Mother Nature's Bedroom

Wednesday's blog covered some of the highlights of the camping trip - but I can honestly devote an entire blog to sleeping in a tent. Really...38 is not the age where one ought to start sleeping in tents. I mean...by the age of 38, your body has become accustomed to certain things...like heat. And a bed without rocks.  Who knew I was such a wuss??  [that question is rhetorical!]

I noticed that camping paraphernalia seems tailored to the somewhat....petite [or maybe it's just Rita's camping paraphernalia?]. While lying in the "really big" tent we used, I could safely touch my feet to one end and my head to the other end. I was one yoga pose away from being out in the elements. And everything else was pretty compact too...little baby pillows and sleeping bags that almost stretched from your toes and your head. I was waiting for someone to hand me lunch on Barbie's first tea set.

And let's just talk about the "mattress pad". I know tall city girls showing up without the right any camping gear [I had my pen & paper!] shouldn't complain, but calling this thing a mattress pad didn't really set the right expectations. It was more like a workout mat without all the cushioning. After 30 minutes of laying on it, I would lose all feeling in my hip. So I'd flip to the other hip...and then to my plenty-padded ass...and so it went all night long 'til I dreamed of nothing but rotisserie chicken. No wonder people get up so early when they camp...it's a form of surrender.

I did learn one thing though...snoring is not terribly popular in close-quarter camp sites. (Not too much sound-proofing on those tents, y'know.) It took all of about 15 minutes at breakfast to figure out that "it wasn't the train, it was Maeve snoring". Rita and I were in the camping suburbs the second night.

But all in all - I was a good sport (and I would TOTALLY do it again.)

YOU LIE!

George Costanza's father was apparently invited to the State of the Union address last night. [Okay, okay...I know Obama's speech last night wasn't the state of the union, but "Presidential address to a joint session of Congress" doesn't exactly roll off the old blogging tongue, y'know.]

I had planned to blog some more about the camping trip, but then I saw President Obama get heckled during his speech last night by the Republican congressman from South Carolina. In case you missed it, Representative Joe Wilson channeled his inner fourth grader and shouted "YOU LIE!" at the President's assertion that the health care bill would not cover illegal immigrants.

I tried to check out Representative Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) on his web site...but it was experiencing an "Internal Server Error" [presumably resulting from 30 million people googling "heckling jackass" at the same time.  I'm guessing that's a little more trafffic than joewilsonforcongress.com has seen in a while.]

So I have developed my own notes on Representative Joe Wilson from S.C.:

• ANOTHER crazy politician from South Carolina?!? How crazy do you have to be to lose an election in that state? [psssst...South Carolina....Alaska called, they want their crazy crown back.]
• Has anyone told Michelle Bachmann she's now in second place for official Congress looney tune?
• Apparently...Rep. Joe Wilson is now qualified to be the Republican Vice Presidential nomineee in 2012.
• The guy shouts "lie" at the ONE point in the debate that is not subjective?? What part of "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States" do you not understand? [okay, okay...not the best sentence ever constructed...but that qualifies as black and white in Washington-speak]
• Isn't Joe Wilson the guy married to Valerie Plame? Who knew he was a Republican?
• We just missed his John 3:16 sign

At least football starts tonight so we can get onto some legitimate heckling....GO TITANS!!!!!

She's a Good Sport

I guess every family has their own vetting methods. The Pirkl's strap you to the front of a raft headed down a class 4 rapid and if you stay on, "you're a keeper".  =)  [it looks something like this:]

I heard "she's a good sport" a lot this weekend, if that tells you anything about the trip. [I've decided that "She's a good sport" really means you're lousy at something - but you don't complain much.] Here are some other highlights from the weekend:

• Given the 50 degree water - the rafting company offered to rent us wet-suits. Something about wearing a costume that 5 other people have pissed in this week seemed worse than being cold. [At the time]
• The guide's safety talk that preceded launch lasted almost as long as the rafting trip. I went ahead and drafted my will during half of it, in case I "was pinned under the big blue sombrero [i.e., raft]"; "got wacked in the head with the t-grip of someone's errant paddle" or "got sucked right out of a lifejacket not sufficiently tightened". [Ummmm...can't wait to get started??]
• Know what's better than putting up your first tent ever? Putting it up in the rain. The freezing rain. Only to find out later it's been set up downhill. Good times.
• "That wasn't a mule deer you saw outside your tent last night Kirk...that was me." [Any good vacation involves being mistaken for a mule deer.]
• I seemed to be the only one who brought pen and paper on the completely water-soaked raft. The other five blogs I wrote didn't survive "The Meat Grinder" at Whitehorse Rapids.....

And while it may not sound like it from this blog...it was a complete blast. At least the parts where I wasn't under the big blue sombrero.

Packing

How does one pack for a 10 day trip that starts out camping in Oregon, proceeds to Corporate headquarters in Philly and ends at my sister's home in Ft. Wayne, Indiana? Stupidly, that's how. Since I just finished my packing about 4 hours before we got here [what...me procrastinate?], I thought I'd share my thoughts on packing for the mixed-use itinerary:

• An already tough packing assignment only becomes harder when, with regards to camping, your girlfriend tells you to "pack for rain...lots of it". Great...plastic clothes. Those should come in handy at Corporate. 
• "And oh...in addition to rain, it's supposed to get down to 42 degrees at night." Water sports AND the first snowfall...Have you guys ever considered a beach vacation?
• On top of everything else...I am packing in 103 degree heat in San Diego. [Have I mentioned no air conditioning in the house?] When I finally get to Philly, I am going to wonder why I have all these tank tops packed.
• Rita tried to lend me a pair of her sweatpants to wear "just around camp". Capri fleece sweatpants...they're all the rage. No, no wait....capri fleece sweatpants with the elastic gathering at the calf. [I think i saw them at the Wreck League] Ummm....camping is no reason to start looking like a troll around the fam.
• I don't need to pack the coffee pot, do I? Because between plastic clothes and coffee...I come down on the side of Folgers.
• I hope I grab the right bag at each leg of the journey or else it's pumps at the campfire and water wings at the office
• The Diet Cokes barely fit.

 Enjoy your weekend. Assuming all goes well....next post should be on Tuesday.

you know the story...

no post today, have to get ready for the big rafting trip.  Hope to have one more post up before I go incommunicado on the big river.  [all I can think about is A River Runs Through It..]

Blog-nificent

Should I worry that I have made almost 200 (!) posts on this blog?! I am not sure that this altogether healthy:

• I started this thing back in March of 2008…I’ve had college majors that didn’t last this long [and jobs and addresses and hobbies and …ummm…I’m going to go back to my blog now]
• I guess the jig is up on me being a workaholic, eh?
• I now expect people to already know my pizza prowess, all my best (?) Southwest tales and my dog’s latest adorable antics before I even talk to them
• I can find 150 hours to write blogs, but I can’t scrape together 3 hours to clean the garage [I probably shouldn’t point that out...]
• There’s a fine line between funny and “I'm calling to apologize”
• That Julie and Julia thing has REALLY created some unrealistic expectations for bloggers
• I have found that my work emails are becoming remarkably unwisely close to blog posts. My boss had to ask me the other day what was up with the smiley face =)

And just think of all the things I would have been better off doing…like my taxes, tending to my dog’s dental health or calling my mother [seriously…it’s called SaveMeTheCall for a reason]

 

Heat Wave

It was 103 degrees here over the weekend. I know because people kept asking…"do you know how hot it is!?!??” Given how few houses have air conditioning (including this one), the heat tends to make San Diegans a bit inelegant. [Molly has been walking around with an ice pack on her back for 3 days.] Rita and I spent half the weekend trying to steal air conditioning from other places. I’ve never been so happy to go to Williams Sonoma in all my life. But after driving around in the car’s air conditioning for 3 hours, my roommate Al Gore was starting to feel a little guilty.

Needless to say, Rita was a convert on using the recently installed portable air conditioning in the house. We sealed up one room and turned that portable jobbie up as high as it would go. And I mean sealed up. Every window was closed, the French doors locked tight, even a towel stuffed under crack of the door to the hallway to keep one iota of Freon from escaping. One of my friends called it the panic room…and he was right. If you open that door and let out 30 minutes of coolness…I. Am. Going. To. Panic. By the middle of the afternoon, Molly had her legs crossed, Rita was battling frostbite and the French doors were covered in condensation. [I thought about tagging the window with a “Wash Me” scrawl…but decided the hottest day of the year probably wasn’t the best time to test how funny I am.]

When I finally did leave our walk-in cooler for provisions [trips to the wine room being replaced by trips to the popsicle drawer], I opened the hallway door to a complete wall of heat. It was like a scene from Backdraft. [And just for the record – popsicles last about 13 seconds in that heat, so enjoy your soon-to-be kool-aid.]

Well, gotta run…Rita's out of town, so Molly and I invited ourselves over to the air-conditioned neighbors for breakfast.