Blonde bridge blunder

Earlier this month, Steve and I drove to Arizona for a friend's wedding. We decided to go the Vegas route and check out the strip since I hadn't been there in years (and I probably won't go back for years - I know the rest of Vegas is probably a lovely place, but I maintain the strip is just bizarre...like a cracked-out Disneyland). We stayed the night to break up the drive and early the next morning we headed over Hoover Dam and on to Phoenix.

There was construction everywhere, especially driving near the dam (of course during which time I heard every "dam" joke Steve could concoct) where they are building a new bridge. Steve, having passed that way more often than I have, knew all about the bridge construction. When you read the conversation below, you'll understand why, following said conversation, Steve told me I had to blog it. It's only fair, since I have called out some of his more impressive moments here.

Steve: Wow, that's going to be weird to drive over.
Me: What? The bridge?
Steve: Yep.
Me: Drive on that thing? No way! It's way too steep - they can't have cars drive on that!
Steve: Um...
Me: Seriously! You'd never make it up the side.
Steve: Yeah...so that's the support for the bridge. They're going to put the actual bridge on top.

Oh.

Yep, in my foggy early-morning daze, I thought this was the actual BRIDGE (sorry for the weird angle - we were driving):




Good thing I'm not an engineer. You can see my concern though, were this the actual bridge, yes?

WTH? Again?

For those of you not familiar with Utah slang, "WTH" would be "What the heck?" And before I continue this post, I just want to clarify that I am not pregnant. Because apparently, when your brain totally craps out on you, that's the first thing people assume.

If you've visited SYA before, you may remember a recent post about me leaving 4 hours early for a baby shower less than 5 miles away. (I'm not linking to it, just look down. It's like 2 inches below this.) Well, I've already topped it. And it hasn't even been a month yet.

One of my dearest friends from high school is getting married next month, so a few of our other friends threw a bridal shower for her (naturally). I looked forward all week to seeing Katie and our other high school gal pals. And I had a super cute present for her. So I told Steve to make plans with the guys and planned my day around the shower.

And then on Friday, Steve picked me up from work. We ran some errands, went to dinner, and then he dropped me off at home to hang out with my sister in law while he went out with the guys. And I totally FORGOT to go to the bridal shower. WTH?!

I woke up Saturday morning and saw the invitation on the fridge and that's when it dawned on me. I missed it. Totally, 100 percent failure. I almost cried (yes, that's true and no, for the second time, I am not pregnant).

And that's it, that's the story. I lose :(

Somebody get this girl a planner

On Saturday, I went to a baby shower for one of my college roommies (because EVERYONE I know is having babies right now - but that's beside the point). I hadn't seen this particular roommie in almost a year, so naturally I planned my day around the 10 a.m. shower. I set my alarm for 9 (you know, just in case I had a particularly late sleep in), but in my early morning grogginess, I set it for 9 a.m. Monday - Friday and didn't even touch the weekend settings.

I woke up at 9:30, noticed the time, and promptly began panicking. I jumped out of bed, sent Steve to run an errand for me, showered fast, wrapped the present (well, put it in a purple bag. Apparently I used all the tissue paper at Christmas or something. Whoops.), waited for Steve to get back with the car, and then dashed like a mad woman out the door. Half way to the car I turned around to get the invitation (and accompanying address). Scanning for the location, I noticed the phrase "from 2 until 4 p.m." Um...what? That's right folks, not only was I not going to be late, I was going to be 4 hours early.

Steve gave me the "you are silly" look, and fair enough, because this isn't the first time that's happened. (Yep, TWO stories in one post! Brace yourselves.)

We went to Cancun on our honeymoon. I knew our flight home left at 7:00 a.m., and since it was an international flight and we had a long shuttle ride to the airport, I scheduled the pickup for 4:45 a.m. We packed everything the night before, showered, and layed our clothes out so all we'd need to do at 4 a.m. was stumble out of bed and put some shoes on.

We arrived at the airport close to 5:30 and got in line to check in for our flight.

"I'm sorry, we don't have you booked on this flight."

"Um...what?" (Maybe that's a common phrase for me. So what?)

After some severe panicking and a bit more research, we discovered that we were, in fact, booked on a flight home, just not that flight (which, btw, wasn't even going to the right state). Our flight left at 11:00 a.m. and we couldn't even check our bags in until two hours before.

Why I was so certain our flight left at 7 is beyond me, but we had to tote our luggage around the tiny Cancun airport for nearly 6 hours. We ended up buying ridiculously overpriced breakfast just so we could sit in the restaurant for a couple of hours. I should mention that because we weren't allowed to check in and clear security yet, there were no chairs. There was floor, and there was ridiculously priced restaurant seating. So after nearly an hour of people looking at us like we were hobos, we opted for the latter.

I was pretty sure any husband of less than a week would contemplate leaving a girl right then and there, but Steve was a good sport about it. We did agree though, that on future vacations HE would be in charge of our travel itinerary.

I have to admit, I thought it was a fluke at the time. But after a repeat performance I'm not so sure. Turns out it might just be...me. Is that a personality flaw? Or can I get away with just being a little quirky?

Welcome to the club part II

One of the quirks I tease Steve about (besides bachelor-style cooking of course) is his tendency to over-explain situations. He's a friendly guy, which is one of his best qualities, but sometimes it leads him to let complete strangers in on a little too much detail.

Once, we were out at a nice dinner and couldn't finish our meal. We both had to get a to-go box and our plates must have looked basically untouched to our waiter. I probably would have said something like, "We weren't as hungry as we thought we were." But Steve, not wanting this man we'd never seen before and will probably never see again to think we didn't like the food, narrated our entire afternoon, including feeding times.

"...and we were really hungry earlier, so we had some sandwiches, and then ended up coming to dinner sooner than we thought..."

Like I said, friendly. He knows the look you get when you've over-explained though. The one that says I'm not really sure why you just told me all that, but I'm too polite to comment about it. And when he gets the look, he invariably turns to me and says, "I over-explained, didn't I?"

A little.

Well, today at work I resolved a minor billing discrepancy that I had mentioned to my boss earlier. I walked all my paperwork down to my boss's desk and proceeded to explain to him exactly what the error had been and how it had been resolved. When I finished and looked up from all my show-and-tell material, the look was unmistakably present.

"Um...that's fine...I trust you to do your job..."

Translation: "I really don't need to know every tiny detail of what you do every day. 'It's resolved' would have been fine and then I could have had those 5 minutes of my life back."

Yup. I have to say though, if it's between being being constantly hovered over (as in my previous work situation), or occasionally getting the look because now I'm trusted with *gasp* my actual job, I'll settle for the latter.

Faux Pas

Yesterday was my cousin's birthday and we had a li'l' family celebration today. When we bought his present, Steve and I decided to hedge our bets and get a gift receipt. So I was feeling so considerate and prepared when he pulled it out of the wrapping paper and when he looked confused by the accompanying paperwork, I just said (maybe a bit smugly) -

"It's a gift receipt."

But he still looked confused and handed it to me across the table.

"No, I think this is..."

The actual receipt. With the "you saved..." line circled and everything.

Whoops.

Hipzy

So I have a tendency to use the phrase, "I know, right?" on a semi-regular basis. One of my co-workers asked what on earth that was supposed to mean (thereby implying that it was a silly thing to say), so in an attempt to defend myself, I looked it up in the Urban Dictionary. If you click the link above, you'll see a variety of definitions, ranging from

• expression of corroboration; much cooler than "i told you so" or "yes."

to

• A way to express the concept of "yes" if you are not quite articulate enough to say that mighty imposing word.

Instead of feeling validated, I started to wonder if my frequent use of this apparently controversial phrase makes me hip, or just ditzy. Perhaps, as my co-worker suggests, it makes me HIPZY. I'm OK with that.