Zombies ate my neighbors.

Remember how I work all the time, now?

I just agreed to come in this Thursday (one of my days off) so I can shadow Adam while he teaches climbing 101. Why? Because I'm going to need to know how to teach that class in Nov. Not because I'm taking over for Adam teaching it or anything, but I'll need to teach the same material for my Parent/Tot class (Sat) and my Woman's Climbing class (Thurs) that I get to start teaching. (I think it's funny that they're going to have me teach the Woman's Climbing class, because last time it was offered, I was in it. Haha. Awesome.)

But they are changing my schedule a little bit at PDRC. I'll be working Thursdays (just to teach, though), every other Friday (for Kid's Nite Out), Saturdays and Sundays. We're hopefully getting two new program facility supervisors, and Melissa will just fill them in for the next two months so they can be shadowing someone for the entire two months of training (versus what I got/had to do where I got my own shifts and only shadowed other supervisors for maybe 3 weeks). And then, once that's all done, hopefully I can trade away my Sunday shift for something else in the week and start going to the branch again.

But I actually did something this weekend that doesn't have to do with work or climbing! Ally, Sara and I went to H Burger on Saturday night to review it. I don't know if any of you know where it is, but it's down on the 16th Street Mall. We all piled in my car and drove down to Metro's campus, parked there and then walked over to the restaurant. It was a lot of fun, and I'll get to that review soon! (I even brought my camera and our burger-rating-notebooks down already.) But that's not why I bring this up. Apparently, burger-rating aside, Saturday was an important day. It was the Zombie Walk! Zombie Crawl? I don't remember which.

Basically, a ton of people dress up as zombies and walk around 16th Street Mall being awesome, pretending to eat brains and what not. Some people just go as regular people and pretend to shoot zombies. It was really cool. It happens every year right around Halloween, but this is the first year I've heard of it. Maybe next year I'll dress up :) We saw three pairs of bride/groom zombies, a ton of soldier-zombies (as well as regular soldiers who were there to fight zombies), and a strange amount of clown zombies. There was this one guy dressed as Santa zombie. It was a pretty cool event. They did costume contests (though I don't know who won), and they played Michael Jackson music down by the movie theater. I hope when Thriller played, they got a little flash mob of people to dance to it.

As cool as all of this was, we actually didn't go downtown just to see the show. I just wanted to try out H Burger, and then since we'd be there already, walk around 16th Street Mall and hang out. It was just a happy coincidence that 16th Street Mall happened to be so awesome that night. But as we were walking, Ally wanted to check out Hot Topic and see if they had any Sailor Moon shirts (they didn't). They do, however, have a ton of Batman stuff. He's probably my favorite superhero (I've had thorough arguments with people about whether or not he's a superhero, and I always win. He definitely is). I even have a Batman lanyard that I keep my badges for work and my car keys on.

One of the things Sara found Batman-wise was a little bobble head or something that matched this lanyard. When she showed me, I got all excited and went to grab my lanyard and hold it up next to the bobble head thing. I didn't get too far with that though. "Where are my keys?" And that's when I realized that for the 4th time in the past 5 or 6 weeks, I locked them in my car. Probably still in the ignition.

You know how most cars have that feature where they beep if you have the key in the ignition and open the driver's door at the same time? My car sorta does that. It actually beeps if you don't have the ignition turned to the correct "release key" position. But as for if the key is actually in there or not, it doesn't really care. As long as it's in the position that lets the key out, it doesn't beep. So if I ever get distracted between the time I turn my ignition off and decide to actually leave the car, I usually forget to take the keys with me. The distraction can be small-- something as minor as making sure I have the correct badge before I go into work will distract me enough that I lock my keys in the car. (That is actually the reason that I started keeping my keys and my badges physically connected. I locked my keys in my car 3 times before merging the two). This time, I was counting out loose change to pay back Ally for parking, and that was definitely enough of a conscious effort that I completely spaced grabbing my keys.

So, after Sara's great reminder, I called Dad. He and Mom were at Stake Conference, but they promised to come down to campus and unlock my doors once it was over. It was kind of them, and I really appreciate them coming to our rescue. I'm sure Ally and Sara appreciate it too :) And since Stake Conference wasn't going to be over for an hour, we still had some time to walk around.

We sat and people/zombie watched, and there was some random protest that looked like it was for stopping brutality against police officers. I didn't really realize that was a problem, but what do I know. Maybe I read the sign wrong, and they were trying to stop police brutality? But a ton of Denver police officers were guiding the rally/protest, so... Then we tried to get to the balcony of the clock tower (the balcony by the giant arches, not the one by the clock), but apparently they don't just let you meander up; you have to actually rent out that space. After that, we went to the candy and soda pop store. I bought a tin poster that says, "One Hour Service. We do you quick!" and some Pez for the dispenser in my car, which is taped to the dashboard. We took pictures with some cardboard cutouts, mine is with the Mad Hatter. And I bought a drink with Alice on the can. It was awesome and tasted like blueberries. I love that store. And I love Alice in Wonderland. Probably one of my favorite Disney movies.

Mom and Dad called us, and we met them on campus. Ally and Sara had to use the restroom, so after we got my keys back, we went to see if any of the buildings were still open. It was almost 10 at night, and there aren't a lot of Saturday classes offered, but we thought we'd try hitting up some buildings anyway. The King Center was unlocked-- they actually had just finished a choir/band concert for charity-- but it was the only one open. I mean, it's got bathrooms, so it served its purpose, but the basement of the Tivoli is supposed to be haunted (the Ghost Hunters even visited it), and we wanted to poke around and see if one of the doors to the basement happened to be unlocked. Unfortunately, the doors leading into the Tivoli were locked, so we'll have to try to get to the basement some other time.

When we finally got back to Ally's house, Sara couldn't find her phone. I called it, and we didn't hear anything. We checked out in my car, and nothing. The last place she remembered having it was in the bathroom at the King Center, where she set it on the counter to wash her hands. I drove her back really quick so she could run in and see if her phone was still there, but this was like an hour later. It was almost 11 when we got there, and I was genuinely worried the building would be locked and I'd have to drive down early on Mon to see if her phone was there. If that was even where she lost it. Thankfully it was open, and the phone was sitting right next to the sink where she left it.

After we got back to Ally's again, we sat there watching a show about the top 16 scariest haunted houses in America and thinking of ideas for haunted houses that would be better than ones we've been to. It was a nice end to the night. And thus ends my Saturday. It was crazy and busy and fun. And I'm going to enjoy having a day off on... Nov 5th to relax. Haha. Such a long time from now. That's ok, though. I don't have long work days. I'm pretty busy tomorrow, but with fun things. And then I can relax Wed after work, and Thurs I don't work until 6:45, so it'll be good. Life is so awesome.