bwcaw eve

tomorrow we venture into the wilderness. if i don't return, come look for me, and find yourself in heaven too.

pelted

last night i got pelted with a softball (that i was expected to catch) right above my left breast and below my chin.

okay, it hurt.

matt should not feel bad for pelting me, it was a very catchable ball. it's just that i have no experience catching a ball that is coming 50 mph directly at my chest.

so i got pelted instead.

oh, and we lost again.

headline 'discarded bag of cash found outside my door'

my mom is not a discarded bag of cash, but when i told her this morning about my commitment to play my cello again, she asked if she could give me the money to get it fixed up. What a great answer to my blog on June 10th!

what i love about her offer is that when she heard me say cello, she didn't hesitate on her offer, almost as if she wanted me to play as much as i wanted to play. it gives me a very good feeling to believe that.

in some ways, it almost revises my high school memories just slightly. almost like i can imagine her support back then, even though she maybe never said it.

thanks mom. thanks for your support. (it's better than a discarded bag of cash)

close call

it was a close call last night when aaron slid into home base on the kickball field and the ump declared him safe.

it was a close call this morning when we found out that the resulting injury to aaron's right hand was a sprain, not a break. especially since we have no health insurance for him. =)

12 years and still smiling

aaron and i celebrated our 12 year anniversary yesterday by eating burrito loco, watching six feet under on hbo, and falling asleep on the couch (that was more aaron than me).

in honor of our anniversary, aaron made me a music cd to commemorate our 12 years with one song for every year and a few extras thrown in for good measure. as i listened to each one, i could see us in that year, doing what we were doing. i don't know how, but he captured the essence of our lives together with just a few songs.

the smiley face cult lives on within us

here fishy fishy fishy...

aaron and i went fishing this weekend on little bass lake. our friends george and karen have a cabin up there.

our plan was to learn how to fish so that we could get a few good meals out of the boundary waters when we go in two weeks. george was a great teacher, even though i'm sure i was a disappointing pupil, since i wasn't willing to clean my own fish (sorry george).

[just to get it on the record, every time i've touched the body of another animal in any way not related to petting or loving them, i have fainted. so my goal is to work my way up slowly by watching aaron do it a few times, just to avoid the faint factor.]

well we had a marvelous weekend. aaron and i went out on sunday afternoon alone to see if we were capable of finding a few fish without george the master in the boat. and we did. aaron caught a nicely sized bass and had fun getting it off the hook and back out of the boat. hope that guy will survive after his ordeal.

all in all, we are ready on the fishing side of things for our bwcaw trip and i'm excited to take a big bite out of our first wilderness fish in about two weeks. pass the lemon!

cello love

i checked out my cello in the basement. i haven't opened that case since 1998. i was surprised by two things when i opened the case:
1. how sentimental i was about seeing my cello again. =)
2. that i had forgotten that i had wrapped a towel around it so that it wouldn't get damaged during our move to minnesota in 1998. the towel reminded me that i've always been sentimental about my cello.

i'm tearing up a bit at the excitement i feel at having committed to playing again. i checked out costs for purchasing strings online and it's sort of pricey. i could get some cheap ones for $60 bucks or some really really expensive ones for more than the cello itself cost (thanks mom and dad). it looks like bridges cost somewhere around the same (between $60 and ohmygod).

things i have done:
1. re-established the bond i have with my instrument
2. found a site to order strings from
3. found a site to give me a general idea of bridge costs
4. called the shop to ask about sound post reposting ($10-$15)

here's what i still need to do:
1. find a discarded bag of cash outside my door
2. order new strings
3. get the cello into the shop and get the sound post reposted
4. buy a new bridge
5. play =)

feelings i am having:
1. excitement about playing again
2. love for my cello
3. nervousness about when i will find a discarded bag of cash outside my door
4. fear that i won't follow through with this plan
5. (sometimes) annoyance at myself for having committed to this plan

right now, the happiness is most prominent. i'm going to go turn on some cello music to make the most of it.

to the greatest kickball team we've ever played

thank you, ligers, for being the absolute best team we've played in our five seasons of kickball.

you had spirit that rivaled ours
you understood that it's just a game
you actually kicked the ball, even when it wasn't pitched perfectly
you didn't hold up the game arguing calls with the umps
you manbunted only when strategically appropriate and you did it with pride
you heckled like you've been heckling for years
you played a great game of kickball, and made us work for the win
you drank beer with us and tolerated all our stupid jokes
you're an upstanding group of folks
you get what great kickball is all about

thank you.

perhaps after the season, we could play a few scrimmage games with ya'll?

going to the next round

i was right!

detroit pistons

i think they are going to win.

only death can stop the pain

it's amazing what a little beep beep beep can do to you after an hour.

something is beeping somewhere in the neighborhood and it's about to drive me completely insane. i don't have any idea where it's coming from and it's probably barely audible over all the birds to most people, but after about 10 minutes of working on my laptop in my living room, it's all i could hear, and now, an hour later, i'm going to shoot myself in the head, simply to stop the beeping.

beep beep beep (pause) beep beep beep (pause) KABOOM!!

call of the bwcaw

it happened again this morning. i woke up in my bed and wished it was a tent. the window was open and the wind was blowing softly through the trees, sun shining. the only thing that makes it tolerable is knowing that at the end of june, we'll be in the wilderness for a week.

the bwcaw calls to me more than ever after last years trip. the wilderness will have satisfaction. three short weeks from now, we will be roughing it. and when i wake up in my tent, i'll probably wish i was in my bed. =)

nah.

taco morelos can go to hell

aaron left his id somewhere in chicago this weekend, which is an annoying story all on it's own, without this one...

would it have been so hard for the guy that has waited on us at taco morelos for the last 4 years to serve aaron a frosty beer even though he has no id? apparently so. i felt like we were buds with the peeps there, but now i can see it is not so.

even the beer could have been forgivable, if the meal had been decent. the steak was tough and overdone, the cheese was non-existant, and there was a long 'string'-like thing in my refried beans. nice.

i used to worship their food. what has happened, good people of the world?

sunshine

i see it outside the window, but it's only teasing me, i fear. i'd like to play kickball tonight, but only if the weather will cooperate.

so verily i say unto you, oh mother nature- if thou dost so wish for triumph, givest thou the sunshine. we promise not to spill any beer on your ground.

that's the closest i've come to an actual prayer in 10 years.