Day One in Cin City was full of stalkers, shootings and gluttony.
Just kidding. Kind of.
Theresa, BK, Noelle and Julie went to church this morning. We thought about just worshipping at one of Amy's many, many, many shrines (get excited for pictures later. Lots and lots of pictures) but we all decided we needed a break from The Sanctuary. We ended up in Cincinnati's version of a Joel Osteen/Billy Graham mega-church learning about finances. You know what I love? Sermons about finances in a city I'm not from. Or just sermons on finances in general...
In the end, we appreciated the fellowship but got miffed at a lack of hot chocolate (not all Christian Hipsters drink coffee. Like Theresa...though she's probably the only one).
By the time we made our way back to Rick Santorum headquarters, everyone was awake except Zach, who was still drooling on the hospital bed. (Side note: who has a hopsital bed just chilling at their house? An Uber-Catholic Massage Therapist, that's who).
As per usual, we all piled in our Traveling Mormon Sect Van yelling "YAY SISTERWIVES!!!" and headed towards The Outlet, our service destination for the day.
Our time at The Outlet was incredible--it's the only shelter in Cincinnati that offers activities for the homeless during the day. There were TVs, a common-area for dining, pool tables, ping pong,...and a foosetable with one plastic man missing his lower half. We didn't ask questions.
We spent our time today serving coffee and Tang (It's a kick in the MOUTH!), playing games, and watching the Kentucky-Baylor game (sorryboutcha Quincy Acy).
Here's some things we learned at The Outlet:
- There is a man named Minnesota Farts (it's a long story) who is a pool prodigy (sidenote, we saw him later on in the city and tried to say hey. He ignored us, though we suspect it's because Zach was dressed in a tophat and cane and he didn't recognize his super classy alter-ego)
- Charles sucks at ping-pong
- and fooseball
- Baylor never stood a chance
- hot dogs can be baked
- Julie got told she had nice thighs...
- Several members of the Cincinnati society now want to go to Mizzou. They are all over the age of 40.
- These people have incredible, moving stories and they want to share part of their lives with you
- there's a youtube sermon on a cross-shaped molecule by Louie Giglio and a traveling evangelist named Timothy would really, really like you to watch it
- everyone speaks the language of sports
- there are Packers fans in the middle of Bengals territory
- Art is universal and you don't need any material possessions to make a message with it
- Spades is a really intense game
- you can play ping-pong with a dustpan
These are just some highlights, each of us have deeply personal reflections on the day and I'm sure will have more to come. Personally, I was floored by a pep-talk I got from a man named James, who used to be homeless but has recently bought a house in the suburbs. All three of his sons have jobs and are in college.
" I've been to the other side, I know how that feels, and I'm never going back again. I see these people hurting, and it makes me sad, because they think this is all there is, it's all they know. I come back because I identify with them, they're my people--but I'm not like them anymore. I have no regrets, but I'm not going back. And I don't know where you are right now, but let me tell you this, you're more than you think. Just promise me you'll be all you can be and never give up--I'm never going to."
I forgot to mention the part of our morning where Panera employees yelled at us for "not calling ahead" our orders. Uhmmm excuse us? This would never happen at a Bread Co., just saying.
We were all riding a high after The Outlet experience--awesome people, great servitude, and I think we all ended up getting more out of it than we feel like we put in. We're all feeling "#blessed". Post-Outletting, we took an illfated trip to Wal*Mart.
Nothing good ever happens at Wal*Mart.
I will say though, despite the general hotmess that is trying to buy groceries on one bill for 12 different people ("Can we get cookies?" "No I gave them up for lent" "But I need oreos" "I'm going to double-stuff your face if you don't stop bringing up the cookies", we got a bargain deal. Granted, we also bought out the store's Great Value brand, but such is life.
PS, Zach and BK are Peanut Butter Divas and had to get their own Extra Crunchy. We're not ashamed.
Also, let's talk about the girl who rang us out. Her name was Shaneqcua. Not a joke.
Here's a fun fact, everyone in Cinci is quick to talk up Skyline Chilli and get you super stoked to go nom on it, but everyone fails to mention that IT'S NOT OPEN ON SUNDAY (uhmmm you're not on Chik-Fil-A's level). So naturally we drove around downtown to three different ones hoping it was a myth. It wasn't. No Chilli. Thus, we settled on La Rosa's and ended up with decent, but not Shakespeare's worthy pizza. Plus, it came with a side of bitter jealousy--we had to watch UNC fail at life against kU.
Cue mass hatred tweeting about kU.
But seriously, I hate kU. So much. Watching them gloat was actually physically revolting. But I digress.
Many of the patrons at the Outlet suggested we go to Graeter's Ice Cream, so we tried to find one downtown.
Like everything else in the city, it was closed. Cin City is like my 85 year old grandma--it goes to sleep at 8:30 and won't let you have Ice Cream past 6.
There was also an unfortunate shooting (or something. Shooting sounded the most exotic/exciting/dramatic, so we made implications) that had the cops blocking off the one road we needed to go down to get anywhere.
Luckily, we google'd one a Graeter's near our Sanctuary that was open until ten. Disheartened but not downtrodden, we began the trip back towards our home sweet Catholic Museum happily blasting RACK CITY (let's talk about Paige rapping every single song on the radio. Is that what happens when you kiss Superman Steve? You get Rapping Super Powers? #unfortunatesideaffect). Everything was going lovely until we passed by our home on the way to Greater's and saw an unknown car in the driveway.
Naturally, we all assumed that we'd been pillaged and robbed and as soon as we got home we'd be facing an axe murderer who would mail us home to our families in little pieces. We continued on to ice cream as planned. Priorities.
As soon as we got out of the car, the same red car pulled up next to us. This was it. We were about to be killed in the parking lot of an Ice Cream Parlor in the middle of Cincinnati. Our time had come. Judgement Day was upon us. Our lives flashed before our eyes.
It ended up being Nathan, St. Amy's homeschooled son. He had followed us, his friend Dookie (i.e. Dave) in tow. He seemed to find this totally normal as he greeted us with, "Hey guys! We thought that was you so we went ahead and followed. Figured ice cream sounded good." None of us could remember mentioning that we we're getting ice cream, so how he knew where we were going is beyond us. I can't decide if this was a better outcome than the axe-murderer scenario we imaged.
Ice cream was delicious, thanks for asking (sorry Andy's, but they even had Hot Cross Buns, which I thought was just an awful song you have to learn on the recorder in the fourth grade, but is in fact, an actual thing).
Back to The Holy House for a night of shennanigans. And by shennanigans, I mean reading Cosmo, counting the pictures of Jesus (76), and playing never have I ever (don't worry, Nathan joined us. Apparently he's not as home-schooled we thought. Woof.) We also tried to play Abby's riveting game of Toss The Pigs or some such nonsense but it failed as quickly as it started.
As for now, we're creepily in the parking lot of a coffee shop, scamming off their wi-fi and trying to fight the urge to write "Free Candy" on the windows of our van. It'll be an early night, we're all soooooooooooooooo tired from all the tom-foolery and reading all those cosmo articles.
Here's to more Hunger Games, Home-Schoolers, and tweets to ASB_NO1
<33333 Sleepless in Cincinnati
No comments:
Post a Comment