Nope, Nope!

Quick recap: AV and I went to Grand Rapids to see the fireworks and We the Kings in (free!!) concert for the Fourth of July.

We couldn't actually SEE hardly any of the fireworks though, because whoever was in charge thought that low exploding fireworks would work out a-okay. Sure, those would be superb in a big 'ole field. Too bad they were less than spectacular in the middle of a sea of office buildings. Any-hoo... After the concert there was, as we found out later, a shooting in a nearby parking lot. The streets were clogged with traffic, ambulances, police cars, and pedestrians so we decided to wander around for a bit before attempting to get back to the car.

Grand Rapids isn't all that big of a city and, at close to midnight on the Fourth of July, there wasn't much open. There were a few bars near where we were but AV had to work the next day so we couldn't go for drinks or anything, so we just wandered. I didn't want to go too far from the city center late at night and we ended up at the courthouse. Lights were on in the lobby and AV thought it looked interesting so we headed over.

We peeped in the windows and I pointed out all the illuminated red "Exit" signs at the stairwells. We stood around for a bit at the corner (the courthouse is on an intersection) and, since I was only wearing a tank-top, I complained about being cold. AV stood behind me and started picking on me.

He grabbed me in a backward bear-hug and while I wiggled and squirmed and complained of the cold, he pulled out a ring.

"Will you marry me?"

I snatched up the ring, and, like the difficult child I am, I chirped out "Nope!"



Cheers,
Red

Fourth of July Festivities

AV had some friends up for the Fourth of July. They arrived late Thursday night and were planning to leave around lunch Monday (July 4). We did the normal "visiting Michigan" type of activities, or at least, normal for people we know. We went shopping at the thrift stores, we went to the beach, we had bonfires, and we went kayaking. A pretty solid weekend.

I found out that the town we live in has a Fourth of July parade and I wanted to go. We went to the Christmas parade and it was a pretty fun time, so I figured the Fourth of July parade would be larger. I was correct. The parade lasted about an hour with all the normal parade type things. You know... dogs in costumes, scary clowns, kids on decorated bikes, the Asparagus Queen. It was a good time and there were a bunch of antique automobiles, which I always love.

After AV's friends left, we watched a movie (okay, AV watched, I took a nap) and headed down to Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids was supposed to also have a huge parade and then a series of free concerts leading up to the fireworks and a concert by We the Kings.

The parade was not as big/exciting as the parade where we live, but it did have a few awesome bits. Mainly the "float" from the Public Museum. It was an antique truck with a self playing organ in the bed.

LOVE IT.

After the parade we watched a bit of the free concert in Rosa Park Circle in front of the art museum. The first band was fairly terrible... They were clearly still in, or just out of, high school and it showed. You couldn't hear the vocals, what you could hear was poorly written, and the music was not so subtly "borrowed" from other popular bands. The next band, thankfully!, was much better. Not wanting to get sucked into the third band's performance, we headed to dinner at the Asian restaurant up the street.

We've been to this restaurant before, and while the food is EXCELLENT, the service is TERRIBLE. We're not strangers to this type of behavior though, so at this point we pretty much just accept it. And again, the food itself was wonderful, so I guess I can't complain too much?

We went back to the free concerts where each band got progressively better than the last. We watched the bands as well as what we came to refer to as "Creepy Drug Addict Guy". There was a big black guy dancing around in the "lawn" area of the park. He wasn't dancing in the normal sense... He was dancing... like a creepy drug addict. Every so often he would lean over and appear to begin to pass out. It was pretty terrifying.

There was an additional creepy dude with a giant bubble wand. He was on the other side of the park from us but the bubbles rose up over the crowd and it looked awesome.

Gigantic bubbles!

We also watched someone paint a painting. Again, it was on the other side of the park so we didn't really get to watch, but I saw the end result. He had painted the Statue of Liberty and a sunset sky. That would be pretty awesome on it's own, but it was made more awesome by the fact that he was painting the piece on one of those spinny canvases!

This is just some random guy on YouTube, but this is the type of canvas the painter in the park was using.

The last bit of entertainment we witnessed was a set of siblings who had balloon hats. Earlier in the night a different sibling was playing with one of the hats, attempting to catch the end of the hat as it sat on his head. He looked exactly like a donkey with a carrot on a string. Later his brother (or possibly cousin) decided this activity was worth trying out.

heeheeeheeeeee



Finally it was time for the fireworks! I was wondering if we should go somewhere else but there were gaps between the buildings and we assumed that you would be able to see the fireworks between and over the buildings. Nope. We started walking (along with thousands of other people) towards the river. Somehow the river was much further away than we expected and we seemed to be missing most, if not all, of the fireworks. I didn't want to wander too far from the park though, because We the Kings were supposed to come on right after the fireworks. So we tried a couple of places, all to no avail. We stopped with the rest of the crowds, in the middle of the street, to watch. Too bad you could only see about half of every other firework. It was terribly dissapointing.

Instead of missing out on everything, we headed back to the park to get a good spot to watch We the Kings. I got what I thought was a good spot. As it turns out, the park (which is also used as an iceskating rink in the winter) has no incline in front of the concert shell. So, while I was very close to the band, I couldn't see anything. And, to add insult to injury, some guy who was probably like a hundred feet tall kept trying to push in front of me. But, the music was good.

There was no encore which we thought was strange, but we started heading to the car. We noticed flashing lights and sirens. There were police cars at the park now, and the officers were using the megaphones to tell people to "PLEASE LEAVE THE ROSA PARK AREA". I thought this was really rude, the concert had just ended, there was no way we would be able to get out of the city yet with all those people about, so why couldn't we stick around the park area? But the police were insistant. So we started to wander about.

As it turns out, we were made to leave the area because two people were shot in a fight. I guess that's why there was no encore...

And then... something else happened. But you'll have to wait until tomorrow to read about it!

Cheers,

Red

Officially Official!

We are now officially engaged!

He liked it so he put a ring on it. And I've got the bling to prove it.

Each side has four little diamonds on it, so there's a total of nine stones on the ring. The top of the ring has two Celtic knots, one on either side of the center diamond. AV choose that setting as Celtic knots have no end, they go on "fover". The center stone is an Asscher cut, or Square Emerald cut. This type of cut allows the most light refraction so the diamond is the most "glittery".

I'm so happy/excited/thrilled!

Cheers,
Red

Weed Whack-ccident

I learned something very interesting today. If you are attempting to make very small trenches, a weed whacker works excellently. Obviously this isn't the intended purpose of said appliance, but put one in my very capable* hands and you've got trench-city.

Apparently, well not really "apparently" since I already knew this, when you use a tool with a running motor, it changes its perceived weight as you move it about. Two key components to utilizing a weed whacker are a running motor and moving it about. As it would seem, my strong and beefy** arms were not exactly up to this task today.

I tried using the weed whacker the other day but I couldn't get it started. I determined it was an a**hole and gave up.

AV showed me how to start it again yesterday evening so I tried again today. I was planning on doing this later, but the sky suddenly clouded over and I freaked out; AV's having friends up for the Fourth and I don't want my house to look like a total piece of crap***.

Three tries and the a**hole starts right up. I headed around the back of the house to get started. I pulled the trigger and pointed the whack-y part at the weeds growing in between the stones. Nothing happened. I let out more string. Nothing happened. I leaned sideways too far and dropped the head of the weed whacker into the ground. Something happened.

Little bits of grass and weed whacker string sprayed over my entire lower body. Then dirt. A lot of dirt. I jerked the weed whacker back up and, while the path was now free of weeds, it was also free of fill between the stones.

I kept working.

I managed to dig five more trenches, drop the "blades" into the good**** grass and tear it all out, and do an overall excellent***** job.

I put the weed whacker away and surveyed my work. Ah yes, I see a job in landscaping in my future.

I am an artist. I echo the natural variations of human life and personality with my work in grass clipping. The long grasses symbolize humans' natural curiosity and desires. The medium length grass is a symbol for our work ethic and normalcy and the short grass, of course are the outliers, the misfits and outcasts.******

Cheers,
Red



*totally worthless
**tiny and slightly embarrassing
***I don't want them to know how lazy and disorganized we really are
****I say "good" because there's actually some there. We don't get a lot of rain and the soil is super sandy so the grass is awkward and sparse at best.

***** piss poor

****** No, dude... I'm just really bad at cutting the lawn.

Can you give a cat the heimlich maneuver?

This is an important question as I watch Jame-o dance and coo in the living room as he attempts to murder a pony bead.

AV's mom gave the catlings an Easter basket filled with little plastic eggs. Each of the eggs either had a couple of beads in them or a little furry mouse. Since April, we have effectively lost all six of the little mice somewhere into the netherworlds of Under-The-Couch-Land and/or Behind-The-Kitchen-Appliances-Ville. Somehow all of the pony beads have escaped this particular fate and are seen, from time to time, lounging in the shag carpeting lying in wait of bare feet to impale.

Over the last few days, Jess has decided these pony beads are worthy adversaries and has spent the last half hour of every evening tormenting them. This is not necessarily the part that worries me. The part that worries me is when I hear the bead clicking against his little pointy cat teeth as he sits on his furry butt and chomps at them. Apparently just chewing at them isn't good enough, and he has to also sway back and forth and/or jump up and down as he munches.

I'm terrified he's somehow going inhale one of those little buggers.... And then what? Cats can choke can't they? How do you even get something out of their tiny little windpipes? Can you heimlich them? CPR? Its not like I have a little kitty AED set up anywhere. Although I suppose he would probably just hack a bit then barf on my carpet.

Maybe I should go pick all those things up...

Cheers,
Red

Appetizing Gnomes

My terrible spelling self was trying to look up how to spell "hors-d'oeuvre". You'd think that with six years of french I'd be able to spell it... but I can't. At all. So much so that Dictionary.com gave me these options for what I might be looking for:

Yes, one of the options is "House elves". From Harry Potter.

Cheers,
Red

Oh, Internet, You So Silly!!

I was just looking at our stats for the blog and I noticed I wasn't familiar with some of the sites which have been referring* readers to us.

For all time, the sites which have referred readers to this blog are as follows:

So let's look through them, shall we?

Facebook - I sent some links through the messaging platform. Okay, that makes sense.
AVandRed- That's this blog, I didn't know it counted to refer to ourselves, but okay...
Yahoo mail - I emailed some links via email. Good that checks out.
OffbeatBride.com - I'm a member here and the blog is linked in my profile. Makes sense.
Pingywebedition - Well, apparently this little buddy here is spam, so sad :( (explained here: http://elbadaernu.blogspot.com/2010/12/referrer-spam.html)

Now, the last referred, highlighted in orange (red?) in my photo...

Against all my better internet judgement, I clicked on the referring site link in my statistics page. I figured it must be some other blog or something? Honestly, I wasn't thinking about much, I was just like "wtf is this link, I don't know you..?" (when you're thinking this, it should be a red flag in terms of clicking on things...)

The page loaded and my screen was filled with naked women with spread legs. .... "Amateur Porn" read the top of the page. MY EYES!! I'VE BEEN TRICKED!!!

And I still don't even know why (or IF) our blog is being referred from there!

Cheers, and I'm going to go ahead and do a virus scan now,
Red

* Usually this means that this site has a link to (in this case) our blog somewhere