Visting Nickey in Bellevue, May 2006

Friday morning I went to class with lack of sleep. I had to sleep on the floor while my parents got the bed and my dad snored. Class was alright to say the least. We talked about gambling and how it is ruining the sports industry. Personally, I think gambling is alright as long as I don't lose any money doing it, therefore...I will not do it, it is a waste of time, effort and obviously money. Any who, I got home from class and got my stuffed packed to come home for the long Memorial Day weekend. I took my laundry home so I don't have to do it when I come back...besides everyone who comes home from college takes their laundry home for their mother to do. I feel bad, so I do it myself. By the time I came home from class we had about two hours to burn. So we headed up to Spokane. We went to the White Elephant store...a place me and my dad like to go when we are in Spokane. It is an awesome store filled with recreation stuff, toys and hunting gear...I say it is a well rounded store with the essentials. Who can pass up toys? We spent some time in there browsing. I bought some floatation devices so when it does become summer again...a bunch of us can go down to the Snake River and go swimming. I have three of them, first come first serve. It became 2 PM...the time I should start heading west...at least that's what Nickey said what time to start coming westbound. I hugged my mom and dad goodbye and we went through Spokane. The normal route to get onto the freeway was blocked so we had to go down a secondary route to get onto the freeway. It took us downtown...a place I hate to drive, and we eventually made it to I-90. Mom and dad had to go to Cheney to drop off some money for Erika so they were about 30 min behind me. I had good progress going until I got to Moses Lake. Apparently, something happened to part of the freeway and we had to go a different way. I got there just as it happened. There was a cop and flares in the middle of the roadway. I had no clue what to do next. I went into the town of Moses Lake hoping I could find another way to the freeway. Blindly I made my way through the town and I eventually found a way to I-90. After that, it was a breeze until I got to Ellensburg...I had to get gas. Stopped got gas and peed. After that it was free sailing until I got to Bellevue. It was really weird driving past my exit...Highway 18. I have never gone passed it before. Just before I got into Bellevue it poured down rain like no other. At one point I could not see anything ahead of me except the person's tail lights...that was a good thing since I was not familiar with the area around me. Once I got into Bellevue it was simple from the directions that Nickey gave me. I made it to her house just as she got off of work. I got out of the car and was glad because I had to pee so bad I was just about to die. Nickey was glad to see me and vice versa...it's been a while. I was glad to be out of Pullman for a while on the west side. I took some of my stuff in the house and met her parents. I have seen them before during softball a couple years ago but I actually got to meet them. They seemed pretty cool and pretty laid back. Really reminded me of my family, I fit right in. In fact...they started calling me Katie-Val. Haha. I helped get the food ready for dinner. We had tacos and they did have their tacos with ketchup and mayo, very strange. They told me it was like a taco hamburger...I didn't buy it for a second. I told them I eat my tacos with pickles and they thought that was bizzare, I actually thought it was normal, but I guess it's not. After dinner we went and saw the Da Vinci Code. I actually waited because Nickey wanted to see it with me...well that is what she said a couple months ago. I kept my promise and waited. We went with her mom, dad and sister Chrissy. That day Chrissy got a haircut and referred to herself as Shrek. We had fun making fun of her. Anyways, we went and saw the movie...I'd have to admit...I liked the book much better, the movie drug on and on. Plus, when you have to pee and do not want to disturb the people next to you it seems longer. Me and Nickey were kind of disappointed in the movie a bit, but I guess that is what we get for reading the book. After the movie we drove to Dairy Queen and we all got ice cream to celebrate Nickey's birthday since her parents were not going to be around for her real birthday on Sunday. I had fun hanging out with her family that night. We came home and opened gifts. I gave her Becca's gift and she loved it. She said that she was going to get coffee put in it everyday. Next was mine...the one I have anticipated giving to her for weeks now. I think back a couple months ago...I actually told her what I was going to give her...she probably does not remember that. Haha. I did not have time to wrap it up since it was just completed by my mom on the way over to the track meet. So I hid it in with my coat. She found the pillowcase first then I gave her the quilt. She absolutely loved it! I was so happy to finally have given it to her. Her mom shot up from the couch and gave me a hug. She told me that she had always wanted to make a memory quilt but has never done it. She didn't cry like I thought she would along with the others I shared the quilt with. They couldn't believe that I put so much time and effort into a gift like that. I wanted to do something nice for Nickey because I have known her for three years but had never gotten to know her...that was my mistake. I should have from the get go. She deserves something nice like that because she puts so much into her friends that it is time to give back to her. I appreciate everything she does, whether it is the little things or the huge things. I am glad we became such great friends over a small amount of time and I will cherish that friendship forever. We all had such long days we all passed out after opening birthday presents. We got up the next morning and Barb made us some scrambled eggs and toast with OJ. We then went to the Super Mall in Auburn for some shopping. I was there just for fun. I did not have the money to spend or I would have. I beats sitting in my room in Pullman, that's for sure. After that, Richard picked them up and I drove home to hang out with my family for the rest of the day.


Later that weekend, I left my house around 3ish because Nickey was supposed to meet me at the mall but couldn't find the coupon her mom was supposed to give her. She had to go pick up something. Turns out she could not find the coupon so I was driving all the way to Bellevue without the stop. I have been there twice now so I thought I had the directions down. I was pretty close with my memory except for one little thing. That's when I called Nickey. It was squared away. I got there and we watched Sex in the City...there was a reason I did not watch that show. I did anyways. While Nickey got ready...me and Chrissy sat there and watched 4 episodes of it, until Frankie got there to watch the Sopranos...which was reruns...haha. By that time everyone else started showing up so we could go to dinner. We drove up to Kirkland to eat dinner at the Cactus. It was a Mexican restaurant. I had one of their drinks...which turned out to be a hot pink drink...oh well it got the job done. For dinner I had a quesadilla, since it was the only thing I knew what it was. It was pretty good. I got to meet Nickey's friends who she works with at the animal hospital. They were fun people. After dinner we had to go back to Nickey's house so her sister could get some more money...while we were there, me and Nickey took a shot and chased it with some beer. It tuned out to be an okay decision. We waited for the rest to show up. We then left and did not get off of the exit we were supposed to get off of, so we continued down 405 until we got to Mountlake Terrace. We got off of there and went south on I-5 until we got off of the exit near Safeco and Quest Field. We went to Tiki Bob's, where we rushed in and peed. No one at the door checked our id's. We got out of the bathroom and Nickey right away found a guy to dance with. She was wayyyy to drunk. At that point she started slurring her words. We took pictures..hehe. Me and Liz laughed...that's all we could do, was just laugh at her. Most of the night she was all up on some guys. The DJ told some girls to get up on the bar and dance...who ever did that would receive a free shot and some cards so the next time we went there (which would be never for me because I do not live in Seattle) we would get in free without the cover price. We got our free shots. It was sweet. I never have danced on top of the bar. When Shakerz was still around I did dance in the cages. After a while it was time to go and we had to contain Nickey. While Chrissy was closing out her tab we kept close tabs on Nickey or she would have gone off with a guy named Chris. She stayed and danced with him where we could keep an eye on her. The tab was eventually closed after about a half and hour and we helped Nickey to the car while Chrissy talked to some guys outside of the bar. We drove up and picked the girls up and left Seattle and drove back to Bellevue. I have never seen Nickey that drunk before, not even in Pullman. I hope Nickey had a great 22nd birthday. I sure had fun hanging out in the city, since I do not ever come up to Seattle unless there is a Cougar football game or a Mariners game to go to.

Shannon's Version of West Virginia Nationals

So ends a frantic week, leading directly into dead week which is another frantic week and straight into finals, great timing for this little adventure.  All complaining aside the trip was pretty good, apparently it doesn't compare to last year, but not a whole hell of a lot i can do about that is there now.  Anyway, lets start from the end and Tarintino it shall we?  "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"  Ha ha...ok moving on.



We are back on Friday of the 14, I've gotta tell all my teachers I'm peacing out for a week.  Half of them don't even care which is cool, I can wait to drop physics and kick that classes ass next semester anyway, this really has nothing to do with the events I just thought I'd give you a little background.  Flash forward to Monday night, we are supposed to leave for Spokane Monday night after intramural soccer playoffs.  I hadn't even thought about packing until after class on Monday so I had to scramble a bit and get all my stuff together.  I didn't forget anything though which is pretty amazing considering 9 times out of 10 I will forget something.  Anyway now the meat of the beginning of this tale…



Soccer.  To some its fun, to others (me) its baffling, either way I was

coaxed into playing and by coaxed I mean the conversation went a little

like "Shannon wanna play intramural soccer?"  "I don't know how"  this

conversation being with Nickey, it needs the side note that she played

intramural basketball with us so "I didn't know how to play basketball"  "ok"  Fast forward to Monday night, we've won 2 games by forfeit and one of our own accord, not thanks really to me, I do believe I fell on my ass after stepping on the ball during one that game, might have been the other game we played where we lost...at least I think we did...i can't remember anymore...too much has happened. 

Anyway...playoffs round 1...some how or another we always end up with the ALLSTAR team and by allstar, I mean the girls who somehow think they are going to relive high school glories by beating up on random sorority girls and a few others who actually know what their doing with the occasional girl who runs around like a chicken with her head cut off during games. 

This last girl is me.  The first girls, the team we played.  So all these girls are soccer allstars apparently and they play hard.  Not just hard, they play like they shouldn't be allowed to play in intramural ball.  So we're going through this game...pretty much getting our butts kicked cuz these girls are mad competitive and we get down to the last 2 minutes, the score is 4-0 them and Val goes in to do god only knows what...try to give us some shred of dignity and this girl...affectionately known to us as MITCH because of the back of her shirt...anyway she hip checks Val while she's midair needless to say she goes down...hard and when she rolled over everyone knew she's fucked...she heard a pop and that was that.  we finish the game...of course losing...all of our girls are pissed and I'm still not sure how nobody got into a fight, but no one did and we left one girl hurt going into nationals in about 36 hours.  



Val was supposed to drive herself to the airport...but she did not she came in the car with Nickey, me and Becca...needless to say Becca fell

asleep by Colfax...which is what she does...she can't stay awake in cars.  The drive was fairly uneventful and we went to Lawson’s.  Becca crawled straight into bed...well first she flopped around on the floor for a little while and Nickey and I went to taco bell to get some

grub.  SO we get back and I give Val the bag of food..and she hands Nickey a taco thinking that someone would be smart enough to check the tacos before they are distributed I leave this to the two stooges...lets just say...from the kitchen I hear Nickey go "This isn't mine" and I come back to find a large bite taken out of my soft taco...I was a tad upset cuz we all know how I am about food.  That was pretty much the highlight of that night...and Nickey and Val are very loud but no one can honestly be surprised by that.  



5:30 am...now if you know me you know I hate the morning...this morning is no different we pack up and head to the airport and so proceeds the plain rides...2 hrs 5 hrs a stop in LAX at which point i realized that I could have gotten a visit and some in-n-out from Madre...but hadn't told her early enough...POOP!  That was the extent of the excitement 

until we got to Baltimore Maryland.  I know what you're thinking...what were you doing in MD this blog is called WEST VIRGINIA is it not?  oh it is but apparently we are lower on WSU's priority list than anyone had really known...well at least not me...our "travel agent" who I like to call the lady who won’t use the internet said she could only get us a flight into MD and we had to drive 4 hours to Morgantown WV or pay $200 a piece more to get flown into some place closer...those were our only 2 options...Now for those of you who have flown before you know that there are never ONLY 2 choices.  You can imagine how excited we all were well we got to the airport and people went to get the cars...while others chilled...so I think…HACKY SACK!  That led to quite a few laughs and an interesting picture of me imitating a fish

I have no idea why...I'd just been on a plane for 7 hours since 6 am...I wasn't really putting everything into my memory bank.  At one point the sack ended up on a 8 ft random wall thing that I had to be hoisted up to get...nothing too extreme...but it should be noted...that we are not a soccer team nor are we very good at hacky sack.



So starts our journey to Morgantown, West Virginia...about a half our in, its 11 pm we're hungry and decide to stop at a McDonald’s.  Some people went to a little grocery store, some Pizza Hut...others McDonalds...lets just say McDon's was not the best choice ever.  I walk in a few minutes after everyone else because we were in different vans.  I come in to Courtney walking over to Chelsea with an interesting facial expression.  The conversation ensues: "you have to come with me 

to the bathroom"  "why" "just come here" "what is it, something gross" "yeah" "what shit all over the place" "no" a few other things I can't remember "something dead" "yes"  WHAT?  Yes something dead.  Now what the hell is this dead thing?  Courtney: "just come here" They return about 30 seconds later.  its a opossum...yeah a possum I'm not writing the o cuz i don't care...anyway...the conversation that ensued led to the 3 boys that were already there taking a gander at the girls bathroom and 4 girls making great use of their camera phones... I never did see the possum because I was waiting to order before we went...I'll get to that in a sec.  So Jackie comes out of the bathroom and very

matter-of-factly tells the 2 workers that there is a possum in the toilet.  And the man...figures goes...I'm sure it's just a diaper...to which she replies, "a diaper with eyes teeth and claws" and she

proceeds to who the lady the picture on her phone...at first she's like "i cant really make it out" but she realizes we're not lying I mean FOR SHITS SAKE wtf?  Well guy and girl go about their business completely ignoring the 4 people who still wanted to order finally someone asks if they can order and the lady is like oh drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, WV my god.  Well I guess this wasn't WV yet but the point is these people were not the best and brightest.  Anyway we finally get our food and get a call that we have to go cuz some creepy guys are around Pizza Hut freaking the others out...i'm still not quite  sure what happened there but the important part of this story was the possum.



On to WV...I don't know what time we got there but it was 3 hours ahead for us...so we were pretty awake and we had to be at the field at 8 for opening ceremonies.  We went passed the fields and arrived just as they announced our names and ran out onto the field.  The girl who sang the national anthem deserves all our...for lack of a better word, as mean as it is...pity.  I mean this girl...wow.  Not only did she start

in a soprano voice and get airy before the high part then time came for the rockets red glare, everyone was wondering what she was gonna do for this, mind you she'd already gone flat a few times...fairly badly a

and then it happened...oh she did it...she dropped a whole octave...to an alto voice...for all of 5 words and then back to airy soprano and more flats...it was interesting...and all we could do not to shit our pants laughing.



Our first game was at 11 am that day we won...then proceeded to lose the next 2...this was pool play but it still sucks to lose...3 games in one day was...lets say exhausting...mind you we haven't had a real practice in 3 weeks because it has decided to rain non stop in Pullman which is cool.  So we're tired and we've been up since 5 am our time.  So we have a game at 11 I believe the next day. Pretty sure we didn’t 

do anything exciting that night next game we lose I do believe I was pretty angry at this point and fairly frustrated...one more game and we're out..but we've already matched our pre-nationals games played so as cool as that is i still would have liked to do better.  The whole time Val was pretty pissed to cuz all she was looking forward to all year was Nationals and she was gonna miss it because of MITCH so she was mad we had games the next day...if we won all of them we'd play 4 all right after another we won the first one in the 8th inning because of a bunt by me and international tie breaker rules.  It was exciting needless to say...but then we lost the next one in the bottom on 7...yeah so we were out.  



We saw Silent Hill Friday night and Becca was freaking out...it was funny...we had a few wrestling matches throughout the trip and I do believe it was Friday or Saturday that Becca decided to pick the orange fight. She ate an orange and spit it all at people a wrestling match ensued which ended in Becca putting Nickey's shoe in the toilet...not getting it wet just scaring her...and I went in there and flushed the toilet...taking the shoe out of course be she didn’t know it.  While is was doing this Nickey through Beccas shoe out the window

and after Becca got it Becca decided to attack my shirt with deodorant...which I was a bit disappointed in because I was HELPING HER...but whatever all's fair in war I found orange in my sweatshirt on the flight home and Becca put one in my book.  


Every time I went up to bat I got a song it went a little like this: 

Let me here you say uh....UH...sha non i non sha non i non...I danced it was fun.
 
I did not even finish my tacos so i can't really get mad at Nickey.

Nickey's afraid of thunderstorms and it was hotter than shit in WV

apparently Nickey fell off the bed one night...or Val dreamed it...and val doesn't know how to stay on her side of the bed

The first night we went to team dinner at Garfield’s and you could write on the table cloths...just thinking about that makes me laugh. Nickey and I had a war...and we had some good things written down. Our waitress drew us a map of how to get to cold stone if we wanted ice cream...she called their coliseum ugly and we told her about the blue heart....ew...then Nickey thought it'd be a good joke to leave my phone number on the table cloth...only Nickey's a dork and wrote 818 - 8844...would have loved to see who she reached...and the correction was even better.

We had some pretty sweet car rides rocking out...me and Becca rediscovered that we are the same person...many many times.

So the game we won went a little something like this:


For those of you who don't know international tie breaker, it means the inning starts with a runner on second. 8th inning...they're up first...they bunt we go for the out at one cuz we need outs, then they hit a hard ball to Chelsea at third who dives at the girl who advanced and tags her out...beautiful...3rd out fly to me in center. We're up...last out on 2nd, that would be our pitcher of that game Bri...heater is up...she's 9th batter...lefty, she looks to bunt but the pitch is a ball and first and third move way up on her...so she hits away...now heather isn't known for being a huge hitter...but today...she decided to be amazing...she hits it hard at the pitcher who decides to go after bri who gets in a pickle for third...she gets out cuz her knee collapses and heather advances to second. Up comes me...I'm about to go up, knowing i'm going to bunt...1 out DUH!...and I'm thinking...WHERE"S MY SONG...then I hear Court and nic...and I dance...and then comes the bunt...not a bunt and run but i do those best...so I'm going after the first pitch unless its obviously not a strike...and it obviously was...dropped the bunt I believe down toward third base...I figure they check heather back to second...and here comes the excitement...throw to first...hits the top of the girls gloves...flies past her...heather rounds third...their getting the ball she decides to go...I'm yelling as loud as I can for her to move her ass...the throw is behind her by 2 steps she slides into home...we scream and hug and WIN! Probably the best game of my life...well at least this year for sure.


-Shannon Barratt (April 2006) 

West Virginia Fastpitch Nationals

Wow, that was a long trip.  We left Spokane Monday night (Nickey, Shannon and Becca) and stayed with Lauren.  The next morning we went to the airport and got checked in.  Monday night we had an intramural soccer game and I was the lucky one out of the bunch who got hurt while playing, some girl should of let it go out of bounds instead she shoved me and my ankle popped out of place and the result was a high ankle sprain for my trip to West Virginia.  So, Nickey went and asked the airport people to get a pre-boarding pass just so I would not keep people from getting onto the flight because of my limp. Nickey was my aide, to help me out with my bags.  Nickey enjoyed this more than I did.  

We left Spokane around 7:25 and got to Oakland, CA about 9 something.  We stayed on the flight and went to Los Angeles, CA where we got off the plane and waited for our next one to Baltimore, MD.  Once again Nickey asked the airport people if I could have the "special people pass".  I was made fun of most of the time while we were walking.."Val, you should get a wheelchair..."  I said no.  We got on our flight and left around 12:30 PM.  We got into Baltimore about 8ish Eastern time and went to the car rental place.  We waited there until the three vans pulled up.  We packed our stuff in and we were on our way to Morgantown, WV...217 miles away.  We stopped for food before it got later in the evening at an area with a McDonald's, Pizza Hut and a grocery store.  Apparently, some of the girls had a good time at the McDonald's.  Someone had put an opossum in the toilet.  Someone took a picture of it to show the others.  During the trip, we had some interesting...yet funny conversations.  There were a couple of signs that sparked our interest.  There was this wild life sign that had a deer and a bear on it.  Me and Nickey laughed and repeated "Da Bears".  When we made it to the Welcome to West Virgina sign, it said "Open for business"...haha we laughed a lot and we still do.  We got to our hotel about 1:30 AM and we went to sleep.  It was a very long day of travel.

We played our first rounds of softball today.  Pool play consisted of Virginia, Penn State and West Virginia.  We won our first game, lost the second and third...we shouldn't have lost these ones.  We were ahead and then "coug'd it".  We played well for only having 4 games this season before we came here. 

Ok, I left off at pool play.  The next day was actual bracket play.  We were scheduled to play Virginia...again.  I am getting sick of playing the same teams day by day.  It was like that in Maryland, same teams over and over again.  Oh well.  We played very well against them and lost it in the bottom of the seventh.  With that loss, we were done for the day and did not play until Friday morning.  The whole day we did some homework, drove around Morgantown (specifically to the Starbucks) and just kind of hung out.  For dinner, we all went to the mall where this restaurant was.  Garfield's was the coolest.  We got to draw on our table cloth (which was butcher paper) with crayons...how cool is that?  Being the people that we are, we took full advantage of it.  Lots of inappropriate things were drawn as well as written.  It was a good time let me tell ya.  After dinner we wandered the mall.  Most of us found ourselves at this sports store where everything was 8 bucks.  The whole time I did not believe this was true, in fact, it was too good to be true!  There was so much cool stuff!  I bought two shirts because I could.  Me and Shannon needed to pee so we walked I swear the full length of the mall.  We saw this guy eating in slow motion.  I hoped that Shannon saw it too, sure enough she did and we discussed it.  Strange.  We found everyone and went back to the hotel.  Not like the sign was big enough or anything...Nickey missed our turn into the hotel and we had to turn around and go back.  Ha!

Next day we played Air Force.  If we did not beat them, something was truly wrong with us.  We ended up taking it to the bottom of the inning again and they tied it sending us into the International tie breaker.  Something we have no done since USC, two years ago.  This time it went in our favor.  The team sent me to the store where I bought a buttload of Gatorade so I missed part of the next game.  I got back just in time to watch the rest of the Ohio game, where we lost it in the bottom of the inning once again.  I'm beginning to think being the visitors does not work in our favor...who seconds that?  As a team we went to the Chinese Buffet, where Nickey ate a frog leg.  We had a thunderstorm and Nickey freaked out.  Later, Becca got together a movie night where only 5 of us went, the rest drank in Jackie's room.  We went and saw Silent Hill at the mall.  Silent Hill was one creepy movie.  It took place in West Virginia, which I found funny because we were in West Virginia. After the movie, we had to trek all the way around the mall because we parked the van and walked through the mall to get to the theater.  It was a long walk through the rain, but fun at the same time.

Saturday we drove around Morgantown.  We tried to find a place to study and that turned out to be a no-go.  We returned to the hotel and then went to Starbucks.  Me and Shannon were hungry and we drove all the way back to Chick-fil-A aka Chick-a-flicka as we call it.  It was my first time eating there and I liked it.  Took some balloons for fun.  Drove down to High Street to see where it was.  Parked the van and walked around.  Went to a couple of stores and stuff.  Got tired of it, went back to the hotel and went to dinner at Colasante's.  We were there for a loooong time.  Took lots of weird pictures.  After dinner we found out way back at High Street.  This time we honked at all of the drunk people on the side of the road, haha.  We wanted Coldstone so we needed to find a parking spot.  So...we tried several times to parallel park, did not happen right away.  The people in the van, including Nickey had no idea that she turned down the one-way street the wrong way until we saw the headlights coming towards us.  She quickly pulled into a parking lot and turned around.  We tried it again.  This time we found a parking spot to parallel park in, however when we were done, both tires on the passenger side were on the curb...no one had to worry about tripping over the curb to get out of the van.  We went into Coldstone and we made fun of the people who worked there.  I almost got a free bowl of ice cream but I just wasn't feeling it.  I was to drive the rest of the way back to the hotel, Nickey was done for the night. 

Sunday...oh man what a long ass day.  Woke up early, drove 214 miles from Morgantown to Baltimore.  Had a frickin' plane delay because the landing flappers were messed up.  We had an announcer who did not know anything and would update us with nothing every 10 minutes.  People had stuff to do, we needed to get back at a decent time.  We ended up getting on a different plane to Salt Lake City staying on it while we were there and ended up going to Portland to get on another plane to Spokane.  This really irritated people beyond comprehension.  We were all on an airplane for hours.  We were tired, hungry, irritated and just wanted to be home.  Lawson came and got up in Nickey's van and we went and got food and gas and went back to Pullman.  Got home about 12:30 that morning to signs that Megan and Wendy left me in my bedroom.  Aww, they missed me.  :)