Rockin' Robin by Bobby Day

Robin was my very first friend in Turlock and became my best friend, off and on for the next several years.  You know how girls can be - the best friend contender can change from one day to the next!  We met in 4th grade when I moved to Turlock and we were thankfully in the same 5th grade class.We continued to spend lunch and recess together into junior high and high school.

Robin and I always had a lot of fun together. I would go over to her house after school or on the weekends.  They had a great hot tub and pool and we would spend hours in the sun. We traded our Teen Beat posters and carefully discussed at length the placement of every Kirk Cameron and MacKenzie Astin on our bedroom doors. We giggled at her brother who liked to talk to his best friend on the phone... while going to the bathroom.... so his friend would hear the flush. Boys. OK, fine, boys were the theme of many (many) conversations over the years!

We were also in 4-H together for many years, including serving together on the Board and being part of the same groups.  There were memorable trips to Clovis Lakes to enjoy the waterslides and a fun trip to the State Capital for the annual 4-H Leadership Conference.  So many of my memories from Turlock include Robin. I still remember her nickname from the 6th grade:  Robin Lizzette Pizza Pears.  I know "Pears" is a plan on her last name, but I cannot recall why Pizza.  Maybe she loved it?  I also seem to remember singing Rockin Robin while we all danced around her.... in the girls bathroom at school.  I seem to remember us hanging out in the bathroom during recess quite a bit.  I hope that was a thing.  If it wasn't, I don't really care because I was hanging out in the bathroom during recess with my rockin' friend Robin!  Tweet tweet tweet!

In the Ayer by Flo Rida

Much like what happens in Vegas, much of the story of the party bus unfortunately stays on the party bus. It was that kind of night.  I can safely share some of it without consequence.  At least I hope I can.  We are going back a couple years in time now from the Karaoke annual summit.  I find it hard to believe that I now have 4 summits under my belt and with any luck, many many more!  The 2017 summit was a bit smaller, but no less fun. As always, there were new teammates to meet in person and dear friends to see.  I flew in on the heels of a storm.  Literally.  I had been in Tahoe for 4 days, which culminated in an 11 hour journey home, followed by a very early flight to Dallas the next morning. Let the fun begin!
We were staying in the decidedly less hip Hyatt House, which meant no cool hotel bar, which meant all the fun was basically deferred to the night of the .... dun dun dun.... party bus.  I had spent a few days cultivating my dear friend Karen's 40th birthday party playlists.  With a few minor tweaks, it was perfect for the party bus.  Or so i thought.... at some point in the evening folks were taking over my playlist.  The good news about that is that Leann asked me to play In the Ayer and then hopped up to the front of the bus to shake and shimmy and it was such a delight to see!  It is no wonder her daughter is a champion cheerleader - she gets it all from her mother.  Her gorgeous, sweet, fun, mother with some serious moves! 
Other fun memories from the evening included a couple hilarious snapchat videos with Mychael, hijacking Mychael's snapchat with LaShanta, LaShanta bowling everyone's turn because she thought we may as well get our money's worth, deep conversations with Igor, and minibar bottles with Anne while solving all of the problems, of course.  I know these were only snippets, and the allowable snippets at that, but na-na-na-na, my team is the bestest team. 

Billionaire by Travie McCoy

As Heather put it:  "my heart is full".  It's the perfect description for how I feel following the annual team summit.  It's weeks like these that make me long for the days when I worked in the office....but then I remember all the perks of working from home.  The annual summit is the opportunity, once a year, for all of us to come together for a week of learning and team building.  This year was the biggest summit yet and dare I say, the best?  It was so well organized, interesting and entertaining content, and the entertainment! Best of all though, I think we would all agree, was the bonding.

So many delightful conversations with so many wonderful people.  The laughter was contagious and plentiful.  It's unbelievable really that I truly like and respect everyone on my team and even more unbelievable that we all seem to feel this way about each other!  This year, instead of staying in the (oh so hip) Aloft, we stayed in the suites.  First of all, these places are gorgeous.  Second of all, we had suite mates and instead of having to meet in the hotel bar, we could invite people over to our suite.  Fun! My roomie and I have a common affliction, namely FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out.  We are always the last to leave a party, the last to admit defeat.  This meant we stayed up way too late talking each night.  It was wonderful.

This year's event was a showstopper.  I didn't think we could top the party bus....I loved the Escape Room, but Karaoke and a custom version of Friends in Low Places really takes the cake.  There were quite a few highlights, but there is one in particular that stands out in my mind and will forever transport me to the good feelings of the summit.  It was Heather's rendition of Billionaire.  She was standing up there singing in her sweet voice...she absolutely nailed the Travie McCoy verses....and the audience ate it up.  We were seeing a whole new side of Heather and we were loving it.  Best night.

Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift

I can’t very well tell you about playing sports in Indiana without the follow up story.  I had just been through a roller coaster of a week.  After three intense weeks of dating someone new, he tells me he is going to have dinner with his ex wife who he hadn’t seen in 4 years.  It was supposedly to clear the air because they had mutual friends coming into town and were bound to see each other?  I don’t know.  In any case, he drove immediately to my house after this dinner to tell me he was confused and we should end this.  I was understandably confused and upset.  2 nights later he texted me to ask if I wanted to talk.  I said ok.  He said open the door.  As in, he was in my driveway.  Kinda creepy, I know, but it led to this:   When I opened the door, in my pajamas, he peered around the house and said:  So this is what it looks like when someone drops in unexpectedly.  I look around at the completely spotless house, nary a cushion askew, and say: Yep!  In any case, he said he was confused and under pressure, but we are back on.  Ok then.  Well come Friday to our scheduled date, he breaks up with me AGAIN because he feels uncomfortable.  Thankfully, I have very very good girlfriends and Kyla J. came to the rescue.  We took advantage of the sitter I had scheduled and went out all by our damn selves!

We peeked into the first bar my cousin had recommended and it was a little scary and also empty.  We went across the street to a hip place where they had live music.  Well, it was bluesy jazzy quiet kind of music which gave me way too much access to my thoughts and I ended up crying into my cocktail.  We went across the street to another dive.  I marched up to the jukebox, selected some angry Taylor Swift, and marched myself right up to some guys playing darts, ahem, sports and announced I would be playing.  Let’s just say I did not have a repeat of my Indiana performance.  

Kyla’s husband came for her and I decided to finish my beer.  One of the guy’s from darts suggested walking up to the other bar and I said I was game for that.  When we got outside, he asked if I wanted to smoke out of his car bong.  Car Bong.  I was picturing the muffler or I don’t even know what, but I was intrigued.  You will be as disappointed as I was to learn it was just a bong he keeps in his car. 

We go into the bar and while I was putting in my Uber request, a bar fight, complete with shirts being torn and bar stools flung, breaks out right behind me.  Allow me to recap.  Instead of being out on a date with someone I really liked…..it was a car bong and a bar fight kind of night.  After the fight fizzled, patrons of the bar said they’d never seen me in there and this was their neighborhood bar and a really great place, ordinarily.  I said I was sure of that, thanks so much, gotta go!  And I have never been back.

Dance (A$$) by Big Sean

It was a brisk 40 degrees in late January in Carmel, IN.  You pronounce it with the emphasis on the CAR, not the MEL, like you would in California.  I was on a work trip.  Before we left the client site, we had asked for a dinner recommendation.  The client recommended something (which was great) and then turned to his employee and reminded him that they had “sports” later that night.  I inquired which sport they might be participating in, in the middle of winter.  Somewhat sheepishly he replied:  Darts.  And beer.  Yes, I know that sounds like the punchline to the evening, but it’s important to the overall story!  My co-worker and I had just finished dinner and opted for a stroll around downtown Carmel.  As you do in 40 degree weather.  She suggested one more round, so we ducked into a bar.

It was a neighborhood kind of bar, but most noticeably to this Californian, people were smoking.  Inside the bar.  It cost me $40 in dry cleaning to get the smell out of my coat later. I go up to the bar to procure drinks and order something I see on tap. Maybe a Stella?  The bartender says they are out of it.  I try something else.  No dice.  I finally request a Coors Light.  Do they have Coors Light?!  Success!  I bring the beers over to my co worker and we cheers.  A couple polite young (very young!) Indiana gentlemen ask if we might like to play darts with them.  I look at my co worker and shrug and say I could go for some “sports”.  They look at us quizzically, but we are on.  Girls vs. Boys.  And we proceed to kick some ass. I had never played in my life, but somehow I get 5 bulls-eyes during that round.  We later swapped partners and had a completely excellent evening full of bulls-eyes, beers, hilarious conversation, and excellent music on the jukebox.  At one point in the evening, someone asked whose coat was taking up a bar stool.  I said it (the fur lined, suede, fur collar, belted jacket I bought in Spain) was mine.  He said OF COURSE it is mine.  It’s the “I’m from California and it’s going to be cold but I want to look fabulous” coat.  And that’s exactly what I was going for with it.  

We got a ride back to the hotel from the nice young gentlemen and I showed my age because there was a song playing that I had never ever heard.  It’s not really my genre and I definitely can’t play it around the kids.  It has the word Ass in the name of the song for goodness sake.  He was blasting it as we barreled down the main strip in downtown Carmel in his (jeep? I think?).  I’m still in touch with the nice young men and they definitely give the name to Midwestern manners, except I suppose for the song with the word Ass in it. 

Mr Jones by Counting Crows

I had just returned from a year in Germany and after speaking almost exclusively in German for an entire year, my English was coming out with a German accent.  So much, in fact, that people who didn't know me questioned if I was actually German.  This made me really happy.  We were at... Mike S's house (i think) watching a movie, squished into the sofa.  There were at least 4 of us all nestled in, I remember specifically Erik P and Nic P.  We got on the topic of music and I brought up Mr Jones.  Nic was so tickled by my pronunciation of the song that he became known as Mr Jones (to me and to me alone). 

A few years later my friend Kevin A invited me to the Counting Crows show at the Greek in Berkeley.  I could've actually listened to the show from my dorm room window, but being AT the show was obviously very different.  To be honest, I wasn't a very big fan of the band, but who am I to turn down a free ticket with one of my favorite friends?  So I went.  Adam Duritz is from Berkeley and I had heard he was at LaVal's in Northside prior to the show which I thought was really cool.  What I thought was less cool was that throughout the show he was teetering on the edge of the stage and I was concerned he might fall off.  Then to top things off, when they played Mr Jones, it was a stripped down, slow version.  In other words, the one song I was familiar with was almost unrecognizable.  I actually spent the majority of the show staring up into the heavens at the Hale Bopp Comet, which was in full glory in the night sky. 

I'm going to see the Counting Crows tonight and something tells me it's going to be a completely different experience from top to bottom.  I cannot wait.

Electric Love by the Borns

I was sitting in the Aloft Hotel with 2 of my co-workers, having just the best time.  Anne H and I had just spent hours upon hours talking and catching up.  I'm not even kidding.  We talked all the way to the airport, waiting for our plane, the 3 1/2 hour flight to Dallas, and the Uber ride to the hotel.  Would you believe we weren't done yet?  Upon arriving at the Aloft, we proceeded to the hotel bar to catch up with our co-workers.  I cannot tell you what a treat it is to attend the annual team summit. I work from home exclusively, but once in a while it's really nice to see all of the people I normally only hear on the phone.  Add to that the complete freedom from responsibility (read: 2 tiny humans who rely on me for absolutely everything) and I was in heaven.

Anne, James S and I enjoyed some well deserved cocktails and talked (and talked). No shop talk, just fun, goofy, gossipy goodness.  James told us all about the very fancy sneakers he was contemplating purchasing for his upcoming wedding.  I was initially shocked at the price tag on said sneakers, until I remembered the price tag on my wedding dress.  Seemed fair, not to mention the shoes are pretty snazzy.  We discussed in great detail the foot pop, a la the Princess Diaries, he absolutely must perform to showcase the red soles!  While we were chatting, I of course noticed the music playing in the bar because of course I did.  The Aloft is a very hip hotel, with a pool table in the lobby, techno playing in the elevator, you get the picture.  Electric Love was the perfect fit for the ambience in the hotel and especially in the moment.  It's catchy and addicting and cheerful and oh so hip.  Nice job Aloft.  You put me in the perfect moment surrounded by the perfect people to enjoy it.  I'd like to say we closed down the bar and we probably did.  I was having too much fun to notice, soon to be followed by 2 more nights just like it!