I was THAT a**hole....

It's been an interesting week here in Kelly Land people. Very interesting.

Here is a teaser for the story I am about to tell you: "Did you break the 520 bridge?" - Text from coworker.

My morning commute takes anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. Why such a huge range? It is a direct result of poor engineering. I have to cross the 520 bridge to get to work. The genius who designed said bridge did not think it was necessary to include shoulders.

Murphy's law says that if someone is going to get into an accident or have their car break down, they will do it in the middle of the bridge, effectively blocking one of the two lanes available to the thousands of people slogging to work every morning. As you can imagine, during rushhour, this causes huge back-ups and can take a 20 minute commute to a 60 minute crawl.

There I was, minding my own business while driving to work on Tuesday morning, when suddenly my ABS brake light goes on. Confused, I tested my brakes with a quick tappity tap tap tap and all seemed fine.

Using my expansive car knowledge, I said to myself, "huh, must just be a wire connection issue. I'm sure it will reset when I turn off the engine," and I went on my merry way.

In order to fully understand this story, I have created a very detailed and dramatic storyboard. Please see storyboard #1 for my location at this point in the plot:

***Artist's note: A five year old did not illustrate these...it is extremely hard to "storyboard" in the snipping tool***

You will notice I have labeled a "point of no return". The far left lane of I5 gives you the option to veer left and get on to 520, or to continue on down I5. If you choose to veer, and it is a mistake, you are screwed. Once you cross over that point of no return, you have no choice, you will be crossing the 520 bridge and paying the $5 toll for your trouble. There are no exits or escape routes once that point has been crossed.

Okay back to the story. So at this point, I am still in safe territory, I haven't veered. This would have been the appropriate time to exit the freeway, pull off the road, and check into the warning light on my dash.

As you probably guessed, I did not do this. I veered. I crossed the point of no return. Approximately 5 seconds after veering, the radio starts breaking up, the speedometer needle goes completely dead, and I am in a world of black. Two thoughts went through my head. Either the aliens have taken over earth and disabled all electronic devices from working, or this is the apocolypse.

Immediately, I am unable to accelerate. Lucy II slowly rolls to a stop. The honking begins.

This is what I don't understand. I get that I was THAT asshole that everybody hates. I fully understand that you will now be late to work. I accept this, I am sorry, you can have my first born child, but why are you honking at me?

I did not wake up this morning, start my drive into work, and then suddenly decide that parking in the middle of the 520 bridge was a fantastic idea. I was not parking to get out and take a picture. I did not stop so I could take a moment to talk on my cell phone. This was not how I wanted this morning's commute to go down. I swear. So stop honking at me. Or I will punch you in the throat.

At this point, I did what any girl would do. I called my dad. Because that is totally logical and he would definitely be able to help me with his tow truck and ability to fly. This is how the conversation went:

Me: "DAD. LUCY DIED IN THE MIDDLE OF 520. WHAT DO I DO?"
Dad: "Are you blocking the road?"
Me: "OF COURSE I'M BLOCKING THE ROAD. PEOPLE ARE HONKING AT ME. DO I CALL 911?!""
Dad: "You need to call AAA, Kelly."
Me: "Oh. Okay. That makes more sense."

I calmly (a.k.a. not at all calmly) call AAA and tell them the situation. They say they will try to hurry since I'm blocking, but they can only guarantee they will be there within an hour.  I do not panic at all at this point...

Suddenly, I spot a white horse and my knight in shining armor. He is an incident response man who is roughly 45 and has a very bushy beard. I love him. He is going to "push" me across the bridge with his truck and into a gas station. All I have to do is put the car in neutral, steer, and under no circumstances touch the brakes. Right before he walks back to his car he yells through my window "put on your seatbelt!" Totally not panicking people. Not at all.

I actually manage to execute this task without any problems and safely pull into the gas station. 30 minutes later AAA is there, towing my car to the mechanic. 3 days, $650, and 4 years off my life due to stress later, Lucy II is back up and running. Her alternator decided to punk out on me.

Lessons learned:
1. If your ABS light goes on, it is not a "wire connection issue"
2. AAA is the best thing a girl could ask for
3. If you receive a fatty tax return, something bad will happen. Do not plan a vacation with that money, you will need it to fix the something bad.

Also - in honor of Friday - here is Batman Cat. You're welcome:

 

 

 

 

NPR and TED

Two years ago, I was working for a media production company up in Everett. I hate Everett. I hate it for a lot of reasons - like the fact that it is 40 minutes from Seattle, does not have a Red Robin, and is 40 minutes from Seattle...

An hour and 20 minutes is a long time to spend in a car every day. It's a long time to listen to the same 10 songs on the radio everyday. I never understood that - if rush hour traffic is at the same time everyday, which means the same people are in their cars at the same time everyday, why does it make sense to play the same songs at the same time everyday. I do not need to hear any Rihanna song twice a day, 5 days a week. That is 10 Rihanna songs a week - assuming by the time Friday rolls around, I have poked my ear drums with a knitting needle to avoid having to listen to another Rihanna song over the weekend.

All that to say, I started listening to a LOT of NPR on my drives. Then I started listening to NPR in the background while I was at work. I became a woman obsessed. At one point, I sat in my driveway for an extra 15 minutes so I could hear the end of a really intense short story.

It got so bad that I actually started to run out of NPR to listen too...and then I was introduced to TED talks. My world started to revolve around these two acronymed knowledge pockets. NPR and TED, TED and NPR. Like two peas in my brainpod.

Then, the unthinkable happened. Some little tart had the nerve to take the antenna off of Lucy (my old chariot), bend it, and throw it into the the bed of the truck. These are my problems with this:

1. If you are going to do damage to something for no reason, do it right. Smash some windows, break off a side-mirror, scratch a four letter word onto the hood Carrie Underwood style. Don't be a pansy and just bend my antenna. If all the windows had been broken, I would have felt more motivation to have that ish fixed immediately.

2. I don't understand damaging something for no reason. If you feel like being an ass, why would you not get something out of it? I'm not saying Lucy was chalk full of blood diamonds and baby puppies ripe for the taking, but there were some prime CD's in there - Celine, Whitney, Buble... but, if you really just want to be an ass - see point 1.

3. They stole my gateway to KNOWLEDGE. My highway to BRAINPOWER. Enough said.

A lot has happened since that fateful day. I got a new job - in Redmond, cutting my commute time in half. I got a new car, with an antenna, effectively opening back up the doors to all things that are AM radio. You will notice these two things are counter productive, so these days I try and get my fill of awesomeness where I can!

On that note - I leave you with these gems:

http://www.npr.org/event/music/166256822/macklemore-ryan-lewis-tiny-desk-concert?autoplay=true

http://www.npr.org/event/music/133687905/adele-tiny-desk-concert

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_nicklen_tales_of_ice_bound_wonderlands.html

Anyone have other suggestions for me??

On a completely unrelated topic. Please tell me, under what circumstances this would ever be appropriate:

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.