WWE Peoria

Without Sugarland on tour this year, I've had an event withdrawal and opted to expand my horizons. A few weeks ago I took in Blue Man Group with Mom and Laura. It was great time and funnier than I anticipated. But having sat in the 2nd balcony... I have a lack of photos to share.

Tonight was another new experience. I talked my way into going with Adam and Westley to see a WWE Live event in Peoria. I regret to say that I missed a great opportunity to use glow sticks. 

The Main Event was supposed to include Randy Orton (butt shot below) and Daniel Bryan (current WWE World Heavyweight Champion), who I know as the guy with the goat beard. Bryan was an unfortunate no-show because of a family emergency, so we saw some randomness at the beginning, which lead to setting up a 3-on-3 Main Event to happen later in the evening.

I only watch wrestling when Adam is so kind to invite me over. But out of the handful of times, I've acquired a great dislike for Fandango. Dude's gimmick is dancing... dancing terribly!!! He probably wouldn't get past the first week on Dancing with the Stars. As evidenced below, I had to sit through a match with him in it! I'm happy to report he lost!

The following pic is from the match where I really started to get into the event. Why you ask? Well, I started a baseball style chant for Justin Gabriel and it caught on!
Here we Justin, Here we go! [clap-clap]
It was awesome!
Let the laughter and tears start.
As usual, my cheering jinxed his match... ya know, because it's not like they're planned or choreographed or something.

At some point there was an intermission because you had to let all the beer drinking fellows and young kids hit the restrooms. There were a couple BORING matches, before they got to a triple tag team match. Below was the intro for Goldust and Cody Rhodes.

Oh yeah, while the slow, stale matches went on... I was entertained by Adam's random exclamations and his echo sitting next to Westley. The super, die-hard wrestling fan below was something else! I have a feeling his wife didn't know what she was getting herself into.

As the wrestling continued, I became increasing distractible. The wrestler below with his back facing us was part of 3MB (Three Man Band) and had a rhinestoned logo similar to Harley Davidson across his butt. I could not turn away from the constant sparkling.

The Main Event featured The Shield who couldn't be bothered to enter or exit the ring the traditional way. Based on their wet hair and shirts, you may think this was taken after the match, but no, this was as they entered in from the concourse behind us.

The Shield ended up winning the 3-on-3 match. There was quite a bit of hair tossing where you could see a spray of mist from their soaking locks glisten in the spotlights. Their punches, slaps and kicks to the face were quite dramatic when timed with the flinging of ones chewing. Had the gum not been red or blue, you could have imagined it to be a tooth flying across the ring.

I did not expect to have as much fun as I did tonight. Some of the moves were so fake they brought on laughter, while some of the falls left me cringing and wondering how their tailbones are still intact. A few of the gimmicks were beyond ridiculous, like the party dude and his posse (seen below to the left of the blue shirted guy was a penguin costume). But to see the diehard fans fully invested reactions was priceless.

Safe to say a fun time was had by all!

Oh, I did did much googling to get some of the details correct. Here are the final results for those interested.

Cat and Dog Habits

Yesterday I stayed home from work because I was feeling really puny. Days like that, when I have cat purring on my chest and dog warming my feet, make up for the random habits I've acquired since becoming a cat and dog owner.

1. Cut the handles on plastic grocery bags.

Once upon a time when Jinkies and lived in my parents' basement, I was upstairs in the kitchen talking to my mom. As our conversation went on, I could hear Jinkies in the stairwell meowing. He's a cat, he does that sometimes. But the meowing changed to yowling, so I rushed to investigate. My little buddy tried to walk through the handles of a plastic grocery bag and got one stuck extremely snugly around his pudgy little belly.

2. Throw my dental floss away in the kitchen garbage can.

I don't have a top to my bathroom garbage can and find it disturbing to see my cat walking around the house with dental floss hanging out of his mouth. Plus, I'd rather not bring him to vet for obstruction surgery. Note: This habit also flows over into anything with a string or thin plastic pull tab. Extra Note: Balls of yarn are also banned from my house.

3. Keep way too many things on the kitchen table.

My kitchen table has a constant pile of stuff on it. The stuff is to protect the house plants from the cat. I suppose one could always build some sort of protective chicken wire cage with nicely painted wood frame. The motivation might be there, if I actually used my kitchen table. Or would I use my kitchen table if it was clear?

4. Always put away and rinse dishes.

The trend of items have been leaning towards a curious cat, but this habit was developed thanks to both of my furry little friends. Dishes must be returned to the kitchen. Leaving them on the coffee table or surface lower than a kitchen counter when not in the same room (even for a minute) is not acceptable. Rinsing them off is not exactly mandatory, but strongly suggested. (If they can't smell it, they won't go after it.)

5. Store chocolate in the microwave.

Chocolate has a strong scent, and Sparky has quite the sweet too. He will go to great lengths to get the chocolate he's not aware can cause him harm. I learned this lesson one day when I forgot I had an oversized super-extra dark chocolate bar in my briefcase. I left the living room long enough to take a shower and when I came back there was tin foil on the carpet. The Sparkster dug into my briefcase to consume the chocolate bar as fast as he could. That was an expensive mistake. Thank goodness for vets and pills that make your dog upchuck.

6. Hang bread in a grocery sack from a cabinet pull.

Yes, my pets are scavengers, but I do feed them on a regular basis and they get occasional treats. You wouldn't know that when you wake up in the morning or when the clock strikes 4pm. Anyway, bread and any sort of baked good is seen in the eyes of Jinkies as fair game. He'll drag it off the counter and wrestle it. The baked good is never salvageable, you find it left for dead with puncture wounds, bite marks and squished beyond recognition.

7. Cover beds with a vinyl tablecloth.
I currently don't have an offender... Thank Goodness! Unhappy animals act out. I used to have a very sassy cat that would "show me" her dislikes by peeing on things. In order to save the beds, I purchased vinyl tablecloths that I could use as a bedspread. Note: This habit does resurface during long vacations. Don't want to be on the receiving end of a furball acting out.

I'm sure there are plenty of other habits I've acquired whether I'll ever realize it or not. These are just the first ones off the top of my head. Life would not be the same without my little buddies.

What's going on?

I think it's as simple as I've been thinking too much. About what? Well, pretty much everything. So, what's the plan? Get back to my happy place. How am I going to do that? Take one thing at a time. That should at least get me one step in the right direction.

Day 6 - Homeward Bound

Our wakeup call of 4:00am was less than pleasant. Sure it was really 6:00 Illinois time, but I was already accustomed to mountain time. We left before the sun rose on the palm trees outside the hotel...

...and before we could properly say goodbye to prickly cacti friends. Photo courtesy of Tom, who allegedly got lost on one of his morning runs.

Had we driven by Cubs Park, I'd like to think the marquee would have been lit and programmed to wish us safe travels. One can dream, right?

We returned the rental car and headed to our separate terminals. I got through security with an hour left before takeoff, so I watched TV and learned about haboobs on CNN. My 3.5 hour flight landed me safely in Atlanta only to find out my connecting flight was still in Chattanooga, TN. Let the waiting begin.

I made it back into Peoria around 6:00pm and headed over to the parents to pickup The Sparkster. I was treated to a wonderful family dinner before I made the final leg home. Apparently Jinkies was having a wonderful dinner too. He feigned hunger so much, the cat watcher fed him extra scopes of food. The buffet was still open when Sparky and I got home.

As always, Sparky was happy to see me and an overly purring Jinkies made his feelings be known.

Day 5 - Baseball Wind-down

After 3 straight days of baseball, it was time to ease ourselves out and bring vacation to a close. It was another sleep in morning with the promise of some ball-hawking at the Cubs batting practice. If you're not familiar with ball-hawking, it's basically waiting beyond the outfield fence in hopes of tracking down a homerun ball.

With umbrellas in tow, Tom and I headed out towards left field. On my merry way, I happened upon a homerun ball that bounced off the safety netting in right-center field and dropped at my feet. Sweet! I got an almost pristine baseball (it has a fence gouge) as opposed to the mush generic Minor League Baseball practice ball from the other day.

Now the goal was to assist Tom in getting a ball. The outfield fence had a green wind screen, so you could see when a player was swinging, but before you knew it, a ball could be screaming by your head. It was extremely hard to track the ball, but the umbrella gave me a false sense of safety.

My chance of catching a ball on the fly was zero, so I was left trying to predict the ricochets off the fence and rock landscaping. There were only about to that landed near me. The first was me vs. the 65+ yr old man. Since I already had a ball and saw his actions were going to mow me over, I eased up at the last minute so as not to cause a collision. I let it be known that I was displeased with his overly aggressive technique.

With no acknowledgement from the old man... well... Bring It! Game On! We went through quite a drought, so I had to be patient in hatching my plan. I was ready to block-out the old man or even set a pick, so Tom could use his speed and sweep in to snag the ball. Unfortunately, I just could not predict the trajectory the ball take off the fence and landscaping. The ball was settling in near a cute little shrub, which I didn't want to take out, but had to give the old man a run for his money. Basically, I clocked him upside the head as a blindly reached for the ball. Accident or not, I did pick up his hat and apologize. How sincere it looked behind my inner smile is anybody's guess.

I'm happy to report Tom was able to track down a homerun ball and neither of us took a shot from any of the spherical missiles. We caught with Jim after batting practice was over and headed over to the ballpark. Tom was nice enough to take the illegal umbrellas to the car. Here's the path he took. 

I spent the time waiting in line so Jim, Tom and I could get our photo taken at the marquee! One of the best things I stood in line for and it was free!

We lucked out with our seats be high enough up the left field line that we were in the shade, so instead of hiding on the concourse for a few innings, I was actually able to hang out in our seats and watch a bit of the Cubs pregame.

It was another beautiful day, not as hot as the previous, and the difference between Chicago at around 1:00pm got the same sarcastic applause and laughter as all the previous days.

Even though we didn't get to see a Cubs win at home and hear them play Go Cubs Go, Tom and I were still all smiles. The 3 of us were also part of history, this game set the Cubs Park and Cactus League single game record with 15,276 in attendance.

While at the game we also learned about a new weather phenomena thanks to our phone emergency alerts. I later found out another name for these dust storms is a haboob. We ended up leaving the game during the warning time frame, but just like back home with a thunderstorm, we could see the haboob much further south in the distance.

With an early wakeup of 4am in our future, we opted for skipping the Cubs split squad game and hit Dave and Buster's for a little gaming. I think we were all victorious at least once whether it be basketball, pacman, or racing. Here's my screenshot from the Mario Kart racing game.

We ate our last meal outdoors in the beautiful weather, and then returned to the hotel to pre-pack and open some baseball card packs. I failed to mention on Monday that prior to hitting the fields, we headed over to a local baseball card shop for Tom and Jim to peruse. The shop was technically closed, but the owner who was next door at his primary business, a laundromat, let us in and locked the door behind him.

Yep, we were locked in a baseball card shop, given all the time we needed to hunt for Tom's needles in a haystack. With the 3 of us, we were pretty efficient with our time and helped Tom find more than enough cards than what wouldn't fit in his carry-on bag. Good thing little sis had a bag she'd be checking.