Susan’s Journal

I have been so absorbed in my vlog that I haven’t spent time in my blog. Does that sound silly? I’m not getting rid of my blog, though.

In my mind, I’ve been working on what I think the difference between the two mediums is for me. To me, I can express more personal things in type-written words–I can put down thoughts that come out of my heart, blab out things I’m feeling. In my vlog, I’m exploring the world, enjoying my kids, all stuff that is outside of me. Make sense?

Over the past few days, Scott has been helping me to set up my own office. We took half of the toy room that wasn’t really being used and cleaned it out, and set up my computer desk in there. It’s totally, completely awesome. I have my own little space now.

I’m going to skirt completely around the meat of the past few days. It’s full of stuff I don’t want to talk about. Someone creeped me out majorly at work for the first time in my life. I really don’t want to talk about it.

And on this day,
2004… that asshole is back at work this week… for good. He’s been in Rhode Island for, well, close to a year, and man it’s been nice.
2003… no post.
2002… I think that every year around this time is when I start getting “the new camera itch.”
2001… fifteen… freaking… messages. GIVE ME A BREAK!
2000… no post.

I have been seriously neglecting my blog… ack!

So anyways… Tammi and Brandy and I were hovering around, talking. I had my back to the room. All of the sudden, a half-dozen guys yelled, “SUPERGIRL!” I turned around, and sure enough… it was Adam! …and Turtle! …and Adam’s brother! …and a few other guys I didn’t really know. Adam was shitting his pants! It was great! He was so thrilled to see us. “This time,” I hollered over the music, “I really really did fly all the way up here just to see you play.” He gave me a hug. We talked for a second. I snapped a picture. It was awesome.

A little while later, the Adam Ezra Group hit the stage. It was freaking incredible. It was the most awesome live show I can ever remember being to. We were up on a raised part of the club, to the left of the stage, and we could see everything, though it was really really loud being right next to the speakers… but I could care less. I had quite a few drinks, though not beyond tolerance; I was just completely happy and not giving a shit about anything else in the world.

A while into the show, a guy walked by us from back stage. “KITYKITY!” he yelled. It was Adam’s manager. Everyone knows me as either Supergirl or kitykity.

Then, towards the end of the show, an older lady tapped me on the shoulder. “It’s so great that you know all the words,” she said. I had an instinct. You’re Adam’s mom, aren’t you? And she was! I met Adam’s mom!

I just can’t tell you how awesome that night was. The whole club was completely packed. There had to be 2-300 people there. I tried to count at one point, then gave up. It was shoulder room only. I loved it.

When the show was over, Adam hopped down from the stage and came over to us. Some people are going to come over to our house and hang out after we wrap things up, he told me. Why don’t you guys join us? I went back and talked to Tammi and Brandy. They didn’t know Adam as well as I did (not like I know his blood type or anything)… and they said, Suzy why don’t you go. I wasn’t all hip about going all by myself, not to mention the fact that I was kind of drunk, and not to mention the fact that I don’t really know any of Adam’s friends. It would have just been… weird. So I went back to Adam, and I told him: “I just don’t know all your friends, and I just think I’d be out of place… but know that we flew all the way from Texas to see you guys play, and you are completely awesome.” He gave me a big hug, said goodbye, and that was it. The three of us headed out of the club and waited for the hotel shuttle to bring us home.

We got back to the hotel, parked Tammi’s car, and went inside. I talked to the front desk, and the man there said that we could take the hotel shuttle to the club. It would be about a half hour before the shuttle returned from its current run, though. So we headed up to the room to snooze for a few before the shuttle came.

Half an hour came and went, and forty-five minutes came and went. Brandy was snoozing, and Tammi was sound asleep. I started feeling guilty for dragging the two of them out there. I called down to the front desk and started talking. Where’s our shuttle? Were you going to call us or just let us sit up here all night? He was then telling me it was going to be another hour before the shuttle came. I told him, “Well that’s just not acceptable.” He put me on hold for at least five minutes, then finally came back and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, we are going to pay for a taxi to take you to the club.” That’s more like it. I’m not good with being assertive, but for some reason at hotels, dammit I’m going to get my way.

So the three of us got ready and headed downstairs. The guy at the front desk told me that Independance Taxi was going to pick us up, but that if some other cabbie showed up first, to go with them. He said to get him at the front desk and he would pay for the fare. Well, another cab did pull up first, and he said he had to run and get gas, do we promise we’d sit there and wait for him? So we said yes, and he sped off. Five minutes he was back, and an Independant taxi pulled in behind him, but we hopped in his cab. The front desk guy came out, and he said, “I thought I had suggested an Independance taxi…” and I snappped that yes, but you also told us to take the first cab that came. He asked the cab driver how much the fare would be, and we think that the cabbie screwed him by at least ten bucks. Good. A few minutes after we pulled away from the hotel, the cabbie turned the fare meter off.

He got us to the club quickly, taking shortcuts and avoiding traffic, and chatting on the way. Brandy and Tammi sat in the back, and I sat up front. I thought he was relatively nice, but Brandy and Tammi thought he was a wee bit off his rocker. Whatever–give a guy the benefit of the doubt.

We showed up at the club a little past nine. I had my ticket, and I had will-call for Tammi’s, and Brandy had to buy hers. They kept my ticket. :..( but when I got home, I realized I had scanned it into my computer. So I kinda-sorta still have it. Yaay! Anyways, we went downstairs into the club (hence the name, “Middle East Downstairs”) and ordered beers from the bar. There was a band playing, and maybe about two dozen people there. It was very, very loud, so we found a perch in the back of the bar (there were almost no chairs in the whole place) and started to chat.

The hotel ended up being a little elusive as to its location. At one point, we ended up down by the water, and we stopped to ask a lady for directions. I got out of the car, because I had the phone number to the hotel on a piece of paper in my backpack in the trunk. Brandy talked to her through the open window in the back seat, and the lady held the printed Google map in her hands, saying “yeah… well…” and I was trying to say okay we’ll find it ourselves. She just couldn’t seem to give up though. Finally I got back in the car with the Google map and the piece of paper with the hotel phone number, and Brandy talked to the hotel on the phone while my sister Tammi drove.

Turns out if we had gone one more mile up the road instead of turning, we would have been there. Oh well.

We got to the hotel and checked in without a hitch. Parking was free, which for Boston is somewhat of a rarity. The hotel was also about a hundred bucks cheaper than most in the area, and it was very nice for the price (and included FREE high-speed internet, another rarity). We talked about where we would go for dinner, and of course the only real option I was willing to consider was Papa Gino’s. We thought about taking the free hotel shuttle, but instead opted for taking my sister’s car, since the restaurant was only a few minutes away.

Papa Gino’s is the best damn pizza on the planet. My sister knows well enough that I can’t come to Massachusetts without having me my Papa Gino’s. We sat, we ate, I took videos, I burped, we had an awesome time. Then it was time to go.

See, at this point it was nearing 7pm, and we had a bit of a dilemma. Brandy had understood on the phone that the box office closed at 7pm, and she didn’t have her ticket yet. So we left Papa Gino’s and headed what we thought was the one mile down the street to The Middle East Club, where the concert would be held. Once again, the Google Map was quite a bit off, and what should have been one mile was more like ten. I was getting a little panicky, not wanting my friend to miss the show just because we hadn’t gotten her a ticket yet, and I called 411, got the Middle East’s number, and called the club. You could get the tickets at the door, will-call as well (I had gotten my sister’s ticket as will-call), and it didn’t have to be by 7pm. At that point, we relaxed, stuck in traffic anyways. We figured we’d find out where the club was, get the tickets, then go back to the hotel and have the shuttle take us there. (None of us wanted to have to drive later!)

We drove… and drove… and drove. Where the heck is it? Finally, Brandy shouted, “There it is.” My sister pulled over to the curb and let us out, and we walked towards the front to get the tickets. Turns out it was the cultural center–not the Middle East club. Ack! They told us the club was another five miles up the road–near MIT, which made sense, that Adam would play near a college.

Five more miles up the road, over a bridge and through the college town, we found the club. Tammi let us out yet again and set to circling the block. We went inside and found out that since it was after 7pm the box office was closed, and the doors didn’t open until 8pm, and we couldn’t buy tickets until then. Also, Adam didn’t go on until 11pm, which was good because it meant we were in no big rush to get back. So we went outside, waited for Tammi to circle the block again, hopped in her car, and headed lazily back to the hotel.

Well, I just got home, and I’m settling into bed. My late birthday present was a little overnight trip to Boston, where I got to hang out with my sister and my friend, and go to an Adam Ezra concert. How was it, you ask? It was freaking awesome.

I woke up at 3:45am Friday morning and hopped in the shower. I made sure to shave my legs–just a weird thing–I always shave my legs before I travel. Then I whizzed through the house and got stuff together, including my camera and its charging cradle and the cables. You know how you always forget to pack one thing? For me this trip, it was toothpaste. Oh well–I just used my sister’s Sensodyne (YUCK!) and dealt with it.

I drove my car to the Parking Spot, which is a place off the airport where you can park you car in covered parking, and then they drive you in a shuttle bus to the airport. They shuttled me to the main terminal, and I comfortably got in there with about half an hour to spare before my plane took off. All I had with me was my backpack laptop stuffed with a day’s worth of clothes, and my purse/messenger bag thing. Worked out really well. I flew to Chicago, then connected to Boston. ATA, though the seats were kind of narrow, the flights were on time; and I’d much rather have narrow seats and online flights than wide seats and always delayed flights (United SUCKS!!)

Brandy ended up on different flights than I did, and she got to the airport about an hour after I did. I sat down and farted around on my computer while I waited for her. Her flight got delayed (she was on United–go figure). When she showed up, my sister showed up in her car about ten minutes later. She drove up, and got stuck in the far lane from the sidewalk, and I didn’t see her because I couldn’t remember what kind of car she drives now (she just got a new Toyota)… and I heard “SUZY!!” and it was her, waving her arms frantically. Apparently some cop was yelling at her to get the fuck out of the way. We hopped in quickly with our two little overnight bags, and she sped away, all nervous. We were giggling about it after we were out of footpower-reach of the cop. The weather was beautiful, and we headed towards where our Courtyard Marriot hotel was, five miles away.

I was just reading this article about two six year old boys fighting over a pacifier. Sure, the story’s funny because the police got involved… but did anyone reading this think it was wrong that two six year old boys still want a pacifier? What the hell is up with that? I think my kids were about two or three when they stopped using them. That’s like going to kindergarten and not being potty trained.

The weather channel says it’s dropped twenty degrees here in Dallas, yes just in one day, but I haven’t stepped outside yet. I’m hoping it doesn’t rain–this would be perfect weather to go to the state fair…

Which do you want first–the good news, or the bad news?

Well, I’ll give you the bad news first. We went to a company picnic today (that’s not the bad news) and when I got home, I plugged my camera into my computer, downloaded pictures, and did some other stuff. I went to turn my computer off and then back on again, and POW! my computer exploded, LOUD, and light shot out the back of it. I about shit my pants, and screamed. Rain ran into the room. There was no fire, and I gingerly reached back there (thoroughly expecting to be electocuted) and unplugged it. So hopefully just the power supply is fried on my computer, and not the hard drive or anything else. I don’t know if there will be a vlog post tonight. Shitty way to break a 23-night stretch.

The good news happened at the company picnic… SCOTT WON AN IPOD SHUFFLE!! They were reaching in a barrel and calling out names, and you had to be there to win prizes… and for the shuffle, they kept reaching in the barrel, and calling out names, and people weren’t there, and I swear they went through about six people before they finally called “Scott Kirkpatrick”, and I jumped up and whooped (they told us to do that so that they would know we were there) and he went running up the aisle with his arms in the air like he was on the Price is Right. It was awesome. Then I looked down… and Dylan had tears streaming down his face. I had scared the shit out of him. My boy, he does NOT like loud noises. I am the worst mommy in the world.

On the way home, Scott asked me if I thought the shuffle was cool. Why yes I do, I said. He handed me the box, and said “well happy birthday then.” I didn’t want to take it–he won it–but he insisted, saying I would get much more use out of it than him anyways. I have the best husband in the whole world!

So, since my computer is currently in pieces in the other room, I’ve got the shuffle plugged into my laptop, and I found some old backup CDs of mp3s, and I’ve got it about 1/3 full of… you guessed it… Sting.