Just got back from a weekend of sitting.

Driving and Learning About Cars

The first destination was Rachael Muezelaar's wedding in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mike and I left at the butt crack of dawn of Friday morning. I had slept for a mere few hours the night before, having been woken by a nightmare about an old government teacher slash basketball coach and failing tests. I was eating a potato bread, turkey, and mayonnaise sandwich at 5:25 a.m. when Mike's headlights shined into my kitchen windows. We started on our way (getting on the road before 6:00, which happens to be an hour BEFORE dawn ;)), hoping to make it to Rachael's wedding by 4:30 p.m. Unfortunately, we had not accounted for the time zone change between Iowa and Michigan, so we weren't sure if we were going to even make it on time. Somewhere around Chicago, we stopped for lunch, and noticed steam coming out of the Civic. "Oh well, it's probably just the heater," says Mike. A little further along, he glanced down at the temperature gauge and notices that it's above the red warning area. He tells me to grab the car manual and look up what to do about overheating. After pulling over on a bridge's narrow shoulder, we look under the hood and see a missing radiator cap and green splatters everywhere. Mike looked frantically for the cap, afraid it was simply gone. (He was getting pretty antsy at this point.) Luckily, it was right next to the radiator, upside down! Well, that's good! The "coolant tank" is full too! We put it on and got back in the car, thinking we'll just go on our way. The temperature gauge skyrocketed immediately after he started the ignition. "Well, let's just wait a while," I suggested. So we did. For about 20 minutes. While very large trucks and fast cars rocked Mike's car with their wakes. Good, the car was cool again. Not good, the temperature steadily and not-so-slowly rising towards red again, as we accelerated down I-80. We pulled over AGAIN and the "coolant tank" was empty! My dad came to the rescue, though. I called him at home and told him the situation, and he suggested that we find the nearest Wal-Mart and mix water and antifreeze to refill the radiator. Seems reasonable, so we went to the nearest gas station. Water and antifreeze were easy to find, but the container in which we mixed them was not exactly the most high-quality piece of plastic I've laid eyes on. My dad had said to keep the car running as we slowly pour coolant into the radiator, but Mike didn't want to run it dry like that. Thus, we poured a little in beforehand. After the engine was turning, we continued pouring and pouring... not noticing much except the fluorescent green mixture's slow rise within the radiator. All of a sudden, it rose a whole lot, almost spilling over. We stopped pouring. But it didn't stop rising... the first bit spilled onto the hot engine, steam immediately appearing. It kept rhythmically pumping harder and harder, the coolant spilling out with more and more force. Mike freaked out, asking "Should I turn it off??? Should I turn it off???" He did such, and I witnessed one of the niftiest things ever... The radiator violently puked, ejecting coolant upwards out of it, and the engine shuddered to a stop. It was like a very, very sick man being forced to drink. By this point, I'm completely hysterical. I quit laughing enough to manage a phone call to my father, and he said just keep trying to pour coolant until the engine is cool enough to accept it. So we did. And it worked! The engine stayed cool for the rest of the trip! Oh yeah, at some point, I got a free sex toy at a gas station. But we had lost over two hours of time! We weren't going to make it to the wedding. Oh well, receptions are cool too. We drove and drove and drove, and before we knew it, we were 90 miles from Grand Rapids. And we easily had enough time to be there by 4:30! Thanks to Mike's good memory and a helpful cop, we found the church.

Wedding

Mike and I quickly changed our clothes in the parking lot, and headed in to say hello. Rachael's mom briefly let us see the the bride, and Rachael was gorgeous! The actual wedding ceremony was really cool. (I don't remember Catholic weddings being that enjoyable!) They had a really great musician sing, play acoustic guitar, and play the piano. This other really tall guy sang in unexpectedly pleasant German. There were two weird parts of the wedding: First, the pastor was kind of... random. He was talking about being loving and patient, and something about taking "your sandals, your loafers, your deck shoes" and wrapping a string all of the way around you, so that you would be wrapped in humility. (????) And make sure you "put on the Christ." (like a teapot???) Second, Rachael had two maids of honor, the Stein of Honor and the Duck of Honor. I wonder what it means. In any case, I'm really happy for Rachael. I'm glad she found someone she can stick with. Justin is a lucky man, and, from what I've seen, they're great for each other. Weddings are cool. I want to watch more. Receptions are kinda neat too. (But $10,000?? That's a lot for in-laws / parents to spend on crackers, fruit, an open bar, and a decent dinner.) Good food, good (at least to my uncultured taste) wine, fun times and whatnot. Oh yeah, accept for the part where Mike and I were sitting alone at the most antisocial table there. She said she would put us at a table that would force us to talk, but that didn't really happen. At least Rachael didn't ignore us. She came over and talked for a while, which was really cool. She's changed a lot, and yet is still the same. Mike and I learned that Rachel and Justin suck at kissing. ("I don't want to make out in front of my parents!" Sure...) And old people are both really good at it and damn proud of it. That night we slept on the floor at her and Justin's new apartment.

Second Leg

The next morning, Mike's cursing the white skies and famous great lakes snow, because we have to drive a good eight hours to our next destination, Minneapolis, to see Tori Amos again. The drive was pretty straightforward... Mike almost backed into a car, but that's it, really.

Concert

Tori's opening act was AWESOME!!! Howie Day had a way of producing live music that I have never even fathomed. He played his guitar masterfully, occasionally pressing foot pedals on the ground. I immediately recognized the echo pedal, but what were these other ones doing? Then he took his hands off of the guitar, but it was still playing music! Weird! He pressed another pedal and commenced banging on his guitar like a bongo. Then he stopped, but you could still hear it! After some guitar tweaking and yet another pedal press, he played his guitar like a bass. He was building a whole accompaniment right there before us! It was so cool! *swoon* I won't go into each song, but on the last one, he combined probably seven or eight different sounds into one great finale. From what I've listened to tonight, he's quite different live than recorded, but go listen to him if you can. And better yet, go see this singing, acoustic guitar DJ ASAP. It's worth every cent and hour you pay. Tori was cool too, but I didn't recognize many of her songs. The new CD sounds good too. For some reason, both Mike and I were nearly passed out and could barely pay attention at all. It must have been the heat and her bassist's deep thrumming. Tori music is sorta relaxing anyway (to me, at least! Some of the ladies there were going CRAZY!). She finished up with two short encores and whatnot. Minneapolis is COLD. And then we drove home. If you're up for another account, see Mike's journal. I'm spent. Ciao. p.s. After reading Mike's entry... We didn't plan the similarities between our entries! We're just brothers in darkness or something.