Bamboozle Replay!

You know when you have one of those days that's so awesome you just keep replaying it in your head? Yesterday at Bamboozle was definitely one of those days. Even with the rain.

For those of you that don't know, Bamboozle is a two day, all day, outdoor concert. It was held in the parking lots of the Meadowlands Sport Complex all the way in East Rutherford, NJ. There were about 10 stages and 50 performers. On Sunday alone. Jeff and I went on Sunday because No Doubt was headlining! I think the show started around 10AM but we didn't want to see anyone until almost 4, so we got there around 3. Thanks to Jeff's fantastic driving and navigation we got there with no problems.

The first person we saw was Bo Burnham, he's a comedian and I think he's about 19. I've seen him before and I like him because he sings a lot. He was kind of hard to hear though, what with the super loud bands playing nearby. Then we went and saw Sum 41. I only knew a few of their songs and we stood in the back of the crowd, but it was still fun and a good warm-up for what was to come.

I think The Used came on about 6:30. I like The Used. Yes, they scream in some of their songs, but they also have some amazingly sweet songs (not that they play them in concert) so it's like the best of both worlds. Jeff loves The Used so we got pretty close to the stage. Now, I had been warned about the crazy crowd but I really didn't understand until it started to happen. Here's the band. I don't remember what song they were playing.

So we are up front and squished and to my right a space opens up. I guess Jeff saw me looking at it because he leaned down and screamed in my ear "Don't go over there, it's a pit!" Thank goodness he told me! Sure enough all these kids were running around and slamming into each other and every couple of minutes it felt like the entire crowd got shoved, hard. At that point I latched firmly onto Jeff's arm and did not let got for the rest of the set. Besides the mosh pits there was also crowd surfing. I am not a fan of having people thrown on my shoulders. But the most amazing thing to me what that so many of these kids fell to the ground and then got right back up into the crowd again! Here's a pic of the crazy crowd.

After The Used we had over an hour to kill before No Doubt came on. So we wandered around, looked at merch (and bought nothing) and then went inside the stadium to get a snack and sit down. Me and Jeff. I made him take the picture and my camera has a delay so he is saying "Is it taking the picture?" Lol.

We went to the stage where No Doubt was playing at least a half hour before they came on because we wanted to be close to the stage. And we were and the wait was worth it, but let me tell you I have never been so squished in my whole life! Literally, there were people pressed up against me on every side. But like I said, it was worth it. And finally . . . NO DOUBT!!

They were of course awesome and it was so great to see them together after 5 years. They all looked like they were having such a good time. They sang so many songs I love, Running, Hey Baby, Underneath it All, Bathwater, New, It's My Life and more that I can't remember right now! I love Gwen's smile in this pic.

Ok, so let me pause here for one last story and then I promise the rest of this blog will be mostly pics and few comments. So when ND first came on stage the crowd surged forward and Jeff and I got separated, there were a few people between us. I think by the second song he had grabbed my hand and pulled me over next to him again. Remember, everyone is pressed up against each other and people are dancing and jumping and everything. Maybe the the third song into the set and I realize that Jeff is in front of me and something is going on. So I grab his arm and it feels like he is being pulled away from me, and hard! I grab onto him with both hands and I am still struggling to pull him back next to me. I remember thinking "What the f*ck is happening?!" I literally had both my arms wrapped around him and was pulling for about two minutes before he was finally back next to me, on my left side. And I look over to my right and see some dude with designer eyeglasses (I hate when guys wear glasses with designer labels on them) was staring at us. Jeff and I went back to watching the concert (although now I was latched to his arm again) and I had no idea what had happened. It wasn't until we were leaving that he told me the story.

The story is that there was some little bratty girl in front of him who kept elbowing and shoving him every time the crowd surged. So when there was quiet minute he yelled at her (and I am going to give you the G-rated version of what he said) "You're in the pit, if you don't want to get pushed get out!" So she screams "What?!" and starts to go at him! He, being a good guy, does not retaliate. But I'm pretty sure that he wanted to at least get in her face because I think when I was pulling him back next to me I was actually holding him back. And the dude with the designer eyeglasses that glared at us, well he was the bratty girl's boyfriend. But apparently Jeff glared right back at him and dude could tell that Jeff was pissed and meant business so the dude just let it go and nothing else happened, much to Jeff's dismay!

As promised here are more pics of the show.

I love this one of Gwen, it looks like she's in a bubble!

Tom on the key-tar for Hey Baby!

And because Gwen is still awesome she climbed the scaffolding during Just a Girl!!

For their encore the sang the new song, Stand and Deliver . . .

And one of my fav's Sunday Morning!!!

And that was the end of the show. We drove home and went out to eat and I crawled in bed around 3AM. It was a fantastic day.

Meet Fancy!

I finally got a car! Hooray!! Her name is Fancy. Because she is fancy and I like that song by Reba. The song is about a prostitute. Lol.

Anyway. As you can see Fancy is black. Which I am excited about. And she has a purple pinstripe!! I don't think you can see the color really well in this picture, but its a lilac purple. Love it.

Leather interior, sunroof, 6 disc cd player, Sirus radio, Synch (that thing on the commercial where you talk to the car and it talks back), heated sideview mirrors, alloy wheels . . . see why I named her Fancy?!

She also gets awesome gas mileage. I'm pretty excited about finally having a new car. Thanks to everyone who helped me during the process. Especially Pookie who went test driving with me and helped me research, and Jeff who listened to me countless times when I was debating about which car to get. I owe you guys some cookies or something.

Goodbye, Bag of Rocks!

I'm pretty sure that you all know I was in an accident and my car was totaled. But I thought I would share some pics. And for those of you that don't know the details - I was driving down my street and a guy in an Explorer backed out of his driveway and smacked into my car. $9600 worth of damage to my poor Bag of Rocks.

Luckily I was the only person in the car. My only injuries were some bruising and minor burns from the seatbelt and airbag.

My deflated air bag. Ha.

The impact of the other car hitting me kind of spun me around, so this is the second impact. Super fun.

And since this seemed like a depressing post I am throwing in a picture of Penny,being supercute.

Now I just need to get a new car!

Put Your Thinking Caps On, People

Ok. I need some help. For a while now I have been thinking of getting another tattoo. I have two already. One on my back, below my neck and another on my right thigh. The one on my back is a black fancy scroll design and the one on my thigh is a few little green leaves of ivy.

My Aunt Carole, whom I loved dearly, passed away two years ago this summer. I started thinking about getting something in memory of her. And then I decided that I should get something that represents not only my Aunt Carole, but my mom and my Aunt Diane as well. My whole life I have envied, watched, listened and admired the closeness that they share as sisters. So I figured it would be fitting to include all three of them in my tattoo.

The idea that I came up with is to get a chain or bouquet of their three birth flowers: violet, lily of the valley and daffodil. I wanted to get them on the side of my left foot. I went to a tattoo place and the girl told me tattoos on the side of the foot sometimes last only a few months. She said they wear away from the constant friction of your shoes and socks. Which seams weird to me, I mean the ink is under your skin. So I am going to ask some other places as well.

But just in case, I need a back up spot! I chose the side of my foot because some day I hope to work with kids and that is not a completely visible spot, but can be seen if I want it to. So now I'm torn. Right now I have two options I have thought of: 1. Get the tattoo more on the top of my foot, but still over to the side-ish. 2. See if they can do a cover-up of my ivy tattoo on my thigh.

The downside of that option 2 is that I don't know if it can be done and well, I just think the flowers will look cuter on my foot. But the upside is that I don't love the ivy tattoo so turning it into something that I do like would be cool. Plus I could get it bigger on my thigh. On my foot it would be pretty small. But I do love flower tattoos on feet! I love when I get pedicures and my toenails are all pretty so I think having pretty flowers would be even cuter!

So what do you guys think?! About the idea in general and the location? I'm open to suggestions. But I will tell you I have already ruled out these locations: back, boobs, hands, neck, biceps and calves. Please, tell me what you think!!

Happy Birthday, Michelle!!

Today is Michelle's (my sister-in-law) 25th birthday!! This morning I came up with the idea of writing a post about people on their birthday. Michelle is the first. But everyone else, watch out on your birthday!

Michelle and my brother Jason (or Pookie, as I call him) met back in 2000, when he was 18 and she was 16. Where did they meet? Chuckie Cheese! They both worked there. Lol. I'm sorry, but it's cute. I don't remember the first time I actually met Michelle. But I do remember hearing my brother on the phone with her for what seemed liked hours at a time. They dated for several years and in 2005 they got engaged!

I was a bridesmaid in their 2006 wedding and I have to say, without a doubt, Michelle was the perfect bride. No bridezilla here. She never freaked out or got mean or bossy during the wedding planning. She was always just excited and happy. I think the best way to describe it is that she owned the day. Not in a controlling or attention seeking way, but you could just tell that she was so happy and had so much fun. So many brides seem to be nervous and fidgity on their wedding day, but not Michelle. She was complelety confident, like this day was her destiny and she was loving every minute of living it.

Michelle reminds me of my mom in a lot of ways. They are both positive people. They are both easy-going and pretty laid back. They are both passionate about loving their families and put family above all else. Both of them would do anything for their family. Of course Michelle is human, she's not a Stepford Wife, she gets annoyed just like everyone else. But it never seems to last. She doesn't hold onto it. And that makes her so pleasant to be around.

I'm lucky to have such a sweetheart for a sister-in-law. Happy 25th, Shell!!!! Love ya.

Step One

I have been faithfully stalking the websites of several universities, looking for a job. For those of you that don't know, my plan is to get a job at a university so I can go back to school for free.

Tonight I applied for my first job! It's not completely ideal. However, I have been searching for several months and this is the first job posting that is remotely close to something that would work for me. I figured that it was a sign and the least I can do is apply.

If I am offered the job I am not sure that I will accept it. But the posting closes Tuesday, so I decided to apply tonight rather than wait and think about it. The commute would be over an hour. And it's full time. I would have preferred part time. But the pay is decent and the hours are good.

Anyway. Even if nothing happens I still feel like this is a positive thing. I'm putting myself out there. And I will continue to do so until I get what I want.

P.S. Please keep this on the DL. My current employers obviously know nothing about it.

Hair Crisis

My mom gave me a gift certificate to the hair salon that she goes to. I decided to get my hair trimmed and glazed. Glaze is a semi-permanent color that also makes your hair shiny. Or maybe it's called gloss. Whatever. So I went to the hairstylist that my mom goes to. She has cut my hair before but never colored it. I explained to her that I wanted the color to match my natural color or be a little darker. I clearly told her nothing with red tones. Red looks horrible on me. My skin is too pink.



So she puts the color on and sat me under the blow dryer. I sat under the dryer for the required 15 minutes. And then I sat for at least another 15 minutes waiting for someone to rinse my hair. As soon as I sat in the chair I could see that my hair was orange. Literally orange on the top of my head. So I pointed this out to the hair dresser. She didn't say anything about it before I brought it up. Did she think I was not going to notice?? She decided to glaze my hair again in an attempt to get rid of the orange. Well the orange went away but then it was red. So she glazed it for the third time. She used a blue glaze to try and tone down the red. I was so upset. Literally sitting in the chair trying not to cry. My hair is the one thing I am vain about and I was so sad that it was ruined.

By this point I had been at the salon for over three hours and I just wanted out of there. So I told her that it was fine, they dried my hair and I left. But my hair still looked crazy! I was several different shades of dark brown. There was a haze of red at the top, the bottom seemed to have a grey tint and the back had a blueish color. I called my friend Kathleen. Because I knew she would be totally honest and tell me the truth. At this point I wasn't sure if I was over-reacting or if it really did look awful. I met up with Kathleen in the Bally's parking lot. She sadly confirmed that my hair was a disaster. We decided that I needed to go somewhere and try to get it fixed.

So I called Dana's new salon, Karma! As I was dialing I started to panic again. It was 2:05 and the salon closes at 3 on Saturday and they are closed on Sunday and Monday. I was freaking out thinking that I was going to be stuck with this mess until Tuesday. So the salon owner answers and when I told her that I need an appointment with Dana AS SOON AS POSSIBLE she put me on hold and then Dana came on the phone. Dana told me to come on over. Whew! I got to the salon and even though it was about 2:20 Dana squeezed me in and fixed my hair! She colored it a nice, dark color to even it out and cover up all the other weird shades. Everyone at the salon was sooo nice. They all stayed late while Dana colored my hair. They really went out of their way to help me and tried to make me feel better and I appreciate it so much! Thank you everyone at Karma and mostly thank you Dana for saving my hair!!!!!!!!!

P.S. I later found out that the reason by hair turned all sorts of weird colors is because two people at the original salon mixed up the glaze colors.