nothing says "PAAAARRRRRTTTTYY!" like puking.
no, this isn't a reminiscence of the "frying pan incident" or the "tequila jello shot incident"....nor any of the overindulgences that i actually remember.
this is far more recent, as in 12 hours or so ago.
also, this time i'm innocent, having developed a serious distaste for regurgitation years ago. (not only would i not make a good bulemic, but when i worked at the preschool, i established with my assistant(s) early on that if a kid hurled, i'd be the one calling the parents, as otherwise, i'd be highly likely to add to the pile.)
while hiking the mile from the free parking lot (thank you, verizon wireless amphitheater in charlotte) to the venue itself for last night's kings of leon show, my concert companion commented on the number of folks tailgating/prepartying before the show. neither of us can grasp the concept of shelling out $70+ for a concert ticket, only to get plastered before the show and not remember anything beyond the opening act the next day.
however, it seems that others "get it".....like the chick two rows ahead of us.
our attention was drawn first to her big-boned friend, whom we referred to as "skunk", in honor of her stylish (5-10 years ago) two-tone coif. when we first spied skunk, she was chatting up "man boob", the security guard in charge of the gate between the reserved seating area for poor people and the new "vip" section, which i'm sure costs extra. given the intensity of their chatting, complete with some serious flirting on her part (unless all that eyelash batting was in an attempt to get her mascara to dry), i figured for sure that they'd either start making out, or she'd wind up in one of the empty vip boxes.
sadly, it was not to be.
skunk waved her slightly more attractive friend over, so man boob could snap a picture of the two of them during the black keys' set. this would have been nothing to write home about, except the friend, who i'll call "hurley", leaned over as the photo was being snapped and licked skunk's neck. we thought she was just goofing around, but about half an hour later, during the intermission before kings of leon took the stage, we looked over and hurley was decorating the empty seat next to her. (by "decorate", i do not mean she'd whipped out a hot glue gun and some rhinestones. i'm talking about non-aerosol spray painting with her dinner.) skunk actually paused her conversation with man boob and came over to check on hurley. meanwhile, the guy on the other side of hurley was unfazed.
a medic was called over, but hurley and skunk managed to convince her she was fine. (perhaps she blamed it on bad shrimp.) the cleanup crew arrived about half an hour later. the smell of disinfectant blended interestingly with that of certain smokeables, the latter of which being present for a good chunk of the kings of leon's set.
the medic wasn't quite so easily convinced the second time, however. i'm not sure if hurley had a second technicolor yawn, but when i got a clear view, she was passed out like a sorority girl after a frat party. skunk and the medic somehow roused her enough to be led out of our section, if not the whole venue. again, the guy on the other side of hurley was unfazed.
as the action in that area wound down, the chick directly in front of us got going. i'm not sure how her fiance/husband managed to ignore her advances, but i have to admire his restraint. i'll spare you the sordid details (though i must point out that neck licking seems to be a clear indicator of drunkenness), but suffice it to say that he probably got lucky last night, unless she passed out while they were waiting to leave the parking lot after the show.
i'm willing to bet that on the walk to the car, though, a bystander probably had occasion to scream "PAAAAAAARTY!"
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
five lame excuses for not posting last weekend
1. still traumatized over car's illness- which nearly led to yours truly having to pull over with car trouble in the first well-lit parking lot i passed after getting off work at midnight two weeks ago tonight.
pro: there would have been lots of guys who could have potentially helped me out.
con: said establishment was a strip joint
2. consumed too much caffiene during work and couldn't concentrate long enough to spend an hour pounding out a post.
3. my (friend's) dog ate it.
4. too busy rereading the tao of pooh.
5. knew computer crash was eminent. didn't want to spend its final hours posting.
(actually, it wasn't a full crash- just an update that somehow made everything kerflooey. the incident monday was followed by my office computer being invaded by a nasty russian virus on wednesday that threw out a bunch of pop-ups, blocked my virus scanner (which finished its morning cycle about three minutes after the first popup, and assured me everything was ok), and repeatedly sent me to a fake viagra site, as well as a rather charming porno site that offered "dirty chat" (and poor grammar). i have no idea what the official name of the virus was, but some blend of "rasputin" and "hydra" would've been appropriate.)
pro: there would have been lots of guys who could have potentially helped me out.
con: said establishment was a strip joint
2. consumed too much caffiene during work and couldn't concentrate long enough to spend an hour pounding out a post.
3. my (friend's) dog ate it.
4. too busy rereading the tao of pooh.
5. knew computer crash was eminent. didn't want to spend its final hours posting.
(actually, it wasn't a full crash- just an update that somehow made everything kerflooey. the incident monday was followed by my office computer being invaded by a nasty russian virus on wednesday that threw out a bunch of pop-ups, blocked my virus scanner (which finished its morning cycle about three minutes after the first popup, and assured me everything was ok), and repeatedly sent me to a fake viagra site, as well as a rather charming porno site that offered "dirty chat" (and poor grammar). i have no idea what the official name of the virus was, but some blend of "rasputin" and "hydra" would've been appropriate.)
Sunday, January 17, 2010
in which i narrowly avoid learning yet another lesson the hard way
i have to get used to driving my car again.
i made a deal with SO the weekend before we left on our respective winter vacations: since he was going to be away from home (charleston) longer than i was (columbia), and his flashy new chariot (a corolla almost exactly like the one i was seriously considering over the summer, during the great clutch/transmission debacle) gets slightly better mileage than my 8 1/2 year old wheels, we swapped for a few weeks.
as i headed to work this afternoon, and he headed out of town, we swapped back.
have you tried to switch back to driving a 5-speed after driving nothing but automatic for four weeks? it took my left foot a minute to figure out what it was supposed to do, which led to yours truly sitting in the parking lot, looking like an idiot, trying to figure out why the car wouldn't start.
uh, duh.
SO's main reason for wanting to switch back was that my car had started running hot again on his trip up from charleston friday night, and since he had a long drive back, he didn't want it to overheat.
this is an annoying habit my car had picked up on an intermittent basis lately. over the summer, my trusty mechanic said that there was condensation on my thermostat housing, and that it was okay for the moment, but would eventually crack and i'd need a new one. he said it wouldn't be a huge deal, so instead of freaking out the first time the needle inched toward the red line, i simply turned on my heat full blast, which i balanced out by rolling down my window...in the middle of south carolina winter, which means it was about 50 outside. (actually, the window part isn't unusual. i've been known to suffer frozen hair because i have a habit of driving with the window down, year round.)
today, however, the needle shot up almost immediately, and despite running the heat full blast, didn't budge from its new position, unnervingly close to the dreaded red line.
i believe this is pretty universally considered a problem.
thankfully, i work with boys. not only boys, but boys who know basic things about cars.
when i got to work, i went up to one such boy and asked him if, before he left for the day, he could peek under the hood of the car with me and help me check my coolant....just in case this wasn't just a thermostat housing problem that i could blow off.
did you know a car can still run with a miniscule amount of coolant? thankfully, i do not know exactly how short that trip will be, because after discovering the source of my problem (hoepfully the sole source), the aforementioned boy went out in search of a vat of coolant, so i wouldn't be wandering around the aisles of various gas stations in the wee hours of the morning (i get off at midnight on sundays) in search of this chartreuse elixir.
ooh! ooh! ooh!- let me point out that i thought to fashion a funnel out of one of this thin, plastic water bottles, which seemed like a far better idea than my initial plan to make one out of paper- macgyver would be so proud, despite the lack of chewing gum or a paper clip being involved in this little project, which is not to say i don't have them in my backpack at all times, just in case.
so, now i'll be able to spend the entire drive home this evening getting reaquainted with my car....rather than possibly spending part of it getting acquainted with yet another tow truck service in the middle of the night. this is a good thing.
i made a deal with SO the weekend before we left on our respective winter vacations: since he was going to be away from home (charleston) longer than i was (columbia), and his flashy new chariot (a corolla almost exactly like the one i was seriously considering over the summer, during the great clutch/transmission debacle) gets slightly better mileage than my 8 1/2 year old wheels, we swapped for a few weeks.
as i headed to work this afternoon, and he headed out of town, we swapped back.
have you tried to switch back to driving a 5-speed after driving nothing but automatic for four weeks? it took my left foot a minute to figure out what it was supposed to do, which led to yours truly sitting in the parking lot, looking like an idiot, trying to figure out why the car wouldn't start.
uh, duh.
SO's main reason for wanting to switch back was that my car had started running hot again on his trip up from charleston friday night, and since he had a long drive back, he didn't want it to overheat.
this is an annoying habit my car had picked up on an intermittent basis lately. over the summer, my trusty mechanic said that there was condensation on my thermostat housing, and that it was okay for the moment, but would eventually crack and i'd need a new one. he said it wouldn't be a huge deal, so instead of freaking out the first time the needle inched toward the red line, i simply turned on my heat full blast, which i balanced out by rolling down my window...in the middle of south carolina winter, which means it was about 50 outside. (actually, the window part isn't unusual. i've been known to suffer frozen hair because i have a habit of driving with the window down, year round.)
today, however, the needle shot up almost immediately, and despite running the heat full blast, didn't budge from its new position, unnervingly close to the dreaded red line.
i believe this is pretty universally considered a problem.
thankfully, i work with boys. not only boys, but boys who know basic things about cars.
when i got to work, i went up to one such boy and asked him if, before he left for the day, he could peek under the hood of the car with me and help me check my coolant....just in case this wasn't just a thermostat housing problem that i could blow off.
did you know a car can still run with a miniscule amount of coolant? thankfully, i do not know exactly how short that trip will be, because after discovering the source of my problem (hoepfully the sole source), the aforementioned boy went out in search of a vat of coolant, so i wouldn't be wandering around the aisles of various gas stations in the wee hours of the morning (i get off at midnight on sundays) in search of this chartreuse elixir.
ooh! ooh! ooh!- let me point out that i thought to fashion a funnel out of one of this thin, plastic water bottles, which seemed like a far better idea than my initial plan to make one out of paper- macgyver would be so proud, despite the lack of chewing gum or a paper clip being involved in this little project, which is not to say i don't have them in my backpack at all times, just in case.
so, now i'll be able to spend the entire drive home this evening getting reaquainted with my car....rather than possibly spending part of it getting acquainted with yet another tow truck service in the middle of the night. this is a good thing.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
on personal space, carry-out condiments, and tainted love lotion
they say you can tell a lot about a person by the contents of their personal space.
in high school, your locker contained not only your backpack and books, but also a glimpse into your little world.
that was eons ago, and quite frankly, i don't recall the exact contents of mine, though i'm fairly certain there were pictures, barely opened textbooks, my walkman, a variety of writing utensils, a partially-eaten snack-sized bag of sunchips or doritoes, some random toys, and at least one or two pieces of homework that may or may not have actually gotten turned in.
in college, it's your dorm room that's supposed to tip everyone off as to who you really are. my blow-up blacklight-friendly green couch still lurks in my dad's garage in kansas city, the random quotes i stuck to my ceiling are glued into a scrapbook somewhere, the lava lamp (a high school graduation present from my mom) is in the corner of my master bedroom, and i'm fairly certain that most of my trinkets from mardi gras are still fairly well contained in a box in my living room.
in short, i've always gone for vaguely-organized chaos.
while heating up my dinner this evening, in the radio station breakroom (let me briefly digress long enough to point out that i am not responsible for all the chaos and clutter there.), i had roughly 2 1/2 minutes to glance around the room, particularly at our cubbies.
i've worked here at the radio station for nearly 8 1/2 years now, and though my stations/duties have changed, my production cubby has remained the same.
i think when i first got here, there were signs posted somewhere near the cubbies that stated they were "for production orders only". perhaps if i were curious enough to dig through them, i'd find one of these signs still floating around. however, i'm really not that curious....i know they existed at one point in time, sort of like dinosaurs, and for a while, i heeded their stern words.
some of the 20 cubbies sit empty. either they were never used, or else they were cleaned out when their owners walked out of the building for the last time.
some of the cubbies have a couple of pieces of paper- maybe one of those glossy cards promoting some small-time rapper hoping to catch somebody's ear on the way to becoming the next mc hammer or ice cube or lil' wayne.
there's a cubby on the bottom row that contains a few dozen fedex envelopes, filled with cds from programs we may or may not run on our stations anymore.
also on the bottom row, there's the untouched cubby of the former employee who was busted in the wee hours of the morning, testing out off-label uses for (insert name of major beauty company that isn't avon, as well as a type of fabric and a body part that comes in a pair) lotion while most likely chatting (uh, single-handedly) with one of the many "exotic dancers" he was friends with on myspace.
well, it was untouched until fairly recently, anyway.
as my chicken baja chalupa was heating in the ancient microwave that bears a small black mark from an attempt to nuke a foil-wrapped fast food sandwich (to the nuker, who shall remain nameless, this did not seem like a bad idea. i mean, the foil was only on one side of the paper, so really, it's not like the thing was going to blow like the microwave full of metal in pump up the volume. it did, however, shoot out a couple of interesting little sparks, which actually helped the nuker out of her- i mean their- 4am mid-shift sleepiness.), i wandered over to my cubby in search of fire sauce, because for some reason, the fine folks at taco bell rarely understand what "a large handful" means.
now, my cubby is probably due for a good "decluttering". i have various eating implements (plasticware and chopsticks), condiments (ketchup, arby's sauce, horsey sauce, fire sauce, ranch dressing, mediterranean dressing, salt, and possibly a packet of pepper or two), napkins, teabags (because one cannot rely on sandwiches in foil wrapping to keep oneself awake all the time), a couple of issues of rolling stone, and i sincerely hope i didn't throw out the article about the octopus who was looking for love, finally was set up on an octodate at a ripe old age (no word on whether the soulful crooning of barry white was used to help things along), and then expired shortly thereafter.
it was while retrieving the runaway fire sauce that i noticed it.
or, rather, the absence of it.
the tube of hand lotion was missing.
it's been chilly here in south carolina lately, and with the heat on in the building, the air is pretty dry. i've almost run through my small tube of hand cream. however, i'd rather use a bunch of little neosporin packets from the other break room than to go anywhere near the tainted lotion in the bottom cubby.
lacking the ability to call horatio caine and convince him to chase down the culprit, i have been able to come up with two possible scenarios:
possible scenario numero uno: a desperate employee, suffering the agony of severely chapped, cracking hands, saw sweet relief in the form of a tube of lotion in the unused cubby of a person he/she had never heard of, and helped him/herself.
possible scenario numero dos: one of the buick-sized roaches (last seen scurrying around in my usual stall in the girls' bathroom, leading yours truly to decide to "hold it" during the remainder of my shift yesterday morning, plus the fifteen minute drive home) carried it off...hopefully to some secret corner one of my coworkers' children will never, ever, ever find.
i would have come up with a third scenario, but really, i only had about 2 1/2 minutes to find the fire sauce, attempt to prevent a condiment/utensil avalanche, and retrieve my dinner.
as soon as i finish my last chicken taco, though, i might just have to go back to my cubby and, using one of those sets of chopsticks, carefully pluck out the contents, just in case some well-meaning soul saw the lotion on the floor (if it was fairly full, it may have been too heavy for even a buick-sized roach to haul very far) and, seeing the clutter in my cubby, stuck it on top of my teabags.
better yet- maybe i should wander down the hall to the other break room. i think there may be some unused latex gloves next to the neosporin.
after all, i'm not sure what the possible tainted lotion/chopstick/napkin combination might possibly say about me, but i'm pretty sure it wouldn't be anything good.
in high school, your locker contained not only your backpack and books, but also a glimpse into your little world.
that was eons ago, and quite frankly, i don't recall the exact contents of mine, though i'm fairly certain there were pictures, barely opened textbooks, my walkman, a variety of writing utensils, a partially-eaten snack-sized bag of sunchips or doritoes, some random toys, and at least one or two pieces of homework that may or may not have actually gotten turned in.
in college, it's your dorm room that's supposed to tip everyone off as to who you really are. my blow-up blacklight-friendly green couch still lurks in my dad's garage in kansas city, the random quotes i stuck to my ceiling are glued into a scrapbook somewhere, the lava lamp (a high school graduation present from my mom) is in the corner of my master bedroom, and i'm fairly certain that most of my trinkets from mardi gras are still fairly well contained in a box in my living room.
in short, i've always gone for vaguely-organized chaos.
while heating up my dinner this evening, in the radio station breakroom (let me briefly digress long enough to point out that i am not responsible for all the chaos and clutter there.), i had roughly 2 1/2 minutes to glance around the room, particularly at our cubbies.
i've worked here at the radio station for nearly 8 1/2 years now, and though my stations/duties have changed, my production cubby has remained the same.
i think when i first got here, there were signs posted somewhere near the cubbies that stated they were "for production orders only". perhaps if i were curious enough to dig through them, i'd find one of these signs still floating around. however, i'm really not that curious....i know they existed at one point in time, sort of like dinosaurs, and for a while, i heeded their stern words.
some of the 20 cubbies sit empty. either they were never used, or else they were cleaned out when their owners walked out of the building for the last time.
some of the cubbies have a couple of pieces of paper- maybe one of those glossy cards promoting some small-time rapper hoping to catch somebody's ear on the way to becoming the next mc hammer or ice cube or lil' wayne.
there's a cubby on the bottom row that contains a few dozen fedex envelopes, filled with cds from programs we may or may not run on our stations anymore.
also on the bottom row, there's the untouched cubby of the former employee who was busted in the wee hours of the morning, testing out off-label uses for (insert name of major beauty company that isn't avon, as well as a type of fabric and a body part that comes in a pair) lotion while most likely chatting (uh, single-handedly) with one of the many "exotic dancers" he was friends with on myspace.
well, it was untouched until fairly recently, anyway.
as my chicken baja chalupa was heating in the ancient microwave that bears a small black mark from an attempt to nuke a foil-wrapped fast food sandwich (to the nuker, who shall remain nameless, this did not seem like a bad idea. i mean, the foil was only on one side of the paper, so really, it's not like the thing was going to blow like the microwave full of metal in pump up the volume. it did, however, shoot out a couple of interesting little sparks, which actually helped the nuker out of her- i mean their- 4am mid-shift sleepiness.), i wandered over to my cubby in search of fire sauce, because for some reason, the fine folks at taco bell rarely understand what "a large handful" means.
now, my cubby is probably due for a good "decluttering". i have various eating implements (plasticware and chopsticks), condiments (ketchup, arby's sauce, horsey sauce, fire sauce, ranch dressing, mediterranean dressing, salt, and possibly a packet of pepper or two), napkins, teabags (because one cannot rely on sandwiches in foil wrapping to keep oneself awake all the time), a couple of issues of rolling stone, and i sincerely hope i didn't throw out the article about the octopus who was looking for love, finally was set up on an octodate at a ripe old age (no word on whether the soulful crooning of barry white was used to help things along), and then expired shortly thereafter.
it was while retrieving the runaway fire sauce that i noticed it.
or, rather, the absence of it.
the tube of hand lotion was missing.
it's been chilly here in south carolina lately, and with the heat on in the building, the air is pretty dry. i've almost run through my small tube of hand cream. however, i'd rather use a bunch of little neosporin packets from the other break room than to go anywhere near the tainted lotion in the bottom cubby.
lacking the ability to call horatio caine and convince him to chase down the culprit, i have been able to come up with two possible scenarios:
possible scenario numero uno: a desperate employee, suffering the agony of severely chapped, cracking hands, saw sweet relief in the form of a tube of lotion in the unused cubby of a person he/she had never heard of, and helped him/herself.
possible scenario numero dos: one of the buick-sized roaches (last seen scurrying around in my usual stall in the girls' bathroom, leading yours truly to decide to "hold it" during the remainder of my shift yesterday morning, plus the fifteen minute drive home) carried it off...hopefully to some secret corner one of my coworkers' children will never, ever, ever find.
i would have come up with a third scenario, but really, i only had about 2 1/2 minutes to find the fire sauce, attempt to prevent a condiment/utensil avalanche, and retrieve my dinner.
as soon as i finish my last chicken taco, though, i might just have to go back to my cubby and, using one of those sets of chopsticks, carefully pluck out the contents, just in case some well-meaning soul saw the lotion on the floor (if it was fairly full, it may have been too heavy for even a buick-sized roach to haul very far) and, seeing the clutter in my cubby, stuck it on top of my teabags.
better yet- maybe i should wander down the hall to the other break room. i think there may be some unused latex gloves next to the neosporin.
after all, i'm not sure what the possible tainted lotion/chopstick/napkin combination might possibly say about me, but i'm pretty sure it wouldn't be anything good.
Saturday, January 02, 2010
hrmmm.....
it was pointed out to me a couple of nights ago that i've been a little too quiet on the blog lately. i'd offer to add "post more regularly" to my list of new years' resolutions, but
a. i don't usually make resolutions. i break enough stuff as it is and
b. were i to make resolutions this year, i'd wait until february or so, when everyone else has broken the ever-popular "get into better shape" resolution, saving me the long wait for a treadmill at my apartment complex.
a. i don't usually make resolutions. i break enough stuff as it is and
b. were i to make resolutions this year, i'd wait until february or so, when everyone else has broken the ever-popular "get into better shape" resolution, saving me the long wait for a treadmill at my apartment complex.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
it's a little scary.....
....for me to realize it's been almost two months since i last posted. sorry about that. i think my muse may have gotten lost in the woods during my last hike.
in all honesty, i was going to cheat and just put up a link to the post i wrote a while back about how my sibling and i, in our younger years in baltimore, used to scare the bejeesus out of my dad with our basement haunted house.
i could've sworn i wrote a post like that. i mean, i've told that story over and over again, to the point that i've actually had friends chime in to fill in the gaps when i skip the part about the glow in the dark ghosts or vincent price's rapping. however, after searching this blog for "voncent price", "thriller", and "haunted basement", i've concluded that it must've been a phantom post....sort of like when i think i've said something out loud, and it turns out i didn't actually get past the "thinking" stage. (damn this short attention span of mine!)
growing up in baltimore, the only "haunted" attraction we knew of was the "haunted school"- woodlawn elementary school, down the hill from our house.
most of the year, the school (which, rumor has it, was actually torn down some time after we moved, but i digress...) was opened up for roller skating on wednesday nights only. (i went weekly for a couple of years, and even after all these years, i'm pretty sure i could still get under the limbo stick, though some light stretching might be necessary first.)
however, during the weeks leading up to halloween, the school (which was closed around the time we moved to maryland- due to structural instability, or something like that) was transformed into a fairly low-budget (at least compared to the masterpieces in kansas city) haunted house.
up the hill, at our house, sibling and i pretty regularly turned our basement into a mini-haunted house, employing the use of glow in the dark ghosts (i'm sure sibling's gotten rid of them since, which is a bummer, because i coveted those things for years), glow in the dark jelly bracelets, glow in the dark shoelaces and, most importantly, a copy of michael jackson's "thriller" album on tape.
we'd make a trail with the bracelets and shoelaces, rewind the tape to the beginning of track 4 on side 1, turn out all the lights, and call daddy downstairs. while michael sang (the basement was small, so we rarely made it to vincent's rap), one of us would lead daddy around the basement while the other would jump out, throw the glow in the dark ghosts, and shout "boo".
daddy was appropriately scared.....in fact, i'm pretty sure it was the most we were able to scare him until we hit high school and he tried to teach us to drive.
looking back, it's interesting to think that we figured flying plastic ghosts were scary, yet the morning we woke up (maybe a year or two before we moved to missouri) and saw that a bunch of our neighbors' cars had been torched overnight, it didn't really faze us. (on the other hand, i'm pretty the effect it had on our parents was probably akin to seeing a zombified michael jackson beating down the front door in the middle of the night.)
the halloween before we moved, i finally went to the haunted school. i can't remember for sure whether sibling went with me or not. in fact, i don't remember much of that night at all, aside from older kids in make up jumping out from dark corners, and i may or may not have spent a significant amount of time trying to get a younger boy i liked to kiss me. (i was so incredibly successful that my first kiss (not counting joey galford trying to kiss me on the bus in kindergarten) wasn't until i was 15. this sort of retardation when it comes to courtship continued into my 20s. i think i might finally have outgrown it. maybe.)
digressing again- sorry.
long story short, the haunted school wasn't really all that spectacular. perhaps if they'd hired someone to play "thriller" over and over again, while someone else threw little plastic ghosts at the hauntees (that's the right term for "those who are haunted", right?), even my dad would have been scared.
in all honesty, i was going to cheat and just put up a link to the post i wrote a while back about how my sibling and i, in our younger years in baltimore, used to scare the bejeesus out of my dad with our basement haunted house.
i could've sworn i wrote a post like that. i mean, i've told that story over and over again, to the point that i've actually had friends chime in to fill in the gaps when i skip the part about the glow in the dark ghosts or vincent price's rapping. however, after searching this blog for "voncent price", "thriller", and "haunted basement", i've concluded that it must've been a phantom post....sort of like when i think i've said something out loud, and it turns out i didn't actually get past the "thinking" stage. (damn this short attention span of mine!)
growing up in baltimore, the only "haunted" attraction we knew of was the "haunted school"- woodlawn elementary school, down the hill from our house.
most of the year, the school (which, rumor has it, was actually torn down some time after we moved, but i digress...) was opened up for roller skating on wednesday nights only. (i went weekly for a couple of years, and even after all these years, i'm pretty sure i could still get under the limbo stick, though some light stretching might be necessary first.)
however, during the weeks leading up to halloween, the school (which was closed around the time we moved to maryland- due to structural instability, or something like that) was transformed into a fairly low-budget (at least compared to the masterpieces in kansas city) haunted house.
up the hill, at our house, sibling and i pretty regularly turned our basement into a mini-haunted house, employing the use of glow in the dark ghosts (i'm sure sibling's gotten rid of them since, which is a bummer, because i coveted those things for years), glow in the dark jelly bracelets, glow in the dark shoelaces and, most importantly, a copy of michael jackson's "thriller" album on tape.
we'd make a trail with the bracelets and shoelaces, rewind the tape to the beginning of track 4 on side 1, turn out all the lights, and call daddy downstairs. while michael sang (the basement was small, so we rarely made it to vincent's rap), one of us would lead daddy around the basement while the other would jump out, throw the glow in the dark ghosts, and shout "boo".
daddy was appropriately scared.....in fact, i'm pretty sure it was the most we were able to scare him until we hit high school and he tried to teach us to drive.
looking back, it's interesting to think that we figured flying plastic ghosts were scary, yet the morning we woke up (maybe a year or two before we moved to missouri) and saw that a bunch of our neighbors' cars had been torched overnight, it didn't really faze us. (on the other hand, i'm pretty the effect it had on our parents was probably akin to seeing a zombified michael jackson beating down the front door in the middle of the night.)
the halloween before we moved, i finally went to the haunted school. i can't remember for sure whether sibling went with me or not. in fact, i don't remember much of that night at all, aside from older kids in make up jumping out from dark corners, and i may or may not have spent a significant amount of time trying to get a younger boy i liked to kiss me. (i was so incredibly successful that my first kiss (not counting joey galford trying to kiss me on the bus in kindergarten) wasn't until i was 15. this sort of retardation when it comes to courtship continued into my 20s. i think i might finally have outgrown it. maybe.)
digressing again- sorry.
long story short, the haunted school wasn't really all that spectacular. perhaps if they'd hired someone to play "thriller" over and over again, while someone else threw little plastic ghosts at the hauntees (that's the right term for "those who are haunted", right?), even my dad would have been scared.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
is that a banjo i hear?
i'm moving a little slowly this morning, but it's for a good reason- SO and i went hiking yesterday on the winding stairs trail, near walhalla, sc.
(we thought a hike might be a good idea because, for his upcoming 40th birthday, SO and i are going to visit his family in phoenix, arizona. as usual, there is a strong possibility that sooner or later, we will find ourselves enjoying the local terrain on foot. since most of our daily exercise is limited to walking on flat land, clearly a little conditioning is in order.)
this 3.5 mile trail (which, according to this link, apparently features a bonus waterfall, secret falls, which we somehow managed to miss completely) was done as an out-and-back hike, totalling 7 miles.
the parking area for this hike was pretty easy to find, and not just because we overshot it and wound up at the entrance to the cherry hill recreational area. we actually parked in the same pullout we used a couple of years ago, when we hiked the big bend trail (which i didn't blog about, for some strange reason). however, a lesson was learned after our last hike in this area- ticks are abundant. so, before heading out on the trail, windows were rolled up, the sunroof of SO's spiffy new chariot was closed, and we doused ourselves in mosquito/tick repellant.
we started our hike from the northern trailhead, on sc 107, which, according to hiking south carolina by john clark & john dantzler, is the easier way to approach the hike. after a slight incline just past the trailhead, the trail descends over a thousand feet, mostly through a series of switchbacks- which, i suppose, inspired the name of the trail.
our first stop was fairly early on- a photo op along the west fork of townes creek.
(forgive the blurriness. this was the best of six....by a fair bit, i assure you.)
the trail was pretty flat along this section, and we marveled at the variety of mushrooms along the trail. there were huge yellow ones, smaller red ones, oddly shaped large white ones.....the smurfs would have been proud. i would've snapped some photos, but was excited about the waterfall and wanted to get to it as quickly as possible, so pictures would have to wait until the hike back to the trailhead.
miuka falls can be heard after the first switchback along the trail. there's a little bit of a scramble to get a decent view of the waterfall, but i managed to stay on my feet without the assistance of too many trees. i believe SO even managed to stay upright, which will spare me the prospect of having to presoak his shorts in oxyclean and half a bottle of shout.
miuka falls is a 75-foot cascade waterfall....it reminded me of oconee station falls, which i visited about 10 years ago, before moving to south carolina. like oconee station falls, i had a serious desire to have my photo taken at the base of the waterfall.
(this was taken at oconee station waterfall- 1998 or so, i think)
however, my plan was foiled on two counts:
1. SO was highly squeamish about the idea of yours truly walking around on slick rocks.....i believe he may have said something about "plunging to (my) death" or something like that
2. my camera battery, which was just charged my next-to-last day on st. john, decided to give up the ghost while SO was squatting down in an attempt to achieve the sort of angle that would catch both myself and the waterfall in the photo.
drat.
so much for that new facebook profile picture, though i managed to get a couple of good shots before the battery gave up the ghost.
in retrospect, it's probably just as well that we somehow missed secret falls, as i wouldn't have been able to capture it on film (or is it "in pixels" these days?) anyway....just another reason to go back sometime.
beyond the waterfalls, the trail seemed to be far less traveled. at a couple of points, we wound up on alternate paths, skirting around the edges of fallen trees. thankfully, major scrambles weren't involved, and we were able to continue our hike at a fairly decent pace. (i figured we should be able to handle 7 miles in under three hours- a shorter period of time was preferable, given that we didn't hit the trail until 4pm.)
wildlife encounters were limited mostly to yours truly walking into spiderwebs (which would be one of the ways i figured out the section of the trail beneath the falls wasn't nearly as well traveled as the section above the falls), which generally wasn't a problem....except for the one that left me with what seemed to be a ginormous tarantula on my shoulder. (in retrospect, it was probably just a small, harmless arachnid, no bigger than a dime. i was too busy shrieking and flicking it off to really check it out, though.)
about an hour and fifteen minutes into the hike, just as i was wondering when we'd reach the southern trailhead, on tamassee road, SO commented that he heard music.
this was a good sign. music meant we were getting close to the road.
at the southern trailhead, the source of the music became clear. since i have no photos to share with you, i will have to share my artistic rendition of the scene we encountered:
1. yes, matisse would be proud. and by "matisse", i mean john matisse, the half-blind homeless man i saw talking to himself last week downtown.
2. there are multiple reasons for SO's exclusion from this drawing:
2a. as you can see, i only draw handless, anorexic nudists, which SO most certainly is not, by any account.
2b. upon realizing that banjos were, in fact, featured in the music we were hearing, SO turned around and headed back up the trail faster than i've ever seen him move before.
time to get from northern trailhead to southern trailhead (over 1000 ft. descent in 3.5 miles, with photo stops): 1 hour, 20 minutes
time to get from southern trailhead to northern trailhead (over 1000 ft. ascent in 3.5 miles, without photo stops): 1 hour, 15 minutes.
i believe the numbers speak for themselves, folks. clearly, this boy has watched deliverance.
the trip back was fairly uneventful. SO realized that having a towel in the car might be a good idea, as he didn't really like the idea of his sweaty t-shirt stinking up the driver's seat of his new chariot. since he didn't come to this realization back at home, where we have an abundance of towels, he made do by using my spare sweatshirt as a barrier between his sweaty back and his seat.
a couple of swigs of warm gatorade later, we were heading back toward greenville on sc 107, which ran into sc 28- the road that heads into walhalla, where we pick up 183, which heads into greenville, where it runs into 385, which runs into I-26, which gets us most of the rest of the way home. it's a fairly simple route, and not long after reaching 183, i instructed SO to stay on the road and closed my eyes.....opening them about 45 minutes later, expecting to see the sights of northern greenville.
(our planned route)
funny thing- one does not expect to see the sign for issaqueena falls in northern greenville. in fact, one expects that sign along sc 28.....not far from where sc 107 splits off toward cherry hill recreational area.
needless to say, i was a little surprised.
about two miles from where i closed my eyes, there's a stoplight along 183. one must turn left to stay on 183. otherwise, one winds up staying on whatever road merged with 183 a few miles back, and, as my trailblazing SO discovered, if one stays on this road and doesn't make any turns whatsoever, one winds up back on 28, bound for the georgia and north carolina borders.
(our actual route)
i pointed out a few (i thought so, anyway) memorable sights and asked if he'd seen them before, but it seems SO takes the whole "keep your eyes on the road" line of thinking to heart, as he responded that he hadn't noticed anything unusual.
to his credit, he turned around fairly quickly, and about twenty minutes later, when we made the turn onto 183 again, he realized his mistake.
i did not close my eyes again until we were safely on 385. during the intervening time, SO apologized multiple times. i pointed out that it was no huge deal to me- after all, i was planning on sleeping on the way home, and i did not have any sort of interest in the college football game of which he'd now be missing the first hour.
maybe for his 40th birthday, i'll teach him how to make sense of a map.
(we thought a hike might be a good idea because, for his upcoming 40th birthday, SO and i are going to visit his family in phoenix, arizona. as usual, there is a strong possibility that sooner or later, we will find ourselves enjoying the local terrain on foot. since most of our daily exercise is limited to walking on flat land, clearly a little conditioning is in order.)
this 3.5 mile trail (which, according to this link, apparently features a bonus waterfall, secret falls, which we somehow managed to miss completely) was done as an out-and-back hike, totalling 7 miles.
the parking area for this hike was pretty easy to find, and not just because we overshot it and wound up at the entrance to the cherry hill recreational area. we actually parked in the same pullout we used a couple of years ago, when we hiked the big bend trail (which i didn't blog about, for some strange reason). however, a lesson was learned after our last hike in this area- ticks are abundant. so, before heading out on the trail, windows were rolled up, the sunroof of SO's spiffy new chariot was closed, and we doused ourselves in mosquito/tick repellant.
we started our hike from the northern trailhead, on sc 107, which, according to hiking south carolina by john clark & john dantzler, is the easier way to approach the hike. after a slight incline just past the trailhead, the trail descends over a thousand feet, mostly through a series of switchbacks- which, i suppose, inspired the name of the trail.
our first stop was fairly early on- a photo op along the west fork of townes creek.
the trail was pretty flat along this section, and we marveled at the variety of mushrooms along the trail. there were huge yellow ones, smaller red ones, oddly shaped large white ones.....the smurfs would have been proud. i would've snapped some photos, but was excited about the waterfall and wanted to get to it as quickly as possible, so pictures would have to wait until the hike back to the trailhead.
miuka falls can be heard after the first switchback along the trail. there's a little bit of a scramble to get a decent view of the waterfall, but i managed to stay on my feet without the assistance of too many trees. i believe SO even managed to stay upright, which will spare me the prospect of having to presoak his shorts in oxyclean and half a bottle of shout.
miuka falls is a 75-foot cascade waterfall....it reminded me of oconee station falls, which i visited about 10 years ago, before moving to south carolina. like oconee station falls, i had a serious desire to have my photo taken at the base of the waterfall.
however, my plan was foiled on two counts:
1. SO was highly squeamish about the idea of yours truly walking around on slick rocks.....i believe he may have said something about "plunging to (my) death" or something like that
2. my camera battery, which was just charged my next-to-last day on st. john, decided to give up the ghost while SO was squatting down in an attempt to achieve the sort of angle that would catch both myself and the waterfall in the photo.
drat.
so much for that new facebook profile picture, though i managed to get a couple of good shots before the battery gave up the ghost.
in retrospect, it's probably just as well that we somehow missed secret falls, as i wouldn't have been able to capture it on film (or is it "in pixels" these days?) anyway....just another reason to go back sometime.
beyond the waterfalls, the trail seemed to be far less traveled. at a couple of points, we wound up on alternate paths, skirting around the edges of fallen trees. thankfully, major scrambles weren't involved, and we were able to continue our hike at a fairly decent pace. (i figured we should be able to handle 7 miles in under three hours- a shorter period of time was preferable, given that we didn't hit the trail until 4pm.)
wildlife encounters were limited mostly to yours truly walking into spiderwebs (which would be one of the ways i figured out the section of the trail beneath the falls wasn't nearly as well traveled as the section above the falls), which generally wasn't a problem....except for the one that left me with what seemed to be a ginormous tarantula on my shoulder. (in retrospect, it was probably just a small, harmless arachnid, no bigger than a dime. i was too busy shrieking and flicking it off to really check it out, though.)
about an hour and fifteen minutes into the hike, just as i was wondering when we'd reach the southern trailhead, on tamassee road, SO commented that he heard music.
this was a good sign. music meant we were getting close to the road.
at the southern trailhead, the source of the music became clear. since i have no photos to share with you, i will have to share my artistic rendition of the scene we encountered:
1. yes, matisse would be proud. and by "matisse", i mean john matisse, the half-blind homeless man i saw talking to himself last week downtown.
2. there are multiple reasons for SO's exclusion from this drawing:
2a. as you can see, i only draw handless, anorexic nudists, which SO most certainly is not, by any account.
2b. upon realizing that banjos were, in fact, featured in the music we were hearing, SO turned around and headed back up the trail faster than i've ever seen him move before.
time to get from northern trailhead to southern trailhead (over 1000 ft. descent in 3.5 miles, with photo stops): 1 hour, 20 minutes
time to get from southern trailhead to northern trailhead (over 1000 ft. ascent in 3.5 miles, without photo stops): 1 hour, 15 minutes.
i believe the numbers speak for themselves, folks. clearly, this boy has watched deliverance.
the trip back was fairly uneventful. SO realized that having a towel in the car might be a good idea, as he didn't really like the idea of his sweaty t-shirt stinking up the driver's seat of his new chariot. since he didn't come to this realization back at home, where we have an abundance of towels, he made do by using my spare sweatshirt as a barrier between his sweaty back and his seat.
a couple of swigs of warm gatorade later, we were heading back toward greenville on sc 107, which ran into sc 28- the road that heads into walhalla, where we pick up 183, which heads into greenville, where it runs into 385, which runs into I-26, which gets us most of the rest of the way home. it's a fairly simple route, and not long after reaching 183, i instructed SO to stay on the road and closed my eyes.....opening them about 45 minutes later, expecting to see the sights of northern greenville.
funny thing- one does not expect to see the sign for issaqueena falls in northern greenville. in fact, one expects that sign along sc 28.....not far from where sc 107 splits off toward cherry hill recreational area.
needless to say, i was a little surprised.
about two miles from where i closed my eyes, there's a stoplight along 183. one must turn left to stay on 183. otherwise, one winds up staying on whatever road merged with 183 a few miles back, and, as my trailblazing SO discovered, if one stays on this road and doesn't make any turns whatsoever, one winds up back on 28, bound for the georgia and north carolina borders.
i pointed out a few (i thought so, anyway) memorable sights and asked if he'd seen them before, but it seems SO takes the whole "keep your eyes on the road" line of thinking to heart, as he responded that he hadn't noticed anything unusual.
to his credit, he turned around fairly quickly, and about twenty minutes later, when we made the turn onto 183 again, he realized his mistake.
i did not close my eyes again until we were safely on 385. during the intervening time, SO apologized multiple times. i pointed out that it was no huge deal to me- after all, i was planning on sleeping on the way home, and i did not have any sort of interest in the college football game of which he'd now be missing the first hour.
maybe for his 40th birthday, i'll teach him how to make sense of a map.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
brother, could you spare a dime?
on the way to work this morning, i found myself pondering what to write about today, given that it's been over three weeks and i know at least half of my readers (both of you) have probably given me up for dead.
finishing the half-written post about the saga of my car was a thought, but i forgot my pile of receipts, which i'm using to illustrate just how badly the folks over at the AAA car care center felt the need to screw me. (sure, i could approximate, but really- i think my story males more of an impression if i use the actual figures.)
however, inspiration came in a different form after i arrived at work- in the form of a coworker who came in and informed me that his "buddy" won the 220-something million powerball jackpot a couple of weeks ago.
(it is worth noting at this point that the only reason "buddy" won is that i didn't remember it was wednesday until 10:15 that night....well past the powerball ticket purchasing cutoff time.)
anyway, it turns out that "buddy" and coworker used to work together, and after pointing out that useful little factoid, coworker remarked that he sure hoped "buddy" wouldn't "forget" about him.
are you kidding me? i mean, i've heard that after winning a big prize, one can expect all sorts of "long lost" relatives to appear....
"hi. i'm steve, your second cousin's uncle twice removed through marriage. we met at the '83 reunion...i was the tall guy. anyway, i'm having problems making the payments on my brand new hummer, and i was wondering........"
call me heartless and cruel, but the answer would be "no".
in fact, if it were possible to claim the prize and remain anonymous, i'd be all over it like botox in beverly hills.
i'd still work.
i'd still drive my present car until it hits ten years or 200,000 miles.
i'd still unplug the tv and microwave when i'm not using them.
i'd still eat kraft dinner. (hold the dijon ketchup.)
however, i'd probably be writing this from st. john, where i'd be hiking around and making faces at green iguanas for the next two weeks.
that might be what it takes to hide from random acquaintances planning on showing up at my door with their hands out.....like to coworker down the hall who, an hour later, is still going on about "buddy", his newfound wealth, and how close they were when they worked together. (which, to be honest, though admittedly a little catty, makes me wonder if "buddy" and my coworker ever shared an actual conversation, or just a ride in the elevator one monday morning......)
finishing the half-written post about the saga of my car was a thought, but i forgot my pile of receipts, which i'm using to illustrate just how badly the folks over at the AAA car care center felt the need to screw me. (sure, i could approximate, but really- i think my story males more of an impression if i use the actual figures.)
however, inspiration came in a different form after i arrived at work- in the form of a coworker who came in and informed me that his "buddy" won the 220-something million powerball jackpot a couple of weeks ago.
(it is worth noting at this point that the only reason "buddy" won is that i didn't remember it was wednesday until 10:15 that night....well past the powerball ticket purchasing cutoff time.)
anyway, it turns out that "buddy" and coworker used to work together, and after pointing out that useful little factoid, coworker remarked that he sure hoped "buddy" wouldn't "forget" about him.
are you kidding me? i mean, i've heard that after winning a big prize, one can expect all sorts of "long lost" relatives to appear....
"hi. i'm steve, your second cousin's uncle twice removed through marriage. we met at the '83 reunion...i was the tall guy. anyway, i'm having problems making the payments on my brand new hummer, and i was wondering........"
call me heartless and cruel, but the answer would be "no".
in fact, if it were possible to claim the prize and remain anonymous, i'd be all over it like botox in beverly hills.
i'd still work.
i'd still drive my present car until it hits ten years or 200,000 miles.
i'd still unplug the tv and microwave when i'm not using them.
i'd still eat kraft dinner. (hold the dijon ketchup.)
however, i'd probably be writing this from st. john, where i'd be hiking around and making faces at green iguanas for the next two weeks.
that might be what it takes to hide from random acquaintances planning on showing up at my door with their hands out.....like to coworker down the hall who, an hour later, is still going on about "buddy", his newfound wealth, and how close they were when they worked together. (which, to be honest, though admittedly a little catty, makes me wonder if "buddy" and my coworker ever shared an actual conversation, or just a ride in the elevator one monday morning......)
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