High Maintenance or Dramatic?

Recently Mikey and I have been talking about the difference between being high maintenance and being dramatic. I know I am at least one of the two, if not both. But I have trouble differentiating between the two! What do you think?

High Maintenance

I googled 'high maintenance' and found that wikipedia had nothing!! Perhaps the contributing individuals of 'the wik' have yet to encounter a high maintenance broad.. Either way, I was suprised to find nothing! However, after furthering my efforts (i.e. adding the word 'definition' to my search), I found the following;

High maintenance: requiring an excessive amount of attention or effort to maintain (a high-maintenance car, a high-maintenance relationship).

Hmm.. here's why I don't think I am high maintenance; I'm pretty laid back, I don't require designer labels or crazy gifts to keep my happy, and I have yet to utter the words, "You don't deserve me, Javier! You don't deserve me!" (Read: yet..).

But lets be official about this and take an online quiz..

You Are Low Maintenance

Otherwise known as "too good to be true" You're one laid back chica - and men love that! Just remember that no good guy likes a doormat. So if you find your self going along to get along... Stop yourself and put up a little bit of a fight.

Are You A High Maintenance Woman?

Okay, see!? I agree with that! But let's move on..

Dramatic

I can't tell you how many times I have been referred to as a 'Drama Queen'.. Too many! And I agree.. I love me some good ol' fashioned attention and what better way to get it than to produce some tears and convulsions? Haha Just kidding.. It's not that bad. But I do like to get my way.. Let's check 'the wik'..

Drama Queen: a person who reacts to a stimulus or event with a superfluous amount of emotion; often in order to garnish attention.

Yeah.. not bad, Wikipedia.. not bad. But we can't make a full decision until we consult our trust online quizzes, now can we?

You Are a Drama Princess (or Prince)

You're not over the top dramatic, but you have your moments.You know how to steal the spotlight...And how to act out to get your way. People around you know that you're good for a laugh.But at times, your drama gets a bit too much for everyone.Tone it down a tad, and you'll still be the center of attention.

Very good, online quiz!

But here's where I am torn.. I am not dramatic all the time! For example, Mikey once took my car without asking and I was like, "Don't do that again. Haha!" (Sorry, Mikey.. I had to use that example). Wait.. I ALWAYS use that example for how I'm not always dramatic.. do I have any others?? And one time, for Young Life, the projector didn't work and I was stressed out and had worked really hard on my talk, so I freaked out! I was crying, I think I even said, "What the hell?" in front of one of the kids.. It was bad.. So one of my other YL leaders had somebody come bring a new projector and when they brought it in, I was like, "Oh! Okay! Hehe!" So, maybe I am high maintenance.. Or is that dramatic?

This whole post is dramatic!!

AGH!!!

(I run out of the room, crying, yelling, "I hate you, Javier!")

The Irish Fest!

This year marked the 25th Anniversary of the Cleveland Irish Cultural Festival (www.clevelandirish.org); the festival that my grandparents started after immigrating to North America and wanting to keep the true Irish culture alive. It was held this past weekend and we were blessed with beautiful weather and record sized crowds (my aunt estimates around 50,000 people)!

Having been promoted to oversee CD and "merch" sales from the celtic rock bands, my main job was to deal with the bands, one of them being Gaelic Storm. I've never listend to "the storm", nor will I in the future.. Let's just say, their egos are quite a bit bigger than their bodhrans. Biggest jerks I have ever dealt with.. Keeping my gossiping to a minimum (I've already done enough today), just know: I. Was. Disgusted.

Over the course of the weekend we made a little video of the festival for my grandparents with messages from all the grandkids and the volunteers. It was really cute and ended with my cousin filming the crowd from the rock stage while they cheered "Happy 25th Anniversary!" We haven't shown our grandparents yet, but we're sending them the video as soon as my cousin copies it. I think they'll be really pleased.

It was a great weekend but I missed my own bed and my roommates. I'm still not back in my own bed because I'm staying at my parents (the family is still in Cleveland) with Murphy. Poor dog. She gets sooo depressed when the kids are gone. I imagine that it would be like one of those movies where someone wakes up and every person in the world is gone, you know? It's all cloudy out. You see a lone swing blowing in the wind and walk down a vacant street, passing empty cars with the doors still open and swaying street signs.. I'd be depressed too if I was all alone and used to the constant buzz of a household of 10! Anyway, I do have my roommates back; as at least one has stayed with me at the Beardmore home each night I have been back. We had a cookout and watched half of DreamGirls.

On a side note, I went to see HairSpray! GO SEE THIS MOVIE! It was a blast and once again, I dreamt of life as a musical! Heck, most of my life already is, as we Beardmore kids break into song regularly. But I couldn't help but think of my school/work life with back-up dancers and jazz hands.. What a dream!! And I'll only say this.. If life had been a musical this past weekend, my dealings with Gaelic Storm would have been best expressed in a song called "You Spit When You Yell (Reprise)".

4th of July

Everyone is blogging about their lovely 4th of July festivities.. Let me tell you about my 4th, which, as you will read, was appropriately conducted for a holiday called "Independence Day".

On a positive note, Theresa Mills and I went to see Life Free / Die Hard, the new Bruce Willis movie. Granted, I had my hands over my eyes most of the time.. but in the few moments when I wasn't curled up in my chair, perfecting the fetal position, gasping for air as a semi-truck filled with explosives rolled down giant slabs of concrete that were being blown up by the fighter jet (typical), I was gasping for air as Bruce Willis looked into the camera and seemed to say, "I love you, Caitie." It was pretty good. Plus, Theresa and I made good use of the $10 bucket of free popcorn that I can use for a year. This is an excellent buy and I would highly suggest the investment to the avid and frequent movie-goer.

During the movie, my mom called and when I called her back I left a message asking her to pick me up since Tommy had the car and was on his way to Illinois for a camping trip with the boys. My family was going out to my aunt and uncle's who live out past East Tipp. Well, it gets to be 4pm, 5pm, 6pm.. Let's be honest, the Beardmores aren't known for being "early birds", but this was getting ridiculous! So I call my mom and they'd already gone! I said, "You forgot about me??" and she said, "Umm.. No…". I didn't want her to go out of her way to pick me up, so I thought, "I'll just walk around campus, get in some good 'alone time', and watch the downtown fireworks from our parking garage. No biggie."

Around 9:30pm I climb to the top of the parking garage with my ipod and a couple beers. At first I was the only one up there! It was nice! But slowly more and more people started to appear. It began getting a little loud and I'm not gonna lie, I felt like a loser being alone, on the 4th of July, drinking Miller Light on the top of a parking garage. A couples times I wanted to turn to the people around me and say, "I'm not going to jump, you know.. My family just forgot about me. So.."

Also, I thought the top of a parking garage would be a perfect place to hang out since I hate being around when "lay people" set off fireworks. I was burned by a firework when I was in high school and I just don't trust a man with a mullet or a 3-year old child with a hand-held explosive. Does the 4th of July make people immune from severe burns? Like in some sort of cosmic way, burns don't happen on July 4th? Either way, I was surrounded by kids with june bugs and wiggle works and sparkle snakes! Actually I have no idea if those are real fireworks.. It reminds me of this quote: "You're gonna stand there, owning a fireworks stand, and tell me you don't have no whistling bungholes, no spleen spliters, whisker biscuits, honkey lighters, hoosker doos, hoosker donts, cherry bombs, nipsy daisers, with or without the scooter stick, or one single whistling kitty chaser?" ~ Movie 'Joe Dirt'.

Anyway, to top it off I was waiting for the downtown fireworks! Staring at the Courthouse rotunda, making sure I would see the first spark of the show! 10:30p rolled around before I even realized they don't do downtown fireworks anymore! I turn around to get ready for the West side fireworks and they were already going off! Perfect right!? No. The tallest building on campus is right behind the parking garage, blocking my entire view of the show.

Later I found out that Tommy didn't even go to Illinois and I could have gotten the car back to spend time with someone I know. I'm not upset about it though.. I think I just really celebrated Independance Day!

I still feel a little bit like a loser though..