7.03.2007

surreal. . .


the work load this summer has been a little less than. . . i don’t want to jinx the whole thing. we are all working hard, long hours, and we’re all tired, but not quite to the extent that we have been in recent history. so we have a little time on our hands. . . or HAD a little time. not so much anymore.
i somehow have missed any and all chances to clean my car, but i did get a new haircut. there have been the usual bbq’s and such, but we even got to fit in an extra baseball game. granted this is all a few weeks ago now. presently we’ve opened our first two shows, been through the whole prop tart coronation and such, but i’ll get around to that in a bit.

we got out of work early and headed out for an afternoon in albuquerque, with a required trip to REI and another required stop at the talin market. about halfway to albuquerque we noticed something that looked like smoke trailing up from a hillside. there had been a few fires recently, so we figured it was along those lines. the trail of smoke increased a bit in size and we all started joking about how odd it would be for us to all experience driving alongside a tornado together. . . and then it became a little less than a joke. the funnel became rather pronounced and even though the sky hadn’t gone as dark and green as i’d seen before, there was a tornado about 15 miles from us. there was a carload of crew in front of us, and a carload behind us. the wind really started to pick up and there were so many cars stopping along the side of the road to watch that driving past them became hazardous. so we stopped too. we watched the tornado run and recede, and then sat through a hail storm that lasted about 20 minutes. we kept in contact with both our friends in front and our friends behind us. there was an accident behind us and a number of emergency vehicles sped passed while we waited out the hail. then we heard from our friends not more than a half mile behind us, that everyone there was being turned back to santa fe. the carload in front of us were almost in albuquerque. and we were in this bizarre no-man’s land. we started to press forward and there were no cars for several miles. we kept thinking one of the cops would pull up behind us and have us turn around, but then we came up on a spot where they had everyone on the other side of the highway stopped and were turning them back to albuquerque.

we squeaked by and met up with the lead group at REI. on our way out we heard that the other group would be allowed to pass through and we’d all meet up for the game. and no, i didn’t end up buying the bag that lit up on the interior when you broke the magnetic clasp. . . . but i thought about it for a really long time. and finding the place with bubble tea on the way out of the talin market was a great little surprise. we kept hearing that there would be another storm and we kept our eyes out. . . plenty of wind, but nothing too bad. when the sky finally cleared it was a great sunset.

the game was pretty great, and the ‘topes won, and who can resist a little pepperoni and green chile pizza. one would think, huh, quite and unusual day, but it hadn’t ended yet. you see, the combination of ballpark beer and silly two dollar bets can lead someone to do something that isn’t entirely thought through. a little harmless ballpark trespassing and suddenly you and everyone with you is watching your friend being led out of the park by security. so yeah. . . the whole tornado thing- quite bizarre, but trying to deal with unreasonable cops at the end of the night brings it to a whole new level.

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