A Follow Up

I was deleting messages in my phone today, because it told me to and I remembered why I have some many undeleted ones. I was saving three sent messages to Ashley that I wrote after the test we had in class last Monday. So, this can technically be a follow up of last week's blog in which I gave you my daily occurrences.

I was very upset that I had forgotten my book at home; the one I was casually reading at the time. I also had half an hour to kill between the time I had finished my test and the time I had to be back in class. I'm quick. Anyway, I decided Ashley needed a nice little story, so I came up with one. Three text messages consisting of three "pages" each later, this is what she received:

Ok, so one time there was this bunny and it jumped and I was like whoa shit!! Cause it jumped ten feet into the air over a fence and I tried to catch it cause I thought it would make me rich. Turns out it was just a regular bunny that had super-bunny-strength for a sec, like when grandmas pick up cars, cause it had to get to its husband bunny and save him from Conan O'Brien who would never intentionally hurt a bunny


But turns out that on tonights episode Conan is going to say "nyaaaahh" while shaking his head to the side, making his hair bounce for the seven billionth time in the shows existence, with the end result being world peace and the death of said bunny. But wife bunny realized all she had to do to save husband bunny without preventing world peace was bring him an intact dandelion for him to eat which explained the hurry the bunny was in to get to the


yokel's house cuase his yard was full of weeds and such. I continued to follow wife bunny only to see her carefully prance to her death trying to protect the dandelion when she got hit by a car, but at least they'll be together now, and I know that i'll definitely be watching Conan tonight though.

7 days of Amber

Here lies the past week of my life.


Sunday: I had a lovely day of entertaining the kiddies at Barnes and Noble.
No. They do not pay me enough.

With the night ending, my Partner in Crime, Ashley, and I go out of our element, into the weekend-night-scene. We arrive at newly revamped locale, The Office, in support of a new salon industry mixer night- Vanity Sundays. It was cute. Sweet ladies in bunny costumes serve you drinks with live music, as well as a DJ/guy playing an Ipod. We wore dresses and we usually do not. All in all, it was a big day for us, aka "Double A." We also do not know how to pose like ladies.

Monday: My favorite day of the week.

When I used to work every Monday, Ashley and I would like to tell everyone how glad we are on this day because they all seem to hate Mondays. Now I enjoy them even more because all I have is class, then a couple hours to myself, then it's off to see America's favorite cover band, Fevercrotch (see future blog).



Tuesday: I wake up, take my sister to work (because her car has broken down) and then take my grandma to daycare(because my sister's car has broken down.) Sometimes I want to stay there with my grandma because they're always doing arts and crafts fun-stuff. This time I walked her in and there was music playing. As soon as the beats hit this woman's ears, she's rocking back and forth, swaying her arms in the air. This is the moment I realize, thats where I get it from. The caregivers like to tell us how my grandma is the best dancer there.

Next, I head to a job interview. Oops! Didn't I say I wasn't going to do that anymore? I'm really not even too sure what this job is, but i spent five minutes before my interview, in my car, writing out how I would convince a high school student to work towards going to college. I was hired on the spot. I was even impressed with some of the things that came out of my mouth. For ten hours a week I am now a College Peer Advisor. http://www.sandiegocalsoap.com/star/index.php .That's CAL-Soaps website. It's who I work for... it's legit. I am just happy to be working in an educational environment again. After this interview, I head over to Best Buy to wait half an hour for them to find my last paycheck, from over two months ago. I never liked them there, not one bit. After, I have lunch with an old friend... this, on the other hand, makes me happy. Then off to Barnes and Noble til midnight.


Wednesday: Go to classes, then straight to Barnes and Noble. Very exciting.


Thursday: Wake up, do the sister/grandma routine of the week. Following this, I did one of my favorite things: buying groceries. The cashier and bagger were rather impressed with my selections. What can I say? I love vegetables, especially ones I've never used. I bought some white, green bean-looking things. I still don't know what they're called but I felt I needed to cook with them. Went home, did homework til another night of closing the good ol' B&N.


Friday: I've got the whole day off! This is where I break into an Oingo Boingo song. Don't be surprised if there is dancing involved as well. I start the day off reading THURSDAY's newspaper, with no help from the cat.
I am then off to watch some old friends practice jujitsu on each other in the park. I am not too sure what that's about, but my friend Liz and I find other ways to entertain ourselves with the boys, hugging closely on the ground, in the background. Some of the awesome things we managed to do: Liz knitted while Amber read FRIDAY's paper. A visit from the ice cream man. Then we fly a kite that I happen to keep in my trunk for "just in case" reasons. The boys finish so we go eat at Ranchos, then decide to play volleyball until it gets too dark. Rather than going for my idea of watching little kids play a major game of soccer down the street, we sit in the park and do nothing for two hours. This is before we go see some show at some place. The first band(don't know the name, don't care), were hardcore/metal and weren't very much fun for me. The second band, Tiltwheel, have been around forever and were good-time fun. Another friend gets a hold of me when he's done with the San Diego Beer Fest.... we go catch the last two songs of a Fevercrotch set and the night ends there.


Saturday: What everything was leading up to the rest of the week. It's Pagan Pride Day at Balboa Park! Really not as interesting as I thought it would be, although I did see a lady predict that some guy had a cat. Turns out he has TWO, so I guess she was double correct.
There was live music and a couple girls taught us how to play some games.There was a pentagram with pegs sticking out. We had to throw rings at it in attempt to get them around the pegs. There was another pentagram as well. This one had holes in which we had to throw bean bags through. Not too sure what the point of these games were, but we won prizes so that was cool. Ashley got a Pokemon and I got this red dog.
We went on a Halloween costume adventure where I wanted to purchase this Alligator head in the close-out section. I was willing to pay less than five dollars.They wanted to charge me $29.99. IT HAS NO EYES!!! ... those people were insane. My final big event of the day was a viewing of "Burn After Reading." I enjoyed it... on a couple different levels even. I decided to go to my place of work ON my day off to buy season two of Dexter, but it was sold out. That's not so much fun, but a coworker is going to let me borrow it, so money was saved in the event... that's always nice. Now I'm here battling my cat over who gets more room on the chair, with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on in the background, because that's what my ex-boyfriend, who is technically my husband, put on before he fell asleep.

END WEEK.

i like gum

I have been looking for Orbits positively pomegranate flavored gum ever since I had heard of its existence months ago. I went up and down the coast in August from San Diego to San Francisco looking for this limited edition masterpiece. Every time we stopped somewhere I looked for it, with no luck and no success.

I had just about given up hope until I received the text "I got you the best present ever" from one, Ashley Nicole Hulson. Ok, when she sent me that message I had no idea what it was she had gotten me, but upon receiving it, I couldn't have asked for anything better!! Thank you, for finding me what I have been looking for all of my life, or at least the last couple of months.



As a fellow gum enthusiast, Ashley understood what it would mean to me to try this new flavored, chewing gum. 1: I only chew Orbits, so its exciting when a new flavor comes out and 2: It's not everyday they come out with a flavor that doesn't have the word mint in it. At least since middle school, I was known as the gum girl. People knew they could come to me, ask for gum, and not be denied or disappointed.

I had a daily battle with my tenth grade English teacher. It's a battle I still face today being employed by Barnes and Noble. Everyday I walked in... late, she would say "Amber, spit out your gum." Sure enough, I had gum and I would spit it out. On one occasion, this teacher of mine made the class wait until my friend and I arrived to start the class. As usual we walked in a tad bit late and as soon as we walked in the whole class told me to spit out my gum. That teacher of mine thought she was so clever, knowing how predictable I was at the time. On a side note this is the same teacher that, two years later, cried because the year she retired the same friend and I were the only ones who brought her flowers, cause in all reality, she was a great teacher and she deserved them.

Now, back to being me. Barnes and Noble thinks they can tell me I can't chew gum. I especially like it when I'm told one day, to spit my gum out by a manager and the next day, I see the same manager chewing her own gum on the book floor. I just wanted to point that out, I don't like to complain about my retail jobs because what else would I expect. But it's so easy to do just that. I love working in a book store. I'm pretty sure I'll end up being a librarian.

All in all, I love gum... Orbits to be exact and have NOW tried every flavor I know of in existence. My daily gum of choice continues to remain Raspberry Mint. This was very important.

Spring Awakening

I don’t know why, but I felt like I needed to see this quaint new musical called, Spring Awakening. It could have been the five Tony awards it acquired this year, or the amount of controversial attention it received. What I do know is that I was surprised, impressed and awkwardly uncomfortable through the duration of the evening.
I honestly knew nothing of what this play would be like, other than an article I read in the San Diego Reader and a sample of the soundtrack that I listened to while covering a break in the music department at work. To be even more honest, neither of those enticed me much to go out and actually see this production. It wasn’t until I found out that the production was closing that weekend at the Balboa Theatre, when I decided this was something I probably shouldn’t miss. I’m glad to say that I didn’t.
Before I get to the part where I actually go see, Spring Awakening, I feel it is very important to discuss the acquiring of my tickets. If there is one thing the reader takes away from this blog, I hope that it is the awareness of the availability of “rush tickets.” Now this concept, although new to me, reeks of genius! For two hours, starting three hours BEFORE the show begins, the same tickets people have already paid more than double for, are on sale for twelve and twenty dollars. It’s reasonable that these won’t be the best seats in the house because the advance tickets buyers already picked those, but they really are not horrible. It just provides an opportunity for those theatre lovers lacking the required funds, like say, a full-time student, to attend things they never would have before.
My friend and I get arrived right as the play was beginning and the opening scene is of a little girl asking her mother the time-old question of where babies originate. This is a typical question found in today’s entertainment world, but because of the mothers answer, the audience later discovers that this was a very defining moment in the young girl’s life. For the unsuspecting, this also introduces the main theme of the play: sex. Who would have thought??
I wasn’t kidding when I said the play was awkwardly uncomfortable. From the scene where a young male student holds a picture in one hand while physically pleasing himself with the other, to the moment where the new, young couple basically has sex on stage, I knew this was not a play I would want to see sitting next to my mother. Once I got over the initial shock, I appreciated the raciness of the whole thing that is truly needed to convey the issues and emotions that adolescents deal with today. I should know; I was one of them!
Overall, my personal favorite thing about this production was the band/orchestra being in plain sight the whole time, upstage of the actual actors. The reason I was reluctant to actually attend this play at all was because, from what I knew, the music was more modern and pop-based, unlike the traditional musical that I enjoy. To my surprise the collaboration of classic musical influence and modern rock was truly moving. I could hear every instrument, individually, do what it needed to create this modern day masterpiece.
The music and the concept are well on their way to becoming a much more talked about event. I wouldn’t be surprised that when this tour of the production is over and the second is on the way, tickets will be sold out nationwide. I advise those that can, to attend and invite everyone you know AND their mothers (if they would be comfortable in that kind of situation).