Adventures with Ivory: Iowa

It’s a common response when someone tells me where they grew up, “oh! I’ve been there on vacation.”  It seems to be especially true for random towns in Iowa.  This summer, my little vacation to Iowa was a tad less random.  I went to visit Orgfish, one of my dearest and bestest friends.

We met a long, long time ago.  My family had just moved to Cudahy and I was down at the park enjoying the giant swingset.  According to Orgfish, I was jumping off the swings, landing on my head, and going back to the swings to do it again; and she thought, “that’s great. I want to be her friend.”  And we’ve been friends ever since.

Orgfish and Mr. Orgfish welcomed me gladly to their awesome home and we spent the weekend relaxing and having fun.  There were two barbeque parties, a cute movie, some games, and plenty of exploring.  We did some antique store pursuing in Kalona, quilt capitol of Iowa.  The sidewalks are decorated with “quilt squares” made out of bricks.

We even checked out the African American Museum.  Now, you’re probably thinking what we were thinking, “An African American museum in the middle of Iowa?  How good can this be?”  Well, it turns out the answer is “very good.”

The museum was created by Cedar Rapids’ African American community to showcase the history of the local community.  It does this by placing the local history within the wider African American history and within the even wider African-rooted culture.  Half of the museum is the permanent exhibit that takes you from the slave trade through today.  The other half is temporary exhibits.  We were lucky enough that the temporary exhibit was on African American music.  (And the hip hop display featured lots of Creative Commons licensed photos!)

It’s very well done and very interactive.  You hear about how awful slave ships were and see illustrations of people crammed together, but it doesn’t really hit home until you lay down on the planks and realize the person above you is going to poo all over you, and you’re going to poo on you and the person below you, too.

In addition to laying on the slave ship, we played African drums, participated in a sit in, added graffiti to a wall, DJ’d, tried on football helmets, pretended to fly an airplane and plunked around  on the piano.  I had a little trouble getting out of the airplane.

 

(Orgfish is participating in the sit in. I’m the mean cafe worker refusing to serve her.)

It was a fabulous trip and a great time hanging out with great friends.

Congratulations Roger and Katie!

Katie and I met when we were ten years old.  As she tells it, we met at the park where I was jumping off the swings and landing on my head. She thought I was so crazy, she just had to meet me.  I don’t have any recollection of this, but I disagree. I was very good at swing-jumping and there’s no way I would have been landing on my head!

Either way, Katie and I met that summer before 5th grade and became fast friends. She’s been one of my best friends ever since. And while we’ve both had other best friends that have come and gone, Katie now has a new permanent best friend, her husband Roger.

Of course, everything about the wedding was beautiful. Though I have to admit, this trend of going to Iowa in April for weddings is getting a little old. It’s cold there folks!

I loved the men’s colors, orange vests and yellow ties with their black tuxes.  They matched my shoes! And Munchkinhead’s tequila sunrise.

Katie and Roger are both engineers, so there was lots of fun, hands-on stuff around at the reception.  Plastic wind-up robots that went gshzzz-gshzzz-gshzzz  as they wobbled across the white tablecloth linens, cardboard robot kits, even crayons and a coloring book. The coloring book had two robots on the front and then a whole bunch of blank pages. Munchkinhead and I had a great time filling the book with images of Katie and Roger as all sorts of things: fish, astronauts, beers, old people.

And of course, there was plenty of dancing.  Mommy and Daddy danced to their song.  Munchkinhead and I rocked out to Don’t Stop Believing, which is pretty much Munchkinhead and whoever’s around’s song.  We polka-ed, we funky chicken-ed, we YMCA’d.  The DJ even played the song Mommy and I dance to at every wedding.

My second-favorite part was when the lady sitting next to me turned to the bride’s mom and started talking about these shoes she saw at the ceremony that she really liked, “yellow with black polka-dots.”  “Hey, those are Munchkinhead’s!”

I also really liked seeing Katie and her family again; it’s been a few years.  But my favorite, absolute favorite part was seeing how happy Katie is and how much Roger adores her. 

Here’s to a long and happy life together for both of them!

A Doctor, an Engineer and a Vampire Walk into a Metallica Concert...

It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but it was a great night!
(And by "vampire" I mean Munchkinhead, not me!  I'm still just a law student.)

The History

Orgfish and I have been going to Metallica concerts together since we were sophomores in high school.  It seems each time we go, we add someone new.  So we assembled our usual group: Orgfish, me, Alfred, Munchkinhead and Dr. Beaker and added in The Great Ecclestone (and Foo Foo).  6 people, from 6 states, 1 city, 1 amazing band.

Metallica is probably the only show all three of us, my sisters and I, would agree to go see, except maybe for Sesame Street Live.  It's not that we don't have some other musical tastes in common, but those bands don't really tour anymore.  Metallica also has the unique characteristic of being highly loved by each of us.

The Show

The show opened with Call of Ktulu, which is actually one of my favs, and a lot of  special lighting effects.  I was quite relieved when the lazer light show ended and some spot lights came up on stage.  The lazer lights sort of pissed me off, especially when they brought them back at the beginning of Fight Fire with Fire.  The special effects were taking away from Kirk's guitar solo.  A band as good as Metallica does not need fancy light shows and pyrotechnics.

When the helicopter intro to One started in fairly early on in the set, Orgfish and I looked at each other in amazement.  At every concert we have attended, One has always been in the encore.  "What on earth were they going to play for the encore?"  Well, when the encore started, it was an even bigger surprise.  I had just turned to Munchkinhead and said, "they'll never play my favorite song (Loverman) at a concert," because it's off of Garage, Inc.  And right as I'm saying this, the band busts out with Die, Die My Darling!  And then they follow it up with Stone Cold Crazy!  I had always figured they'd never do cover songs at a concert.  Welp, I was wrong!  (For those of you that don't know, those songs are also off of Garage, Inc.   They are covers of The Misfits and Queen, respectively.)

The concert was part of the World Magnetic tour, the title coming from their newest release, Death Magnetic.  As appropriate, they played a lot of songs off the new album.  It was clear the audience wasn't really familiar with these new tracks yet, but it was also clear that we were all willing to get to know them.  This was a lot different than the last concert our big group went to together, where the new album was St. Anger.  I don't recall them playing too many songs off that album at the Summer Sanitarium show, but I do remember Orgfish and I both agreed the songs sounded much better live than on the album.  (For that concert Dr. Beaker, Alfred, a very young Munchkinhead and I loaded into the teen mobile and drove to Ohio where we met Orgfish and her friends Happy, PH and Not-Death (I don't remember his name, but I know it wasn't Death.  My favorite part of the trip was Munchkinhead walking around going "plan-e-tarium" to try to get us to go to the planetarium.)

The Snow

It started snowing during the show, and for some reason the parking garage was closed unless you had a special pass so everyone was parked in lots outside.  Our big group quickly set to work with ice scraper, drivers license, gloves and whatever else we could find to clean off Mommy's mini-van.  It didn't take long, but it take long to get out of the lot.  (Longer than it took to drive home.)  We were about to go lend our ice scraping assistance to another driver who was scraping his car with what Alfred thought was a Twister box.  (It turned out to be a pizza box; a little more reasonable to have in your back seat.)  But, someone with an ice scraper appeared out of nowhere.  Alfred did help clear off the windshield of the guys next to us, since there were only two of them and so many of us.

(I just had to include this pic even though Alfred's not in it.  You can see FooFoo's shirt, and there's something particularly eerie about Orgfish's eye peering over my shoulder, not to mention The Great Ecclestone's theatrical smile.)

It was a wonderful night with wonderful people and wonderful music.   The performance was great, the frozen custard delicious (you know we went to Leon's first!) and the company great fun.  I can't wait for the next tour!

SPECIAL! SPECIAL!

Announced today, Metallica will be inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame!  The day before my birthday! [(Anybody want to get me a really nice birthday present? ;)  ]
Photo credits: Dr. Beaker

Where Playing is a Full-Time Job

"Ooo.  I like the way that [debauchery] sounds.  Even though I know it means three hours of sober, fully-clothed board games and literacy quips." - The Great Ecclestone via text message.

And so, game night begins.

 

Last night was game night at Mommy's house.  She even took off work today so she could stay up late and play with us.  And we did, stay up late and play.  Games from 7pm til 2am.  Splendid!

(The kitchen, ready for game night.)

Actually, those of us who live here started early in the day with one of our favorites, "Listen to the Water."

Here's the water rolling down the river.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And some ducks by the waterside.  (Quack, Quack)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later in the evening Mommy joined in the fun.  We began with 10 Days in Africa.  (The Great Ecclestone showed up in the middle of the game.)  Munchkinhead won most of the rounds.  I think on one trip, she walked through Sudan about four times.

(The Great Ecclestone near the cheese and cookies while Mommy plans her trip.)

Next, we moved back into the living room for a little gymnastic fun.  The Great Ecclestone took home the most Twister trophies.  Mommy got mad the first round, because Munchkinhead got out before her.  (Alfred, Mommy and The Great Ecclestone on the mat.)

After Alfred popped her hip, Munchkinhead fell on me and Mommy hurt something, we decided to return to the slightly more serene kitchen for a good rousing game of Times to Remember.  It's a match-the-year-to-the-event type game.  Hard enough, made even more so by the fact that the game itself is almost 20 years old.  Well, we managed at least to get fairly even teams by putting me, Alfred and the Great Ecclestone against Mommy and Munchkinhead.  The aggregate ages of the teams were only about 3 years apart.  We won!  Partly because I randomly guessed that Reggie Jackson did some sports thing in 1977 and was spot on. Hee hee.

Then the Great Ecclestone taught us a new game called "Celebrity."  It was pretty fun.  The Great Ecclestone and Alfred won the first game, despite the fact that The Great Ecclestone had never heard of Barnabas Collins.  Mommy, Munchkinhead and I killed them the next game though, even though Orgfish had arrived and joined their team.  Turns out The Great Ecclestone doesn't know Miley Cyrus either.  (Orgfish and I both put the Great Ecclestone in the pot; he does know himself.)  (Mommy thinking of her celebrities.) 

Finally the mail man arrived and we could really get going.  So we played, at my insistence, All About Town Milwaukee.  I really like this game, the others, not such fans.  Daddy got it for Christmas and even he won't play it because he says it's too hard.  Everyone was quite relieved when Orgfish won.  (Alfred, the mail man, Orgfish and part of Mommy playing the Milwaukee trivia game.)

The Milwaukee game turned out to be such cerebral torture that we had to follow it up with Whoonu.  This fabulous game of getting to know your friends is a favorite and comes out at every game night.  We finally had someone who liked the "Big Dogs" card!  Hooray for the mail man.  It's always a challenge when playing with someone you don't know or haven't really hung out with for several years.  Loads of fun.  Turns out Mommy knows best, she won.

Our last game of the evening, which, by this point, was actually the middle of the night, was Wise and Otherwise.  Another favorite game, often included in game nights.   We probably shouldn't have saved this one for last; it requires thinking.  By this point in the evening, the cheese plate was empty, a gallon of milk was gone, two bottles of wine were quite depleted and several animals had migrated into the kitchen from the jungle room.  Mommy won. 

(Mommy's Rhino watching the board and her giraffe getting into the M&Ms.)

Here's my favorite picture from game night.  That's me, The Great Ecclestone and Orgfish enjoying our drink of choice.  (Mommy actually cut us off and said no more milk, gave me wine instead).

These are my oldest and dearest friends (well, most of them).  I've know them since 6th and 5th grade, respectively.  (I don't have any friends from before that because we moved here just before 5th grade.)

 

After the milk was gone, we switched to another favorite.

 

And so game night ends.  Everybody happy, tired and with pains in their sides from laughing too hard (and eating too much).  The Great Ecclestone added at the end of the night:

"You know, things really haven't changed here in the last ten years."

Another Long Day

Today's driving took longer than desired, and losing an hour didn't help. A few turn-arounds and a bit of confusing directions, but at least there weren't anymore drug searches. Two days of grueling driving - definitely worth it. I arrived at Katie's house in Eastern Iowa at 8:30 at night. Tired, but ecstatic to see her again. It's been about a year. Nothing like your childhood best friend to put a smile on your face. (Although I might have smiled harder when she arrived in Zambia with my Mommy and Grandma.)

We had a great dinner, watched the olympics, and did plenty of catching up. She's all grown up now. Has a great job, owns a house (her second) and a car, has her own doggy, and two nieces! It's amazing. Someday, maybe I'll be grown up, too.

Arriving in Iowa after spending several months in California, I felt like I was coming to America after visiting a foreign country. Everything was different and familiar. The houses had green grass and big yards; the streets were wide with ample parking. Driveways were visible and wide enough for two or three cars. There was a Walmart nearby and the local grocery store had aisles large enough to fit two shopping carts next to each other. I couldn't tell you the last time I saw a Prius, but I'd guess it was before I hit Utah. Finally, somewhere I belong. And soon.... home.