Just a Little More Time

Spring break is officially over. This is not alright, but I have to deal with it. It's the way things go right now, you know. So, yeah, it's over, but it was a GREAT spring break, and I wish that I had time to go into super detail about it, and I guess I do, so here we go.

On Friday, I was driving along with Kat and James, and the moment that we saw Bakersfield from the Grapevine, I could not stop laughing. A sea of lavenders spread out on both sides of I-5, so vibrant that both Kat and James asked, "Is that a lake?" No! Wildflowers! YES! Kat and I were in the middle of a conversation in Bakersfield when I had a brilliant idea... instead of going to San Francisco for two days, why not get dropped off in Patterson like before, have Pops come pick me up, and then go to San Francisco the next night. Of course, there was the problem of GETTING to San Francisco, but that could be resolved with a couple of phone calls. I called Pops and it was arranged that I would call him and he could come pick me up. Arranged a ride with Emily and friends to get to San Francisco, but then I called Aubrie and she said she was going fershure, so we were going to drive up together. Got to Patterson early, Pops get there late, but it was alright. PANCHO WAS THERE! It was awesome!!!! I drove back through the country and as soon as I got home Pancho and I went for a walk. It was great! :D

Hung out with Jessica that night. We drove around, went to Michael's and got temporary henna tattoos, tried on foam animal hats. Went over to Chaz's house and made mischief... and by mischief, I mean I ran up to Jesse's window twice with a bottle of sprinkles screaming SPRING BREAK!!!! and threw sprinkles through his window! I WAS going to leave a wonderful surprise whole shelled eggs on his car with phrases such as "Happy Easter!" and "Repent!" but someone was walking out of his house as soon as I was about to cross the street to leave them there, so I booked it out of there (it's rumored his dad keeps a 2x4 with a nail in it close to the front door, and he's got artillery in the garage that I definitely don't want to mess with, haha). So, sprinkles it was. After awhile of talking and laughter on the sidewalk, I took Jessica home then headed home myself. Built my nest on the floor with Pancho under the covers close by my side and went to sleep. :)

Saturday!

Saturday was chill and slow. I got up in the morning and had no idea of what to do. Jessica D. was at the beach, Jessica Leu was with her family. I ended up watching the new Star Trek movie with Bepherny Boren, which was AWESOME! Spock is a G! I thought of ideas for my tattoo, but it wasn't until Bethany mentioned the Tree of Gondor that I really got a good idea of what to do. After Bethany went home, Pancho and I walked around... don't really remember what else happened. Eventually I drove to Oakdale with Pops, and then Aubrie and I hit the road. Drove half of the way. Got to San Francisco, and I was on will call with Troy and Robert, but they couldn't find a taxi for an hour, and I couldn't get my ticket until Troy was there, so Aubrie bought me a ticket after GLTSO had played two songs. It was great. Being there made me so happy, I almost cried. I love Home so much. I mean, there are always elements missing, pieces that don't fit together, you know, like Aaron wasn't there, and Moma is part of Home too and she's not there, but it's beautiful. Home fills my heart up; I couldn't stop smiling. I didn't get to dancing until the last song, but that's alrighty. The next two bands should either have been booked BEFORE GLTSO or not at all... whereas people were dancing and cheering for GLTSO, lots of people cut out for the next two bands. There were no insorouts for minors, though, so I had to sit through it while everyone else was outside partying. After awhile, someone walked in and said to Troy, "Troy's bleeding outside" (Troy's response was, "I'm Troy.") Apparently, Robert and Joe Plante were playing and they headbutted and Robert's head split open and he was bleeding everywhere... two songs into the Pine Box Boys set, we had to cut out because Robert had to go to the hospital. An ambulance pulled up and he had to get eleven or twelve stitches. Although it's not that noticeable, his scar is pretty sweet. Spent the night at T+R's. Because Aaron wasn't there, I finally got to sleep on the couch! YES! I would have given up the couch in favor of Aaron being there though. It's alright. What's over is over, and I DID get to sleep on the couch, and Aaron was there "in spirit."

Sunday!!

On Sunday, we drove back to Turlock from San Francisco and as soon as I got home I finished designing my tattoo. I was on my way to the tattoo parlour to book an appointment, when I thought, "I should call Lexi!" So I did! Together, we embarked to the tattoo/skate/smoke shop to see how much this tattoo would cost and when I would be able to book an appointment... $90, but he was completely booked until the next week. Egh. "Alright, nevermind, thanks though!" I responded. He looked up at me surprised and said, "Wait wait wait! Tuesday!" Tuesday wasn't good either. Tomorrow (Monday?)? Still not good for me. He then offered to keep the shop open late, just so that he would be the one to give me the tattoo (just so he would be the one getting paid). Total deal! Lexi and I hung out for awhile, just talking and whatnot, went to visit my cousin Depeche (and Sebastian! Jewel is adorable, babbling away, and Depeche's new puppy is adorable!)! Lexi went home for an hour, and I prepared myself, calling everyone who I thought should go with me. I picked up Lexi and Jessica Leu, and we went down there, and a few minutes later Jessica Detomasi rolled up, and then Depeche! Played hack while I waited for the appointment ahead of me to finish up. As we were waiting inside, none other than ZACHERY showed up... a total surprise! I screamed a little bit, I was so excited. So here we are, six teenagers in a skate/smoke/tattoo shop, all gathered into one little room. This tattoo definitely hurt a lot less, especially since I knew what to expect and because I had a whole group of people to talk to... the first time with just my mom, and not even getting to have my mom in the room (plus it was 4 1/2 hours, one session) was terrible and beautiful all at once. (P.S. I love my tattoos, they're the BEST!) This one only took about an hour, and then we all decided to go get frozen yogurt, and who did I see walking down the street as I drove to Yogolicious... JORDAN MILLER! I stopped and rolled down my window and yelled, "GET IN THE CAR GET IN THE CAR!", unlocked the door, and he jumped in and we took off. (I've noticed that this blog is sort of just like a sequence of events with not much substance with written word, but good memories indeed). After yogurt, everyone parted ways... I took Jessica and Lexi and Jordan home, and Jordan showed me his fish pond in his backyard WHICH HAS DUCKS IN IT (totally jealous). Went home and made my first attempt to watch Wizard of Oz, but I fell asleep within the first ten minutes.

Monday

I woke up super early on Monday and drove out to Escalon to pick up Aunt Jessica so that we could go visit Grandpa in the hospital. It was really hard to see him sick like that, and even harder to see him cry and not understand why he couldn't go home. I wish that he would take of himself better and learn how to be nicer, but it's just Grandpa and I love him no matter what. But seriously, when he gets better, he better take care of himself or I'm gonna have to have a sitdown with him and be like, "Seriously, Grandpa? Seriously?" I honestly doubt that it would work, but I always feel like I've had a special connection with Grandpa and that maybe, MAYBE, it could work. We were only able to stay for two hours, and then I had to drive back to Escalon, where I waited for Carter and Indy to get out of school, just so I could holler at them. I was awful tired, so I headed back to Turlock and ended up passing out on my floor for an hour; Yvette's call woke me up. I spent a few hours that evening with Yvette, Janelle, Zach, Jessica, and Jessica, playing at the park and making videos for Anna. It was an alright night. I cut out early and kicked it at home with Pops for the rest of the night. Another attempt to watch Wizard of Oz was made, but once again, it was a fail. I got maybe twenty minutes into it and fell asleep.

Tuesday was my last day at Home.

I didn't really do much, either. I kicked it at home, went with Jessica to visit Mr. Tribble at THS, went for a walk to Depeche and Pancho. And that's about it. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at home, just kicking it, which is something that I don't really do that often. I watched LOST, the Richard Alpert episode, which was like watching an enhanced Spanish soap opera, as in... it... was... AWESOME! Lost. Seriously.

Final attempt to watch Wizard of Oz was, AGAIN, a failure. I got to the Scarecrow song. Luckily that's the best song, so I am content with my inability to stay awake during such a good movie.

Wednesday was a sad, sad day because...

I won't be home again until late April, if I can even get home. I might miss another wedding, which I'm sick of doing. Aaron's telling me that I'm not going to miss it, but I don't want him to drive to pick me up, drive back to Knight's Ferry for the wedding, and then drive all the way back to Riverside and Turlock again the next day. That is WAY too much driving. Either I'm going to have to figure out a different way to get to that wedding or I might not be able to go. It breaks my heart a little bit everytime I miss a huge Family gathering like that, especially a wedding. Especially an OAKDALE wedding. There's just something about Oakdale weddings that's different from all the other weddings that I've been to, maybe because they're all outdoors and the bride's always barefoot and they're in the places that I love with the people that I love. Anyway, I'm definitely digressing.

Wednesday at 7 a.m., Troy, Robert, and Aubrie picked me up and we headed to LA. I slept until Bakersfield, and then I was going to go back to sleep again, but I decided that I couldn't miss the last glimpse of my valley, so I stayed awake and bid farewell. When we got to LA, we went to the Griffith Park observatory. It was really neat, but LA is UGLY. I hate it. I would never want to live here for long periods of time. I always thought that I would want to, but after being in an airplane and looking down at it, and seeing it during the day from the Observatory... no. Never.

I'm going to skip all the inbetweens and say that the Admiral Radley show at the Bootleg Theater was terrible. It wasn't AdRad, it was the sound engineer and the venue and the promoter, everything about it besides the band was absolutely terrible, and so eventually the band stopped caring (it seemed). The sound was godawful, the room was so small that you could barely move when people actually started showing up. Everything was just disorganized. Johnny Garner and Souther Salazar were there, though, and that was cool, and there was a nice back patio where everyone was hanging out after the show, so that was cool. I've never really talked to Souther before, but it was neat and his girlfriend's real sweet too.

Thursday was spent driving to Venice Beach, where we were checking out the skaters at the new skate park, finding shells, walking up and down the pier and looking at the little shops. After we had left, Dios was playing a show at Hollywood Forever cemetery, which was really weird. We headed out there and we actually had to park IN the cemetery. They went and they were scheduled to play for 45 minutes, I think, but when they were playing, after the third song the guy running the show walked up and said, "This is your last song." Joel announced, "So, I was just informed that this is our last song, so, luckily, it's a seven part song." They played one song, and then they started a fifth one! Awesome! Joel totally owned. But then the guy running the show shut off Joel's mics and kept turning on the lights and it was totally NOT cool. Talked to Jimi for awhile afterward which was really cool; like Souther, I'd never really had a TALK with Jimi before, but we had a little one and it was pretty neat. He's a great dude. :)

We went and had a sleepover with Troy and Robert that night so that we could get up in the morning and go to DISNEYLAND! I went on everything that I've never been on, Splash Mountain Space Mountain Captain EO Matterhorn (On Friday, I did the California Adventure stuff... INCLUDING THE UPSIDE DOWN ROLLER COASTER!!!! I'm really proud of myself for that one. Troy said, "It's only a twenty minute wait, so think about it!" and I said, "I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT, LET'S GO!!!!") Disneyland was awesome. I love it. I really want to go with Dave and Jenny, and I might in April for David's birthday. I'm going to try to get a job there next year, through the college program, but we'll see. Hopefully I'll be able to work there while I'm down here at some point in time, even if it's only for a few months on weekends.

Now I'm back in Riverside. I am going to ACE all my classes this quarter and I am determined to be able to run between three and five miles straight by the time finals are over, and I'm going to keep running in the summer and everything is going to be great.

Ben just told me to write, "Poop."

So, yeah, I guess this is the update. I invested in a pirate flag FINALLY, and next is an Israeli flag, a California flag, and possibly a Mexico flag. I'm going to hang them from the ceiling next year and everything is going to be swell.

Alright, this took a long time and everyone wants me to stop writing now so I'm done.