Teeth and Truth

There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who will blatantly tell you that there’s something in your teeth and those who will not. 

After Christmas break—whereupon I met one of my best friend's best friend's—I decided that I definitely prefer the first type of person to the second. 

Because, after all, who wants to walk around looking all snaggle-toothed because of a piece of spinach? Seriously, save me pride sooner rather than later and just tell me in the middle of lunch. It may be embarrassing at first, awkward even (more awkward for me than for you). But—by telling me there’s a piece of green gook in my teeth and I look like a pirate, you will have earned yourself a lifelong friend—and I’ll be really grateful and thankful to have earned one as well—because there’s one thing you can be certain of: if someone is gonna tell you about the crap you have in your teeth, they’re probably going to tell you about the crap you have going on in your life (should they have to eventually). Or something like that. And everyone needs someone like that. 

Bad Luck

It's almost the middle of January and my boss hasn't taken down the Christmas decorations at work. The little stockings she had hanging up for us were cute, sure, but Christmas is over (sadly). Doesn't she realize it's bad luck to keep Christmas decorations up after the New Year?

It's driving me absolutely bonkers. 

New Year

I rang in the new year this year at a cabin in the mountains with some old friends with high school. Isn't it funny how once you're out of high school, all that cliquey crap goes away and suddenly, you're able to all just be friends? I think it's really neat, but I digress. 

I went to Helen with one of my best friends, Candice, and about ten other people. We rented a cabin, I saw a good group of people that I used to go to school with and that was nice. You know, there's just something comfortingly familiar about being surrounded by people who've known you your whole life and who you don't have to explain anything to. And it's nice to be around people who think I'm perfect and can do no wrong again (I know, I know, that goes against what I've said before about how I hate having to live up to that standard, but it's like a security blanket . . .). 

So we got up there around two-thirty. Surprisingly, there were a lot of people--Helen was hopping! So we joined in. Helen's such an eclectic, little tourist trap of a place. But you gotta love it. Unless you're a historical preservationist, then you hate it based on merit alone. So, a little part of me always dies when we visit, but I kinda just kick that part of me to the curb for the duration of the visit.

I remember being little and my parents had friends who had hot air balloons. Every spring there's this huge hot air balloon festival in Helen. So on weekends in the spring my parents would act as chasers--that means they'd follow wherever the balloon went and meet them at the ground to help clean up and all that stuff. We'd be up at the crack of dawn, driving all over the mountains, constantly keeping an eye out for the balloons. There's this picture of me wandering around inside an actual balloon when I was like two. Pretty cool, I think. 

So there's that quaint aspect. And on the flipside Helen's also a huge biker city and has an equally huge . . . I don't know what you call it? Biker gathering? Hah. Incidentally, my parents also attended that regularly as well, I think. I don't know, I didn't tag along to that, hah. And this was for work, not pleasure, because bikers loved hearing my dad play. 

But anyhow . . . Helen is an interesting place. Oh, and did I mention the entire town is cornily fashioned to look like a town straight out of the Swiss Alps? 

After walking around for probably about an hour, we decided to grab some food. So we went to the Troll Tavern. Gunnar, Candice's boyfriend, was in absolute heaven because every TV in the place but one was playing sports. 

We got to the cabin around five-thirty. At first it was kind of awkward, you know, having to re-acclimate yourself with people you haven't seen in a few years? But it passed (especially after a few beers had been consumed) and festivities started shortly thereafter! 

LOTS of beer and a loonnnggg game of beer pong later (my team made it to the second round! Woot!) and six hours later, we all piled into the living and started the countdown. Someone yelled "Who's gonna kiss Dick Clarks wife at midnight?!" which made us all kind of melancholy. The guys on the couch next to me and informed Jenny McCarthy looked much better pre-plastic surgery which lightened the mood again. And then all of a sudden we had ten seconds. Ten seconds left of 2012 . . . 

. . . and just like that--it was 2013. 

I texted my parents and my mom sent a picture of the two of them plus my nephew at my brother's house (I later found out they'd gone over to play with my brother's cappuccino machine and wake him up because the old man had tried to go to sleep at 10! On New Year's Eve!). And then of course I texted a bunch of friends. 

The rest of the night was kind of an inconsequential blur. The couples that were on the trip got the bedrooms in the cabin and the rest of us piled up in the living room or in the basement (where it was absolutely frigid). I was supposed to share a room with Candice and Gunnar but . . . I ended up sharing the sofa bed with someone and piling in the living room with all the guys instead. You know, giving the love birds privacy and all. Hah. 

We had to be out of the cabin by eleven the next morning, so we got up around nine-thirty, cleaned--and I MEAN cleaned--and poured a LOT of beer down the drain and headed out about ten-thirty, ten forty-five. We stopped at Cracker Barrel on the way home, which was fun. We got a wee bit lost on the way home and finally got home to Winder around four in the afternoon. The trip, overall, was a success. 

So, one of my New Years Resolutions this year is to care less about what people think. I'm starting early. Another resolution is to be more proactive, with life in general. So, we'll see where those go. 

How Walgreens Saved Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas and through the house there arouse, suddenly, a ruckus...

Christmas Eve started out semi-normal this year. And by semi-normal I mean my mom was running around putting finishing touches on everything, my dad was cutting wood so we wouldn't have to do it on Christmas Day, and friends were dropping in periodically (because that's how my parents friends are). 

Nothing of real interest happened. We called my brother who was in D.C. and chitchatted with him for a little while, Dad went to the farm with my nephew, they came home and he took E home, Mom and I just kinda hung out. 

So then around nine, Dad decided that we should make homemade candy. Okay, sounds great! So, we get the dough made up and prepared, and I say, "Do we have chocolate chips?" 

You don't have to be a genius to see where this is going...

Now, it's Christmas Eve and at this point it's ten, so obviously there aren't any stores open. But, we called around town anyways. Ingles, Publix (actually, come to think, I don't know that we did call Publix, but we'll say they were closed anyways), Walmart . . . all the big places were closed. 

So then someone suggested Walgreens. 

And lo! Walgreens was open! So Mom ran over to Walgreens, grabbed the chocolate chips, and the homemade Reese's process continued. And Dad was in a good mood again--which is what we wanted all along. Hah. 

So, the candy turned out good. Mom was also able to get a Coke for her ham that she'd forgotten, and then Christmas Eve proceeded like normal. Well, normal for us. Hah. 

Thanks Walgreens! And Merry Christmas! 

Old Friends

Tonight reminded me just how much I miss some of my friends back home and how much I need to cherish some of those old and familiar relationships. This feeling was spurred because tonight I talked to one of my best and oldest friends for the first time in about three or four months. I know that you're probably thinking, "You haven't talked to one of your best friends in that long? What the heck?" But see, Hannah (on the left, and that's a super old picture, by the way) and I have a unique relationship. She's one of those people that I can just pick up with right wherever we left off.

Anyways, I was on Facebook tonight and turned my chat on for the first time in probably three or four months. But for some reason I did turn it on tonight and all of a sudden I got a little chat message from Hannah (yay, technology!). 

And for the next three hours we just talked about everything under the moon and caught up with what's been going on in each other's lives. After a few months we both had a lot to share--some of it good, some bad, some happy, and some really sad--but just being able to go back to that. . .that familiar, not having to explain anything or any sort of history to someone and not having to worry about judgement or anything. . . it was just really nice and comforting and I kind of feel peaceful about everything right now. 

One thing I also love about Hannah is that she's one of those people who I can talk to about faith and my walk with God without feeling like it's not good enough or inadequate and stuff like that, you know? I mean, she's never hoity-toity about things. And she realizes how fragile things are too, so if you say something that she doesn't agree with, she'll tell you how she feels, but she manages to do it in such a humble and innocent a way that you don't feel like you're being corrected or told off. It's amazing really. And I'm not just talking about when she talks about religion, she's able to do this with any subject. 

Anyways, just talking to her made me realize how much I cherish our friendship. I ended up having to run abruptly, but we ended with the promise to talk more often because we've both really missed that. It's Christmas break now, so we're going to get together and just have a catch-up day soon. I'm really excited. 

Smile!

Itzhak Perlman performed today at the Performing Arts Center where I work. For those of you who don’t know, he’s just a world-renown violinist, no big deal.

People were running around like absolute chickens with their heads cut off.

Imagine those girls that you see in old video reel of The Beatles concerts—the ones that are reaching towards the stage and screaming and practically crying—that’s basically how all of our patrons and our students today were acting. It was actually quite humorous.

Mr. Perlman was gracious enough to allow sixty lucky music students at UGA sit on stage. In order to get these students on the stage, there was an elaborate scheme and routine they had to follow, but I digress. Before the students were able to enter on to the stage they had to pick up their ticket, show their student ID, and check everything they had on their person at the coat check. This is where I was.

The students were allowed onto the stage early and their coat check was just sort of chilling in the lobby. We couldn’t move the coat check rack across the lobby with the other 1000 people who weren’t students still waiting to go inside, so I was regaled to sit in a chair by the elevators with the students coats and wallets and phones to keep them safe until the performance started and we could move them across the lobby and into the box office.

So for the next forty-five minutes or so, I sat there and mainly played on my phone (thank goodness for technology, right?). Occasionally, a frazzled and lost student wondering how to get backstage or a grumpy old man looking for the bathroom would interrupt my Angry Birds rampage and I’d direct them in the right direction, but for the most part, it was pretty slow.

Then, this older woman—probably in her seventies—and her husband walked by, laughing about something and I heard the word “elevator”. Since I was sitting by the elevator I kind of grinned at her, she smiled back, and I went back to Angry Birds.

Then suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I looked up and the elevator woman was standing beside me with this huge grin on her face. “Thank you,” she says.

I smile, what on earth is she thanking me for? I wonder.

“Thank you,” she repeats. “for your big, friendly smile. I just love it when people smile and are friendly to strangers, and they so very rarely are anymore. So thank you.” And with that she patted my shoulder in that old woman way, hopped on the elevator with her husband, off to enjoy the dulcet tones of Itzhak Perlman (the aforementioned tones were dulcet and breathtaking and beautiful; I may have snuck in for a few minutes of listening when I got off work).

That woman’s words really got me thinking. I’m a happy and friendly person; I don’t think twice about smiling at strangers (and maybe that’s simply a by-product of being raised in the South?). But she’s right! People don’t simply smile at strangers anymore. As soon as our conversation was over I texted a friend who lives in a different region of the country and told him about it. He immediately laughed and replied with “If you’d done that here, the old lady would have been Russian and asked what you were so happy about.” which made me laugh, but also kind of made me sad.

I don’t know . . . it just got me thinking . . . it shouldn’t be such a shocking thing to be on the receiving end of a smile. But it is. And it’s a strange society we live in. I think I really (inadvertently) made that woman’s day today, simply by smiling at her.

But what she doesn’t know is that she also made mine by talking and smiling back.

Tossing the Pigskin

Once upon a time there were these two groups of men. One group wore the hideous combination of orange and blue. The other wore the esteemed colors of red and black. And once every year since 1915, a mass exodus of over 60,000 twenty-somethings and college co-eds head to the neutral city of Jacksonville, FL for the one of the most intense and heated fights the world will ever see. 

I'm talking about the annual Georgia/Florida football game, of course. 

So, early Friday morning my roommates and I took off for what would end up being one of the best weekends of our lives. 

The first night we went to this place called The Landing. It's like a huge outdoor bar/music venue--and also a mall, not sure how that works--kind of thing. Ten bucks to get in, and there's restaurants and bars and shops and it's just really a blast. So, we hung out there for a while, some shenanigans were had, and then we headed home. 

The next morning we got up early to hit the continental breakfast at the hotel and tried to avoid the obnoxious Florida fans. After breakfast we picked out our outfits (because let's be honest, that's what really matters) and tried to figure out the tram. Then, we headed out to brave the masses!

We arrived at the Jacksonville Jaguar's stadium sometime around twelve. One of my roommates, Julia, her boyfriend is in the UGA band so we tried to find him before the game started. But, oh, with 60,000 people in one place, phone service was less than patchy--it was non-existent. So we wandered around and tried to find Forest for about an hour and a half. Finally, we found him in the very place that we started. 

Next, we tried to meet up with some friends of Julia. Again, our phones wouldn't work so we were kind of just wandering around blindly. After another hour of wandering around, we finally found lot P and met up with our friends. So, we ate, drank, and just tailgated merrily for a bit before the game started. 

About three o'clock our friends got ready to head to the game. We didn't have tickets (because they're freaking expensive!). So we were just going to hang around the tailgate and watch it on TV with our tailgating neighbors.

Then, suddenly, someone said, "Hey--let's go to the game!" 

So off to find an ATM we went. 

So now that we had money, we had to find tickets. Not only tickets, but we had to find three tickets together for the amount of money that we had (which wasn't a lot). After about four unsuccessful tries we finally found three tickets that were together and that were in our price range--and by price range, I mean that between the three of us we had exactly enough money to buy the tickets. And after we bought the tickets we had this moment of panic that they were fake or something. But they weren't! And--AND--they were on the fifty yard line about six rows up. In short, it was awesome. 

And the awesomeness was only perpetuated by the fact that Georgia won--GO DAWGS!

So after almost getting on the wrong bus and heading to who knows where, we finally ended up back at our hotel. We quickly changed outfits (again) and went back to The Landing with our friends from the tailgate to eat and go out. 

And then things started to get interesting. 

I was the DD for the night and one of my roommates had a wee bit too much to drink--but it's GA/FL so who cares, right? But, this also meant that the majority of the night was chasing after her. It was bad but also humorous. And we'll just leave it at that.

BUT the highlight of the night was meeting Robin Williams. Or, at least a man that looked scarily like Robin Williams. He was also a little drunk and upon meeting me says, "Dixie? That's your name? What an awesome name! You know, I can see myself marrying a woman named Dixie. I can see myself saying someday, 'Yeah, that's my wife. Her name's Dixie. And she knows all about the South, football, fried chicken and all that shit.'". And then he proceeded to kiss me. And Morgan managed to snap a picture of it! So, yeah, Robin and I will be tying the knot soon. 

The night ended shortly thereafter and the next morning we headed home. We stopped in St. Simmons just for fun and to see the beach--fun fact: St. Simmons beach was the very first beach I ever went to. My dad's best friend was from there and he said it was a tradition in his family for that to be the first beach a person goes to. Anyways, then we headed to Savannah and ate an early dinner on River Street, then headed on home to Athens. The GPS got us extremely lost on the way home, so that was sort of scary. We decided to go the scenic route home (note to self: next time, take the scenic route there not back). We ended up in like the ghetto of Dublin, going down this little road that didn't have street lights. It was the sort of street that, had we been characters in a scary movie, there would have been three or four burly (or scraggly, I'm undecided) homeless men with clubs chasing us. I'm NOT exaggerating. 

Well, we finally got out of there and then the GPS took us down this long country road (again, no street lights) and this time we didn't have cell service either. Out of the three of us, not one of us could make a call. And it was a full moon (I'm extremely superstitious). Oh, and we were running on fumes and had been since Dublin. Eventually though, we made it to the end of the long country road, found a gas station, and our cell phones started working again. 

Finally, after many, many hours (and a McDonald's trip in which I thought I'd lost my wallet) we arrived home. It was in the seventies when we'd left on Friday and we returned home on Sunday night it was in the forties. Winter came to Georgia while we had been gone! And . . . a bottle of vodka spilled in the trunk so that wasn't fun to clean up in the cold. But we did and the night ended with us busting into our fourth roommates room and telling her of all the weekend's escapades. 

So, all in all, first GA/FL game equals SUCCESS!