So, in celebration of our 6 year anniversary of dating, my boyfriend decided we should go fishing. Go ahead and wrap your mind around that because that's the LEAST crazy part of this blog post.
Mind you, he's been trying to get me to go fishing with him for YEARS now and I decided to give in this time because we always do girly (read: normal) shit for our anniversaries and I figure he'd done his time.
This started with my genius plan to get out of going fishing for the rest of forever. I told him I would only go if he found me pink waders. No fishing outfitter worth it's weight in testosterone would manufacture something like that, let alone sell it. I figured he'd stop short of surfing that land of ridiculous purchases known as Amazon.com and call it quits. ...He called my bluff. Before I knew it I was in the middle of Outdoor Emporium trying on pink waders made for breast cancer awareness month - thanks a fucking lot October!
I hear Garren talk about his fishing adventures all the time and unless it involves a fistfight with some random asshole (it happens) I use this as "me time". I zone out, I think about jewelry, I think about work, I think about what outfit I want to wear tomorrow. It's all over my head, so I just turn on the brain static and nod and smile. Before you start thinking this is the most fucked up thing ever, we've gone on this way for 6 years, assholes.
I knew my day would involve being out in the boonies, probably seeing a fish get whapped over the head with a club and game wardens who dress like Dudley Do-Right. What I wasn't prepared for was how backwoods this fishing area was. Shortly before getting to our fishing spot, we passed a roadside stand proudly selling "rebel flags", a business selling "tomatoe" and horse tied to a tree. I've never seen Deliverance, but the entire environment made my butthole pucker.
My waders were to say the least a bit snug and I waddled down to the river with the worst case of camel toe any female has ever lived through. Walking around all day with neoprene in your crotch is exhilarating. We spent the better part of the afternoon trying to outsmart an animal with a brain the size of a lima bean and didn't succeed. I sunburned one side of my face. And I became a little racist temporarily.
What I didn't exactly prepare myself for was the fish gutting. Of course we didn't catch one, but the guy next to us did. Let me just say, putting the bait on your hook, casting your line and standing around on a rock in the water is very peaceful. You feel at one with the earth, hearkening back to a simpler time and feeling like you know what Davy Crockett felt like. Normal Rockwell would be inspired. THEN, someone clubs a fish over the head and guts it before its heart stops beating and you suddenly want to move to a landlocked country. Any landlocked country. I'd consider communism. Knowing that my boyfriend does this made me feel betrayed. I felt like I had been living with a teddy bear for 5 years. A teddy bear who talks lovingly to our cats, does laundry like a pro and giggles at poop jokes. And then you imagine said teddy bear going Ted Bundy on a fish... it's disheartening.
I also love situations where my stereotypes are confirmed and today was no exception. I always think of fisherman as cliquey, opinionated, speech-slurring elitists. And today there was an overweight gentleman standing on his rock soap box name dropping the people he talks to on gamefishing.com forums, berating "arm-chair fishermen" and drawling on and on about he knows all the tricks for finding fish. I want to say his name was Jimbo. I never came CLOSE to knowing anything about him of that nature, but the rest of the stereotype was there so I'm going to take poetic justice here and just say it was.
I don't suppose I'll hang up my fishing pole yet though. Overall it was just too entertaining not to go back.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Backseat: Where Curry Goes To Die
So, Dad opted not to go to the Fremont Fair as the weather was crap (thank yoooou Seattle!) so, instead, we opted for brunch, a tour around the cemetery and reconnaissance mission in my car for something that smelled like death.
First of all, don't act like you've never let a smell go too long in the back of your car. In all seriousness I had a 14 year old hooker stay in my car for a night, smoke a Marlboro and leave her clothing there and the only reason I noticed was that the pants in the passenger seat were far too small to be mine. I live in a strange neighborhood and it was a 1990 Toyota Camry. Locking the door isn't even worth it.
I told Dad that I didn't want to drive because something smelled like rotten pickle in my car and I was planning on leaving the task of finding the offending object/food product until that evening... at the earliest. After a lovely day he dropped me off and, as I feared, we pulled into a parking spot and he insisted that we look through my backseat for whatever could be back there that smelled like pure evil.
First of all, let's not pretend that none of us know how this game works:
Day 1 - you leave your leftover lunch in the back seat of your car because "Well, I'm going to Target later, I'll take it out then" or "well it's not THAT warm out here so it's basically the same as refrigerating it, right?" Then you promptly forget because it gets too dark and you don't want to run into your neighbor that drives the Trans Am and has a molestache. Or it's too cold and late and you don't want to go outside in your pajamas causing said neighbor to judge your clothing choices. You decide it can wait until tomorrow.
Day 2 - you have blissfully forgotten about your leftover lunch and you get in the car in the morning sensing nothing amiss. In fact - you car kinda smells like lunch from yesterday... very strange. You return to your car after work and wonder what that strange-ish odor is. You don't remember smelling anything before.
Day 3 - Hmmm... you don't remember it smelling bad in here yesterday and suddenly today there's something strange smelling in the air. Oh well. Maybe it's nothing. Hopefully you just stepped on something. I mean, the trunk leaks, right? Of course it'll smell funny. Let's leave it until tomorrow when we're going back to Target to buy that thing that we intended to get but didn't get because you got distracted looking at clothing, buying cosmetics and playing with the children's toys for an hour. Yes, we'll take care of it this evening.
Day 4 - You forgot to go to Target. It's too late. Something is seriously wrong here. What could it be?! It doesn't smell like food (anymore) and the source is completely untraceable. But you don't have the heart to turn around and discard your garbage. It won't stink any less later. That afternoon you go out to your car and check your backseat. You check it, not because your best friend Molly instilled in you a deep-seated fear that every vacant car back seat is harboring a rapist with a knife, but because you are afraid to check if whatever stinks has grown teeth and a tail and has started to chew on your leather interior.
Days 5 - 10 - Just drive with the windows down. Tell everyone your car is out of gas, your check engine light is on, anything to keep people out of it. Whatever it is will mold over and stop stinking in just a few days. Just wait it out. It will fossilize, you'll dig it up later and you'll be an archaeological hero.
Day 11 - Dad-shame. He bought you that car for graduation. From college. Where you should have learned responsibility and cleanliness. How did Felisha put up with you Freshman year without killing you or suffocating on errant garbage... The object is found and disposed of by dad. Try not to notice that it's liquified curry... just let him walk it to the dumpster... promise yourself that you'll never leave food in the car again.
This is much better than coming very close to getting a baby mole lost in your engine, but I'll tell that story next time.
First of all, don't act like you've never let a smell go too long in the back of your car. In all seriousness I had a 14 year old hooker stay in my car for a night, smoke a Marlboro and leave her clothing there and the only reason I noticed was that the pants in the passenger seat were far too small to be mine. I live in a strange neighborhood and it was a 1990 Toyota Camry. Locking the door isn't even worth it.
I told Dad that I didn't want to drive because something smelled like rotten pickle in my car and I was planning on leaving the task of finding the offending object/food product until that evening... at the earliest. After a lovely day he dropped me off and, as I feared, we pulled into a parking spot and he insisted that we look through my backseat for whatever could be back there that smelled like pure evil.
First of all, let's not pretend that none of us know how this game works:
Day 1 - you leave your leftover lunch in the back seat of your car because "Well, I'm going to Target later, I'll take it out then" or "well it's not THAT warm out here so it's basically the same as refrigerating it, right?" Then you promptly forget because it gets too dark and you don't want to run into your neighbor that drives the Trans Am and has a molestache. Or it's too cold and late and you don't want to go outside in your pajamas causing said neighbor to judge your clothing choices. You decide it can wait until tomorrow.
Day 2 - you have blissfully forgotten about your leftover lunch and you get in the car in the morning sensing nothing amiss. In fact - you car kinda smells like lunch from yesterday... very strange. You return to your car after work and wonder what that strange-ish odor is. You don't remember smelling anything before.
Day 3 - Hmmm... you don't remember it smelling bad in here yesterday and suddenly today there's something strange smelling in the air. Oh well. Maybe it's nothing. Hopefully you just stepped on something. I mean, the trunk leaks, right? Of course it'll smell funny. Let's leave it until tomorrow when we're going back to Target to buy that thing that we intended to get but didn't get because you got distracted looking at clothing, buying cosmetics and playing with the children's toys for an hour. Yes, we'll take care of it this evening.
Day 4 - You forgot to go to Target. It's too late. Something is seriously wrong here. What could it be?! It doesn't smell like food (anymore) and the source is completely untraceable. But you don't have the heart to turn around and discard your garbage. It won't stink any less later. That afternoon you go out to your car and check your backseat. You check it, not because your best friend Molly instilled in you a deep-seated fear that every vacant car back seat is harboring a rapist with a knife, but because you are afraid to check if whatever stinks has grown teeth and a tail and has started to chew on your leather interior.
Days 5 - 10 - Just drive with the windows down. Tell everyone your car is out of gas, your check engine light is on, anything to keep people out of it. Whatever it is will mold over and stop stinking in just a few days. Just wait it out. It will fossilize, you'll dig it up later and you'll be an archaeological hero.
Day 11 - Dad-shame. He bought you that car for graduation. From college. Where you should have learned responsibility and cleanliness. How did Felisha put up with you Freshman year without killing you or suffocating on errant garbage... The object is found and disposed of by dad. Try not to notice that it's liquified curry... just let him walk it to the dumpster... promise yourself that you'll never leave food in the car again.
This is much better than coming very close to getting a baby mole lost in your engine, but I'll tell that story next time.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Mentally Preparing to Witness Naked Cyclists with my Dad Tomorrow
Because you'll learn enough about me later on I'll start you off with this little tidbit. I live in Seattle. Famous for many things but foremost in my mind - The Naked Bicyclists of Fremont. This weekend is the fair that their sagging testicles and bike chains fear all year - the Solstice Fair.
I should preface this by saying that this event was traumatizing for me and I haven't been since I was about 7. I got lost there and basically let my mind wander to a place where I'd spend the rest of my day lost at the Fremont Fair where my friend's mother would never come looking for me and I'd be taken in by a family of hippies who would raise me to eat flax seed and granola and live in a treehouse not just in the summer when it would be awesome but in the fucking winter and I started crying. Someone took pity on me and helped me find my friend and her mom. They pacified me with an elephant ear, but my opinion of the Fremont district and it's hippie gatherings had been sullied for life.
So what does dad want to do for Father's Day tomorrow? Go to brunch (yay pancakes/omelets/hashbrowns/random lunch foods/apple juice!) and then to the Fremont Fair (nooo hippies/hemp jewelry/flaxseed cookies/testicles and/in bike chains.) Dad is busy doing grown up adult things most of the time so I'm not sure that he's aware of what we're going to be witness to tomorrow. Instead of saying "No Dad, there will be naked people... like people you don't want to see naked... on bicycles tomorrow." So I'm winging it.
Since I don't own a calendar and made plans with Dad on mothers day, I spent my entire day with my mom today. We got ourselves caffeined up and went to go see Date Night (I know we're really late on this one, but I'm sure as hell not going to watch Letters to Juliet.) I now understand where I get my juvenile sense of humor because anytime someone said "vagina" during the movie (which is A LOT!!!) we would both dissolve laughing. We both have them. Why was it so damn funny?! I don't know but I just spent 90 full seconds typing this sentence because I was thinking about vagina.
Tomorrow will likely involve a post about what happens when a 65 year old man with testicles like oranges in a tube sock gets said testicles stuck in a bike chain and you witness this in the presence of your father.
So, an entire post about genitalia related incidents and my parents. I can't guarantee it will get better from here.
I should preface this by saying that this event was traumatizing for me and I haven't been since I was about 7. I got lost there and basically let my mind wander to a place where I'd spend the rest of my day lost at the Fremont Fair where my friend's mother would never come looking for me and I'd be taken in by a family of hippies who would raise me to eat flax seed and granola and live in a treehouse not just in the summer when it would be awesome but in the fucking winter and I started crying. Someone took pity on me and helped me find my friend and her mom. They pacified me with an elephant ear, but my opinion of the Fremont district and it's hippie gatherings had been sullied for life.
So what does dad want to do for Father's Day tomorrow? Go to brunch (yay pancakes/omelets/hashbrowns/random lunch foods/apple juice!) and then to the Fremont Fair (nooo hippies/hemp jewelry/flaxseed cookies/testicles and/in bike chains.) Dad is busy doing grown up adult things most of the time so I'm not sure that he's aware of what we're going to be witness to tomorrow. Instead of saying "No Dad, there will be naked people... like people you don't want to see naked... on bicycles tomorrow." So I'm winging it.
Since I don't own a calendar and made plans with Dad on mothers day, I spent my entire day with my mom today. We got ourselves caffeined up and went to go see Date Night (I know we're really late on this one, but I'm sure as hell not going to watch Letters to Juliet.) I now understand where I get my juvenile sense of humor because anytime someone said "vagina" during the movie (which is A LOT!!!) we would both dissolve laughing. We both have them. Why was it so damn funny?! I don't know but I just spent 90 full seconds typing this sentence because I was thinking about vagina.
Tomorrow will likely involve a post about what happens when a 65 year old man with testicles like oranges in a tube sock gets said testicles stuck in a bike chain and you witness this in the presence of your father.
So, an entire post about genitalia related incidents and my parents. I can't guarantee it will get better from here.
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