FIREMEN!

I got your attention - didn't I?

Once a year, something magical happens in the city of Seattle. Something so utterly phenomenal that I am willing to wake up at 5AM, on a Sunday, drive downtown, park with the masses, and wear an ugly volunteer t-shirt. It's called the Scott Firefighter Stairclimb.

This day is quite possibly my very favorite day of all days. Those of you who know what I'm like on my birthday will understand the weight of this statement. There are a myriad of reasons why I make this bold statement.

On this most wonderous of days, firemen from all over the world converge on Seattle. Let me say that again - firemen, from all over the WORLD, in one building, on one day.

It gets better. These firemen are here to climb the Columbia Tower a.k.a. the tallest building in Seattle. Do you know what happens when you climb 75 flights of stairs...in full firefighter gear?! Actually, I have no idea what happens because that is not something I would be able to do naked, let alone with 45lb's of gear. So let me rephrase, do you know what happens when firemen climb 75 flights of stairs...in full firefighter gear?! They get really really hot and sweaty. Meaning the MOMENT they get to the top they start stripping. S.T.R.I.P.P.I.N.G.

It gets better. After the climb, all of the firefighters go out on the town! The pipes and drums band comes through all of the bars and plays loud Irish music - everyone is in a jolly mood - and the ratio of guys to girls is like 5 to 1.

IT. GETS. BETTER. The purpose of the climb is to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It's like God reached down and decided to make Kelly Day and he dubbed it the Scott Firefighter Stairclimb. Nothing could be closer to my heart than the LLS as my dad is a 12 year Leukemia survivor! Hot firemen raising money for the very research that saved one of the 2 most important men in my life gets me pretty pumped up.

Look at these precious peeps (my dad and brother):

To add even MORE fuel to the fire...my very own brother will be competing for the second time in the event as a firefighter for Richland County. Please allow me 2 minutes of your time to brag. Take a look at this screencapture from the Scott Firefighter Climb webpage:

See that?? THAT'S MY BROTHER! MINE. Winning.

Here he is at the top last year - my mom happened to be stationed right at the top of the stairs when he came up - he scared the poop out of her.

 

I'm not going to pull at your heart strings or try and guilt you into donating. I'm just going to say, if you have an extra $10 or $20 in your pocket, it would be pretty cool if you put it right here:

http://www.llswa.org/site/TR/Events/FirefighterStairclimb?px=1513640&pg=personal&fr_id=1280

 Keep those Richland boys at the top!!

I'll let you know how Kelly Day 2013 goes...

Prom Pics and Russia

Happy Monday morning people. To start your day off right, let's play a game. It's called spot Kelly's prom dress. Good luck! I've been looking for it since 2005.

In other news - please read the email exchange my dad and I had this week:

Dad: I got your immunization records out of the safety deposit box. To retrieve them from me you must sign a document of receipt which I will place in the safety deposit box so that you cannot accuse your Mom or I of losing them later – (think Social Security card).

 

Me: I don’t think I ever lost the social security card. I think you guys adopted me from another country and I am not a legal citizen and therefore do not have one.

Dad:

It is very hard for your Mother and I to accept that after all of these years that you have stumbled onto the truth. It is however remarkable that none of our neighbors, friends or relations have never slipped up and provided a hint. The truth is we adopted you from Russia. Your birth name was Vladlena Artemieva (Lena for short) and you were born in Grozny, Chechnya. Your Father was a Russian dissident that was sent to a Gulag in Siberia shortly before your birth. You Mother was training as an Olympic gymnast before she fell while attempting a triple flip off of the uneven bars (somewhat explains you natural athleticism abilities). She was so distressed that she decided to send you to an orphanage and join her husband at the Gulag.

 We made the decision to adopt our second child after the rather disastrous results of the first pregnancy (Patrick….).

 Now that you know would you like us to help you find your birth parents in Russia? Would you like us to begin calling you Lena?

Me:

I KNEW IT! I always knew something was off. I will now move to Russia to discover my heritage.

Dad:

Your birth Mother’s first name was Nadia and your birth Father was Boris – maybe they are on the Russian version of Facebook!

 

The end.

The perils of online dating...

GUESS WHAT!!! I started an online dating profile...again. I blame you people because this decision was made on a very bored friday afternoon due to a complete lack of interesting status updates on Facebook. I was so bored I literally thought creating an online profile sounded interesting.

Which site was lucky enough to have my profile grace its singles?? Well, some of you may be aware that I spent a weird, sometimes hilarious, and overall uncomfortable 3 months on EHarmony a year ago. At the end of that experience I had 3 horrible first date stories to call my own and -$60 from my bank account.

This time, I decided to be with the PEOPLE. Those that refused to be tamed by the man. Refused to be defined by 60 multiple choice questions. Refused to fill out 5 pages of standardized test-esq short answer questions, only to be forced to exchange weird, predetermined questions with someone that answered at least 5% of the 60 starter questions the same way they did.

NO. I would not do it.

In reality, I was too lazy to spend the 3 hours it would take to set up another EHarmony account again...and I wanted to spend the $60 on wine. So I joined Plenty of Fish - surpassed only by OKCupid in number of weirdos who frequent it. Took me 5 minutes to write my "bio", post the most attractive pictures I could find of myself, and I was OFF to find the love of my life.

Let me tell you - it's been an interesting first few days. On POF, you are allowed to show interest in someone else in one of 3 ways.

1. Send them a "quick message" - i.e. write your best one-liner that both shows you read their profile and that you are SO cool, savy, and whitty. I haven't thought so hard about so few words since I took the SAT and knew that writing my name correctly was worth 800 points.

2. Indicate that you would like to meet someone with a click of a button - this is 1 of 2 of my favorite parts of this whole experience. It's like a Russion Roulette of weird men to choose from! They show you a picture and ask "would you like to meet me?" You just click the yes or no button!

The trick to this one is to remember no one can call you out if you don't want to meet them! I have become ruthless - it's like one yes for every 20 no's. I feel like Gandolf - every time I say no I shout "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" at my computer and laugh with glee.

3. You can send a "rose". I refuse to even entertain this option.

As a part of your profile, you are asked to write a headline...it shows up with your picture on Russion Roulette - and is meant to be an enticement for people to hit YES and actually go look at your full profile. This is my other favorite part of POF.

The crap people think will entice the opposite sex into wanting to "know more" is hilarious.

Here are some of the best I have stumbled upon:

All I want is... (IM SO INTRIGUED...WHAT? WHAT IS IT?)
Epic dude seeking epic chick (obviously?)
The words adventure and random are chick magnets (how's that working out...?)
... (...?)
Life is like a bag of gummy worms (no comment)
Intimate First (what does this mean)
Only intelligent women apply...and Hot is a plus... (at least he is honest)
Is she out there?? (Fido went west)

Just talk classy and act nasty...(honesty again, so refreshing)
Have a job, car, apartment, love jesus, need a girl (shortest resume I have ever read)
I just need someone to smoke weed and cuddle with (this honesty thing is getting ridiculous)
Every girl on here play games or what? (Yes, yes we do.)
Faithfu guy. y is so ****ing hard (The same reason spelling and grammar are hard...)

Here is my favorite message that I have received so far:

Your profile pic is soothing to look at in the winter. do you have that warm touch?...I refrained from responding.

The things I do for your entertainment people, the things I do.

Stay tuned for more adventures from POF.

Traveling with children...I mean your parents

Months ago, I promised a blog about traveling with your parents. Well here it is people, in all its glory.

Over the summer, I took a trip to Paris with my mom and dad. This was not the first time to Paris for any of us so the trip was a bit more laid back than the typical flurry to see everything, everywhere in just 7 days. As the trip porgressed, I couldn't help but gain a huge amount of respect for my parents for traveling with me as a child. We took several trips when I was younger and I now know those trips must have been filled with constant bathroom breaks, snack breaks, hurt feet, being lost, and a myriad of other things. I know this, because I think traveling with your parents as an adult, is much like traveling with children.

Airports:

It all began with our trip to the airport. When you have small children, you allow yourself 7 hours to load up the car, get to the parking lot, unload the car, load the shuttle, unload the shuttle, get through security, and finally board the plane. When you have parents, you allow yourself 7 hours to get to the airport and wait 6 hours in case SOMETHING horrible happens and you need those 6 hours to fix that something.

With Kids:

With Parents:

Bed Time:

We had a nonverbal, but strict agreement that bed time was no later than 10PM. The last time I went to bed before 10PM was when I had mono and couldn't keep my eyes open longer than 30 minutes at a time. Do you know what happens when you go to bed at 10PM? You wake up at 6AM all bright eyed and bushy tailed. There is a life lesson in here somewhere...but I haven't decided to take it yet.

Bathroom Breaks:

I swear to you, I know where every public bathroom is within a 50 mile radius of our hotel in Paris. I know where every public bathroom is on every floor of every museum I went into. You need a bathroom? I have you covered.

This could be getting a bit too personal, but I'm going to just go for it. This is how I view the natural progression of need for bathroom breaks as we age.

Infant: I don't even care about bathrooms
Toddler: I need to go but I am having WAY to much fun with these legos so I DON'T CARE. Uh oh. Whoops. I should have cared.
Young adult - 50: I can appropriately gage when I need to use the restroom
50+: I think I might need to use the restroom sometime in the next hour, so we need to find one right now. RIGHT NOW.

Snack Breaks:
 
If we were not on a strict "eat every 2 hours" regimen, it was meltdown city. We wouldn't talk to eachother, everyone was stomping and walking 45 miles per hour to try and get to food faster, angry looks were tossed over shoulders because SOMEONE had taken to long at the last bathroom break and now clearly the world was ending. By the end of the trip everyone had to pack a snack for emergencies.

All in all, it was an epic trip - we may have yelled at eachother when we missed snack break, or stomped away on the way to the bathroom, but it's only with family that you can do those things with complete faith in the forgiveness that will follow. It is only with family that you can act like a 5 year old no matter your age, and still come out with no loss of love.

I recognize that at 26, the years of taking vacations with just my immediate family are waning. Despite my brother and I's nearly constant singledom - I do think both of us will actually find our great loves to bring on family vacations, and eventually we'll bring kids along to. Those trips will bring new memories, laughs, and temper tantrums.

Until that point, I'll take all of the trips with my parents that I can - even if it means hunting down every bathroom in the city.

Lessons from Paris

I got back from Paris last week – but don’t worry. I’m not going to bore you with how awesome, amazing, blah blah blah it was. I was out of the country. For a week. Not working. Drinking a lot of wine. You know how awesome it was. What I WILL tell you are a few lessons I learned while in Paris so if YOU ever find yourself there, you can be prepared.

The Louvre:

·         AKA: The worst museum ever. You should go – one time – and spend as little time as possible in there. You should spend more time outside taking obligatory pictures of the triangle sphere entrance than you spend inside the actual museum.

·         Out of the 1,349,972 items in the Louvre, you will want to see 3-4 items (depending on your knowledge of art). Those things are located on exact opposite ends of the museum and you will need to wade through roughly 9,000 people to get to each.

·         The Louvre is an uncontrolled version of Disneyland. At Disneyland – everyone has a purpose and it’s to ride those freakin’ rides. You stand in line, you ride the ride, you walk to the next ride and repeat. At the Louvre – everyone in that museum knows they only want to see those 3-4 things, but there are a whole bunch of other things in there that make you feel guilty for passing by without looking at them. So what you GET is 8,000 people aimlessly wandering around snapping pictures of pictures that they don’t give a shit about. The other 1,000 people are rushing around trying to find the Mona Lisa and getting mad at the people pretending to give a shit about the art they are looking at. Complete chaos.

·         The Mona Lisa is small. Just know that now before you go so you don’t get too disappointed. Also, because of the number of people surrounding the image – you will not get to be close to it, making it appear even smaller. Don’t try and take a picture of it. If you are that attached to that lady, just buy a postcard – it will be better quality.

Public Transportation:

·         Washington needs this for these reasons:

1.       It’s cheaper than driving

2.       It cuts down on traffic

3.       It cuts down on drunk driving

4.       It is aMAZing for people watching

French Language:

·         Vowels don’t count for the French. Mumble the consonants together when you are trying to imitate the language and you’ll be good to go.

French People

·         These people can human watch like the best of them. There are cafés on every corner…at these cafés are tables and chairs outside. You would think people who sit at these tables would like to face eachother. NOPE. They don’t. The tables are SET UP so that all chairs face the street…so that you can watch the people walking by…and judge them.

 French Food

·         There is no reason to eat anything other than pan au chocolate’s (chocolate croissants) and ham and cheese crepes. I proved that a human can in fact live off of these two things for at least 8 days.

·         There is no reason to drink anything other than wine. But you already knew that…

That’s it in a nutshell. You are now prepared to travel to France.

IM with a coworker:

(In reference to Carson Daily hosting the US live coverage of the Olympics)

Coworker: carson daly, are you fucking kidding me right now

Me: but he is SO good at hosting live TV

i know you would have preferred Ryan Seacrest but London was on a budget for this

Coworker:  I would prefer anything female, preferably a british girl with teeth fucked up enough to be considered cute, but not horribly ugly

Me:  I was not aware that any level of fucked up teeth was considered cute...

Coworker:  are you kidding me, it's like a beauty mark in your mouth teeth that love so much they want to hug each other

Me: o.m.g.

IM with Cow:

(In reference to an item found on Pinterest)

Me: This is fucking ridiculous:

 (**Caption: Stenciled cinnamon sugar or powdered food colors on a pie crusts. Cute!**)

Cow: I am literally annoyed right now.

Stay tuned for the next post: Why traveling with your parents is like traveling with toddlers.

Life Skills

A recent quote I heard from a coworker: “I can just type really fast and I never make mistakes. I just love it – I can get work done so much faster.”  - You go girl. If you got it, flaunt it.


Naturally, I started to think about what I’m really good at - aka my favorite thing to think about. Here is the list:

• Making lists (this will be a common theme in all blog posts...I just love listing)
• Chewbaca impressions

 In addition to this lengthy and indepth list, I have one more skill that is my greatest: human watching.


THERE IS NO SKILL BETTER THAN THIS.


This is why my skill is superior to all other skills:

• It provides hours of entertainment and can be done anytime, anywhere. That’s what she said.
• Whilst human watching, you can analyze the situation, come up with a solution, and solve all of your subjects’ problems. Thus, you are a trained counselor/psychologist. Resume bonus.
• It’s not judging if no one knows you are doing it.
• I will always consider myself to be qualified to be in the FBI as a spy. There is no room for contradiction on this, so don’t try.

I watch humans everywhere. It is my primary motivation, besides booze, for attending events such as professional sporting events, parties, and the DMV (it is my only motivation for attending that last one). I try to be at the airport more than two hours before my flight so I have enough time to delve into the lives of others. Yesterday, I went to Greenlake alone to sit on a grassy knoll and watch a softball game, from which I knew no players. It was one of the better evenings I've had.

To put it mildly, human watching is a favorite past time and a skill I highly value. 

Skills you must first master before becoming an elite human watcher:

1.       Be able to pinpoint someone’s location by hearing them, not seeing them.

2.       Once located, you may graduate to subtly glancing in their direction – thus the need to know EXACTLY where you will be directing your eyes at that perfect moment.

3.       Once you have established your first look and confirmed your subject's need for your counsel, you must mask your emotions. On the outside you are a cool cucumber just enjoying your Grande Passion Iced Tea with Lemonade, but on the inside you are an excited five year old who just found out there’s a slip-n-slide at the birthday party.

4.        This next skill really relies on your ability to think on your feet and get creative. You don’t know where that convo has been, where it’s going, or in what context it was initiated – so you make that ish up. Your story is better than theirs anyways…except for those rare gems where even in your wildest imagination you could not come up with something as awesome as the real story. (Example of this phenomenon to come in a later blog).

5.       This last skill is really the most important. You must never pop the personal bubble surrounding the moment your subjects are having. You must always remain aloof, a piece of scenery in their life scene. If you break that barrier – flee immediately – as if you just remembered you forgot your baby in the car or that you think you saw Channing Tatum across the street beckoning to you. You cannot recover from a burst bubble incident.

Practice makes perfect people, so get out there.

Thought of the day:

• The absolute worst feeling in the world is that moment you realize you forgot your wallet on Taco Salad Day.
• The next worst feeling in the world is that moment you realize you also forgot to bring the lunch you packed last night.

Bing Searches of the day:

• Who is Jimmy Fallon married to?
• Can you flavor crack? Mom: This search stemmed from a conversation about pixy sticks and their likeness to crack...I do not/would not like to taste flavored or unflavored crack at any time.
• How do you spell leway? (It’s leeway for you inquisitive minds out there)

IM conversation of the day:

Cow: Just walked around and other people have aquarium things in their offices
Me: GASP. Yes. Please please please.
Cow: Or a goldfish?! But then I have to change the tank. Ew
Me: Worth it. Get a frog. Or a tiny baby turtle....Fuck it, just get a hampster.

An introduction...or update depending on your current knowledge of my life.

The time has come, once again, for my little fingers to slave over a blog, to wrack my brain for witty and charismatic things to say on a regular basis, to allow you into the world that is mine*.

Anyone reading this most likely knows all of the below about me, but if for some reason you DON’T know these things (FAIL), here are a few quick facts about my current life:

Employment:

I work for a little tech company in Redmond, Washington – the name of which is not important. What IS important is my job title: Technical Account Manager. I know – so descriptive. No explanation needed, right?  Here is a summary of what I do on a daily basis: 

1. Email lots of important people
2. Create beautiful works of art in Excel called project work back schedules and campaign performance reports
3. Yell at other people for not following my work back schedules
4. Get yelled at by other people for not providing them the proper number of SLA days to complete the work in my work back schedules
5. Copy and paste this line repeatedly into emails: "Let me know if I can help you with anything further!"
6. Internally yell at people who further ask for my help
7. IM my best friend who also works at said tech company to discuss extremely important business matters and for quick sanity checks/therapy sessions
8. Test, re-test, and then test ads again before setting them live
9. Remove ads an hour after pushing them live because the client has decided to go in another direction
10. Attempt to explain why we cannot redesign a new ad and get it live in the same day
11. Try to hold onto my sanity. 

 Typical IM conversation with my best friend who I will refer to as Cow (childhood nickname; in no way representative of Cow’s general appearance):

Cow: “I just pitched an idea to Taco Bell for their Taco Locos. I suggested we do an animation where a taco comes flying in from the left side of the BDE and collides in the center with Doritos to make one wonderful taco loco.”

Me: “I’m sorry but I would just NEVER order something other than a crunch wrap supreme. They can stop making new products right now because it’s not going to ever be better than a CWS. Their drive through menu should just be one giant picture of a crunch wrap supreme with “you’re welcome” written underneath it.”

Cow: “I’m going to quote you on that on the next client call.”

Latest Bing searches while at work:

• What does "SLA" stand for
• What is Monica Lewinsky doing now
• Is cottage cheese curdled milk
• Can you die from eating curdled milk
• Shirtless men in grocery stores (unsuccessful - but see below for reference)

Living situation:

Up until one week ago, I spent the last 2.5 years living with Cow and her boyfriend/fiancé/now husband on the East Side , otherwise known as suburbia. I finally decided to leave the nest and have made the move to Greenlake in an attempt to experience some city life.

First impressions:

1.  There are  young, attractive men everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Back in the “burbs”, grocery stores are filled with middle aged men carrying toddlers and buying bottles of Pino for their wives. In Seattle, grocery stores are filled with young, 20-somethings buying organic yogurt and balancing it out with a 24 pack of Coors Light. (Insert picture of several shirtless men milling about grocery aisles here)
2.  I lied when I told everyone I would ride the bus to work every day in an attempt to not pay the 520 bridge toll and save on gas money. My intentions were pure, my willingness to wake up 45 minutes earlier was not. 
3. I live within walking distance of the Woodland Park Zoo and a Mexican restaurant with $4 happy hour margaritas. Both of these places will be frequented on the regular…sometimes within the same hour. My goal is to befriend a Walrus and teach him to play the recorder by the end of summer: 

   4. On a nightly basis in my old room I would fall asleep to the sound of 1,000 frogs croaking in the pond across the street. I now fall asleep to the sound of metro buses and loud pedestrians outside my room. Both are equally loud and equally as obnoxious.

Stay tuned for more stories about work, Australian stalkers, this place called Time Out, Rape Park, Bing searches, thoughts on life, and city life adventures.

*Some stories, “quotes”, facts, and in general, anything I write, may be embellished/altered/completely made up in an attempt to make my life seem awesome and hilarious. You’re welcome.