Gulf Ball

I haven't written in quite a bit, and that's because I was on vacation in Florida this past week. I didn't do the whole internet thing at all, which I highly recommend you do for yourself every once-in-awhile. People were not made to stare at screens all damn day! Although, I came home to about a gazillion emails in my inbox. Blech. Anyways, a good friend of mine and Chris's let us come down with him and several other people and hang out in his family's beach house on the Gulf Coast for a few days. It was pretty frickin' sweet. Chris and I went on a really nice paddle on the bay side of the cape, grabbed a couple seafood dinners (oysters!), climbed the local lighthouse, and went exploring down the coast. All that was on top of much hanging out on the beach, playing games, reading books, and imbibing alcoholic beverages. Vacation is always way too short.

Here are some shots from the trip:

Chris Exploring

Tree Root Tentacle...

Crazy Beach Hair

Palm Tree Corpse

The Van and the 'Yaks

The House We Stayed In: Do Me Good

Now, back to work and the real world...

Hair-Brained

You know what I'm now addicted to? Short hair! I got my hair chopped again on Thursday, and man it feels good. Although, I kind-of look like a 12-year-old boy. When I got it done, the woman blow dried it and then straightened it (which I've never ever had done before), and it looked nice-ish then. Now, that I'm the one "doing" it (which, for me, means washing it and then brushing it and letting it dry and then maybe brushing it again), I look a bit like a small child. I'm afraid I may get carded the next time I try to go to a Rated R movie (I'll have to tell you about the last time that happened to me some other time), and I'm afraid Chris may get arrested for courting a minor...

It's funny because I used to be pretty concerned with having really long hair (end of high school into college). I remember trying to will it to grow. Back then, I thought that maybe it meant something to have long hair. But, you know what? Hair is hair: It means nothing. So why not try new things?

Here's how long my hair used to be:


Please also note Chris's long hair...



And so, here are the pics of me with my new short hair, as the hairdresser-lady did it:

Me giving you my best "Blue Steel" look...

Hello, you an call me Posh Spice.

Anyways, now my hair is still a bit traumatized from being straightened, so it's not quite doing it's normal puffy foofy thing it does, and I'm quite perplexed.

Internet, meet twelve-year-old boy Ryan:

And I know you're all wondering what ever happened to Sean from Boy Meets World... Well, at the very least, I can tell you were his hair went:

Nobody understands me and my 90's boy haircut...

So, despite my self-deprecating twelve-year-old boy jokes, I'm pretty happy with my short hair. It feels nice... and that means something.



Ah, the English Language!

One of the topics of conversation that came up on girls' night this past Tuesday was the stuffed animals we used to have, and what we named them. Now, I was the least creative stuffed animal-namer on the planet, and I may have accidentally influenced by little sister to be the same in that regard. Either that or we were both independently awful namers.

We had lots of stuffed teddy bears, and each one was named according to the color it was: Bluey, Whitey, Pinky, Browny, etc. Yes, that's right: We couldn't think of anything better.

This one time I was given a stuffed dog that was sort-of ginger-colored that had its tongue sticking out. So, at the time, I decided that I would be a little more creative than ususal and name this dog "Licker." I remember informing my mom that this new doggy toy was going to be "Licker," and she was like, "um, no honey, you can't name your dog that." Which I thought was crazy. But, that's because I had no clue that it would be bad for a little kid to have a stuffed animal named "Liquor." I mean, when I was four, I was much more of a beer-drinker anyways.

So, after arguing with my mom and finally accepting the mandate to change my doggy's name from "Licker," I comfortably decided on "Ginger."

Shades of Grey

I'm feeling pretty lost right now, and I know that's vague, but I kind of just wanted to write it down somewhere. And I don't know how to fix it.

I wrote the above yesterday and never published it.

Since then, I have gone to another Tuesday-night girls' night, and I laughed harder than I think I've laughed in a really long time. I cried at least four times from laughing so hard. A couple other girls who I haven't seen in a long time came to hang out, and I just had so much fun with everyone. And that's the kind of thing I really enjoy: Drinking a really good glass of red wine while telling stories and laughing and making fun of how extremely clueless boys are. Sigh.

One of my friends said something like "boys are so complicated." And I was like, "no, we're complicated. Boys are just idiots." And that's my thought for the week. Ladies, there's nothing you can do make yourself less complicated; it's just the way we are. And, even though it's easy to do (read: "...boys are just idiots"), it's not all that fair to blame boys for not getting us. They're simple. Things tend to be pretty black-and-white with them, and they have an On-Off switch. We girls, we're a million shades of grey all at the same time, and we have a dial with no labels that constantly needs tuned.

Thanks for yesterday, ladies.

Overprotective

Tuesday nights are my girls' nights; I go drink Cab Franc and listen to live Gypsy Jazz with a couple girlfriends, and we do girly things like talk about boys and catch up on life and stuff. We go to this really cool restaurant/bar in town that my one friend compares to the Prancing Pony in The Fellowship of the Ring- it's pretty fantastic. It's dark and small, and all the wooden barstools were handmade and they have good wine and food.

We usually show up around 9 or so, and the music starts at 10. That way, we have an hour to talk and then an hour of music (makes talking a little more difficult). So, I had told Chris I thought I would probably be home sometime around 11 or so. Another thing about the place we go on Tuesdays is that it gets incredibly crowded, and there's barely room for the band! So, it's often hard to get the check and pay while the band is playing. Basically, it always take me a little longer to get out of there than I think it will. So, last night at 11:10, I texted Chris: "Paying now" so he'd know I'd be home a little bit later than I thought. Oh, and another important note: I put my phone on silent so I wouldn't interrupt the band if someone tried to call me.

So, apparently Chris was watching his new favorite show on Netflix (Sons of Anarchy) when he got my text and texted me back: "K."

I got home right at 11:30, and, as I pulled in, I saw that the door was open and Chris was walking outside quite quickly. I opened the door and was like "Hey baby!" all smiley-like and he was like "What happened?" all frowny-like, and I was like "What do you mean?" I realized that I was home like five or ten minutes later than I could have been if I gotten the check back right when I texted him, but it is unusal for Chris to make a big deal about ten minutes (that's MY job!). Come to find out, his phone told him that the text I sent came at 10:10 instead of 11:10, when I actually sent it. He lost track of time a little watching his show and wasn't sure if maybe the text was sent at 10:10 even though he didn't see it until later. So, he called me three times (and again, I had put my phone on silent) and I didn't pick up.

So, I apologized, assured him that I had sent the text at 11:10, and told him that I was sorry he was so worried. We walked into the house together, and there in the foyer was Chris's gigantic shotgun propped up against the wall. So I was like, "um, why is that out?"(gasp! Was I to be punished for being late?), and he said he was planning on taking it with him when he went out searching for me (which he was apparently about to do when I pulled in). When I heard that, I asked him just what the hell he thought he was going to need it for. And he said, "I don't know, but I was going to go to the restaurant, see if you were there, and if not, who knows what would have happened." Ah, yes, "Be Prepared": I love my Boy Scout. And I just chuckled a little, apologized again for worrying him, melted ever-so-slightly, and then assured him that this moment would be forever documented on my blog (lucky him!). Oh yeah, and I told him to please put the 4-foot shotgun back please into the closet please. The boy has maybe watched too many episodes of Sons of Anarchy, which, I understand, is a bit violent.

But, on the other hand, it's a little nice to know he cares enough about me to blow away some potential abductor-bad-scary-kidnapper-evil guy with a giant shotgun to valiantly win me back, and all in a day's work (visual of Chris blowing the smoke away from his shotgun, which is in one hand, and throwing me over his shoulder with the other to carry me back into the house...). Yessir, all in a day's work.

Easter Bunday

I know it's a couple (ok, maybe a few) days late, but, in honor of Easter Sunday having been this past weekend, I wanted to post some pictures of Coltrane, my very own little Easter Bun. I hope all of you enjoyed your Easter Bundays, I mean Sundays...(feel free to call me a crazy bunny lady or a dork or whatever you wish!).

The ones of the bun eating basil are from his birthday. Basil was his birthday present. Yeah, that's pretty cute.

So, I actually spent my Easter Sunday in a kayak. How were your holidays?

Today, I Peed in the Woods

And I do not like to pee in the woods, nor am I particularly adept at it. My parents never really took me camping (my mother shudders at the thought of sleeping outside), and no one ever told me it was ok to do things like pee in the woods (people are supposed to pee in designated areas). And no one really said, "ok, this is how you pee in the woods," because, for a girl, it's not always as straight-forward as you might think... there's the Rodin's The Thinker position, the lean against a tree position, the hang off a tree branch position (yes, this is a real peeing position; I seen it!)... there are so many, and it's just such a vulnerable position to be in generally, and it just makes me uncomfortable. But, today, I'd say I excelled. Go me!

Chris and I took our new/old kayaks out together today for the first time. We went on a two-hour long paddle on a creek where you can put-in like eight minutes from our house (lucky us!). Also, conveniently, Chris's parents got him kayak racks for his van for his birthday. Happy birthday to him/me! 

We were lucky and had a gorgeous paddle on a gorgeous day. We saw Canadian Geese, Mallard ducks, fish, purple flowers, white flowers, and green all-around. It poured yesterday, so the water was really high, and we spent some time down a small fork, which was breathtakingly beautiful. I could have sworn we were in some other country; it didn't look like the Virginia landscape I was used to at all. And it was just peaceful and relaxing (and I'm sure you've all gleaned that I have trouble relaxing by now!). Here are a few pictrures, most of which Chris took:


Bow



Me paddling!



The end of the line for us up a small fork in the creek.



The captain.



I can't believe this is Virginia.



We really lucked out weather-wise.



These small, flowering trees dotted the countryside with purple.

At the end of the paddle, we ran in to one of our best friends, Jared. Hi Jared!

On the paddle back, I realized I had to pee. Pretty badly. Those two cups of coffee I had to have at brunch seemed like less of a good idea. I thought maybe I could make it until we got back, but then I realized that we'd have to get the boats on the car and all that jazz before we'd even leave for home. So I made the brave decision to pee in the woods. I paddled down a ways out of the way of where any traffic would be (though we saw all of three other paddlers the whole time), and, much to the chagrin of the Canadian Goose couple that was back there, I found me a damn-good tree. I made Chris my lookout. But don't even get me started on the whole drip-drying thing...

And I'm glad I made the decision to go, because I really enjoyed the paddle back to the car instead of feeling like I would die if we didn't get there RIGHT THIS INSTANT, DAMNIT!

I'm hoping to go paddling more weekends than not this warm-season. There will be some whitewater and some overnight trips on the horizon!

Oh, and if you ladies have pee-in-the-woods tips for me, please share. Please.