With Functional Udders And Everything

It's Sunday morning. It's 5:45 AM. It's 5:45 AM and I'm awake. I was up till 3 AM the night before. I DO NOT want to be awake. The Stanford boys are trying their best to be quiet, but they are failing. Miserably. Why am I awake?

Saturday was spent costume making with Christine till 2:30 in the afternoon... at which point we decided that if I didn't get started on the barn float soon, we'd have no beer-mobile. So up the street we went and barn raising began.

My friends and I must come from a long line farmers... because I'll be damned if we didn't raise an entire barn in one day. Wow.

Now some people may have just wanted to give the *appearance* of a barn - engineers with tools are not "some people". We designed and built a BARN! A serious 4 x 4 x 8 ft barn. It was huge (for a barn on wheels). And structurally sound, thank you very much - with a hay loft and everything. :)

So like I said, the barn building began around 2:30pm... I planned on being finished by 7. HA!!! We sawed... we painted... we bolted... we engineered... around 12:30 in the morning we FINALLY put the finishing touches on it! TEN STRAIGHT HOURS! Ugh. And while some of us were working on the barn, the rest of the posse was busy build a cow. Yes a cow... with functional udders and everything!!! Basically they sewed together some black and white material, attached a stuffed cow head, and then stuffed the body with pillow stuffing. They then attached several "straws" to the udders... the straws went through the cow and fed into three buckets of liquor below- Pina Colada, Fuzzy navel, and some cranberry-gin concoction that should never be created again. IT WAS AWESOME! I so love my over-achieving friends!

So at 12:30am we loaded up my roommate's truck and drove the carts and a few bails of hay to our friend's house - he lives right by the starting line of the race. After we dropped everything off I left to return the truck but made a wrong turn and ended up ON THE BAY BRIDGE ON MY WAY TO OAKLAND!!!!! NOOOOOOOO! Luckily I was able to get off on Treasure Island, and after 10 minutes of driving around aimlessly I was finally headed back in the right direction towards SF.

Around 1:30am I arrived back at Kyle's house... but did I get to go to sleep??? NO! I still had like 400 cotton balls to hot glue!!!! A few burns, several tears, one clump of glue in my hair, and some much appreciated help from Kyle later, I finished the FRONT of my shirt. Who knew gluing cotton balls could take so long!!?? Partly because I ran out of cotton balls, and partly because it was 3AM, I decided to leave the back of my shirt un-cottoned... I would tell everyone I had been sheared.

So at 3 am, I go to sleep... and that bring us to 5:45 am. Three of our Stanford friends slept over and were VERY excited for the race to begin on Sunday... So they got up at the BUTT CRACK of dawn to begin the festivities. They knew I'd be bitter... so they brought me breakfast in bed - croissant, strawberries, and a mimosa - which was so beyond cute that I couldn't be upset. Kyle got up and made bloddy marys for everyone... and I slowly dragged myself into the shower.

By 7:30am we were out the door and headed for a train to take us downtown. From there it gets bit fuzzy... and by fuzzy, I'm mostly referring to the fuzzy navel filled cow udders...

I know we drank a lot, I know the barn and cow were amazing, and I know we saw MANY MANY naked men. The race can really only be described through photos... and they're coming... I swear.

But you want to know the coolest thing? It didn't rain a DROP. Not all day Saturday while we were float building- even though there were menacing looking storm clouds looming over head - and not all Sunday morning while the race was taking place.

(Incidentally, I think I owe the good weather to a little prayer said on my behalf by my Mormon friend, Margie... and I also think I may have to go to church with her on Sunday in return.)

Anyway, so like I said, no rain during the race... YAY! But as soon as the race ended... oh the flood that fell from the sky! It's like we got a day and a half's worth of rain in 2 hours... and I was walking around outside for both them. Kyle and Brian decided that we should go to bar and watch the Piston's game. Seriously guys!!?? A BAR!? I'm dressed as a lamb, hello.

So we walked and walked and walked - in the POURING rain - until we found a bar. Where I proceed to fall asleep. Freezing, I woke up and decided I was DONE. TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY DONE. There were NO cabs to be found (62,000 other people were also trying to get home at the exact same time) so Kyle put me on a bus (he couldn't leave our very drunk friends at the bar alone... and they were NOT leaving till the game was over) and told me where to transfer. 2 buses, a train, and a 2 block walk and I was HOME SWEET HOME!!! I showered, ate, and went to bed.

What a day!!!

Whew... the best part of the story (the actual race) to follow as soon as I upload all zillion pictures... stay tuned.