Worst 5 minutes of my life

It all started with the ominous and innocent text from a friend

"Did Craig get impacted by [the] earthquake?"

huh?

Luckily, my first instinct is to think that an earthquake can be mild, and since it's Vancouver, it's probably not that bad. After all, the last earthquake I remember being a part of was in Washington during the 8th grade, and it was more of a story than a devastation.

When I received that message, my instant response was, "naaah, he would have told me"

Then, I looked up "2014 Vancouver earthquake" and saw a picture of a hotel-like structure that was utterly demolished. The initial news report said that it was a "great" earthquake, according to the Richter scale. He couldn't have told me if he was affected if he was injured or dead. Of course, I then thought, "no way"... Yes, he was up there. No, I had no idea where he was, let alone the location of the earthquake in relation to the hotel... But...

Doubt caressed me too eagerly. I distinctly remembered emailing him in the morning, wishing him a good day. So, after seeing the picture of the demolished hotel, and remembering he hadn't responded to my email, I texted him. After all, he was supposed to be at work in a different country and I was in math class, so the non freak-out version of myself decided texting was the most practical option. I was a cool cat. Because if I freaked out already, I wouldn't be able to take it if something went really wrong.

He didn't text me back. 

**Side note... it's always good practice to text your woman back. INSTANTLY. Otherwise, she thinks zombies/vampires/ghouls/earthquakes/tsunamis/instant-jump-from-a-ledge/random-gunshot is the cause of your death without any evidence. Seriously. Text back. If you aren't able to continue a dialogue then your only choice is to text back to the initial text and ignore the rest, until you can address them. Or, if she's becoming a bit cray cray, tell her you're in a meeting and hope she's a normal human being. I hope it goes without saying that you shouldn't tell her you're too busy to text right then. That would be a very consequential action.**

So, I called his cell phone when I didn't get a response from the text.

No response.

I called a friend to see if she'd call her husband to see if he's been on work's chat service. She didn't answer.

Then, the sweetest of texts comes through, and I have the largest flood of relief sweep through me. 

"Do you need to talk? I can find another phone, it would cost too much for me to answer"

It was the best text, ever. Seriously, EVER! Though my body couldn't stop from shaking until about an hour afterwards, I was so relieved. I was about to hop in my car and buy the first plane ticket to Seattle (since I figured Vancouver would be too hard to fly into) so I could drive to Canada and search for him. Screw school, I was not going to sit idly by. 

Luckily, I was able to finish out my school day without any troubles. The new reports coming out said that the earthquake was only 6.5-6.7 on the Richter scale; considerably lower than what I remember the middle school earthquake being.

But those 5 minutes of the thought that I could never speak to, hear or hold Craig, were the worst of my life so far.

Q&A A Day 1/12/14

What is your Favorite Accessory?

The only accessories I can wear are my Tiffany's necklace a watch and my rings. Ever since I got my first shot of my first round of Hepatitis B vaccinations, I've been allergic to nickel. So all of my jewelry needs to be "real". Which basically means that it can't be nickel. I'm not sure why it worked out that way, but, IF it helps, I'm also allergic to Vaccines. 

Luckily, I'm still able to have vaccines. I just get a bit puffy around my eyes. And by "a bit", I really mean a lot puffy. It's actually pretty scary how puffy and weird looking I get. Even more weird looking than I already am.

So.. I can't wear nickel, I have to really need the vaccine, I also can't touch/be around plaster, I have to buy special makeup (still no eye shadow) and I can't touch leather... woo! All of it basically ruins my dreams. "How" you ask? Well:

Nickel: I will never be able to buy myself "real" jewelry for no reason and I extremely doubt that the Mr. will every buy me "real" jewelry because he already bought the engagement ring I really wanted. Also, I like pageants. People in pageants wear fake jewelry because it has to be seen from the audience (which means its "fancy" looking) and I could never buy "real"ones that big.

Vaccine: I will be working with sick people in one form or another. If it's in the hospital, there's a lot of required/suggested vaccines you need to get. I'm going to get the vaccines no matter what, so I will have to suffer through the embarrassment of the eyes for at least a week after I get them.

Makeup: Not being able to wear eye shadow is killer!!! I think eye shadow finishes a look and I just learned how to effectively use it. But, there's way too many different chemicals that are in the stuff (even the "organic" stuff), so I'm unable to wear it without looking like Quasimodo. It's almost the saddest part of the allergies... but it's not. It's only the third saddest out of the five.

Plaster: One of my dreams is to live in an old house. BUT! most old houses use plaster for their walls. So no old houses for me. One experience I had with plaster allergy happened when we were making masks for a masquerade ball... I forgot about my allergy until it was drying on my face. Even after I remembered it I still wore the mask for the ball (It was custom made and took a lot of time!). My eyes puffed up both times (after it was made and after I wore it).

Leather: The worst thing for me to be allergic to is leather. I LOVE horses. Horses wear... gear... like bits and saddles and reigns... These things are all made out of leather (well, besides the bit... but it's attached to the halter, which is made out of leather). If I wanted to ride again (Okay... when I want to ride again) I have to wear some cloth gloves and remember to not rub my eyes. This doesn't allow an organic experience with the horses, which kind of (more like "seriously") sucks.

So... Yeah, I can't wear too many accessories.

Q&A A Day 1/11/14

Today you lost_______.

Today I lost... my ability to eat. My tooth hurt so bad. Today was Tilly's birthday party and I just wanted to eat everything at her party. However... because I need a root canal, I was unable to do so successfully without having to dope up even more on the Vicodin the dentist prescribed me. 

So all the time and effort Sarah put into the celebration Tilly's birthday, was wasted because I couldn't (1) help her (2) truly appreciate it (3) help her escape from the... out-laws. ;p. 

Though I'm sure she completely understands, I still feel lacking in the good friend department. :(

Stupid teeth...

I often (pronounced offen, btw) dream that I pull out every tooth from my mouth. It's an amazing dream when it happens since, all of the sudden, the pain stops. I've had so many teeth problems the past x amount of years that the idea of having nothing there to cause the pain is... relieving. 

Of course, I know I would hurt a lot if I pulled all my teeth out. Not to mention I'd look absolutely ridiculous. However, the "no pain" dream is a wonderful one to experience.

Q&A A Day 1/10/14

Write down something that inspired you today:

Getting donations for the crab feed with Jenny. We decided to go around to local businesses and get some donations for our auction being held at the crab feed for Miss Sac.  

The good: Jenny did all the talking. 

The bad: We didn't get a lot of donations since most of the managers/owners weren't in.

I'm not sure if anyone reading this has had to ask businesses to blindly trust in your organization's mission statement, but it is not easy. Of course, I believe in the Miss America Organization as a tool, not only for the winners of local, state, and national titles, but for the girls who keep coming back to try to win or better themselves.

I've learned so much from the pageant system that is Miss America that, even in my brief two years of competing, I absolutely owe it my limited time and service to help even more young women realize what their true potential in life is.

So, we did the uncomfortable and asked for donations to further our scholarship dollars for the young women running in our program.

Another inspiring thing was that I was successful in playing with Jenny's son while she asked for donations. He was so adorable and easy to distract, but he liked me so much that he wanted to schedule a play-date with me! I feel like I'm back on the bus in elementary school, asking Baleigh Steinberg to play with me this weekend. Except this time, instead of saying "oh, sure!" she actually wanted to hang out with me and made an effort.

Q&A A Day

Was today typical? Why or why not?

Not really... I went to Sarah's parent's and rolled lumpia with her mom, cousin, aunt, and sister (and her). We were rolling it for Tilly's first birthday party :D

And then, one of my teeth decided it was done being normal and thought I needed some pain in my life. So it throbbed and shot pain up my skull... 

That's right... I need a root canal :D YAY!!!

Q&A A Day

January 8th, 2014

What song is stuck in your head?

FORTUNATELY... none at the moment. And because I believe psychology may take over and PUT one in my head, I will stop thinking about it :D

Q&A A Day

January 7th, 2014

You are lucky; how so or not so?

Excuse me fake person, but what does lucky mean??? I have never come across this in my life. Well, there actually was ONE time in my 27 years that I had luck.

I think now is a good time to tell the entire Internet world about my one lucky experience. It was the year of "I can't remember but it was a while ago" when my lovely Aunt and I went to Comic-Con in San Diego. By the way, if you haven't been, you MUST go at least once in your life! Even if you're not the nerdy-geek type. We went because my lovely Aunt and I loved this new book that was being turned into a movie and they were going to have the cast there for a panel discussion and a meet/signing opportunity. It was called, Twilight. Very obscure thing that no one knows about, I know. Well, my lovely Aunt and I get into this line that will lead up to someone holding a bag full of raffle tickets that will either be blank or have a stamp on the back. My lovely Aunt went first, because she was hoping to be the one that got it before me. The back of her ticket was blank. I went, grabbed what I thought was one ticket and it was also blank on the back. However, I realized that I had grabbed two instead of just the one, because one was stuck to the other. And as you might guess, since this is a story about my one lucky experience, this other ticket had a stamp on it.

So yes, my one lucky experience has to do with meeting the cast of Twilight and having an autographed poster dedicated to me (well.. any ol' Amber I suppose) from the cast and author of Twilight. I remember Rachelle Lefevre, Victoria in the movie, said to me something like "Hey! We have the same hair! Us redheads need to stick together!"... Uh, heck yeah Rachelle, I'd love to be your BFF. Well, at that time I would have, however, when you get older you start to think things like, "ooo, would we be compatible? Are you cool or a little cray-cray? Because I don't need any drama in my world. Are you going to make me work harder to be your friend? Or can we just be chill? You come over to my house for pizza and beer and I'll go over to your house for movies and popcorn." However, it was an awesome and very lucky experience.

It wasn't the only time I've ever met celebrities either, it was just the first time and where I picked or was chosen to meet them.

Otherwise, you really don't want me at any sporting event for your team or to give you lotto numbers because I will not help your chances of getting what you want.

How about you?