Short and... Disturbing **

The other day I was running errands on my lunch break and driving around downtown. On my way back to work I was stopped at a light. I was the first car in line so I was right up front when I noticed a jogger crossing in the cross-walk. Mostly I only noticed her because she was dressed so oddly for August outdoor activities. She had a hat and sunglasses, normal, but she had on some kind of dark brown velvety looking dress/shirt. It looked like an extra large shirt that you would wear to sleep in or something. I thought this was rather odd and extremely hot and as I was pondering this while glancing at the jogger I noticed that the back of the large shirt would flop up and down rhythmically with her jogging. What I did not expect was the fact that this jogger was out jogging without any underwear on. YIKES! With each step her shirt was flopping up and exposing her rear end to the world for a brief second. Maybe I don’t do enough outdoor exercising, but this seems an odd training outfit. I do wonder if going without underwear would ventilate the heat absorbed from wearing a dark colored, velvet material - so maybe the outfit makes complete sense, hmmm?


** No photographs will be supplied with this post

Rebel without a clue

Mini-golf is a FANTASTIC activity. An entire family can gather together and hit a ball at windmills and giant octopi and laugh as a fake foot kicks the ball far away from the whole. But then, some people are serious about putt-putt. I went a few weeks back with the maximum group size (according to the course rules posted all over the entrance) 6 people. This was a serious course; no huge animals, nothing spinning whatsoever, and in their place… water hazards –for reals- and sand traps -thick carpet. It really was half way between a putt-putt course and practicing on the greens. The course rules, which my sister read thoroughly so my niece would hear, included do not swing the clubs hard, play the holes in consecutive order, one player must finish the hole before the next can start, if it takes more than six swings you forfeit the hole, and do not enter the water features to retrieve balls.

The first thing I figured out during the game was that my niece plays golf FAST. None of the rest of us could keep up with her; she was burning through the course at such a rapid clip. Some of the rules were a little more difficult for her to keep in mind. When she swings a club, she swings it! Not a huge problem, except that the ball ricocheted off a rock feature and into the middle of the pond between holes three and four. Oops! No problem, since the ball was just a bit out of reach of our clubs in the water, I just ran up and grabbed a new purple ball from the shop. We played five or so more holes till we got to a tricky one. It was a straight green with three potential holes at the opposite end, which apparently dropped the ball down to another green a bit further away with one more hole to hit the ball into. My nice decided to go up the middle and then ran to the next green and waited for the ball to come out of one of the tubes, but it never showed up. Another lost ball! Was it stuck in there? We all tried to get the ball to come out, but to no avail. We checked every inch of the green and realized that the second level hole descended to another green with the flag – so we checked every inch of that green too, but nothing. My niece was distraught! This is the worst! Two lost balls, yikes. Well, none of us wanted to taint the putting experience for this little cutie, so we all flew into action to try and help. My mom offered her own ball so my niece could start the hole over and hit it towards one of the other two holes at the beginning and I stripped my shoes off and rolled up my pant legs to venture in the water after the first ball that had disappeared there earlier – making sure no one was watching. My niece made her way to the lower green with my mom’s ball and was finally ready to hit it into the single hole on that green when I was throwing the first ball out of the slimy-bottomed, man-made pond. Grateful for not slipping in the pond, I walked back over to sit on the grass and put my shoes back on my feet. My niece had just sunk a put into the flag and went over to collect her ball – low and behold there were two balls sitting in the hole! The entire time she had hit a hole-in-one and we were searching in all the wrong spots for the ball. Putting day saved.

This brings up an important point I would like to point out to the putt-putt world at large. How is anyone supposed to know where the balls are going to go once they disappear down a tube? There’s got to be some sort of graphic posted at the beginning of the hole. We had no idea where any of the tubes came out, so how are we supposed to know which one to aim for when teeing off? For an upscale putt-putt course they had some significant drawbacks. I guess I broke the rules for nothing, but it only counts if you get caught, or fall on your keester in the water, so it’s all good.

Practice Practice Practice
People have told me practice makes perfect my whole life and I’ve, for the most part, believed them – but no more. No, it doesn’t matter how many first dates I go on, I’m never going to be perfect at it. I don’t know where general awkwardness fits in the nature vs. nurture discussion so I’m not sure if I can blame my parents or not. I could have inherited it through my genes, but I don’t know which parent I would have inherited it from, since they both seem perfectly fine with meeting people and conversing.
My most recent experience wasn’t really that bad I guess. I have learned from some previous mistakes and therefore avoided talking about poo for 30 minutes. Yes, this time I’m sure the poo conversation didn’t last any longer than five minutes. IMPROVEMENT – but not perfection. The fact is I’m not sure how poo comes up in so many conversations with practical strangers, since if I’m not on a date I hardly ever talk about it with strangers or friends. I suppose there are worse things I could talk about… politics…, past relationships…, tampons…, the very scary marriage discussion while tearfully bearing your testimony. Really I guess a little poo isn’t all that bad.
The worst part for me is, of course, the last 5-10 minutes when I have to get out of the car, walk to the door, and stand around trying to make conversation till we have the awkward hug and part ways. I barely touch people I do know, but I certainly don’t like touching people I don’t know. That’s one of my main objections to dancing – waddling around with some random person with your faces only a foot and a half apart at the most, sometimes even less! How uncomfortable! In fact, since I don’t dance often I was going to check that distance with a coworker of mine, but was uncomfortable at the thought of being that close with even someone I know pretty well and decided just to make up numbers for distance that sounded legitimate.
In the end, I know deep in my heart that I will never be GOOD at first dates. Maybe it is just unnatural for me to interact with humans on the first go round. I need at least three or eight or twelve shots.

The world’s best pick up line that only takes 7 minutes to deliver…

I love being downtown sometimes. I just meet the most interesting people. Speaking of which, the other day I was walking down the street and two gentlemen in maybe their mid-to-late 40s were approaching from the other direction. One of them bent over and scooped up some snow in his hand. To throw at his friend? Nope. He threw the snowball at me. I’m going to try to quote him for a while, but to get the full effect try reading it at a quick pace and slurring the words in your head a bit.

“Oh, ha, sorry. I just had to, you know. Hi there my name is Malcolm and I was just, ya well what’s your name then?”
“My name is Christy.”
“Ah Christy yes that’s great. Nice to meet you. Wow! Your eyes are really blue, Wow. I think if I was walking down the street and you were walking like this [puts his head down as if looking at his feet] I could look up at you and see right through to – up to the sky it’d look just like that. Has any one ever told you that before?”
“Well, no…”
“Really, Wow, get out! [he said this with a flail of the wrist] oh ya, but I’m – I’m not gay or anything, everyone keeps asking me that, though and I think that is so crazy. So are you gay?”
“No, I’m not”
"Oh great, not that I, I mean I… well you know I just moved here from Seattle and so I’m kinda new here and I - I’m not drunk or anything, but that guy – WHEW! [which he said pointing to the friend he had been walking with, who had never even paused in his steps, which and made me wonder if they even really knew each other] ya, I tell you what, you’re the first girl that’s really talked to me and I’m Malcolm can I get a hug from you?”

[Okay, at this point I’m ready for the conversation to be over, not that he’s not a very nice son of God and all, but really. So armed with the knowledge that I was about 20 yards away from the safety of the front doors of my office building and knowing that hugs generally come either at the beginning of the conversation or the end I decided to give it a shot. I mean, if this guy asked Jesus for a hug would Jesus say, “No you're drunk and awkward.”? Not a chance.]

So I said, “um… alright.” And if he wasn’t drunk then someone dipped him in alcohol before he left home without his knowledge.

“Okay well I just moved here from Seattle and I’m just working over at Nordstrom’s, you know I do the reci- I’m uh a clerk at night in the back I – Listen… I work for the government. So if I gave you my number would you call me? I just, I, oh – are you eating this [he glanced down and saw I was holding a bag with jerky in it] you eat – let me tell you, this stuff, this stuff is packed with preservatives and all sorts of stuff and…”

I finally just decided to end the conversation, “Okay, well I’ve got to go now so have a nice day.”

“Ya, okay, ya.” And that was that, conversation over.

I might be wearing a sign or something that says CRAZY DRUNK OLD GUYS PLEASE ACCOST ME IN THE STREET, because it’s not as infrequent of an event as I would prefer. I guess I should let everyone know that sometimes people throw hugs into conversations whenever they want and you cannot depend on a hug to get you out of talking to anyone. I thought I had that hugging thing figured out, but I guess I just don’t know that much about interacting with humans, particularly drunk ones.

Ya, my head COULD fit in that dog's mouth

I think sliding glass doors should be outlawed. Who came up with that brilliant idea anyway? At least there should be a recall on any sliding door models made before 1998. No doors worth using that are made of glass were made before 1998. In fact, if you invite me over to your house and you have an old sliding glass door there’s a 78% chance that I will whole-heartedly consider putting a chair through it. Where did this hate stem from, you might ask. Well, I’ll tell you. A couple weeks back I was house sitting for some friends who have two GIANT dogs. I’m not kidding, Truman (the Great Dane) looks like a horse running around in the back yard and Whitlin (spelling?) is a good sized golden retriever with more than a fair share of energy. Well, obviously these guys like to get some exercise in and play in the back yard so what kind of a sitter would I be if I didn’t let them out in the morning to run around a bit? Here’s where the problems start emerging. If you are house sitting you are probably using the spare key to the house, I was. If the house has an old sliding glass door the lock might stay locked at almost all times no matter what you try to do to unlock it, it did. I didn’t go into this experience unaware; maybe that’s the worst part, but on that fateful Thursday morning I walked outside with two cute dogs and slid the door a bit harder than I intended. I heard the sickening click of the lock, realized my keys were not in my pockets, and felt my heart sink in despair. Never before in my life have I so desperately wanted the technical training of a locksmith. How great of a job would that be? In the meantime I had the small problem of figuring out how to get to work. I walked five or six blocks down the way to a bank that was opening and asked to use their phone and the yellow pages to find a locksmith. Oh the joys of house sitting… free access to a washer and dryer and a $40.00 bill to get into a house in which I didn’t actually live. Who am I kidding? I had a great time. I must get along better with dogs than with humans. Plus I came away with a strong urge to find some locksmith tools and do a little bit of practicing here and there. And now I know, if I’m going to build my own house I’m gonna get a fingerprint scanner locking mechanism and practice picking the locks on my front door on a regular basis. And for sure NO SLIDING-GLASS-DOOR!