Sunday, August 24, 2008

The disastrous Chicago Blood:Water

Yesterday was one of the craziest days I have had in a very, very long time - and instead of stressing out about it, I am pleased to say we were able to laugh about our misfortunes and the fact that nearly everything went wrong all day.

I cannot even begin to describe the great number of little things that made this day go so terribly. I do know that by 1:30pm, when I saw and was greeted by some familiar friendly faces (Kellie and Jars guys), all I could respond with was, "I hate this day!!!" (or something like that) - and then laugh because I was in such disbelief that it had actually gone as it did. They offered supportive hugs and laughed with me, haha.

What went down, you ask? Here are some of the big things that made it rough:
I borrowed a car to run the many errands necessary for the event to function smoothly. As I pulled into the airport to pick up Kellie (first 'errand') - it died. Not to start again. Not being a mechanic, I would put all I know on it being the alternator (awesome!!!). The tow truck company said it would take an hour to get there; I'll let you imagine how excited airport personnel were about that. Then imagine how well it went over when I was there nearly 3 hours!!!

Poor Kellie had rented a car and got lost a couple times. I tried to get to the Blood:Water event from the train with an obscure address and no other directions, and ended up needing to walk through the projects to get there... so I had to take a cab. I was late. And "flustered." So I got drinks, etc ready for the guests and skipped the presentation. Did I mention that the first bag of popcorn I popped ended up on the floor? because it did. (I have to say here that I though I didn't see the presentation and there are certainly jokes to tell about it, I think it mostly went ok, and most of the guests probably did not know anything was wrong, which is good.)

Then Jeremy (Kellie's husband, also the drummer for Jars of Clay) left with the rest of the band before the movie started... and accidentally took the rental car keys with him. The runner took a couple of hours to bring us the keys, so we were late to the show (which we wanted to be on time to, as Jeremy designed the lights and Jars was playing first).

Our bad luck carried over to the guys... Jeremy cut open his knee on the "steel horse" metal risers when moving from one drum set to another during the set... and could hardly walk/finish the set. He even bled through his white pants (another story entirely). Then we tried to clean it up... and discovered the Jars tour bus does not have a first aid kit on it. AWESOME. (we did eventually find some band-aids elsewhere, for the record) In the interim, Jeremy is walking (limping) like a gangster and is in great need of an awesome cane.

Did I mention that throughout the day of mishaps and things going wrong (I'm not filling in all of the details and mishaps, but lets just say it seemed like NOTHING went right!!!!), we didn't have any opportunities to eat? So I had breakfast around 7am, and we FINALLY got dinner around 9:30pm. SWEET.

ahhhh - what a long day!!! Fortunately for me, it stopped there. I did have an interesting train ride home and a lovely chat with a man named Maurice... but that's a story for another day. It was a positive, lovely conversation. Not like Kellie and Jeremy's night... they returned to the venue only to discover the rental car could be parked no where on the premises overnight (not even next to the tour bus with the VIP pass in it) or it would be towed. So they got to return it in the middle of the night and take a cab back to the venue at 1am. LOVELY.

I'm glad its over, but laughing at it - it is seriously hilarious already. I guess above all, I'm glad I got to spend the day with Kellie (well, the 2nd half, anyway!), and I guess I had some new experiences that weren't all bad, too. Like discovering Rober Randolph is amazing (he played after Jars) and hearing a few of Switchfoot's songs live for the first time... and I'd never been on a tour bus (it isn't that special and it makes my bathroom seem like a master suite!).

I'm chalking this one up to more ridiculous memories that I can laugh at for some time to come.

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