My sixth trip to Memphis in May kicked off yesterday, this one being the beginning of our honeymoon. I’ve been meaning to write some about the wedding planning, but the planning itself took so long I haven’t had time to write anything. So, I’ll write about the honeymoon instead.
This trip started off with a bang, as it SNOWED in the morning. That’s right, on May 3, in ARKANSAS, it snowed. For reference, it’s usually about 80 degrees on May 3. Not snowing.
I drove the first three hours to Little Rock by myself, listening to The Odyssey. Jon’s friend had said we could park at his place, but he backed out at the last minute. I managed not to freak out, and a couple other friends came through for us. After parking one of the cars there, we set off on our honeymoon adventure. We only got lost once, and had to backtrack a looong way to get to our hotel in West Memphis. We got settled and took off for Tom Lee Park. About ten minutes after crossing the bridge, I realized I’d left the tickets in the hotel room. So we had to backtrack again, and got off on the wrong exit and took the loooooooong way around to get back to the hotel. We finally got back to the hotel and collected the tickets.
As I was standing in the door of the hotel room folding my tickets, the guy in the next room came out and said, “Oh, I’m glad I saw you doing that or I would’ve left my tickets and not realized until I got all the way to Memphis.” ARRRGGGHHH!
I went to get a jacket, since it was freakishly cold here, too, and when I came back, Jon was chatting to the guy. He said he’d give us $20 if we gave him a ride down to the show. I agreed, and we set off once again. We chatted to Leon on the way over, and about ten minutes past the bridge I said, “I think we were supposed to get off on an exit right after the bridge.” So for the third time, we had to backtrack all the way through Memphis.
We finally got to the park and went in to see Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, which was the first band on our schedule anyway. We missed eating at a restaurant, but got our customary gyros in the festival. We stood and listened to about half an hour of Sheryl Crow, which was better than I expected. Then we went to ES&MZ, which unfortunately, Jon didn’t like. While we were dancing around in the mud, some girls walked by and one of them totally nabbed my beer! I just stood there like, “OMG! She did not just do that!” For all she new, it could have been someone’s spit can, or someone could have peed in the can to avoid the porta-potty, or…EW EW EW!
Before she could even walk away, Jon retrieved the beer, though, and we continued dancing. After the show, we went to the last stage to see Alice in Chains. They were awesome! I knew almost all their songs, and the few new ones they played were really good, too. Jon loved the show, which was good, because I wasn’t sure he’d enjoy it. The first thing they said when they walked on stage was, “Well, at least we made it on stage this time.” We danced around, and got really close. It was so cold that the crowd was super thin, and we got to about the 10th row without having to push our way through at all. The crowd was pretty sparse, and calm for a rock show. But it was an awesome time all around, and though we froze our butts off the whole time, it didn’t rain on us. We sloshed through the mud to leave the festival, and just as we were walking past another stage, Hall and Oates were playing, “You Make My Dreams Come True.” We stopped and did a swing dance on the muddy sidewalk for the whole song. I dropped my phone in the mud, but otherwise, it was an exciting, fun evening that went off without a hitch. We even got the drive down on the way back, and realized we are staying really close to the festival, if only we don’t get lost getting there again!
Showing posts with label 90s music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 90s music. Show all posts
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Monday, January 7, 2013
My phone, my life.
Does anyone remember those t-shirts that were popular in the 90s that said, "Basketball is life," or "Golf is life" or "climbing is life" and stuff like that? I think they were popular around the time of "NO FEAR" t-shirts, right after the "Co-ed Naked..." went out of style.
Lately it's more like..."My phone is life." Has anyone else noticed the obscene attachment we have to our phones? As someone who resisted getting a cell phone for years after everyone else (back when they were still called cell phones instead of smart phones or just phones), I never thought I'd be someone to get overly attached to one. I didn't have a smart phone for ages, either. I resisted the same way I resisted the Kindle and other ebook devices. Books should be written on paper, damn it! Phones should be for phone calls, damn it! The computer is for internet!
Flash forward to 2013. Just after Christmas, overjoyed to ridiculous proportions with the 4 inches of snow on the ground (for the record, we only got ONE snow last year, about 1 or 2 inches, that melted in a day, so my excitement was probably warranted), I decided I'd go for a run in the snow and take some pictures. I then stuck my sleek white smartphone in my pocket and took off. Almost back to the house, I reached in my pocket, only to find it empty. The horror! How could I live without a phone?
Several searches of the shoulder of the road on foot, and several drive-bys while hanging out the window of my fiance's truck yielded only frustration and a chapped face. My pearly white phone had disappeared into the snow like a...well...snowflake.
"It's okay," I told my fiance, exhausted from the search and having resigned myself to the fact that all my pictures, texts, phone numbers, and calendar entries for the past year had vanished and were not going to be recovered. Once the despair wore off, I was strangely calm. "I don't need a phone," I said. "It might be nice to be without it for a while." He disagreed heartily, and offered to buy me a new phone, which I refused. I was all prepared to be phone-less. After all, I am not one of those zombies who walk around with their noses glued to their phones all day. I hardly use Facebook anymore. I don't call many people, and I could always use someone else's phone, since all my family was home for Christmas. Right?
Before I go on, I should mention that my internet access also comes through my phone. Which means no phone = no internet. Suddenly I had to rely on my mom and sister to even check my email. Driving the 45 minutes to my fiance's house was both frustrating (how do I know he's home? Am I supposed to pick up some food? I'm running late, but I can't shoot him a text letting him know...) and even made me a bit nervous. What if my car broke down? It was cold, and I wouldn't be able to call anyone for help.
All the appointments on my calendar, also on my phone of course, were missed. I had planned to take at least one picture every day for a year...that was shot to hell in the very first week of the year. I missed important emails from my realtor, texts from friends asking what I was doing for NYE, invitations to events, and worst of all...I couldn't remember anyone's number! I didn't even know my own fiance's phone number, let alone my realtor, chiropractor, or boss. I knew exactly three numbers: my mom's, and two of my sisters', one of whom has had her phone since before I had a cell phone, so I knew it from way back in the day when people either had to memorize phone numbers or carry around an address book. So quaint and primitive it seems absurd to us now, when all the information to be found is at our fingertips, 24/7.
I finally got my phone back, 10 days later, a neighbor having found it on the road, mere inches from a stream of melting snow runoff. My conclusion? My smart phone has made me stupid. I no longer remember anything. My smart phone remembers everything for me, which lets my brain coast through the day emptily. I am a phone zombie. All that important stuff is kept in one place, which is seductively convenient. Unfortunately, when we lose that one place...we're lost. How did we ever live without having all that at our fingertips--calendars, texts, directions when we're lost, restaurant and menu lists when we're hungry, alarms to remind us of important events...not to mention phone numbers. And let's face it, most of us use our phones a lot more often for internet, texts, etc, than we do for making phone calls.
It's a little frightening to learn just how much I rely on my phone. Did I really say, just two weeks ago, that I don't need a phone? What I need is a second phone, as a backup. Just in case.
Lately it's more like..."My phone is life." Has anyone else noticed the obscene attachment we have to our phones? As someone who resisted getting a cell phone for years after everyone else (back when they were still called cell phones instead of smart phones or just phones), I never thought I'd be someone to get overly attached to one. I didn't have a smart phone for ages, either. I resisted the same way I resisted the Kindle and other ebook devices. Books should be written on paper, damn it! Phones should be for phone calls, damn it! The computer is for internet!
Flash forward to 2013. Just after Christmas, overjoyed to ridiculous proportions with the 4 inches of snow on the ground (for the record, we only got ONE snow last year, about 1 or 2 inches, that melted in a day, so my excitement was probably warranted), I decided I'd go for a run in the snow and take some pictures. I then stuck my sleek white smartphone in my pocket and took off. Almost back to the house, I reached in my pocket, only to find it empty. The horror! How could I live without a phone?
Several searches of the shoulder of the road on foot, and several drive-bys while hanging out the window of my fiance's truck yielded only frustration and a chapped face. My pearly white phone had disappeared into the snow like a...well...snowflake.
"It's okay," I told my fiance, exhausted from the search and having resigned myself to the fact that all my pictures, texts, phone numbers, and calendar entries for the past year had vanished and were not going to be recovered. Once the despair wore off, I was strangely calm. "I don't need a phone," I said. "It might be nice to be without it for a while." He disagreed heartily, and offered to buy me a new phone, which I refused. I was all prepared to be phone-less. After all, I am not one of those zombies who walk around with their noses glued to their phones all day. I hardly use Facebook anymore. I don't call many people, and I could always use someone else's phone, since all my family was home for Christmas. Right?
Before I go on, I should mention that my internet access also comes through my phone. Which means no phone = no internet. Suddenly I had to rely on my mom and sister to even check my email. Driving the 45 minutes to my fiance's house was both frustrating (how do I know he's home? Am I supposed to pick up some food? I'm running late, but I can't shoot him a text letting him know...) and even made me a bit nervous. What if my car broke down? It was cold, and I wouldn't be able to call anyone for help.
All the appointments on my calendar, also on my phone of course, were missed. I had planned to take at least one picture every day for a year...that was shot to hell in the very first week of the year. I missed important emails from my realtor, texts from friends asking what I was doing for NYE, invitations to events, and worst of all...I couldn't remember anyone's number! I didn't even know my own fiance's phone number, let alone my realtor, chiropractor, or boss. I knew exactly three numbers: my mom's, and two of my sisters', one of whom has had her phone since before I had a cell phone, so I knew it from way back in the day when people either had to memorize phone numbers or carry around an address book. So quaint and primitive it seems absurd to us now, when all the information to be found is at our fingertips, 24/7.
I finally got my phone back, 10 days later, a neighbor having found it on the road, mere inches from a stream of melting snow runoff. My conclusion? My smart phone has made me stupid. I no longer remember anything. My smart phone remembers everything for me, which lets my brain coast through the day emptily. I am a phone zombie. All that important stuff is kept in one place, which is seductively convenient. Unfortunately, when we lose that one place...we're lost. How did we ever live without having all that at our fingertips--calendars, texts, directions when we're lost, restaurant and menu lists when we're hungry, alarms to remind us of important events...not to mention phone numbers. And let's face it, most of us use our phones a lot more often for internet, texts, etc, than we do for making phone calls.
It's a little frightening to learn just how much I rely on my phone. Did I really say, just two weeks ago, that I don't need a phone? What I need is a second phone, as a backup. Just in case.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Memphis in May, Day 3
Okay, so here's what happened on our last days in Memphis.
Sunday we got up late and Jon finished his paperwork. We hung out at the hotel a little while, even though we'd missed breakfast. I was feeling better that day, though. After a while we went downtown. I wanted to see Chris Robinson at 335, but Jon wasn't really crazy about them. He said he'd go if we got there on time, though. We went and ate lunch at Alfred's on Beale Street. It was pretty good, but not as good as Pig. Jon had a beer and then we left.
We walked around a little, but not as long as the day before. Jon wanted to get me a turtle necklace to go with the dress I'd gotten the day before, so he got one from a street vendor. Then we saw some girls on the street selling Jello shots, so he had to get one of those. We walked down to the festival after that.
It was sweltering again on Sunday, but I was wearing better clothes (no polyester!) so it wasn't too bad. We'd forgotten sunscreen, but by the time we got down there it was almost 5. We ran to catch the last ten minutes of Chris Robinson, but he'd already finished playing when we got there 10 minutes before he was supposed to be done. So we went right to Michael Franti and Spearhead.
We got up close, about halfway across the rubber mat, and thankfully, in the shade of the stage. We stood around for about half an hour. At first, we thought maybe the show wouldn't have many people there since we were able to get up so close and there weren't many people waiting. But the stage filled up by the time the band came on, and they had a pretty good audience. The band was AMAZING. I'd only heard a handful of their songs, but they were so great! Chill and groovy and cool, really fun and happy. The guitarist had this humongous grin on his face the entire time, and Michael Franti kept coming off stage and going through the audience. He pulled a bunch of people up on stage, gave a couple of them guitars, and let two little kids sing part of one of his songs. It was really cool, and I liked how appreciative of his fans he seemed and how he interacted with everyone so much. It was an amazing show--my favorite one of the whole weekend. The music was great, too.
After that, we went to get food and Jon got a chicken dish from the gyro place. We sat down and ate and waited for Herbie Hancock. But he must have been REALLY late coming on, because 20 minutes after he was supposed to start, he still hadn't come on stage. So we went down and listened to Bush for about 5 songs. Then we went all the way to the other end of the park and listened to the end of The Civil Wars, who everyone had said was one of the best bands there. They were pretty good.
After that, Alison Krauss was at the same stage, so we stayed for her. We got to the third row after the Civil Wars fans cleared out. But I was hot from dancing by then, and the crowd was pretty thick. I also got pushed by the first rude fan I ran into all weekend. Anyway, we stood around waiting for the band for a long time. Finally they came on. I've been waiting to see Alison Krauss for literally 10 years, so maybe it just couldn't measure up to my expectation. Or maybe I was just hot, and tired from standing and walking around in flip-flops for 3 days straight. Whatever it was, I just wasn't as into it as I'd expected. Jon, who hadn't really wanted to see her too much, ended up really enjoying the show, especially the rest of Union Station. After 40 minutes, I asked if he was ready to go see Primus. He said we could stay, but I really wanted to get off my feet for a while.
So we went to see Primus. On the way, we noticed all this lightning in the clouds off to the west over the river. We went and sat in the grass pretty far back from the stage. They were really loud even back there. Jon went and got a funnel cake, which they made right there while he waited. It was super hot and greasy, delicious and crunchy and gooey and sugary. I hadn't had a funnel cake in years, and it definitely beat the last one I had. We watched the lightning and listened to the band. I kind of wanted to get closer, but Jon was happy sitting back in the grass, so we stayed there. The band kept talking about the lightning. Finally, towards the end of the show, the lightning got a lot closer and the wind picked up and started blowing constant and cold from one direction. "Here comes the rain," the band said, and they went off stage without even saying goodnight.
Everyone in the entire park jetted out of there at once. The wind was gusting big clouds of dust everywhere, whipping wildly around. The last band was still playing in the blues tent, but we got out of the park as fast as we could along with just about everyone else. We walked back to the car and got in, watching the storm move in. Almost as soon as we got on the highway to go back to the hotel, the rain hit. It came down in giant sheets, washing across the car while the wind rocked us all over the place and the storm blinded us. I turned off the radio and sat there not saying a word so Jon could concentrate on driving. We kept hitting slick spots where the road was covered with water, and even going 40mph it was hard to see. It seemed like it took hours to get back to the hotel, but we made it safely through the driving rain and back to our room.
We got up in the morning and it was still raining a little outside. It took us a while to get on the road, but we finally did and headed back to Arkansas on Monday morning.
Sunday we got up late and Jon finished his paperwork. We hung out at the hotel a little while, even though we'd missed breakfast. I was feeling better that day, though. After a while we went downtown. I wanted to see Chris Robinson at 335, but Jon wasn't really crazy about them. He said he'd go if we got there on time, though. We went and ate lunch at Alfred's on Beale Street. It was pretty good, but not as good as Pig. Jon had a beer and then we left.
We walked around a little, but not as long as the day before. Jon wanted to get me a turtle necklace to go with the dress I'd gotten the day before, so he got one from a street vendor. Then we saw some girls on the street selling Jello shots, so he had to get one of those. We walked down to the festival after that.
It was sweltering again on Sunday, but I was wearing better clothes (no polyester!) so it wasn't too bad. We'd forgotten sunscreen, but by the time we got down there it was almost 5. We ran to catch the last ten minutes of Chris Robinson, but he'd already finished playing when we got there 10 minutes before he was supposed to be done. So we went right to Michael Franti and Spearhead.
We got up close, about halfway across the rubber mat, and thankfully, in the shade of the stage. We stood around for about half an hour. At first, we thought maybe the show wouldn't have many people there since we were able to get up so close and there weren't many people waiting. But the stage filled up by the time the band came on, and they had a pretty good audience. The band was AMAZING. I'd only heard a handful of their songs, but they were so great! Chill and groovy and cool, really fun and happy. The guitarist had this humongous grin on his face the entire time, and Michael Franti kept coming off stage and going through the audience. He pulled a bunch of people up on stage, gave a couple of them guitars, and let two little kids sing part of one of his songs. It was really cool, and I liked how appreciative of his fans he seemed and how he interacted with everyone so much. It was an amazing show--my favorite one of the whole weekend. The music was great, too.
After that, we went to get food and Jon got a chicken dish from the gyro place. We sat down and ate and waited for Herbie Hancock. But he must have been REALLY late coming on, because 20 minutes after he was supposed to start, he still hadn't come on stage. So we went down and listened to Bush for about 5 songs. Then we went all the way to the other end of the park and listened to the end of The Civil Wars, who everyone had said was one of the best bands there. They were pretty good.
After that, Alison Krauss was at the same stage, so we stayed for her. We got to the third row after the Civil Wars fans cleared out. But I was hot from dancing by then, and the crowd was pretty thick. I also got pushed by the first rude fan I ran into all weekend. Anyway, we stood around waiting for the band for a long time. Finally they came on. I've been waiting to see Alison Krauss for literally 10 years, so maybe it just couldn't measure up to my expectation. Or maybe I was just hot, and tired from standing and walking around in flip-flops for 3 days straight. Whatever it was, I just wasn't as into it as I'd expected. Jon, who hadn't really wanted to see her too much, ended up really enjoying the show, especially the rest of Union Station. After 40 minutes, I asked if he was ready to go see Primus. He said we could stay, but I really wanted to get off my feet for a while.
So we went to see Primus. On the way, we noticed all this lightning in the clouds off to the west over the river. We went and sat in the grass pretty far back from the stage. They were really loud even back there. Jon went and got a funnel cake, which they made right there while he waited. It was super hot and greasy, delicious and crunchy and gooey and sugary. I hadn't had a funnel cake in years, and it definitely beat the last one I had. We watched the lightning and listened to the band. I kind of wanted to get closer, but Jon was happy sitting back in the grass, so we stayed there. The band kept talking about the lightning. Finally, towards the end of the show, the lightning got a lot closer and the wind picked up and started blowing constant and cold from one direction. "Here comes the rain," the band said, and they went off stage without even saying goodnight.
Everyone in the entire park jetted out of there at once. The wind was gusting big clouds of dust everywhere, whipping wildly around. The last band was still playing in the blues tent, but we got out of the park as fast as we could along with just about everyone else. We walked back to the car and got in, watching the storm move in. Almost as soon as we got on the highway to go back to the hotel, the rain hit. It came down in giant sheets, washing across the car while the wind rocked us all over the place and the storm blinded us. I turned off the radio and sat there not saying a word so Jon could concentrate on driving. We kept hitting slick spots where the road was covered with water, and even going 40mph it was hard to see. It seemed like it took hours to get back to the hotel, but we made it safely through the driving rain and back to our room.
We got up in the morning and it was still raining a little outside. It took us a while to get on the road, but we finally did and headed back to Arkansas on Monday morning.
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