Saturday, October 24, 2009

Speaking spanish with an Irish accent

There is a website called houseseats.com through which Chris and I have been able to see several Las Vegas shows for free. They even have beauty appointments sometimes (which is responsible the current mushroom-esque look I am sporting, dont't ask I don't want to talk about it). A couple of weeks ago we went to my very first concert ever, Bare Naked Ladies which will heretofor be referred to as BNL (their name causes some of my children to blush). It was a lot of fun, especially for the price and when I knew the words and could sing along. What does any of that have to do with the title? Nothing, but it's good lead in to getting into things for free.


Chris is a HUGE U2 fan. He looked up the tickets as soon as he found out they were going to be in town, but of course they were sold out. We even considered trying to get tickets in Phoenix but decided to use our small sense of financial responsibility instead. Last night he decided sitting outside the stadium listening was better than nothing. I however, was not so sure. There are a few things I'm sure Chris wished he would have known about me before we got married.
1) I hate hate hate crowds. He loves them.
2) I am not a rule-breaker, it causes me anxiety. I think it gives Chris a thrill, especially when he gets away with it.
3) I am completely content to be a home-body and I think this is the thing that drives Chris the most crazy.

Needless to say, his loitering plan did not appeal to me. Because I love him I went anyway, begrudgingly, but I went. Our plan was to walk around the stadium for the duration of the concert, or until I convinced Chris how lame that was. (I told you I was cranky). As we approached the stadium some guy asked if we wanted to buy tickets for $80. Knowing neither one of us had any cash I felt comfortable telling him that no price would be good enough. Except then Chris said "How about $60?" Urrrgh! The deal was made, but we had to find an ATM and the closest ones were inside the stadium. Chris tried to convince the guard at the service entrance to let him in just to use the ATM but he wouldn't budge. So scalper said, "Why don't one of you take a ticket and go inside to get the money then pass it through the gate and I'll give you the other ticket." (there was no re-entry) That worked for us because then we could make sure the tickets actually worked. Chris went inside and I waited. He seemed to be taking a long time so I finally called him to find out where he was at. Chris had run around the whole stadium only to find that every single one of the ATM machines were out of money! As one of the many unsympathetic vendors Chris was trying in vain to get cash back from put it, "There are 54,000 people here, of course the ATM is out of money." As I tell scalper there is no money to be had, I am trying to think of anything I might have to trade and I have nothing. Scalper asks, "Do you even have $20?" To which I replied "I don't have anything, I didn't even bring my purse. And I think my husband only has $2." ( I later found out he didn't even have that. All he had was some gift certificates to Buffalo Wild Wings.) So scalper says, "Just take the ticket." Chris hadn't heard that part and offered to give scalper his phone number so we could get his address and send him the money. I saw him put the number in his phone, but he never called. By the time we got in we had only missed a couple of the songs. It was great, but I wish there had been more of the old school songs, those are my favorites. You can't beat free so I won't complain.


Oh and BTW the title of the post is what Bono (yeah we're tight I can call him Bono) said before he sang Vertigo.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Old Lady

Like I said in my last post, I don't really mind getting older, because I just don't feel it. Chris likes to call me an old lady, but I just remind him of things like I wasn't even old enough to date when he went on his mission or I was in kindergarten when he was in fifth grade so that doesn't really bother me either. Not that any of that really has anything to do with my story, I'm just pointing out that Chris will always be older than me.

A couple of weeks ago Dalin and I went to the distribution center at the Las Vegas temple. I wasn't sure what time it opened so we headed out there after we dropped the other kids off at school. We got there about 9:15 and found out it didn't open until 10:00 so we decided to explore the temple grounds while we waited. Above a couple of the outside doors there is a dome, and if you stand underneath the middle of it you can hear your voice echo, which Dalin thought was very cool (as long as he was calling me a stinker pot).

A few days ago we went back to the distribution center and as we came out Dalin remembered the echo spots and he ran off to try them out again. I was about ten feet behind him, but it was clear that he was with me. There was an older woman (easily 2 1/2 times older than me) waiting by the main entrance, and the closer Dalin got to the door the more nervous she looked. As he approached I could hear her ask is that your mom or your grandma? GRANDMA! What the? She was also moving toward the door afraid Dalin was going to storm the temple with his band of hooligans or something. I tried not to be offended by her lack of faith in my parenting skills (we were at the temple after all) and because I know I am a good mom.