This Weekend

Started off Friday with the Art Walk in Livingston. The art stores all stay open late and offer food and wine. Went with Ally, Ally, Holly, Heidi and Lauren. It was pretty fun and we went out to Mexican's afterward. It was definitely great to get out of Gardiner and hang with some new people for awhile. Doesn't the picture look totally five girls in the big City? I have some gorgeous friends. It makes me feel pretty too ;-)
Saturday was very slow and wonderfully boring. Worked at the K-Bar on Sunday. Made 40 pizzas. Considering my average is around 26, it was pretty amazing. And I made good tips. Loving this week as well.

Softball

I just have to post this, in case I don't remember at the end of the year. Best-softball-season-EVER! At least for me. I've made it home four times in the three games that I've played. I've hit some kick-ass balls over second base, just dropping them between the in- and out fields. If I had been braver, I could have had a double. And I played second base tonight (Monday I played outfield and hitter (in this league, you can bat 12 as long as one of the two extra is a girl) and then tonight I was catcher and second) and Got Someone Out. True, I bobbled the ball, but they were out! I rule! I rule! Admittedly, I also missed some balls and had some stinky hits but I was able to shake the mistakes off and keep playing.
Last night was rugby and I'm also improving at that. Or... I'm caring less how badly I do so it makes the game more enjoyable. Either way. Hopefully this attitude carries over into game night tomorrow....

Podcasts

I get made fun of a lot 'cause I like to listen to my iPod. Usually it's different podcasts. I'm like to call them my "stories." They range from the PNSexplosion (three gay guys from Chicago, HIL-AR-I-OUS) to old Perry Mason radio shows. But you know what? They make me happy. Often, laugh-out-loud happy. So... just like the housewives of yore, I'm going to keep listening to my stories and they're going to keep me entertained. So there.

BBQs Galore

So, two more barbecues at my place this week. Thursday I hosted a shindig for my building. I just think it's nice for work people to have time to meet outside of... well, work. There were almost, um, 20 people there. I even had two babies and a dog. Nice, huh? The included picture is of Carrie, Cooper and Bridgette. How cute is this kid!?!
Then, Friday, had another BBQ for the friends. It was a goodbye Laura/Luca/Kay/Spring and a Happy Birthday Lucy BBQ. 30 people. I am so popular. Or, Co-host is. Either way, it was AWESOME. I had told people to come at 6, so the first person showed up around 6:20. 10 minutes before I expected! I was scrambling a little bit to get the palm tree and tikki pole blown up but it was fine.
Of course, no party is complete without a board game so we broke out the Settlers of Cattan. Lis, Lauren, Carrie and Andrew were pretty seriously into this game for a long, LONG time. I think the game ended up being almost two or three hours long. I lost track for awhile. There were other people there, quite a few of them actually, including some Italians. Gardiner is such an international hub. Plus, there's finally a rumor about me! Five years, I've waited for a rumor about me! Apparently, I am the girl who wants to have a hundred parties before the summer is over. Which, in Gardiner, pretty much means I would have to have something on the order of three parties a day. Um, just three parties in the last week have kicked my ass. Although, I am, indeed the hostess-with-the-mostest. Just notice behind the board gamers my neatly labeled recycling, garbage and dirty dishes bins. We had candles, copious amounts of food and even a white-trash backyard fire (Previous homeowner (Hi, Eric!) had set up a washtub on two cinder blocks. I consider buying/making a real pit every once in awhile, but this is so kitschy-cute!). I even had penis straws available for those who asked.

Just like my profile says, I kick ass!

Summer Plans

Spring is officially winding down. Even the weather in Montana seems like it may be giving in to the inevitable. I think that any more snow this season is doubtful (fingers crossed). By now, we've had several days of good to beautiful weather. Thank god this week was finally good. I had begun to despair that we would ever have sun or even warmth again.
A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with Heidi and Trudy and made up our goals for the Summer of 2008:

1. Plan at least 10 parties
   
2. Attend the Roosevelt cookout
3. Snorkel in the Yellowstone
4. Snorkel in the Firehole
5. Have a House marathon, complete with martinis
6. Wii tournament
7. Get drunk on the Fourth of July
8. 3rd annual Chocolate party
1. make sure to put it in the newsletter
9. Make a plan to BBQ with the boys in Tower
10. Go see "Sex in the City"
11. Float the Yellowstone in innertubes
12. Plan a weekend to float the Madison River and go to Virginia City and maybe go to Lewis and Clark Caverns
13. Attend an art walk in Livingston
14. Find a new summer drink

We haven't really done any of these yet. Except the parties. We're working on the summer drinks. I'm confident we'll get most of these done. We'll see at the end of the season whether they were.

Questionable Content

Why do I like this comic so much? It's just so darn Quirky! The strangest things seem to happen to these characters. I always get so disappointed when it's Friday and I don't get to see Faye, Marten and Dora for the until Sunday. sigh. I just wish we saw more of Penny (aka Pizza Girl?). I think because I identify with her so much.

Ha!

CC linked to me on her page... calling mine "Jessi's sad little blog :-(" Which, is admittedly true. But I now have more posts than she does. So... Ha!

Sidebar

Did I mention the TOTALLY cute cowboys at the rodeo? Check out this one. Wonder if the front is as good as the back...












Wait a tic... I think... holy cow... is that...?

Oh... my...GAWD! It's Troy! Texas-boy only puts on his hometown clothes on when the rode-jeo is in town. We LURV it!

Ro-day-o weekend in Gaad-nah

Woo hoo rodeo! It's a Father's Day weekend tradition that Gardiner hosts the Montana Rodeo Association. Fun weekend. This is the second year that I've volunteered for the rodeo. It's strange, but it really is a LOT of fun to volunteer for this. The events are basically the same every year, but the behind the scenes rarely is. You get to see most of the Gardiner town folks and there are some real wackos that come out of the woodwork.
So, Friday, I scooted straight from work over to the rodeo. I was working in the food tent but got a chance to get out and watch a couple of events. One of them being a goat chasing event. Yes, a real goat. Apparently this is the first year they've done it here in Gardiner but a couple days before the rodeo, someone called up and asked if the rodeo committee wanted some goats. They said, "Um, sure" and this is the event that came out of it.

So, they put jackets on the goats and then duct tape money to the jackets. As the rodeo folks are doing this, kids are gathering behind a line. Then they release the kids and the goats and it's a free-for-all.




For this particular event, they had all of the kids 7 and under come out to participate. The kids were so cute. There were a bunch that couldn't have been much more than 2. This little guy, in particular, had no idea what was going on. He wandered all over the grounds before they let the kids loose, and then he kept chasing this goat, even after the money was gone.



Of course, the crowd was dying the whole time. I snuck over and got this picture of Holly, Lauren and Alicia. It was a great night.






After the rodeo was the dance. The band this year was 10 Feet Tall and 80 Proof. They're out of Bozeman and completely AWESOME! Apparently there was a fight at the Community Center (where the dance was being held) but I missed the entire thing. Oh well. Maybe I'll see it next year. Believe you me, tons of cowboys, all hopped up on adrenaline and hormones, doing some drinking, mixing with Parkies, there're always some fights.

Saturday is the parade and then another night of rodeo.

This year I rode on the K-Bar float. The theme for the parade was favorite country song. We did "Five O'Clock Somewhere." I don't think that you can see it, but each of the circles is a clock with different states and countries written on it and it's 5 o'clock... everywhere. We also had a globe on top of the lead car. We had the song on loop with the back doors open and screamed the refrain whole way through. I don't know if we won best float, but we were most certainly the loudest.


Probably not in the least because we had Dottie and Patty (my boss at the K-Bar) on board. Every once in awhile, Patty would yell out, "What time is it?" and if the audience yelled back "Five o'clock!" we would throw candy at them. Of course, all of the kids got candy as well. It was really funny, the number of people who would look at their watches. The worst part was that I discovered I am allergic to alfalfa. Tears were streaming down my face for most of the ride. Oh well, it was still totally awesome.




And that made it time for the first barbecue of the summer. I ran home and got ready. It was supposed to start at 3, but at 3:30, we still had a small-ish crowd.




But, this being Gardiner, I wasn't expecting it to get busy until at least 3:30-3:45. And people really did start pouring in. Everyone had a great time. I have to send a thank you out to CCG who was the sous host for this event. She manned the grill in the food pit and kept everyone fed. This is really a key to hosting a good event, feeding people. We have decided to call all further events CJ parties (because JC sounds like a store and,well, I think that Carrie likes to be first).

Then, it was back to the rodeo! Yay!