The Tauz Does (Did?) Tucson! Day 2

Day 2: Friday (The Casserole, The College Campus, The Dinner Out)

Hey! Remember when I went to Arizona to visit Jeff and Terry? Well, I did. and I wrote some stuff about it in some rough drafts back in September, but never polished them up for The Blaug. (The bulk of this one was written on 9/24/07.) The only one that actually got published before now was the first one. So, in an effort to get more stuff out to you, the salivating loyals, I'm throwin' you this bone...that would have been much juicier about 120 days ago. Better late than never, eh? If you wanna review Days -1 and 1, then check it out. If you think you can handle this one w/o a reveiw, then venture on, dear reader.

I got up just before 10am (1pm SPATTT). This is me sleeping on the sofa-bed.



This is where I found Puppy-Girrrl. Adorable, eh?



Jeff and his co-workers were having a potluck party for lunch this day and he wanted me to help him out by shoving his Infamous Tuna Casserole into the oven for him. So when I went to do so, I was attacked by their oven door while opening it. I was ok, tho.

I had something to eat while I watched some "Top Chef" on Bravo, which was one of the few channels that was not fucked up. Then I looked over a map of the city. Terry had made a little "You Are Here" pointer that indicated their home on the map for me. I had decided that I'd take a trip across town to the University of Arizona campus that afternoon, after dropping Jeff and his casserole off at work.

So, when Jeff got home for lunch, we took off for Madden Preprint Media with his casserole. I stopped in, dropped it off in the lunch room, and briefly got introduced to a few co-workers of his. Then he walked me back to the car for a refresher on directions to campus. In the parking lot, we ran into one of the co-founders of his company, and I was again quickly introduced. That done, I then took off on my own in the Honda Fit with simple instructions on how to get to campus.

Miraculously, I got there no problem. I found parking, got out, hooked up my iPod, affixed my bandana, and off I went with no destination and the temperature in the 90s, easily.

While walking around, rocking out to Regina Spektor's Soviet Kitsch album, I think this old-timer blended in pretty well with the local yoots. As I meandered, I just took it all in, looking for photo-ops. Here are the few that I took advantage of:

I walked by the stadiums, in all their Empty-Seated Glory.



I also grabbed a gatorade from a nearby vending machine, cuz it was HOT AS FUCK out. I mosied through a couple of highly populated student spots and perused a mini farmers' market on the mall. (And I don't mean there were several teeny-tiny farmers. It was a mini-market, not mini-farmers.)

I came across this...interesting statue in my travels. I call it "WTF Are Those Bobcats Doing?".



It was so fuckin' strange that I wanted to capture myself near it, so I could share one of the many screwy, confused expressions that crossed my face when I first saw this piece. I know for a fact that I literally laughed out loud to myself when I saw it.



Ok...I know that IUP is a relatively small school. But seriously... how big does your damn school have to be to have a mall?!? And I'm not talking a "Hey, let's go to the Gap and then to Hot Topic and then hit the Food Court" kind of mall. I'm talking about a long, scenic stretch of land that has grass and trees and that typically leads the eye to an impressive architectural specimen at one end of said stretch. Well... U of A's campus is so damn big, it has a mall. You know what else has a mall? THE CITY OF WASHINGTON MOTHERFUCKING D.C. Your campus is too big if it has a mall. I was so blown away at thought of it that I didn't even bother to take a nice picture of the damn thing. Here is a cross-section of it, and it still looks really pretty.



Later, after I'd calmed down a bit, a pair of A-10 Warthogs (the kind of airplanes my dad used to work with in the Air National Guard) flew overhead. I tried to snap a pic, but the sun was too bright and they were moving too fast. Not 20 minutes later a pair of F-16s flew over. They were too fast to capture on camera, as well. About 30 minutes after that, what were probably the same F-16s roared by overhead. (Again with the same excuse for no picture?) Jeff told me that there's an Air Force Base located in Tucson, hence the frequent fliers. I was proud of myself for recognizing the Warthogs without Jeff or Dad being there to tell me what they were.

I also walked down Frat Row, which was ridiculous. There were palatial houses all over the damn place for frats and sororities. There may have been a metric shit-ton of them, even. There were also chalkings on the sidewalk all throughout this section of campus, which reminded me of walking to the Foster Cafeteria in Indiana.

Later on, I stopped in one of the campus bookstores to kill time and cool off for a few. I checked out the posters and U of A gear. No purchase necessary (sorry Terry).

I then swung back through what seemed to be a big central student hub, with the student union building and eateries all over the place. After that, I jetted past the post office and saw an R2 mailbox. It was right by a crowded bus stop, so (for once) I didn't want to make a scene, so I did a fly-by picture. (I did have time for a thumbs up, tho, apparently.)



So after trotting around for about an hour and a half in the sun, I felt like I'd seen all I could see on my own, so I headed back to the Fit, which I found without a problem. I de-geared myself, climbed aboard, paid for parking ($3! nice!) and took off for Tauzin Central, AZ Branch. I think we all know what comes next. Because it had been 90 minutes since I had been instructed on how to get to and from a place, I fudged up the trip home.

I successfully made it back to Madden, and whizzed by. But that's when things got cloudy. I missed my street after that, then tried to swing back to it at the next street, but didn't get it right and so I kept going, but then I saw a street name I recognized from their neighborhood, but followed it too far and ended up back on the main street. So I then took that back to the first street that I missed, turned onto the correct street, and then looked for the landmark Jeff had given me, found it and turned! Woo! I made it, and now you know exactly how it is to ride with me in unfamiliar territory.

Or pretty much anywhere.

I hung out for a bit, hitting the Internets and writing the bulk of the Day 1 entry. It was then that I last updated my Twitter status (which you can see on my MySpace profile) and created my Flixster account (which you can see right here on The Tauz Blaug).

Then, while I was taking in some more Top Chef, Jeff texted me to see if I was going to come get him at 5, since I had the car. I said yeah, so I was about to head out when Terry got home. I drove us out to Madden (I did pretty well on the memory of how to get there). However, their breaks are MUCH more sensitive than my Saturn's are, so we both had whiplash by the time we arrived at Madden, which is only 3 blocks down the street.

Needless to say Jeff drove us home.

We walked Shaida and then headed out to dinner at a burger chain joint similar to Ruby's or Friday's.

It was a nice enough place. And aside from the annoyingly large and loud party of frat boys and their sorostitute girlfriends celebrating someone's 21st birthday, it was an enjoyable night there. We had pleasant dinner conversation. Terry maliciously texted her Jewish friend who was fasting for Rosh Hashanah about the martini she was enjoying with her luscious dinner. I had a bunless burger and tortillas and a rum and Coke. Good stuff.

We then went home and watched TV for a bit and plotted for the next day of my visit in Tucson. I hit the hay around midnight, which is 3am, SPATTT (Standard PA The Tauz Time).

Maybe I'll post what happened on Day 3 after another 120 days has passed... =^)