This weekend the husband had a friend visiting from out of town and they planned to go to a Thunder game. My parents have season tickets so he hit them up and they gave them to him. The seats are in the nosebleed section, like seriously about the fourth row from the top but hey, it’s still a game and we were grateful, so no complaining. Then a friend of the hubby’s who also has season tickets, which are not in the nosebleed section, offered to sell his tickets. So the hubby upgraded. We already had my parents tickets so I called them to see if either of my sisters could use them or if my parents wanted them back. No one could use them so about an hour before the game I decided that M and I would go.
We all went to the game together and when the guys parted way I gave husband a quick kiss and proceeded to the escalator. I noticed a guy at the top of the escalators staring at M and I but didn’t really think anything of it. He was in a Thunder shirt with a badge around his neck, he looked official so I just thought he was there as crowd control. Or something. As we stepped off the escalator he approached us. I thought he was coming to check our tickets but instead he said “How come the guy you kissed went one way and you guys came up here?”
I was really too startled to do anything except respond, so I said “Because we’re sitting in different sections.” To which he handed me something and said “Not anymore.” I looked down and what he had given me were two tickets to a suite. Which I thought was totally awesome.
When we went back down we ran into the guys, I told them what happened and asked if they wanted to upgrade. But they wanted us to take the tickets so off to the suite we went. Now, I’ve never been in the suite section of the games but I knew right away it was different. Usually you see fans wearing Thunder shirts and tennis shoes – that’s pretty much standard game day attire. Except not in the suite area – I swear 95% of the women I saw were wearing riding boots. The other 5% were in sandals or Toms. No tennis shoes for this crowd. That’s when I realized how expensive the suites must be and I got even more excited.
I’m thinking this must be some kind of random promotional thing sponsored by the Thunder and was feeling pretty happy we were picked. We walk into the suite and there are a few people there and someone comes up and tells me there are beers and sodas in the fridge – to help myself. A little bit after the game starts the guy that gave me the tickets is there and he comes up and tells me that my husband can come over and instructs me to go ahead and invite him. Which I did.
Husband asks me who’s sponsoring the suite and suggests hitting them up for a donation for our conference silent auction. So I find the lady that told me about the sodas and asked her who was sponsoring it and she tells me that it belongs to her and her husband (the guy who gave me the tickets). I was floored. I really thought it was something Thunder was doing and while I was grateful, it was nothing like the appreciation I had when I learned it was just the generosity of two individuals. And I do mean generosity – they had a dessert cart come by and told us to order anything we wanted. M got ice cream and jelly beans and was in heaven.
I found out that they own an oil drilling company and invite employees and business associates to the games but always try to give away a few seats too. They were the nicest, most generous people. I started a conversation with a man there and found out he was their personal driver but they made sure he was able to join them to watch the game. How cool is that?
It was just a really cool experience – the game itself, but mostly witnessing people who were so willing and eager to share.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
TGIFF
I've declared today Frumpy Friday in honor of my disheveled appearance. It's an interesting cross between unkept and nerdy. And when I say nerdy, I really mean nerdy. As in not being able to find anyone to sit with in the high school cafeteria nerdy.
This is what I call my "Mom" look. *Sigh
I always thought when I had children that I would be the type of woman that still managed to pull herself together each day. Who could have imagined exactly how hard that would be?
I blame soap operas.
I was a latch-key kid so when we got home in the late afternoons the tv was our babysitter. And what's on in the late afternoons? Soap Operas.
I wasn't interested at first but that's what my older sister watched and everyone understands that in the hierarchy of siblings the oldest always wins. Always. In fact, my entire childhood I think I rode shot gun a grand total of twice. So soaps it was.
All the women were beautiful. No one ever had a rushed morning, a bad hair day, or wrinkled pants because she forgot to take the clothes out of the dryer. Wives could work all day and serve a five course meal for dinner, their places were always immaculate and you never heard husbands complain about the laundry piling up. Children played quietly, would only appear occasionally and they were always crisp and clean with cute little bows in their hair. They never fought, had accidents or threw up on the couch.
See? See how that might be misleading?
I became convinced that it would be easy to have it all. Build a career, run a household and always look amazing? Yeah, I can do that. Or maybe I'll just settle for the frazzled Mom look...
This is what I call my "Mom" look. *Sigh
I always thought when I had children that I would be the type of woman that still managed to pull herself together each day. Who could have imagined exactly how hard that would be?
I blame soap operas.
I was a latch-key kid so when we got home in the late afternoons the tv was our babysitter. And what's on in the late afternoons? Soap Operas.
I wasn't interested at first but that's what my older sister watched and everyone understands that in the hierarchy of siblings the oldest always wins. Always. In fact, my entire childhood I think I rode shot gun a grand total of twice. So soaps it was.
All the women were beautiful. No one ever had a rushed morning, a bad hair day, or wrinkled pants because she forgot to take the clothes out of the dryer. Wives could work all day and serve a five course meal for dinner, their places were always immaculate and you never heard husbands complain about the laundry piling up. Children played quietly, would only appear occasionally and they were always crisp and clean with cute little bows in their hair. They never fought, had accidents or threw up on the couch.
See? See how that might be misleading?
I became convinced that it would be easy to have it all. Build a career, run a household and always look amazing? Yeah, I can do that. Or maybe I'll just settle for the frazzled Mom look...
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Batter Up
M is starting t-ball. She had a softball clinic last week. She was totally pumped about it until they did the pitch rotation. She was one of the last to bat and all the girls were watching her. She only hit a few and one of her friends started to yell “Strike” every time she missed and she got embarrassed. Suddenly she decided she didn't want to play t-ball anymore.
She felt a little better after I told her that no one would be pitching to her, she would be hitting off the tee. She's still a little hesitant but we're making her do it anyway. It's important that she give it a chance. And I want her to learn that she can't just quit anytime she gets tired, doesn’t like something, or finds something hard. If life worked like that I would have quit a long time ago.
I told her that I played, that I didn’t play very well, but I still played and had fun. Well, maybe not “fun”. There’s nothing fun about being the weak link in a team sport. In fact, it actually totally sucks. Thankfully I was young enough that no one really cared. Too much.
I told her I would show her my old softball pictures. I have to have those as evidence that I did actually do something athletic once. For most people, it’s kinda hard to believe. I was digging around trying to find them last night and I found my old scrapbook.
I started a scrapbook when I was in 6th grade. It isn’t the kind of scrapbook that people do today. It actually wasn’t cool back then and I remember my Mom and I had a hard time actually even finding one. It’s a plain red book with brown paper and all my stuff is just glued in – there is nothing cute about it. But man, it was so funny to look through it and to see some of the things that I saved. Like the wrapper from a piece of gum that I got from the first guy I liked and the grocery list from the first time my mom sent me to the store. I guess these were big things back then.
I also found some old writing awards. I had completely forgotten that I had received them and it was weird to be reminded of how much I used to write. To remember how much I enjoyed it. That’s what I did for fun – wrote short stories and poetry. I wanted to be a writer, the next Sylvia Plath.
When I got older and became burdened by life’s injustices, I wanted to do something to make a difference, to change the world. I thought politics was a way to make that happen so I decided I wanted to be a speech writer, the person behind the words. After working for a US congressman and interning in DC, I decided politics wasn’t really my forte – it was vicious and cut throat and I didn’t have the heart for it.
I never really thought of being a writer after that. I filled up my life with so many other things that writing lost its priority and was forgotten. That’s how I know it wasn’t my calling. That and the fact that most of what I wrote wasn’t very good. But I have just enough writer in me to put together a birthday poem for the girls each year. It’s not great poetry but it’s something special just for them and that pretty much makes it the best writing I’ll ever do.
She felt a little better after I told her that no one would be pitching to her, she would be hitting off the tee. She's still a little hesitant but we're making her do it anyway. It's important that she give it a chance. And I want her to learn that she can't just quit anytime she gets tired, doesn’t like something, or finds something hard. If life worked like that I would have quit a long time ago.
I told her that I played, that I didn’t play very well, but I still played and had fun. Well, maybe not “fun”. There’s nothing fun about being the weak link in a team sport. In fact, it actually totally sucks. Thankfully I was young enough that no one really cared. Too much.
I told her I would show her my old softball pictures. I have to have those as evidence that I did actually do something athletic once. For most people, it’s kinda hard to believe. I was digging around trying to find them last night and I found my old scrapbook.
I started a scrapbook when I was in 6th grade. It isn’t the kind of scrapbook that people do today. It actually wasn’t cool back then and I remember my Mom and I had a hard time actually even finding one. It’s a plain red book with brown paper and all my stuff is just glued in – there is nothing cute about it. But man, it was so funny to look through it and to see some of the things that I saved. Like the wrapper from a piece of gum that I got from the first guy I liked and the grocery list from the first time my mom sent me to the store. I guess these were big things back then.
I also found some old writing awards. I had completely forgotten that I had received them and it was weird to be reminded of how much I used to write. To remember how much I enjoyed it. That’s what I did for fun – wrote short stories and poetry. I wanted to be a writer, the next Sylvia Plath.
When I got older and became burdened by life’s injustices, I wanted to do something to make a difference, to change the world. I thought politics was a way to make that happen so I decided I wanted to be a speech writer, the person behind the words. After working for a US congressman and interning in DC, I decided politics wasn’t really my forte – it was vicious and cut throat and I didn’t have the heart for it.
I never really thought of being a writer after that. I filled up my life with so many other things that writing lost its priority and was forgotten. That’s how I know it wasn’t my calling. That and the fact that most of what I wrote wasn’t very good. But I have just enough writer in me to put together a birthday poem for the girls each year. It’s not great poetry but it’s something special just for them and that pretty much makes it the best writing I’ll ever do.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
I Got Lost
Yay! I finally found my way back to the blog world! Somewhere between Working Street and Family Avenue I lost my way and took a wrong turn on Distracted Lane. But I'm here now so let's get caught up, shall we?
*blows dust off keyboard
I had two fails today. Two. In one day. That was quite an accomplishment - some people go whole days without one.
The first was actually a gross fail. I've been working out again. And I use the term "again" loosely, since it's still new and I don't technically have enough history to be throwing around the term "again", since it kinda implies that I've established a dedicated workout pattern. I have been doing well, but it's too early in the game to declare dedication. I'm doing the video again - you know, the P90 one. Before you get impressed, let me remind you that this is actually the cheap date version of the real video, P90X.
I've also decided to use my lunch hour to go to the gym and walk. This is huge for me because it's easy for me to get caught up and skip lunch all together. Well, the lunch hour. I still eat, I just do it over my keyboard while I'm working. So I'm trying really hard to actually make a lunch date with myself and get over there. Today, as I was changing into my gym clothes I realized I had no socks. Fail #1. It was either go without socks or don't go. I decided to go. The first 15 minutes were okay but by the end...well, it was just gross. Guess who plans on taking an extra set of socks tomorrow for emergencies?
Then later in the afternoon I got a phone call that went terribly, horribly wrong. Our phone system has caller ID and someone that is employed with the same agency as my husband called our office. Not only did the agency name pop up on the screen, but the prefix was the same so I initially thought the call was coming from him. The person on the other end, however, had a heavy accent and didn't wish to speak with me. I'll spare you the gory details but let's just say that someone is a big practical joker so someone else thought they were being set up. That second someone realized too late that it was in fact, a real call. A real call NOT from her husband. Fail #2.
The good thing about these fails though is that I am guaranteed to have socks for tomorrow and I can be confident that every phone conversation I have this week will be better than the one today. So hooray for me for getting that stuff out of the way.
Hooray also for considerate, thoughtful friends - especially the kind that read my blog and care enough about my little ramblings to provide the opportunity to do something I had never done before. Like shoot a gun. That's right folks, not only did I hold a gun, I actually shot it. A few times. And a few of those times I think I may have actually managed to not shut my eyes when I pulled the trigger.
And if that weren't exciting enough, I also got this:
So thank you Rob and Nicole for the experience, the great conversation and the chocolate. Because really, what more could a girl want?
I had two fails today. Two. In one day. That was quite an accomplishment - some people go whole days without one.
The first was actually a gross fail. I've been working out again. And I use the term "again" loosely, since it's still new and I don't technically have enough history to be throwing around the term "again", since it kinda implies that I've established a dedicated workout pattern. I have been doing well, but it's too early in the game to declare dedication. I'm doing the video again - you know, the P90 one. Before you get impressed, let me remind you that this is actually the cheap date version of the real video, P90X.
I've also decided to use my lunch hour to go to the gym and walk. This is huge for me because it's easy for me to get caught up and skip lunch all together. Well, the lunch hour. I still eat, I just do it over my keyboard while I'm working. So I'm trying really hard to actually make a lunch date with myself and get over there. Today, as I was changing into my gym clothes I realized I had no socks. Fail #1. It was either go without socks or don't go. I decided to go. The first 15 minutes were okay but by the end...well, it was just gross. Guess who plans on taking an extra set of socks tomorrow for emergencies?
Then later in the afternoon I got a phone call that went terribly, horribly wrong. Our phone system has caller ID and someone that is employed with the same agency as my husband called our office. Not only did the agency name pop up on the screen, but the prefix was the same so I initially thought the call was coming from him. The person on the other end, however, had a heavy accent and didn't wish to speak with me. I'll spare you the gory details but let's just say that someone is a big practical joker so someone else thought they were being set up. That second someone realized too late that it was in fact, a real call. A real call NOT from her husband. Fail #2.
The good thing about these fails though is that I am guaranteed to have socks for tomorrow and I can be confident that every phone conversation I have this week will be better than the one today. So hooray for me for getting that stuff out of the way.
Hooray also for considerate, thoughtful friends - especially the kind that read my blog and care enough about my little ramblings to provide the opportunity to do something I had never done before. Like shoot a gun. That's right folks, not only did I hold a gun, I actually shot it. A few times. And a few of those times I think I may have actually managed to not shut my eyes when I pulled the trigger.
And if that weren't exciting enough, I also got this:
So thank you Rob and Nicole for the experience, the great conversation and the chocolate. Because really, what more could a girl want?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)