Old Town Trolley

My friend, Melina, and her boyfriend like to laugh that the Old Town Trolley drivers seem to have some sort of infatuation with me. While I highly doubt this is true (really it's probably just that their main post is right beside Qdoba, and we go there every week), there have been a couple of incidents that might lead one to think it.

The first one is my own poor decision to go out on a date with one of the drivers last summer. One Mike Fox. The story of that is documented in this blog. (Scroll down to the paragraph that starts with "The aspiring actor.")

The second one involves an apparently magnetizing white dress that I will never wear to Qdoba again. We were sitting in the window eating. One of the drivers walked up to the window, paused, got my attention, gave a thumbs up and walked away. He must have seen my look of confusion because later he came into the restaurant and told me that he wanted to explain that he gave the thumbs up because he really thought I looked nice in "that white dress" ... and then kept hanging around creepily. I didn't get his name. I do look pretty good in that particular dress, but seriously.

Today, I went to get a sandwich at Potbelly's. As I waited in line, I noticed there was a guy in an Old Town Trolley uniform behind me. In a pretty good mood today, I immediately started smiling knowing that when I got back to the office, Melina was going to LOVE hearing about this. I hadn't even turned around yet.

With a big smile on my face, I turn to check out the driver ... and it was none other than THE Mike Fox. DIRECTLY behind me.

Now, forgive me, it has been more than a year since I went out with the idiot (who, if you have read the blog remember, said the trolley job was a "temporary gig"). When I first turned, I thought, "Oh, that looks like it could be him," but I couldn't really tell.

So, I didn't just glance. No, I looked right at him for a good 15-20 seconds, looked down at the name tag that said, "Mike," and THEN turned around knowingly with a BIG smile on my face.

What are the chances of that!? Hahahahaha.

At that point, I could not STOP smiling because I thought the story was going to be fun to tell even if it was just some random driver, but now that it's Mike Fox ... I had hit the jackpot. So, after staring at him longer than I should have, seeing his name tag and smiling wider, I didn't say a word to him.

I don't know if he recognized me or not, but I didn't care. I stood in line in front of him for another 7-8 minutes ... smiling the whole time. It was glorious. Hopefully after 3.5 years working for the trolley company, the guy isn't still telling dates his job is temporary while he looks for acting work. As Melina says, "No, that's not temporary, that is your CAREER."

It was a good day.

NOTE: Please know, I see nothing wrong with anyone working as a tour guide for a career. I just found it completely annoying from him because he insisted multiple times he had plenty of time to move to New York to be an actor, and I thought he was insane.

Fun, fun ... K-12 pics

The reminiscing for the "Senior year" bulletin, and the ensuing response it generated made me think it would be funny to dredge up all my old yearbook photos.

I might not have remembered enough to be able to answer the questions in that bulletin properly, but I DO remember that quite possibly the single most traumatic incident of that entire year occurred when I returned from graduation and saw that my mom framed and displayed, in a row, all of my school photos for my graduation open house ... especially those 6th-8th grade, middle school ones. EW.

Now 10 years later, I'm OK doing it to myself, and could even come up with some added history below. Enjoy. :)

Kindergarten: My hair used to have a nice wave to it ... I think that was a cute little red dress that year, too.

1st grade: I was well into my closed-mouth smile phase here. As a child, I decided to allow one of my front teeth to wage battle with a softball bat being swung during a warm-up at the Elston ball diamonds. The tooth lost, required a root canal and turned brown. I didn't like bad teeth even then. Thank God it was a baby tooth.

2nd grade: I really liked to wear sweatshirts, but ONLY with the sleeves pushed all the way up, so it was as if they were short sleeves. I have no idea why. My mom tried to get me to stop, but it was documented in the school photo this year anyway.

3rd grade: My yearbook from 3rd grade was lost a long time ago, but I might be able to at least scrounge up the pic the next time I go home. We'll see if I remember. (Anyone who went to school with me that last year at Coal Creek, if you can refresh my memory on what it looked like that year, I would like to try again to find it.)

4th grade: If a clothing item had a cat on it, it was in my wardrobe. Those are large cat ears poking up there.

5th grade: Don't let this one fool you into thinking I stopped wearing my hair up EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I hadn't. Length of my hair at this point: Well beyond my waistline. Since I hated to wear it down, I have no idea why I refused to cut it.

6th grade: The side pony. Niiiiiiice. Ugh.

7th grade: Oh, how it would be nice to lose that baby fat. And those bangs. Lord.

8th grade: A perm and short hair does NOT mix for someone with thick hair. It shouldn't have taken a genius to figure that out.

9th grade: The bangs lived on that one last year, but this pic at least holds the prize for biggest change in a calendar year. Thank goodness because looking at these is wearing me out.

10th grade: I had to give a speech for English class on picture day, and I was NOT happy that Mrs. Escamilla was dictating what I had to wear that day, rather than wearing something more of my choosing. Yes, you read that right. At our school, Escamilla was an English teacher.

11th grade: Does anyone watch "How I Met Your Mother"? I feel like I had the "crazy eyes" here. Or maybe it's more "crazy smile." The picture just looks strange. I sure hated that cowlick, too. It was the bane of my entire bang existence ... so traumatically annoying, it almost kept me from getting my current ones, but luckily it had mysteriously vanished.

12th grade: The cookie cutter senior picture pose. They took the yearbook pics that year before I got the signature "Rachael cut."

Ahhhh ... memories.

"I Will Survive"

For oh so many reasons, hearing this song NEVER fails to put a smile on my face.

My high school girls, I know, can remember quite a few ... and fittingly, it all started with one of our random Meijer trips. Ah, the $6 Disco Mania compilation. :)

RobG and Natz ... you know at least one as well. Um, can we say, "Neon Cactus piano bar"?

And now this ... which quite possibly rivals the piano bar incident for its jaw dropability factor:

I'm not sure about the added vocals from the piano player, but all in all ... it's so funny, I even forgive the guy in boxer shorts for getting a couple of the lyrics wrong.

Remembering Minneapolis

Some of you know I spent three months in Minneapolis on a summer internship in 2001. A few of you know how much I liked it there and how I longed to return.

Those feelings had waned in the last couple of years, as I realized that really I wanted city life and maybe I just loved Minneapolis because it was the first place I lived that gave me that experience. It was no Muncie, and was that ever a good thing.

Then last night I started seeing stories on the Web about the I-35W bridge collapse. I hadn't thought much about Minneapolis as of late, but bits and pieces of fond memories resurfaced.

I-35W. It was a familiar name. I tried to remember why, but concluded it was likely because of the oodles of locator maps I had created, forcing me to quickly learn to differentiate between I-35W and I-35E when the interstate split. Nonetheless, I had a weird feeling about it. You hear things like this happening all the time, but it's a completely different feeling to hear it knowing you had likely crossed that bridge.

I went to bed hoping the people I so enjoyed working with were toiling away on a bridge graphic, and they hadn't happened to be ON the bridge.

This morning, I saw the image below in a Star Tribune slideshow (minus my added graphic elements), and the reason the I-35W bridge's name sounded so familiar became immediately clear. I had crossed that bridge hundreds of times in my short time there. I walked across the pedestrian bridge, looked to my right and saw cars crossing the bridge multiple times a week. A few times, I sat in traffic on the bridge waiting to take my exit.

It has been a weird day. I'm partially in love with Minneapolis again. It was there I felt certain I had made the right choice to change majors five times in college. It was the first time I forced myself out of my element. I left my car parked and used public transportation to get to work. I made myself live with a roommate I had never before met (it was only three months, and thank god for that ... we could have a whole other blog on stories from that alone). I walked a lot more (it was a mile and a half to walk across that bridge to get home). It was even the first place where I ever ate Chipotle.

I guess it seems like it was really just primer for how I'm living my life now, minus the roommate. I might pay $1,755 a month on rent to not have one of those, but it's definitely worth the expense! I've gone farther than just parking my car, and walking a mile and a half doesn't even seem that far anymore.

And now I'm just rambling, so with mushiness, I'm off. Here's to you, Minneapolis. As I focus now on returning to Indianapolis, I fear my time with you is over, but I'll love you always.

Steer clear

My morning started off with my left big toe hurting for no apparent reason. I had no idea that would translate into putting me in one of the WORST moods I can ever remember. As I have expressed to a few already, I honestly cannot remember EVER being more annoyed by EVERYTHING than I am today. It has been slightly disturbing to me actually.

One of the results of this mood had me reading the AP wire with added cynicism, and in order to pass the time, I find it necessary to share a few things I came up with here.

1. Extending the once a cheater, always a cheater notion:
A man who fatally stabbed his first wife in 1981 is accused of attacking his second wife with a knife in the same home, authorities said.
Christine Groth, 53, was taken to a hospital Tuesday after she crawled bleeding onto the porch.
The couple married in 1991, nearly 10 years after Joseph Groth pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter charges in the stabbing death of his first wife.

Sorry, but this lady was asking for it.

2. Check the logistics of your plan ahead of time:
Mechanics inspecting a United Airlines jet that had just arrived from China found a dead body in the nose gear Thursday.
He said the person apparently had crawled inside the nose gear's housing intentionally, suggesting an attempted stowaway. It's been attempted before, he said, "but it's never been successful."
"At altitude, there's no air to breathe and it's maybe minus-40 degrees for 12 hours," McCarron said.

Brilliant.

3. And this column being promoed on Yahoo! has been pissing me off for a week now:
3 Life Lessons from Country Music

COME ON, SERIOUSLY!?!?

Ugh. Click here if you're the least bit interested by what this has to say, but don't tell me about it. I WILL judge you.

Oh, and Yahoo! people, spell out a numeral at the beginning of a sentence. Thanks.

Going too far with the heterosexual safety seat

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the situation in the headline occurs when males who are seeing a movie together sit down with one seat separating each of them in order to make sure other patrons know they are not there "together." I have seen this done even when there are more than two guys in attendance.

Today, I witnessed (and was forced into being somewhat a part of) an expansion of this ridiculous philosophy in Qdoba. (Guys who are reading this, please own up and leave a comment explaining your reasoning if you do this. I'll still think you are ridiculous, but try to explain yourself. I'll at least think you can stand your ground.)

So, the situation: Melina has been sick, so I ventured to Qdoba by myself this week. While many would just take their order to go, I still feel it necessary to eat in the restaurant so I can get a refill on my soda to take back to the office. ;)

At this time, there are only two tables available in the restaurant, one a two-top and one with two tables pushed together for four. I head for the single table, but a guy steps in to sit there right ahead of me. I figure I'll sit at the other one and push the other table over a bit to separate and not monopolize the whole thing.

So, I sit down, and the guy who took the two-top asks if I am going to be using all four chairs. I tell him no, and that he is welcome to take that table (wondering why he sat at the smaller one in the first place).

He says, "That's OK, there are only three of us."

I find that odd, but put my earphones back in and go about eating my nachos.

Then his friends come to sit down. See in the diagram below, how they leave the tables the same, but one sits with me, one at the side-end of the other table, and the guy who started all this (labeled "First offender") sits in the crack with no real table space ... and they do this without hesitation as if nothing at all is out of the ordinary.

Please, please explain to me why the three of them would not sit at a four-top table to eat together like the rest of the normal world ... and don't try the "maybe they were hoping to converse" because I listened to my mp3 player the whole time thinking to myself that they were complete idiots. And being weirded out.

OK, discuss!

Put in my place ...

Just a quick post to direct everyone to this hilariously-amazing story (the audio is the best):

http://prdifferently.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/07/how_not_to_act_.html

I'm still shocked at how weak this makes my bad dating stories. Mine (reference April 16, 2007, blog) aren't even in this league! I guess that's a good thing. ;)