landed

this was a big weekend of firsts:

*driving to chicago

*being in the car with matt for more than 3 hours at a time (good thing we like each other)

*meeting his family

*bocce ball

*going to woodfield (2nd biggest mall in the world!)

*seeing august: osage county (read on)

*being in a car that got run off the road and spun around by killer snow (read on)

*having to stay in a hotel due to weather

oh and...updating my blog in 2010. duh.

so, my christmas present from matt was a trip to chicago to see the show. i know, my boyfriend rocks. it was a fantastic weekend and the play was incredible. it absolutely lived up to its rave reviews. basically, i was blown away. i always think the best stories (whether books, movies, plays) are the ones that are just about people. because, really, we are a complicated enough species that we don't always need exotic locations or crazy events to make us interesting. this story was about a family. a complex, dysfunctional, twisted family to be sure, but...just about people. my FAVORITE moment in live theatre is that deafening silence when something shocking or dramatic happens and everyone on stage shuts up and everyone in the audience is awed into complete mute. no whispering, no crumpling programs, no fidgeting or coughing. this show had some really great silent moments. the entire 2nd act was one absolutely exquisite scene in which every cast member (i think there were at least 10) was seated around a dinner table. it was brilliant. i could really go on and on. and the play still is, in my mind. i was caught up in their world for hours after. but overall...such an amazing experience.

coming back yesterday the weather was perfect for about 3 hours and then wha-bam. the clouds unloaded buckets of snow. now, matt is an excellent driver. but his mustang doesn't handle very well with even a 1/4" of precipitation on the ground. so we started getting nervous. he's driving well under the speed limit on a straightaway section of interstate 72, we're not elevated on a bridge or anything, when the car veers to the left of its own accord. matt tries to gently correct and the car starts spinning. by the time we arrive in the center median we've done at least 2 complete 360 degree turns, if not more. we got hazy on the details. i remember, bizarrely, looking at him when the car was careening wildly and feeling very calm. i just knew (irrationally!) we were going to be fine. also, this all happened while listening to the extremely mellow voice of our friend jim reading harry potter and the deathly hallows. just more bizarrity. we end up in the grass basically perpendicular to the highway and we're totally stuck. we call for a tow and it ends up taking about 2 hours. in that time, it got very dark and the snow picked up even more. we knew if we got back on the highway, it'd be minutes or less before we were back in the median again or worse. i'm so thankful we didn't hit any cars and that no one slid off and hit us while we were waiting in the median. so we get towed to hannibal and check into the holiday inn. there was just no way we were getting back to kirksville that night.

and we are such classic truman students. as soon as we landed in the median i started thinking about my 2 tests today, and matt started stressing about assignments he had to do last night. so staying in hannibal was definitely not ideal, but very necessary. it was actually pretty nice to push away the upcoming week for another night...we were huge fatties and devoured an entire large stuffed crust pizza (come on, we were stressed) and watched probably 4 hours of the olympics. kind of blissful, really. we gave the snow some time to calm down this morning and made it back to kirksville safely (and slowly) this afternoon.

basically, jamie & matt know how to do a weekend.