Round up to 30

Look at me actually remembering to post a blog entry before the end of the month.  Okay, stop looking, I'm shy.

August has been interesting to say the least.  It's the best month of the world, namely because it's my birthday month and also the birthday month of Lauren and Kat, who are eleven and ten days older than me respectively.  (I still think it's the coolest thing in the world that the three of us are so close in age.)  It started off with me neck-deep in a Harry Potter obsession.  (Obviously, it never goes away, but I go through cycles of being obsessed with different things, usually Harry Potter and Titanic.)  I blame Lauren.  Lauren has been drowning in Harry Potter, more so than usual, for months and months and months, and then she grabbed my ankle and pulled me down with her.

The weird thing is that I really can't focus on one "fandom" at a time (though I don't consider Titanic to be a fandom).  I've finally been writing again, but I can't write both my Harry Potter fanfiction and my historical novel (with a smidge of the movie Titanic fanfiction) at the same time.  I know, I've tried.  Hard.  I was wading through my novel, The Edge of the Ocean, and writing quite regularly when Harry Potter reared its beautiful head and pulled me back into the wizarding world.  As per usual, though, it started to fade away, replaced with, you guessed it, Titanic.  So here I am.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

On August 7, I drove about seven-or-eight hours northwest to Missouri.  It was the first time I had been back in a year, though I had seen Lauren and Kat this past March when they came to see me here in Tennessee.  The plan was originally a half-joke by Kat, who asked if we wanted to go see Halestorm at the MO State Fair again, as we did three years ago.  I don't think she was expecting Lauren and I to reply with a resounding, "Hell yeah!"  Originally, I had planned to take Friday off of work and drive up Thursday night after I got off, but because I am currently an unemployed bum, I was able to go earlier in the week to spend more time with Kat and mooch off of her at her apartment.

Mostly we hung around Hannibal, but while she was working on Wednesday I drove up to Kirksville; I can't seem to resist my second-favorite town in the world and the place where my life changed: Truman.  I miss Truman a lot, especially with school starting for everyone else but me.  It was nice to walk around the campus and see the town, but of course, it wasn't the same.  I did get to meet up with my favorite professor and boss, Ron, who showed me around Baldwin, the old disease-filled building that was finally renovated.  I can't help but be a bit bitter that I lived in Baldwin and inhaled its mold and cockroaches, and the year after I graduate, they close it down, and by the next year, it's open and super fancy.  The new language labs are amazing and the peer teaching areas make me want to cry.  Ron was showing me the new labs (I worked in the old ones for two-and-a-half years and often spent my time there in between classes) and I saw a sign I had made and stuck to the printer, probably three years ago.  It made me far too happy to see that it was still there.  Later, as we were walking around McClain, we stopped by the bulletin board for the French department and there were several pictures of me in it, whether from Pi Delta Phi or the French immersion weekend.

I commented, "I know it's silly, but it's nice to see that there is still some small remnant of me here."

Ron replied, "Ashlee, as long as I'm working here, there will always be a remnant of you here."

AWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

Seriously, that means the world to me.

Anyway, moving on.

Lauren arrived in Hannibal on Thursday evening.  How the town did not explode with the three of us in one place again is beyond me.  Friday was Halestorm day!  We went to see Lauren's dad and stepmom before driving the two-and-a-half hours to Sedalia for the concert.  This time, we knew what to expect and didn't arrive nearly as early as we did three years ago.  Last time, we ended up wandering around the fair for hours for nothing to do.  This time, we arrived with enough time to get some food, walk around once, and then go take our seats, which was perfect.

Speaking of our seats, we were in the second row!  It was absolutely incredible.  And though the first time had been amazing, this time was a thousand times better.  This time, there was no chainlink fence in front of us (the stadium is a dirt track) and we were so close to Lzzy and Joe, the lead guitarist.  Gooood, it was incredible.  Definitely one of the best concerts I've ever been to, hands down.

On Saturday, we continued our tradition (though it had been three years since we had done it) of going up to St. Louis to celebrate our birthdays!  Lauren's mom and stepdad were kind enough to drive us (and our friend, Liz, who is living in Armenia and whom Kat and I hadn't seen in three years since she graduated from Truman) up to St. Louis and take us to lunch.  After our usual meal at the Cheesecake Factory, we wandered around the mall, and in general had a jolly good time.

The original plan had been for Lauren and I both to head home on Sunday morning, buuut we didn't, so we decided to leave on Monday.  We spent some more time with her dad and stepmom before meeting up with Kat after she got off work that night.  On Monday, we went our separate ways.

When I got to Tennessee, everyone's full focus was on the upcoming solar eclipse, for which we were extremely close to the path of totality.  But we were out of luck in terms of getting glasses.  However, Jay (my fiancé; his whole family calls him "Jay" and because I met him after he started going by "Theo," I was the only one to call him at family gatherings, so I have decided to stop that) managed to snag a couple of pairs from work.  Score!

Or is it?

The day before the eclipse, my mom called and asked if she could borrow my glasses.  Let me tell you, I was a mite confused, as she didn't mention the eclipse, so I just assumed she wanted to borrow my actual glasses, which is weird.  But no, she was jokingly asking about the eclipse glasses because she and Emily had none and Emily's really into astronomy and wanted to see it.

Y'all know how I often do spontaneous things, like surprise my mom and dad, or leave Montréal a day early to surprise Theo--crap, I mean Jay--, or make a snap decision to travel to Missouri for a concert?  Well, I get it from my mother.  The plan was made for my mom and Emily to drive down from Kentucky to spend a few days here with us for the eclipse since I had both glasses and a means to get us to the actual path of totality, i.e. Murfreesboro.  So they left at about six o'clock my time and arrived about midnight.  It was awesome.

The next day, I lost the eclipse glasses.  Boy, was I upset.  We had intended to drive to the MTSU campus, which was having events and music and all that fun stuff, but we decided to go instead to the Stones River Battlefield, as they were giving away free pairs of eclipse glasses to the first 2,500 people who showed up.  And because we actually wanted to see the eclipse during the partial phases, that's where we went.  We arrived at eight, to make sure we got glasses, but we probably didn't have to.  It was a long, hot day, but by the time the eclipse happened, it was totally worth it.

Since then, I turned 26 on the 29th.  I've decided I'm in my late twenties, which is horrifying, because I can round my age up to 30.  Jay points out that I could have done that last year, too, and that 24, 25, and 26 are my mid-twenties, while 27, 28, and 29 are my late twenties.  He may be right, but it's too late for me to admit it now.