RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) You had to be there, but still:

I was having lunch with Steve on Monday and I said "Do you know what I'm mad about today? I'm mad that there are colors that I'll never see." I'm 100% serious about that.

I had been watching a YouTube video about light wavelengths that produce colors that the human eye can't detect because we don't possess the right kind of hardware for that, as we only have 3 types of visual cone cells. There are birds and bugs that can see them, but humans can't. However, there ARE some humans who have a mutation that gives them four types of visual cone cells, and so they can see a layer of colors that the rest of us can't and that pisses me off so much I can't even explain. I want 4 cones! I want to see the hidden colors!

Now, I didn't expect that Steve cared much about my number of cone cells, and he just looked at me like I was kind of crazy. That's fair. It's a weird thing to be mad about. So, knowing how way leads on to way, we moved on to another topic of conversation and I forgot I mentioned it.

Fast forward to the end of the day and we were getting ready to go to sleep. I looked up at the Alexa Dot we have in the bedroom, and I asked it "Alexa, what is your favorite color?" because I like to ask her personal questions sometimes to see what she's programmed to say (and also so she remembers that I was nice to her in case she goes rogue.) She answered "My favorite color is ultraviolet. It glows with everything!" and Steve looked over at me and said, "And you'll never see it with your THREE CONES!"

I swear, he said it with such glee and he laughed so hard that I'm almost positive that he had been holding on to that just on the off chance that he would one day get to use it! It was both the meanest and funniest thing I'd heard in a long time, and I think I laughed for 15 minutes. So, if I ever question if Steve is paying attention to me, I'll have to remember that he is, even if it's only to take the piss later on. Heehee.

2) Our company had a work outing to a baseball game a few nights ago. I'm not the biggest fan of baseball, but it was fun to sit and make jokes and people watch. One of the things our local team seems to be proficient at is foul balls. I'm not judging, as I can't personally play the game, but it seems like lots of them tend to go into the stands. The kids that are there are crazy about catching them, and/or getting them from whoever does catch them. There is apparently an unspoken rule that if a grown up catches a ball, they've got to give it to a kid. (One hopes that the adult doesn't mind this, I guess.)

So, Anthony (Yes, he was invited. Shut up.) and I were sitting a couple of rows behind this group of young 20 somethings who were really into the game. I guess they were like the cool kids, maybe? It's hard to explain. Anyway, that group was really into the game and they were having a blast, and a foul ball comes flying over our way. One of the guys gets the ball and he throws it to a kid. Standard business.  A couple of innings later, another foul ball comes our way and lands in a group of kids standing by the outfield fence. This one kid (a bit older than the others) grabbed it, and he was so excited! Then he walked over and gave it to the older guy who gave up his ball earlier. It was so cute. I'd never seen a kid do that before. So the turntables.

It was freaking heartwarming.

3) Ooooh, y'all, I took a melatonin supplement last night because I couldn't sleep. I'd actually fallen asleep earlier, woken up, and couldn't go back to sleep no matter what I tried. I could have gotten up, and been exhausted and miserable for the rest of the day. I could have taken one of my anxiety pills, but that is usually a last resort since I don't like to take them unless I really need them. So I grabbed the melatonin gummies. I feel asleep, alright. I fell asleep, had ridiculous more-vivid-than-usual dreams, and woke up feeling like my body was awake, but my brain was at the dry cleaners. I don't know how I'm going to function at work today, but I'm really hoping my mind gets significantly less sticky as the day goes on, or I'm going to have to make a nest out of classified files and sleep for another couple of hours.

4) I know this sounds morbid, but I've been reading through The Charley Project files. I originally learned about it through a true crime YouTube channel I was using as background noise one day, and I was curious to see what it was all about. The Charley Project is a database of cold case missing persons files. It has a picture of them, sometimes a bit about their life, and as much as the writer knows about the day they disappeared and what was going on. It's oddly fascinating, but also so terribly sad. I originally started reading it out of morbid curiosity, but I've found myself feeling like I need to read as many of the stories as possible so that they aren't forgotten about. You know that saying about how people aren't really gone as long as someone is thinking about them? I'm reading them because I don't want them to be gone completely.

They have cases listed from as far back as 1910, up until about a year ago, I think. Currently, I'm only to the 1970s, and man, did the cases multiply then! From the 1910s-1960s the officials seemed to think that a lot of people just got spontaneous amnesia and wondered away. Granted, they didn't know about how rare true amnesia actually is back then, so I'll give them a pass. Also, quite a few of the cases can be (rationally) attributed to "Husband Kills Wife and Kids" even if they didn't have enough proof to convict them. In the 70s, I'm pretty sure the two biggest causes of death were hitchhiking and Ted Bundy. It's all so terribly sad. It's made me wish I had the super-hero power to know where lost people could be found, even if they weren't alive anymore. 

Probably not great for my psyche to dwell on this stuff, but I wish they (or information about them) could be found! 

THE NOOG: MAY 2023

Completely out of character for us as of late, we went on a quick overnight trip to Chattanooga.

It was my fault.

As most of you might know, Steve doesn't like to travel because he travels so much for work now (plus we have wildly different ideas about where we'd go, and if he's bored he makes it obvious) so we rarely go on vacations anymore. I love to travel, but I can't go alone because the world sucks and I don't feel safe doing it. So, when Steve told me he had a band concert in Chattanooga (one he does every year, but I never attend because of reasons that are my business) I asked if he wanted me to go with him. Mainly, I wanted to get out of our house for a while, and I thought this would be a good chance to do so. The band concert would be incidental! He was surprised, I think.

We also invited Anthony, because he's family, and he said that he couldn't make it as early as we were going (he teaches and had an early class that day) but that he would meet us there that afternoon and we could have dinner and do some stuff! From there we made dinner reservations and planned to attend an event at the Chattanooga Zoo - Spirits in the Wild -where you can drink, eat, and be around animals! 

Once I realized that the event ran until 9, I talked Steve into getting a hotel room for us so that we didn't have to drive back so late, especially if we would be having cocktails at this event. I was really kind of surprised when he agreed to do it!  We had a little bit of a problem getting a room because some big events were happening in Chattanooga that weekend, so we had to get a place just a smidge out of town, but it wasn't too far away.

Unfortunately, the actual reason for the trip got cancelled. His concert was called because there was supposed to be rain, but we'd already bought tickets to the zoo thing and had the dinner and hotel reservations, and it was within 24 hours of all of it before we knew about the cancellation, so we decided to go anyways. I felt really bad. I knew Steve would have rather not gone, but he also didn't want to lose the money we'd already spent. Eh, well, carpe diem, I guess. Heehee.

So we left late on Saturday morning and made it into Chattanooga by about 10:00 AM. It was so busy! The Chattanooga Ironman triathlon was scheduled for that weekend, and streets were blocked off and people in spandex were everywhere with their fancy, flat bikes! We finally found a place to park and got out to walk around. I'm not unfamiliar with the Ironman event (I have a cousin who coaches the people who do them) but I had no idea the scale of the thing. There was a whole village of tents set up for the athletes and a big shop where you can buy merch. Athletes were testing out the route on bikes and running, and there was a whole parking lot full of bikes and bags. It was a bit overwhelming. I really just don't "get" it though. Don't get me wrong, I have a deep awe and respect for people who can do that sort of thing and I know it takes months of training and discipline, but I don't understand why they want to do it. It seems like an incredibly brutal thing to put yourself though. Of course, I say this as someone who almost died trying to run a 5k on a hot day, so maybe I don't understand because my body rejects the very idea of that kind of physical activity! At any rate, despite my confusion with why, mad respect to everyone who participated (except for the one guy who was resting on the sidewalk that tried looking up my skirt. I hope his shoe clips got stuck in the pedals of his fancy bike when he tried to get off and it took him two tries to transfer to the next stage of the race, negatively affecting his personal PR. I also hope the banana he got at the snack tent was bruised.) Perv.

Despite my feeling bad that I got us caught up in all of that and obligated to stay out of town, we actually had a good time, I think. We walked around, ate snacks at a couple of the local places, and shopped a bit. we also stopped and had a couple of midday cocktails (one that didn't affect me at all, but another in a place a couple of hours later that caused me to do some expensive drunk shopping at the Hot Chocolatier. I regret nothing.) 

Anthony got there just in time for our dinner reservations at a place called Tupelo Honey Cafe. the food was fantastic! I picked it blindly when looking for a place to eat because it was close to downtown, but I'd gladly eat there again. I didn't know it was a chain, but you wouldn't really know it!  We left there to go to the zoo, and the rain started pouring down by the time we got there. We got some shitty gift shop ponchos, though, and powered through! That was actually a lot of fun, I thought, even with the rain. You could walk up to any booth or bar and eat and drink as much as you wanted, and you got to see all the different animals! Don't worry, after my afternoon cocktail excitement, I had about 4 sips of the drink they gave me when I walked in and decided that I'd rather be sober thankyouverymuch. 

The highlight of my evening was that I got to feed a giraffe! You could pay 5 dollars and get a hand full of lettuce, and they let you feed a male giraffe named George! I loved him! Anthony took some pictures of me doing it, and despite my face, it was great. George licked me by accident, though. Ah, well, how many people can say they've been licked by a giraffe? 

My face is a whole journey!

We stayed until almost closing, but Anthony had to leave for Huntsville. He wasn't able to stay overnight because A) He couldn't get a room, and B) he had to drive to Memphis the next day to visit his folks, so Steve and I said our goodbyes and headed off to the hotel to sleep!

The next day was very chill. We avoided going downtown because the race was going on, so we drove around a bit and then headed home. It was a short, and enjoyable, little trip! 

ONE THING

 Ok, I know this is random, but it is a thing I’ve only recently become aware of.

You know that song “One Headlight” From 1997? That song gives me creeping anxiety. Like, it’s bad enough that it makes my stomach feel weird. I don’t know what it is, but whenever I hear it, I feel like I’m reliving some kind of mild trauma that I can’t put my finger on.

In fact, it was only after recently hearing that song and realizing how uncomfortable it made me that I also realized there are several songs from around that time, of a similar genre, that make me feel weird and I don’t know why. Granted, that wasn’t the greatest time of my life, but it wasn’t anything I would consider bad enough to get flashbacks from.

Am…am I repressing something? 

EVEN MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

 1) You know, I appreciate people who are being supportive of me since I had weight loss surgery, I really do. However, it's hilarious to me (albeit understandable) that there is so little understanding about how the whole thing worked.

I had someone recently point to an outfit and say "Hey, you should wear something like that!" and it was shorts and a kind short top. Cute enough outfit, but not a thing I'd ever be brave enough to wear. I said as much and they were like "WHY?! You've lost weight, you should be able to wear anything you want now!"

Here's the thing. Yes, I lost 90 pounds, but I lost it fast. When that happens, your body doesn't...react the same way as it would if you lose it over a longer period of time. I had to tell them that I didn't magically start looking like a supermodel when I lost weight. That doesn't compute to a lot of people. Basically, I had to explain that, from mid torso down, it looks like I opened my eyes when the Ark of the Covenant was opened. Heehee! 

2) Last week I went to Dismals Canyon! It's funny to me that I've heard about that place, heard that it is gorgeous and amazing and has freaking GLOW WORMS, and I've never made more of an attempt to go there. Anthony, who is a dedicated hiker and a member of the Land Trust in Huntsville, ended up reading about it and got proactive about getting tickets to the night hike. Apparently, it's like trying to win an old school radio contest to get those, but we got spots for the 8:45 tour.

We actually went up much earlier to hike the 1.5 mile trail in the canyon, and it was gorgeous. Even though there was a prepared trail down to the canyon floor, the walk down wasn't the easiest one to traverse after the wooden stairs stopped, just because of the rocks and stuff, but once you got down there it was fine. It was also one of the prettiest places I've ever seen in Alabama. Big walls of water worn sandstone tower above your head, and a stream runs through the whole thing. This link explains it better than I can, plus it has pictures! The trees and plants are gorgeous, and it was fun to wonder around down there looking at the cool rocks and stuff. I really like rocks! 

Maybe the only thing that wasn't so fun was one spot where you have to cross the stream. There were stepping stones placed out there, but one of them had washed away, making it very difficult to reach the next one from the bank. We stood there trying to figure out what to do for a long time, and our individual choices speak volumes about our characters, I think. Anthony decided that he was going to roll up his pants and take off his shoes and socks to wade across. Steve watched him do that, and decided that he'd do the same. Me? I was too lazy to re-lace my hiking boots, so I just walked across without taking them off! One boot filled with water and made one whole foot wet and cold, which sucked, but I made my choice! Heehee. (Don't worry, when we left to get dinner before our night hike, I stopped by Wal-Mart and got another pair of socks!)

The visit at night was amazing. I really mean that. It was such a cool experience, and not something everyone gets a chance to do. It wasn't easy walking those stairs and trails in the dark, but being able to go through those stone walls with the tiny sparks of blue light all over them was like walking though banks of stars.  I wish I could explain it better. The trail guide said that the Discovery Channel had been out to film the Dismalites (glow worm things) and it's supposed to air sometime this year, I think? I can't wait to see it! 

I will say, though, that as cool as it was to see the Dismalites, I think I liked the hike during the day better. It was so beautiful, and I'm so glad I got to go and visit! 

3) I gave blood! I was very scared to do it, but I was determined! Our company sponsored a blood drive, and I promised myself that I'd go through with it if at all possible. I knew you had to pass a preliminary screening, and because of the way I eat, I wasn't sure that I'd qualify, so I woke up at 1:30 AM and ate cheese, took my multi-vitamin, had a protein drink, and started drinking water like crazy. Then I fell asleep, and woke up two hours later and drank more water (I'm in a constant state of near dehydration, usually) and so by the time my 9:00 appointment rolled around, I was hydrated, full of iron and vitamins, and still very scared. They were so kind, though, and it put me at ease. The only iffy part was when he put the needle in my arm and had to dig around for a moment, but he found the vein! It took me 22 minutes to give a pint of blood, though, which I think is a long time. I also almost fainted a little later, but that was my fault for overexerting while getting something off of a shelf. Now some lucky soul will be walking around with my blood in their body at some point!  

That last part actually kind of weirds me out, but I'm not sorry and I hope I'll be able to do it again!

4) We went to the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg, TN! Since the pandemic closed it down in 2020 and 2021, it's been impossible to get into because of how popular it is. Last year we tried to go, but we couldn't even get to the parking area where we could be bussed in, but this year we found a really, really backwoods (that is not a euphemism, we really drove down a gravel road back in the woods and almost got eaten by a giant dog) way to get into the town! It was fun!  We ate cornbread, shopped at the vendors booths, and I entered a frozen t-shirt contest! I didn't even know what it was, but I volunteered from the audience. Thankfully it didn't have anything to do with nipples like I assumed, and we literally had to unwrap a frozen t-shirt to see who could get it out of the container, unwind it, and put it on first! I didn't win, but I got a free t-shirt out of it! (Looking back, would I still have participated if nipples were involved? Maybe...)

Steve and I also we to the Cullman Strawberry Festival a week later. It was a fairly spur of the moment decision (and Anthony was working, in case you were curious) so we drove down there late in the day. We were too late for any of the events except for some concerts that we had no desire to see, but we walked around, ate some strawberry stuff, and did some shopping at the vendors and the street that was blocked off. It was very chill and we had a good time. It's been a long time since I've been to Cullman proper and it has changed so much! I don't think I'd be able to find my way around to save my life. However, I do think all the updates are great! I bet things stay open past 7:00 now, too. Ha!

BTW, the whole time I was there, the song Watermelon Crawl was running through my head, and it annoyed me because it was about the wrong fruit.

I love small town festivals like these, and I hope I find more of them to go to before the summer is over!