Hot August Nights

One thing that I really love about my hometown is all the events that go on thru the Summer. My favorite by far is Hot August Nights, which I used to think was a nation-wide, week-long holiday when I was a kid.

When I was little my mom used to dress my sisters and me up in poodle skirts, button-down blouses and bobby socks, and my Papa Dan would come by and pick us up in his old-fashioned blue convertible. I remember running out to him; out the front door and down the cracked concrete steps, thru the chain link fence and into his arms.  He had a laugh that came from his belly and blue eyes that truly sparkled when he was pleased. He was always pleased to see me.

He’d load my five thousand siblings into the old convertible and we’d head off into town, usually to Victorian Ave where we’d drive around and wave at everyone like beauty queens who’d just won a pageant, then we’d stop at A&W and Papa Dan would treat us to burgers, french fries and root beer floats, and when we were done we’d find a place along the sidelines and watch all the other retro-mobiles roar by. A few hours later Papa would return us to our mother, generally sleepy and sticky from root beer spilled down our chins.

It occurs to me as I write this that I have not gone back to Victorian Ave during Hot August Nights since Papa died. And that was eleven years ago, now.  Every year (that I’ve been in my hometown) during August, I see the Hot Rods cruise by and I always intend to go downtown, I guess I just never have. Next year, next year; I’ll have more time/money/reason to go check it out.

Well, I tell you what. I’m going to Hot August Nights this year, come hell or high water! I’ll get a buddy or a group of buddies together and we’ll wander around and have a margarita and breathe in the exhaust fumes and laugh and be happy. Time to make new memories. Time to seize the day; tomorrow might not actually happen.

Thinking Out Loud

Okay- this one REALLY is me just thinking out loud. I don’t know where this is going. So really, I advise you not to read it. It will be kind of dumb, most likely. But here I go.

They say that cats have seven lives. Wait, is it seven? I think actually it’s nine. Let’s go with nine because nine is more than seven, and we could all use more lives. My cat sure could use more lives right now because if I catch her claws in my screen door just one more time, ima kill her.

(Oh hey- good news for readers of my blog; my boss seems to have disabled facebook on the company computer, so now I’ll be blogging instead of stalking. Darn Boss. At least that’s what I’m hoping happened, otherwise someone has hacked in and done something fishy. What are cookies, exactly?)

Anyhow. Lives. Yeah.

I think that some people have nine lives, too. Or five, or seven or some only have maybe two, but I think that we all have multiple lives. I’d say I’m on about life four. My happy darling childhood of yore was one, my wholly miserable pre-teen years into my unhappy early twenties were the second, followed by my missionary years as the third, and here I find myself at my fourth. And you know, I can tell you day that I morphed from one to the other. The events compiling which caused the evolution are long and staggered, but the day of the change I can pinpoint.

From one to two it was one of the first days in fourth grade, when I came home with my first ‘D’. It was on a math test. Multiplication. I couldn’t handle those 7s and 8s. I remember my mom frustratedly smacking my arm with a ruler.

“Seven times three is twenty-one! Why can’t you remember!? Are you stupid!? Seven times three is twenty-one!”

The transition from the second to the third was two days before I went into the MTC. I was worried to death, but also at peace with it. I felt something warm and peaceful wash over me and it stayed inside of me for the entirety of my mission.  I liked who I was then. I felt like the Mother Teresa.

The next one is as follows: I was up at Badger Creek, and I broke the heart of Jack from Nebraska. And then, in turn, someone else returned the favor to me, if not quite so badly, I think. Then one day, sitting in the Temple, I had an epiphany (more on that in a minute).  I would feel more, I don’t know….. feminine?... if I could say that they broke my heart and the devastation changed me.  But that wouldn’t actually be true. I know I broke Jack’s heart and I’ll never forgive myself for it (neither will my mother) altho I knew then as I know now it had to be done. And I did everything to win the other guy’s heart; I was as perfect as June Cleaver. But ‘the day’ was actually the epiphany-in-the-temple day. I was sitting there and as I prayed for God to soften my heart, to bend me to his will, to show me the way, I looked up and looked around, and it was suddenly so obvious, so clear; I did not belong there. The temple, the religion, was rejecting me the way that I had rejected Jack and the way that the other guy rejected me. Staying in it would be like staying in a bad, unhappy relationship.

So I left the cold, harsh light of that life and blundered around in the dark warmth of the new world I had chosen.  Right about now my eyes are starting to adjust.

Geez, my tummy hurts. (Yes, Chad, I’ve eaten today) I want some Taco Bell. I don’t know why, but I am on a TACO BELL RAMPAGE. I have eaten Taco Bell almost every day for two weeks. Shoot, what I wouldn’t do for a Taco right now. D:!!!

Stinkin’ Boss. Why’d you have to go blocking FB like that?

Dagnab it.