Somebody Already Got My Number

In the rush of the morning I left my engagement ring in a dish by the sink, it's hard to slip it back on when my hands are covered in spf 50. And maybe if I hadn't been late to work I would have gone back and put it on and stopped a young man from ultimate humiliation.

As it was I didn't and he was. For work I take one of my client's to cash a check about every other week. We've been doing this for a year and have some friends there. None whose names I know, but I recognize their faces and they know my client well. Today happened to be a bank day. We strolled in, did our business and stepped back out onto the warm street.

"Excuse me," said an unfamiliar hesitant voice.

I turned to see some guy half looking at me and half staring at his feet holding a folded piece of paper out to me. I reached for it wondering what could have fallen from the purse of my client.

"The thing is..if you're not busy..maybe you could call me sometime," he said. Glancing at me he continued, "I think I have a crush on you."

"Oh," I replied. "Dude I'm getting married on Saturday. I just forgot my ring this morning."

He immediately began walking backwards and mumbled a congratulations as he turned to the building.

I tried to place him as a teller, a loan officer, mail carrier, but the plaid shorts and striped shirt gave no indication of any position. Perhaps just another bi-weekly patron? I'll never know as I'm sure he'll never have the courage to approach me (possibly any female) again. Still I couldn't help but be slightly touched by the sweetness of the gesture from an obviously painfully shy boy.

When I mentioned this to my fiance he remarked, "good thing he was sweet. Had it been me I'd have told you 'Oh good so we still have three days' or 'That's awesome that I'm going to be the last guy you ever make out with' or 'Good so you still have three days among the living, there's still time to save you' or 'I know a cry for help when I hear one' or 'You know that's the leading cause of divorce'."

Hmmmm....did I mention that SK spent the last week in a foreign country? Just glad he decided to show up for the ceremony.

Cursed Crooked Sailors

It's hard to tell someone they're right. And in this case I have to tell two people, the Skipper (Erik, our sailing captain) and the Skipper a.k.a the future Mr. Breanna Hall. Guys you were right. First, when you told me that if I didn't sit on the side of the boat when it tipped I would plunge head first into the water only to be saved by the brevity of the air gust. Second, as soon as you dropped me off on shore and ran over me for good luck the wind did indeed pick up and you had the best runs of the day.

Sailing taught me a few things:

I don't need to know more nautical terms than Ben Affleck taught me in the Voyage of the Mimi. Starboard, Port, Mast, Sails will suffice.

Big mast, small keel, we should fly across the water, if ever a wind blew in the Rocky Mountains.

Taunting the wind works if you also sacrifice one rider, preferably the cute one, and ditch her on land (just glad they didn't throw me overboard, which they tried unsuccessfully due to the lack of coordination in their freezing fingers).

The captain should check all rigging I performed, especially anything involving a strap.

The super fast speed of the racing sailboat cruised past the motorboats but was upset by the lightning fast catamaran from Asia, or the Islands, or our next door neighbor. It's a mystery, as is how they passed us.

Hypothermia sets in before you realize it.

The best time for storytelling occurs as the sailboat eerily turns in slow 360 degree circles while we wait for a breeze or a tow, anything to get us moving.

There is some confusion about a boat and a banana and an old curse.

When your finance pounds you on the back having too much fun with your foam padded lifejacket, do not retaliate, Karma dictates that you will ram your forearm into the nearest cable taking a swing of your own.

The Greek Afro curls innocently in the ocean spray.

Scrambling across the boat while diving through ropes and under the sail with an 18-inch clearance is best done by a small child or a 200 lb. gorilla man.

It takes a few days to recover physically, after the cold and fatigue have your muscles do the sewing machine and your bum is sore from riding the gunwales.

And finally, a magazine staff makes the transition to a perfect crew flawlessly.

Two-Year Learning Curves

Some people naturally catch anything you throw at them. Some of us need a big welt on our heads before we learn to place our hands in front of our face and close when the flying objects touches our palm. And it's still painful. Imagine the struggle when you have it down, life is great and the wind flies through your hair. Then you put your bike away for the cold, snowy, icy winter, take your bike out in the spring and realize you forgot how to ride.

That was me, age six or so, embarrassed and horrified because the first year I learned involved a horrendous accident ending in a summersault through a sticker patch and a thump on a log. Traumatic. Obviously 20 years later only a bright blue hard tail mountain bike could make me happy.

At least I was happy when I tried my first too long ride in the city and the tire kept deflating. And I gladly smiled when I realized if I completely took my bike apart it barely fit in my emptied car trunk. When I nearly flew off the front, I frowned, scrunched my nose and stowed the bike against the bedroom wall. Every weekend found some disaster to prevent me from learning.

Summer's back and the bike's out, possibly at the urging of a natural bike pro who enjoys hurdling down and through narrow rocky tracks in the quakies.

We rode the gondola up the Canyons so he could ride down and I could walk my bike. Actually the gondola wasn't enough and we rode a ski lift up to the very top. Well the very top after we climbed a few hundred feet. A glorious climb if I might acknowledge the grace and style and speed of the novice (ME!). While Skip maybe felt out of breath and light headed on the uphill run, I found that by holding my breath and closing my eyes I generally made it to the next stopping point and a little oxygen deprivation keeps you sane.

It also wears you out and makes the muscles in your neck pop out. Creepy, yet effective as I am here to type it out.

Paper Mache Giraffe

In my eighth-grade art class we made paper mache animals. I chose a sea turtle. It was great and fun and I spent countless hours painting dots on the turtle's back outlining it in blues, greens, yellows, oranges. Thirteen years later I read a fictional-contemporary-history on an ex-president's wife's life. Go ahead a reread that. It was based on Laura Bush, who, in the book, spent a summer making paper mache animals for her school library. I guess that makes me an expert on paper mache animals.

I shared my expertise causally with SK the other day. We just had brunch at a small diner in Sugarhouse and I felt a throbbing need to get home quickly. Sometimes the water just runs through you. So as he saunters down the sidewalk and I pull at his arm in a frantic effort to rush him along, he starts spying. He peers into cars as if he thinks a dead body will appear, more likely a set of antlers. And there it was, a spectacular display of art crammed into a tiny hatchback car.

"WHOA! What is THAT?" SK exclaimed.

"Hmm, what? The paper mache giraffe? Yeah, we'll make one sometime. Great. Keep moving," I commanded.

End Scene One

In the immediate aftermath of my exclamation, Skip looked at me with a mixture of awe and confusion. He thought it looked nothing like a giraffe, but after I told him that and he stared at it (which he did, increasing the pressure to my bladder), he decided that in some avant garde way it possibly could have resembled something close to a giraffe. There were some color similarities. And I just zoomed in on the horns. Weird.

End Scene One again.

A week or so later we did a walk through for our apartment. When I say walk through I mean that we did a detailed checklist of all the furniture, art and knickknacks in the place. These are to remain intact throughout our inhabitation.

Rugs, African heads, Thai necklaces, bamboo skies, oars, twig chandelier...I'm yawning and slightly freaked out by the size of the list. And then I spot Paper Mache Giraffe. I whipped my head looking for the masterpiece. No giraffe. Maybe I was in the wrong room? No, 1024, right where I was. I looked again and bit my lip. There was an animal head on the wall. It was gourmet paper mache, and a zebra. How did I know? Not the white and black stripes  the lack of horns.

Snow Snow Go Away!

I get that global warming has the seasons all screwed up, but the key word is WARMing. I thought that meant I'd be pulling out the shorts a few days in December, bundle up for January and February, and back in flip-flops by March.

Not quite. We took a little Meet the Fockers road trip to Denver. (Literally if you know those movies he met the parents, I met the Fockers.) On the way there we had to drive over Vail Pass late into the midnight hour. A huge blunder in the winter but not a definite worry in late May. Whoops. We drove through a spring storm. As Skip cursed our luck I kept thinking my brother Phil would've killed me, and also would have checked the weather.

A few sunny and warm days in Colorado and we were back on the road. We got another late-ish start but figured we'd be fine since Vail would be conquered during the afternoon heat. And we were until the midnight hours in Spanish Fork Canyon. What started as rain left a white blanket covering the flowers.

My motivation for the day died when I woke up this morning knowing that I could not wear shorts and snowboard season ended months ago. Global warming? Not all it's cracked up to be.

Wipe Out

Still doing respite care and getting a feel for my new neighborhood. While sitting in the front room interneting and such I repeatedly hear a motorcycle screeching by.

I look out the window. Dude zooms by on a white dirt bike. A few seconds later dude zooms by again. And again. And again. And again. He's wearing cargo pants, a t-shirt, baseball cap and a bluetooth earpiece. Curiously I spy some more.

At first I thought he was just trying to learn how to ride, then I noticed he was lifting the front tire off the bike. Just a small lift, then a little lift, a bit bigger now. He's gone. He's back. He's gone. There goes a pedal-pusher, poor sucker because my dirt bike friend is back.

It's mildly entertaining, moderately annoying, and hella trying to impress the cute blonde that emerged from the house next door.

There she stands. Here he comes. Up goes the front tire. Down goes the seat. Off goes the boy. "Ouch!" goes my mouth.

There goes the girl. There goes the boy and bike.

Silence.

Surviving Sugarhouse

Status update: I'm currently doing respite care for one of my clients. Meaning I'm spending a great deal of time in her house, an older house with charming vegetation. Beautiful tulips, a large pink blushing, blossoming hanging tree, blackberry bushes and more. Most of the windows lack screens and that alarms me.

Coming from Lamar, CO, capitol of bugs, I wince at the thought of anything with six or more legs. Even four can be too many. Screen doors, screen windows, screening phone calls...all important as they keep the unwanted away. Luckily Salt Lake lacks the bug population of Lamar, but it doesn't lack in the creepy crawlers.

Spiders. Eeek. I have an irrational fear of them that sprouts from an unfortunate watching of Arachnophobia. My dad called it family bonding, I called it torture. As it turned out I was right, being plagued with nightmares for years.

Those nightmares came crashing into the foreground tonight when I walked up the narrow steep stairs to the attic bedroom I'm sleeping in. Thank you Flowers In the Attic for my irrational fear of attics. So there I am facing fear of attic when I flip on the light to face fear of large black spider speeding towards my toe. I suppose I'm thankful that this was a freeze fear and I was unable to scream. I did mutter some strange guttural sounds in gasps.

I grabbed the first shoe I could find (I only feel right about killing spiders with shoes. They offer enough distance and usually you can't see the guts afterward.). Then I jumped on the chair close to the spider, which by now had a not-so-irrational fear of me, and talked myself into throwing the shoe with a skilled and marked aim. Success! The little sucker curled up into a dead spider position.

Failure! Something soft a furry slid onto my foot at the exact time and I screamed to tears. Up in the attic, locked away, where my mother would never see me again.

I looked down to see a pillow grazing my foot and my dead eight-legged friend still curled up in despair. He deserved a solid beating. I picked up the shoe again.

What happened next may have been savage, but it was necessary.