Making It to Marshall

I feel like that dog sled guy who would come to our schools in Grade School and tell us about how crazy-cold the snow is in Alaska. You know, Vern something. Why do I feel like him? Cause we totally almost died this weekend.

My ill-fated journey began the night before we left. Holli and I were dining with Holly Smith and Bob Davidson at a local cafe. This is where I began to feel the effects of some sort of illness. I managed to catch on digital film the awesomeness of our meal, but I felt none the better for it. The cafe, in fact, was undergoing renovations, and they were down to one waitress for the entire building. And she wasn’t very good.

The next day it appeared that it would snow something fierce. There was cloudy skies and blowing snow and drifting and all kinds of horribleness, that, for a moment, it appeared that we could not make the journey. Holli, however, was very eager to do it. “We can! We have to!” she would say. And so, we did.

We loaded up her vehicle, and she drove. I was starting to feel the beginning effects of the illness that would, in time, claim my life. I road shotgun and picked the music. Our goal was to beat the darkness to Marshall, but Darkness rides on hoofed angels, and it was really cloudy. The drive was awful. Bryce called to remind us that we were missing the beginning of the Arrested Development 4 episode season finale.

We finally get there. Bryce tries, real quick-like, to fill us in on what we missed during the commercials, but we really just tune him out. We order pizza, Katie Burnight, Holli’s best-friend-from-high-school comes over, and to finish up the night we played some games with Katie’s friend Lori. Losing pretty handily at Trivial Pursuit DVD edition to Bryce and Lindsey, I faked a stroke and we all went to bed.

I didn’t sleep well. I woke up at 7:30 and showered and hung out waiting for everyone else to wake up, which was like four hours later. After Bryce woke up, we decided on a game plan for food. Bryce asked where we wanted to eat. I asked if they had a Burger King, which they did. So, being hungry, Bryce, Holli, and I jetted to Burger King to eat. While in line, Bryce suddenly blurts out, “We have a KFC. Do you like KFC?” For a moment he thought that he had forgotten to list that off, but there had been no list; there had only been choice. He continued to bring up random facts about KFC until we were pretty sure he wanted us to eat there instead.

It was here that we noticed how much Holli rolls her eyes. I have always naturally assumed that she rolls her eyes when she’s excited. Her eyes get fluttery, like they just can’t look at one thing, they have to take in the world! At least, that’s the only explanation I can come up with as to why she rolls her eyes so many times around me. I’m just that amazing. Bryce started to keep track. He was just as fascinated with this profound new “excitement meter” as I was.

Then Bryce gave us a tour of the school, including the Forbidden Zones, and we learned a whole lot about what to steal, where to steal from, how to get away with it, and how often to attempt to steal it. Oh, and the Spur.

After the tour we visited Katie’s apartment, looked at her room (which is covered in photos), met her roommate Allison and her roommate’s little buddy, Maria. They were making a super wide, strange-looking yarn bracelet. We never did figure out what it was supposed to look like. After some chit-chat there, and some TV watching, and some catching up, we headed back to Bryce’s to have some lasagna which Lindsey and Bryce made and watch some Season One of Arrested Development. I’ve seen Season One enough to have most of the dialogue memorized.

After food we went to the basketball game. It was here that Holli noticed that her cellphone was missing. Bryce had some uber-problems with the paper (and getting a camera for pictures), and after sitting with the students, we instead sat in front of the band. It was here that one of the opponents got a rebound and got fowled. Then he suddenly screams “AHHHHH!” with Bryce standing right in front of him. Bryce cowers and begins to shrink away when the crowd answers back with “AHHHHHH!”. He practically jumped into Lindsey’s arms. He was pretty sure the basketball player was coming after him.

Then we rented Red-Eye. We actually wanted to rent Elizabethtown, but no place in Marshall had it. Bryce had tried another list to help us figure out what to do, but a list is only as good as the person who decides to take charge of it, and if someone wants to take charge of it, then why don’t they just figure out what everyone wants to do? More eye rolling, and everyone was guilty this time. I fell asleep during Red-Eye, and I’m not sure that I missed much of anything.

Sunday, then, was mostly mass, cell phone searching, cell phone locating (it was in her car), and Mike’s Cafe. Bryce seemed keen on getting me to talk, even though my voice was nearly non-existant. Despite my attempts at making Holli my megaphone, I eventually gave up, attempted to actually talk to people, and then just lapsed into moody silence, as is my perogative.

The drive back was nicer than the drive up, and I got a little sleep in. God bless Holli for driving me around. I think, all in all, it was a great weekend. Holli seemed to get alone really well with Bryce and Lindsey. I haven’t read it yet, but I know that Holli posted about this weekend. Bryce’s post seemed pretty positive, too. I guess, despite my crippling desease and illness ravaged body, everyone had a great time.