looneyville: August 2004 Archives
I think Tina and Sahara fit right in in Lawrence!
What a whirlwind last 24 hours.
Last night the boytoy and I went out to Lone Star Lake and spent a beautiful clear night camping and eating and maybe enjoying a microbrew or two. We cooked turkey dogs 'neath the stars and made incredibly delicious corn on the cob before meandering down to the dock to "put our feet in the water"
There were sunflower seed shells on the dock and we were tossing them into the water for the bluegill when what looked like a shark with whiskers came up and snagged one. I've seen a lot of catfish in my life (be not mislead by the occaisonally girly exterior, I'm a tomboy at heart) but this one was HUGE. J and I both removed our feet from the water VERY quickly while our hearts raced from the size of the fish we had just seen. Its head alone was probably 8 inches across... no telling how long it was. Its mouth was enormous... it was incredible!!
J and I ran up to the campsite and grabbed what was left of the hamburger buns and turkey dogs and went back to the dock to witness a full on feeding frenzy. These things were ATTACKING the hamburger buns. We mostly saw smaller ones (which were still pretty big) but the monster fish made an appearance several more times... each time we got an adrenalin rush like we had caught the damn thing. It was incredible. You could see its shadow moving just below the surface of the water and then it would come up and grab a piece of bread with a splash of water and "whiskers" and fins flying everywhere! SO COOL!
We also saw a scorpion walking along on the concrete slab by the portopotties which was really cool. We have them, but they're pretty rare. This was only the second one I'd seen in 7 years in Kansas! We fell asleep to perfect temps and woke up to pouring rain. All in all, it was a great trip.
On our way home we heard on the radio that Democratic VP candidate John Edwards was going to be speaking at Abe and Jake's this afternoon. We quickly showered and headed to downtown Larry only to find that the building was filled to capacity. We were wandering around outside when we heard the announcement that Edwards was going to come outside to speak and say hello.... and positioned right below the little balcony thing he would be on, we had a prime spot. The boytoy and I had run into my all-time favorite college professor and his family and we waited chatted while we waited for the rally to start... great to see the crazy cool prof! We could hear Edward's speach from outside and when he came out to talk to us the place went nuts. There were easily several thousand people there and everyone was so excited to have this oppurtunity. It is going to take some time I think to digest everything we heard and saw.
I love this town. Its a place where you can wake up at a rainy campground at 10 a.m. and be at a political rally at 1 p.m. I feel so privelaged to get to spend the next 3 years here.
Great story about how this Lawrence rally came about in Edwards' wife's blog. Makes me proud to be a Larry-ite :)
I have found that one of the best things about apartment living is trying to figure out just what the hell is going on in the lives of the people who live around you. Sure, that may make me sound incredibly nosy (ok, I am) but I can't help it... my neighbors provide the boytoy and I with hours of entertainment.
It all began at my old apartment. The "people who lived in my backyard" were the unfortunate first subject of my curiosity due to the fact that I was on the second floor of the building and I couldn't look out my window in the living room without looking into their yard. There was nothing especially spectacular about these folks other than the fact that they didn't seem to make any sense. They seemed to be of all different ages and levels of acquantance (there was a certain palpable amount of uncomfortableness at their summer bbq) and none of it seemed to fit. Come to find out that both were grad students and actually friends of some friends of mine. It was a bit disappointing.
Then there was the Indian dude who lived below me for a year or so. I had never said more than 5 words to him (we never saw eachother) until we somehow found ourselves stranded in his bathroom together while tornados ripped the roof off many an apartment in our neighborhood. I wouldn't exactly say we bonded, but I did get to hear stories about what it was like growing up in oh so Mormon Salt Lake City as an Indian dude. Our twister-induced friendship was shortlived however as after the neighborhood quieted down, I never saw him again! The good that came out of this brief encounger (aside from saving my life from the tornados) was that I found out that he was equally curious about my life ... asking about the stickers on my car and who that guy is that comes over all the time... apparently I'm not the only one fascinated by my neighbors...
The latest subject of my curiosity is the girl who lives above me in my new apartment in the SuperCuteNeighborhood. She seems to come and go at the oddest of hours and there is a CONSTANT stream of visitors entering her apartment. They tend to be mostly males, and they too come and go at the oddest hours (the boytoy was leaving the other day at 6 a.m. to go to work and a young man was entering her place... who comes over at 6 a.m.!?) She also has a habit of vacuuming at 3 in the morning. We have decided that she is either a bartender, a hooker, or has some obsessive compulsive cleaning thing (or possibly all of the above).
