merge back to the left to continue down another block since people are jerks about letting other people back over, myself included.

I turn down a random street and Charles, sensing my stupidity, barks at me “recalculating”. I can tell Charles is already frustrated that I only listened to him for a block. I don’t know if Charles wanted to punish me for this little act of defiance but the GPS unit decided to lead me into a very industrial and deserted area of town. Now, in the back of my mind I remembered that around Thanksgiving time last year someone was shot in the mall near here.

My neurosis kicked up with a multiplier of ten.

Eventually, after many dark winding roads, Charles led me to this small area with a independently owned pet store. I decided hell, Charles led me this far I might as well go check out the store. I went inside and asked them if they had any reload-able cat box trays. Confused, the clerk led me over to the area and showed me a lot of beautiful cat boxes but reload-able automatic cleaners? What?

At this point in the adventure, the two lemonades I had during dinner started to kick in and my iPhone decided to die. I told the GPS to take me home and hoped it wouldn’t lead me further into the woods to murder me. Honestly, at the point, I figured it might. Luckily, once it got me on this highway I recognized where I was about ten minutes later since I was near IKEA that we had gone to a few weeks prior.

Overall in reading about this I think you an tell why I prefer to be a passenger instead of driver: the bad sense of direction. Also, the hitting curbs and road rage also have something to do with it, but those are different stories entirely.

Technorati Tags: lost, driving, lack of direction, bad driving, GPS

I’ve always loved the season of Fall. While I’ve never been a fan of the cold and what the meaning behind Fall is (to prepare us for the horribly cold northwest winter and, of course, the start of school), I’ve always enjoyed the changing colors of nature and the smell of Fall. I love stepping outside and taking a deep breath and smelling leaves, cold, and I guess morbidly the sweet pungent smell of nature dying after a beautiful spring and summer and going to the bleakness of winter.

Saturday, Mack and I stepped outside in our jackets and we both paused and inhaled deeply.

“I love Fall,” Mack told me with a smile. I agreed heartily as we sunk into our jackets and got into my car (after brushing spare leaves off my windshield), enjoying the novelty of the lingering smell of leaves that clung to us and settled around us in the car.

While Arizona and Florida had their own version of Fall, both can’t honestly compare (in my book) to Fall in the northwest (or anywhere that isn’t a for the most part tropical climate). Arizona has its state of brown with splashes of brilliant colors and Florida has some changing colors but for the most part stays green all year round.

Driving through the neighborhood here in Washington, we’re bombarded by the color explosions. Reds, yellows, browns, and fading greens fill our eyes. It feels like no shade of red is the same as the next. While I usually hate the cold, I’ve found being back in Washington I’m actually enjoying it. I like bundling up in lots of jackets and regretting when I space and wear my flip-flops outside (which was my footwear of choice in Florida year round). I’m excited at the prospect of wearing mittens and scarves again. I have a deep love and addiction to scarves and look forward to expanding my collection beyond the simple three I currently own.

I plan on enjoying and savoring Fall and its colors, scents, and textures every time I go outside and am looking forward to the changing over to winter with the ice, snow, and white surroundings. I can’t wait to sled down the hill, laughing all the way (how cliché!). But in the meantime, I’m glad Fall is here to stay.

Technorati Tags: Fall, weather, seasons, leafs, nature, colors, sensations, outdoors

(Wow, it’s been awhile since I blogged about this cross country road trip. Call it a much needed sanity break from it. You can read about the day one and day two).

Day three started a lot better then day two did. For one, the cats kept their crack level down slightly. Sure, they were knocking over suitcases and being their usual jerky selves, however they did manage to sleep a little. This is surprising since I should honestly let you in on a little secret for this road trip:

We sedated the cats.

It’s not like we hard-core elephant tranquilized the cats (though Mack wanted to, since they were in his car). One simple pill and towels sprayed down with relaxing spray and the cats were out cold for most of the four days in the car… minus day one when Gracie went without a pill and she complained… The. Whole. Time. (I can only mildly joke about it due to the complaining Mack and Bob did at me about the situation).

After our complementary breakfast (I’m all about those when traveling, true fact) we gathered all the animals into the car once more (which, with four cats, two sugar gliders, and eleven fish it was no small feat) we were on the road again.

Like day two, there was a whole lot of nothing followed by more nothingness. The more we drove through it, the less I got creeped out about wide open spaces. The first time I visited my friend in Oklahoma at the age of eighteen I had to confess to her that being able to see the horizon seriously weirded me out. In Washington you can’t see the horizon really. There is usually trees, hills, mountains, or rain blocking your view. Living in Arizona and Florida I think it prepared me well for the cross country drive.

Unlike the previous days this day, we had a time table, of sorts, that we were following. And by “we” I mean the boys were ordering Hayley and I not to dilly-daddle if we wanted to see both the Corn Palace and Mount Rushmore that day. Much to Hayley and my disappointment (and whining and crying) we missed De Smet and thus denied our inner elementary age selves the joy of visiting a part of Laura Ingalls Wilder history.

We did, fortunately, make it to the corn palace early afternoon and were duly impressed.

Early in our talks of driving cross country, I told Mack that no matter what the following conditions must be met:

1. We are not driving through Texas again. Driving across the widest part of the state four times in a year was more then enough for us and our sanity.
2. We were driving to and visiting the Corn Palace.

Simple enough conditions, right?

After the Corn Palace and all it’s glory, we had the long time between there and Mount Rushmore. How did we keep ourselves entertained? By playing Oregon Trail on the walkie-talkies between cars.

When we finally got to Mount Rushmore a few hours later it was an awesome tourist trap, as to be expected with national monuments.

I guess what stuck out most in my mind about Mount Rushmore was that it was a lot smaller then I expected and also the people there… kind of weird. I say that because when we came down from viewing the small (but awesome!) Mount Rushmore I found people hovering near the back of my car taking pictures of my license plate. Granted, I can’t really blame them since my plate looks like this:

But it weirded me out nonetheless.

After Mount Rushmore, we hit Wyoming for a few miles which, like most of the rest of our road trip, ended up being a few miles of pure road construction.

When we hit Montana, it was pretty much no cell reception for the whole state. We managed to hit the state right at sunset and were, again, impressed:

Then lots of hills, forest, and darkness all around. Hayley and I got pretty giddy in my car listening to Katy Perry and Lady GaGa since we were hungry and apparently a low blood-sugar makes us nuts. It only got worse when the only restaurant (term used loosely) was McDonalds and we cracked ourselves up waiting thirty minutes in the line (when people gave up Hayley commented that they “apparently don’t have what it takes for the McDonalds line!”) at the drive through.

After we had food in our systems, we lasted about another two hours before having to call it a night in a medium sized town half way through the state of Montana. We crashed hard that night with the goal and hope that tomorrow night? We’d be back in Washington and back home.

Friday night, I had perhaps one of the strangest dreams in my life. Trust me when I say that I have had some pretty far out there dreams in the past. All you really have to do is meet me and talk to me for a brief period to realize I’m a pretty strange individual. Of course a strange person would have weird dreams! Duh!

For example, one dream I had in childhood gave me a lifelong aversion to poodles. True story. Of course, I think you too would have this aversion if you had a dream at six of a poodle who sucked people’s souls with its eyes had cornered you in your parents room to suck your soul after wiping out the rest of the neighborhood. It was really awkward meeting my friend Hayley’s poodle senior year of high school and I was like “Oh… a poodle” and the dog sensed my distrust and bit my butt.

That dog pretty much proved my distrust of poodles with his actions.

Friday night, I had a real whopper of a dream. Leading up to sleep I guess was pretty intense. I had to drive to the airport to pick Mack up for the weekend and it was pouring buckets of water onto the freeway. While I still adore the state of Washington and love being back, there is one thing that drives me crazy on a daily basis: the drivers and passive driving. I’ll give allowances in that I know I have road rage (obviously (and this)) but the passive nature of “no, you first, please” coupled with the massive freeway freakout over water falling from the sky in WASHINGTON STATE? I was pretty stressed and angry going to bed.

Also, I’m a really light sleeper. I will wake up to the sound of Mack lightly snoring and usually slug him and order him to roll over. I’m a caring and gentle girlfriend like that. That night, I woke up in semi-awake states and heard this faint beeping noise. Tired beyond all reason, since the cats had started CrackFest October 09! at 5:57am (since that is when my friend decided to text me) that morning, I figured it would go away and fell into a deep sleep as this faint beeping sound filled my ears.

Cue dream sequence.

In my dream the beeping noise from reality was there and, in my perfectly sane mind, it equated to turkeys. In retrospect, I had shown Mack pictures I had taken of wild turkeys— this was just before bed but why my mind jumped to turkeys as to the source of the beeping… I shall always wonder. More than anything, I wanted for the turkeys to shut up since didn’t they know I was trying to sleep? As I gradually grew more irritated in my dream, Mack popped up beside me in dream land. Calmly, as though explaining things to a child, he informed me the sound I was hearing was the Internet Turkeys and they were doing their job.

Yes. Internet Turkeys.

Think this plus internet

Mack went on to explain that the gobbling sound that they were producing (remember it was beeping so this caused great confusion to me in my dream) was the basis of the internet and what kept it running and functioning. If they stopped gobbling and making that god-awful noise then the internet would go out and I was basically back to not having internet again (much like all of last week). Frustrated, I asked Mack if there was a way to escape the sound or for them to, I don’t know, shut up a little without breaking the internet.

Gravely, Mack shook his head as he turned his back on me and went back to his laptop. “No Anne, without the Internet Turkey’s the internet would cease to be.”

Shaken to the core as to the power of these Internet Turkeys, I semi-woke up and stared up at the darkened bedroom ceiling. Gradually, as I woke up, I realize that there was this really irritating beeping coming from somewhere inside the room. Since I tend to overreact if something spooks me awake (my stomach clenches and almost throw up; welcome to Mack’s life) I shook Mack up and I informed him, not so calmly, there was beeping coming from inside the room.

WE ARE GUNNA DIE! (Read this with a Southern accent in your mind since that is how I am thinking of it. I do miss the wonderfully frustrating Southern drawl).

Calmly (unlike his girlfriend) Mack got up and started searching the room for the source of the Internet Turkey noise. Eventually it was traced back to his backpack and determined to be his noise canceling headphones which had not been turned off.

As we climbed back into bed I told him my story of the Internet Turkeys and their power of keeping the internet well and healthy. This caused Mack, naturally, to laugh his ass off at me and fall asleep chuckling about Internet Turkeys.

So there you have it. Now you know that you aren’t made up of a series of tubes but held together by the power of the Internet Turkeys and their infinite wisdom.

Technorati Tags: dreaming, weird dreams, dream analysis, internet, basis of internet, internet turkeys, strange dreams, neurotic

Lopez Island, Washington.

When Mack and I went up to Lopez over Labor Day weekend we ran into this sign near my parents house and literally did a double take. I think what kills me is the cross-out of horse and just the majestic tail hair flowing in the wind.

Technorati Tags: unicorn, unicorns, street signs, altered street signs, sharpie markers, horse crossing, street sign

I’m a natural born klutz. I have lived most of my life as a klutz and I think that it, perhaps, defines me to a degree. Growing up, I think that I had coordination and a sense of where I am relative to other objects. I don’t know what happened to change this. Perhaps growing taller with the tree-tall legs had some affect? I am almost six feet tall. That is a whole lot of leg length working against me. A whole lot more for gravity to pull down.

Sure, a certain amount of stupidity and lack of foresight leads to a lot of my scraps and bruises. I’m bad about paying attention to what I am doing, which leads to me tripping on chords and hitting the corners of walls as I attempt to leave a room. When trying to pass Mack and the coffee table on the way to the couch, he teasingly beseeches me to “please not knock down his drink. And oh, Anne? There is a chord there. Be aware of that and give it due caution.”

This past weekend, we moved up to the new house that Mack and I will be staying in with my brother. The weekend move represented the end of moving for  us and we couldn’t be more ecstatic. A place! to stay! And unpacking! We have been living in boxes since the end of June, so this end is bittersweet delicious. That’s right: bittersweet delicious.

Mack and I are staying in a finished basement complete with a bathroom, carpeting, and just as comfortable our previous apartments (more so than our apartment in Phoenix, honestly). We have access to the whole rest of the house but the basement is where our bedroom and office is located. The basement, unfortunately (for me) gets really dark when the lights aren’t on in the middle of the night. Couple this with the boxes from the move that have been placed in different rooms to be unpacked… this is recipe for Anne disaster.

Also, you do remember we have three cats who’s mission in life is to get underfoot and make people trip? Being tripped over gives them something else to get offended about, beyond the other injustices life has dealt them.

Before I continue this story (and explain the title) I guess I should cover some of my habits. Usually, in the middle of the night I get up and have to go to bathroom. This is relevant to the story else I wouldn’t have divulged my bathroom habits. Most of the time I can go to the bathroom without incident and injury to myself. There was the instance of Friday night, me tripping over my pajama bottoms and almost wiping out into the wall but (usually) I take care of business and go back to bed.

Monday night was different. I wake up and detangle Brutus from around my neck, Blue off my feet, and Bucky away from my side (this is an every night occurrence) to get up and take care of business. Half asleep, I stumble in the pitch dark and groggily try to remember where boxes and laundry baskets lay so I don’t hit them.

BAM.

I remembered. I left the door half open. And the left side of my face met the side of the door. I justified it before sleeping as: I was sleeping alone that night (Mack being on a business trip) and it gave me that added sense of comfort. Like, if someone broke in they wouldn’t think to look in room with the door half ajar. Pure genius!

After smacking face first (literally) into the door I stumbled back as stars danced in my blacked vision. The sound and force with which I hit the door, naturally, set the cats into a mad panic since OH MY GOD NOISE! and they rapidly shot off the bed running out of the room and hitting my legs as they ran from the noise.

So here I am, clutching my face in the pitch black as I go “OWWWWW” (since it was 4am I wasn’t awake enough to drop the f-bomb) while my legs are numb from the 15-pound torpedos that hit my leg in passing and the cats are running figure eights around the basement since noise! They heard a loud noise and STUFF HAPPENED!

I eventually made it to the bathroom and turn on the light and look at my face and see it pink and swollen. I vaguely wonder if I hit with enough force to cause a concussion but decide I’m tired enough not to care and go back to bed. I wondered, briefly, how long before the cats would start eating my corpse if I died from a concussion and I concluded I probably wouldn’t like to know.

So, my fellow klutzes (I know you are out there) I open the forum to share your stories of run-ins with inanimate objects so we can take comfort in each other and others may have a place to openly laugh at us.

Technorati Tags: klutzs, inanimate objects, running into stuff, klutz, embarrassing, embarrassing stories, ouch