Wedding Bonanza Extravaganza!

Alrighty kids, salty chelle will be all boring-blog-low-pro for a bit, as I travel home to sticky, muggy, buggy old St. Louie tonight for my best friend's wedding. Where I am the maid of honor. And have to give a toast. In front of 250 people. Guess who's freaking out? Oh yes. But, I have my 4-page itinerary from the wedding planner (it's that kinda party), and my boarding pass and there will be an open bar, so I'll slam a grey goose rocks and just suck it up! Ugh, just writing about it makes the stomach churn though.

Have a great week everybody - I'm sure I'll have stories galore to tell upon my return!

Where cart-babies come from

dirty.

Super Stoked Brah!

I bought a snowboard!

Just wanted to give a little shout out to Lenitech Snow & Skate in Salt Lake City for being awesome. When I went in last weekend to look at boards, the owner and his wife both spent lots of time with me, explaining about the different boards they still have in stock, and asking what I was looking for in a board. When I explained that I just learned to ride last year and that I pretty much sucked until the last few days I was on the mountain (when, out of nowhere, the sky parted, the sun shone down, angelic music filled my ears, and everything just clicked...), they then explained all sorts of stuff for me, measured me to see what length would work, and were just generally really friendly and helpful.

Being the hard-core shredder that I am, I of course fell for the best-looking board. But it just so happened that this O-Matic was perfect, cute but not-too-girly, exactly my size, and just the right amount of give and pop for what I am going to do (ie, not much) on it. When the owner (I wish I could remember his name - sorry guy!) realized I was almost on board (tee hee), he promised to sell me any board in the shop for $200. So that pretty much made my decision right there - a super sweet $400 board for $200? Oh yes I will. And I did.

Look for me tearing up the greens and blues this winter kids! I'll be the girl on this rad board, falling down a lot.

The Grocery Cart Saga

So last Sunday morning I'm sitting on my front porch reading, and I see a woman walking down the street with a grocery cart full of groceries. That much isn't really remarkable - there is a Smith's just up the street a few blocks, and it is pretty much the only grocery store in the neighborhood. I often see people walking with grocery carts. And these are not homeless people, they are people living in $500k homes who walk because its healthy and environmentally friendly and because in Salt Lake in July, your car turns into an oven capable of melting your skin off when in a parking lot for more than, say, 5 minutes.

So anyway. No big deal, cute girl pushing her groceries home on a Sunday morning - I just noticed because the cart was clattering over the sidewalk and my dog wanted to run out after her. She saw me on my porch, gave me a smile, I gave her the up-nod, she walks on.

Fast-forward to later that afternoon. I am again outside on the porch, lying on my front-porch-couch (which I LOVE, but that's another story), chatting on the phone. Grocery cart girl walks past my house again, heading back towards the store with her cart, which is not empty, but I can't tell what's in there. [Side Note: My house is on a corner in the Avenues which, for my non-Utah friends, is a part of town nestled in the foothills of the Wasatch, so all of the streets head north and uphill. North of my house, the street becomes pretty steep for about 3 blocks before you get to the grocery store.] So she stops at the corner in front of my house, pulls a pillow and a sleeping bag (??) and her purse out of the grocery cart, and parks the cart in the corner of my front yard. And continues walking up the street, towards the grocery store.

Ok, so where do I begin on the list of things that are a wee bit askew in this scenario? First and most importantly, who just deposits a grocery cart in someone else's front yard? Secondly, this girl is in her mid-twenties, in a very active yoga-type outfit, and very much in great shape. She could easily push that cart up the hill to the grocery store. Especially since she was clearly still heading in the direction of the grocery store. But, what? Is she in too much of a hurry to get to her sleepover? What is she doing with a pillow and huge, down-filled sleeping bag in JULY? It is insanely hot here! Its heat-stroke hot, lose-your-mind hot, crank-up-the-air-conditioner-and-lay-naked-on-top-of-your-covers hot, take-a-cold-shower hot, don't-cook-food-on-the-stove hot. Just watching her tote that down sleeping bag up the street at 3:00 in the fucking hot afternoon nearly made me pass out.

My friend on the phone urges me to go yell at her to get her cart out of my yard. But at this point she has crossed the street, I don't have any shoes on, I don't have a bra on under my threadbare tanktop, and there's no way I'm chasing this girl down all barefoot and jiggly-boobed to confront her about a grocery cart. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt more often than I probably should anyway, so I just figured she'd come back and get it when she had the time or the energy to push it back up to the store.

Wrong.

Monday morning - the grocery cart is still there.

Monday after work - still there.

Tuesday morning - still there, looking lonely. I'm starting to feel bad for the poor thing.

Tuesday after work - yep, still there.

At this point, I begin contemplating pushing the damn thing back to the store myself, except that in the past two weeks I've pushed two other grocery carts that were left in my yard back to the store, and now I just refuse on principle. And I want to see how long it will take anyone other than me to do something about it.

And then Wednesday morning, I leave for work and:

CART LOVE! This made me pretty happy. I mean, not only does the lonely grocery cart get a companion, but the whole thing is just vastly entertaining to me. I mean, who just leaves a grocery cart in someone's front yard? And then, who, while pushing their own cart back to the store, sees that one and thinks, "yeah, ok, this is a good idea, this is what we're doing now I guess," and leaves a second one??? I mean really, what the hell?

I relayed the entire story to my mother, who was OUTRAGED and went on and on saying that's just not ok and you should call Smith's and tell them to do something about this and tell them to come and get their carts! and Who would DO such a thing? I just can't BELIEVE it! And, my favorite: Michelle, are you taking care of the lawn? Is it looking shabby? I mean, if you're not taking care of the yard, then other people will just assume no one cares about the property and that it is ok to leave trash or grocery carts or whatever else they please in your yard!

I frequently ignore my mother's suggestions, and this was no exception. I just wanted to see where this was going, how much longer it would take for anyone to do anything. I just had this feeling that there was more to the cart story. My friend Daniel, who lives in Manhattan, said that pretty soon my carts-in-love would reproduce, that I needed to put up a sign or something, because people are lazy assholes and once they see that other lazy assholes have started a lazy asshole trend, they will follow suit, and that before I knew it I would have a whole colony of grocery carts in the yard. I contemplate making a sign that says "Please take us home" and sticking in or on the carts, but end up screwing around all evening and forgetting.

Thursday morning - both carts still there.

Thursday after work - still chillin in the yard.

Thursday night I need to run to the store, and for probably the first time since I've lived in this house, I decide to drive. Its only four blocks, but I need milk and laundry detergent and other heavy shit that I don't feel like lugging home and its hot as balls outside. I even feel guilty, thinking I should walk and take at least one of the carts back to the store. But I hated to separate them, they looked so happy together. So I'm gone for about 30 minutes, and I get home and find:

LOVE CHILD! Oh yes, the carts-in-love had a little cart baby! I mean come on, how fucking hilarious is this? Not only did a third individual decide to be a lazy ass and leave a third grocery cart in my front yard, but it is even one of those little half-size baby carts!

Its just too perfect.

At this point, I decide to do zero about the cart family because I love them. I'm growing attached. They make me laugh, out loud, every time I pass them. And they look cute. I was going to try and find one of Elise's old baby bonnets and put it on the cart baby this past weekend, but when I came home from work on Friday, the whole family was gone.

It was fun while it lasted anyway.

Introductions, Meet & Greet, Cocktail Hour

Hello readers! Just thought I'd do a little initial 'hello' posting to welcome you to my long-overdue blog. Thanks so much for coming. I am really thrilled you're here. Honestly, I'm honored that anyone would spend any amount of their own time reading anything I have to say - major compliment to my ego, which I appreciate. So thank you all, whoever you may be, for stopping by. I hope you keep coming back to read my silly drivel and bask in the ridiculousness that is my life and the even-more-ridiculouos chronicling of said life.

SaltyChelle begins the chronicling of my new life in Salt Lake City. I moved here in June of 2007 when my boyfriend of four years was transferred for work. Like all good things (though it wasn't really), that came to an end this past April , and now I'm going it alone and feeling pretty good really. Expanding my horizons and my circle of friend in this incredibly gorgeous place. It still takes my breath away sometimes.

As for me, in a nutshell, I'm just your average midwestern girl I guess. I grew up in St. Louis in the private-catholic-school culture of heavy-handed morality and subequent guilt, which, coupled with my too-protective mother led me to teenage years of rebellion, pot, natty light, and a baby who cried her little infant eyes out at my high school graduation and made my boobs leak all over my gown. The parents were super proud.

And now that baby is eleven (JESUS!) and is my favorite part of my life. Usually. Just not when she's being a huge pain in my ass, as happens from time to time. But she really is a fantastic kid, and sometimes I can't believe how well I did raising a baby when I was still a baby. But I did. And then I pat myself on the back and say "good job self!" And I feel good for a minute.

Ok, enough with the introductions for now. Go grab a cocktail and have yourself a time.

Party on.