it's a hard knock life

Oh…the state fair. It’s hard to put into the words the awesomeness (is that even a word??) of the state fair so I’m going to give you some pictures to look at instead. The title of this post comes from a sales guy at the chair massage booth. I guess he was not happy with the fact that I used the massager on my friends head instead of his back. So he grabbed it from my hands and, right before he kicked me out of his booth, he exclaimed, “Hey, let’s not turn this into a midway or carnival!” I really fought back the urge to fill him in on the fact that he was at the state fair so it was already a carnival.


This year I went to the fair with two of my favorite people and our first stop was the Bowling for Soup concert. I’m sure you’ve heard of them…they’re great. I’m probably their oldest fan as they seem to mostly appeal to junior high kids. This is me at the concert and, as you can see, I really got into it.



Our next stop was to see the world’s smallest woman. Mr. T and I went to check it out. I thought it would be a hoax but, yes, she was real. It was kind of sad to see someone on display like that…I didn’t know they still did that at the fair.




Next, we hit the rides. I’m terrified of heights so I wouldn’t let the boys drag me on the high rides. We were standing in line for one called Fire Ball but as soon as I saw what it did I was out. I’ll admit that my fear of heights is a little out of hand but I’d much rather stay on the ground. So we rode the Polar Express. I’ve always known the ride to be called the Matterhorn but whatever…














We closed out the night with some good ole fried dessert. It's the State Fair so you have to eat fried food. It's a rule. mmm....fried oreos. They look gross but actually weren’t that bad. However, I don’t plan on making them a regular part of my diet.

In between all of these activities we put in a lot of good people watching. I saw a lot of big hair, mullets, cut-off shorts and several other fashion faux pas. Gotta love the fair!

This will be me next weekend at the Head of the Oklahoma Regatta. My position is in the middle of the boat…seat 5 to be exact.

I’ve had several opportunities to participate in various things through my job. You may remember that I played on a dodge ball team earlier in the year. I’m always willing to give things a try so when I got an email about the rowing team I did not hesitate to sign up. It’s actually been a lot of fun and a great source of exercise.

The skill level required for rowing is not very high (which is probably why I’ve taken to the sport). It’s very relaxing and only requires a certain amount of coordination and flexibility. Sometimes, however, the coordination is a little lacking on my part. During practice a few weeks ago I almost fell out of the boat. My oar dug deep into the water and swung around so fast that I thought for sure I was going in. And let me tell you…the Oklahoma River is not the cleanest so falling in is something I’m trying hard to avoid.

So if you’re around next weekend you should come out and watch me race. I have a feeling that my team will do pretty well. That or I’ll fall out of the boat. Either way…it promises to be entertaining.

It’s funny to think about the things I have done to keep myself entertained. My college years are full of odd stories involving events that happened while I tried to entertain myself on an extremely limited budget and a small amount of sleep. The fish wedding is one such story.

I was the proud of owner of two fish. Russell was a goldfish I bought my junior year. I named him after the Wal-mart employee who got him out of the fish tank for me. Shenequah was a goldfish I bought my senior year to keep Russell company. I named her after…well, I don’t think there was reason behind the name. Russell & Shenequah lived together in their bowl. During the first few months things seemed to be going well in their relationship. However, because of my conservative views on living together and marriage, I decided that the fish needed to get married. It was probably one of those silly things that I came up with late one night when talking to my friends. Little did I know that this event would actually take place.

I shared my silly idea with my roommates and three of my good guy friends. It was 2am one weekday morning and I was in my apartment with my roommates. (Note the time of day…no good decisions are made after 2 o’clock in the morning). Three of us were up studying and one was already in bed. This was the night the guys decided that my wedding dreams would come true. I answered a knock on the door and there stood Nick with his guitar, Corey with his bible, and Matt in his graduation gown. It was wedding time! We got out the laptop and downloaded some wedding music. One of my roommates was put in charge of videography (and, yes, I still have the video and watch it whenever I need a good laugh). One of my roommates was the flower girl and another roommate was the photographer. She wasn’t too happy because she had been woken up for this impromptu wedding.

The ceremony started. I was the father of the bride so I walked down the hallway of my apartment (step…pause…step…pause) with my fishbowl in hand. We had the scripture reading and the vows and then ended with a song played on the guitar. I believe it was He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands (which was the only song Nick knew how to play at the time). Throughout the whole event we were laughing so hard that there were practically tears. After the ceremony we sent the two love birds…or love fish…off on their honeymoon. They left to the tune of Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye. The two of them lived happily ever after until they were taken from this world and given a proper burial and funeral ceremony around the toilet.

I should probably be embarrassed to admit to this. If I would have put half the energy into studying that I put into doing silly things with my friends I would have flown right through college.

For the most part, I can handle kids. I have a brother who’s ten years younger than me. Between him and other kids, I’ve done my fair share of babysitting. However, the day I turned 16 I started applying for jobs. My babysitting days were over. Now that I’m in my twenties it seems that many of my friends are having kids. So, although I’ve only officially been an aunt for a few weeks, I became Aunt Krista several years ago.

A good friend of mine here has two kids ages one and three. One day last week she called me for a favor. Her husband was out of town and something had come up with work. She needed me to pick her kids up from daycare and hang out with them for the evening. Sure…no problem. Her kids love me so this would be a piece of cake!

Not so much.

First of all, picking up someone else’s kids from daycare is harder than getting through security at an airport. I’ve never had to show my identification so many times. I am one of the emergency contacts on their paperwork so I was allowed to take them. However, I had to go through several people in order to do so. That’s good news to parents with kids in daycare…but it was a pain in the butt for me.

Second of all, you almost have to be a rocket scientist these days to figure out how to properly buckle in a car seat. Good grief. It was like a puzzle that took forever to solve.

Third of all, cooking dinner with two kids under foot and nobody else to help is quite a challenge. I had a one year old in my arms and a three year old right next to me dying to help out. I had to keep one eye on the kids to make sure they stayed away from the hot stove and one eye on the food. I could have used a few more eyes but I was all out. Macaroni & cheese and green beans…a staple in almost every kids diet.

After dinner was play time and then bed time. I had to rock the baby and read a bedtime story to the other one. I had a blast with the kids but by the end of the night I was wiped out. I don’t think I’m ready for kids any time soon. For now, I’ll just stick with my role as Aunt Krista.

I’ve always thought that naming your car was just something guys did. One of those weird things I never really understood or even cared that much about. I only know of one, maybe two, girls who have taken it upon themselves to assign a name to their vehicle. So I recently decided to change that.

My roommate Jamie is one of the rare females with a name for her car. She calls it Betty. Betty the Buick. I honestly don’t know the story behind the name but I think it’s funny nonetheless.

I own a black Nissan Sentra. The Nissan drove around nameless until a little less than a year ago. I was on my way home from work when a small dog ran out into the middle of the road. The speed limit was 50 mph so stopping was almost impossible since I had a car following me very closely. There was also a car next to me so swerving was out of the question. Sadly, I hit the dog. From that day on my car has been known as Killer. Despite the name, the dog did not die. He was only injured and will probably remain handicapped for the rest of his life. It was a sad day for me. I cried.

I have also taken it upon myself to assign names to the cars of three of my friends. My friend Mandy owns a purple Beretta. I call it The Purple Wonder. As in, I “wonder” why this thing is still running. Terra owns a Crown Victoria that looks just like an old police car so I call it Sergeant. My friend Mel’s car was only named last weekend. It was the car that took us to Dallas for our wild weekend of shopping (and the agonizing baseball game). We were part of a caravan most of the weekend and ended up following a car with a butterfly decal on the back. Therefore, I named Mel’s car Aurelia.

So, even though I still think it’s slightly strange, I have named my car. Sometimes cars just show personality or character and have to be named.