Adult Partying

What do you do at Adult Party Weekends?

You rent a house. You fill it with all your favorite people (some of whom you only see once a year at this event). Once this weekend was dedicated to Sasquatch, but we've moved past Sasquatch, grown up, if you will, to dedicate Memorial Weekend to quality time sans music festival madness.

You drive south after work on Thursday, stopping in Eugene to say hello to old friends who can't make the journey this year. You eat tacos and then sit around the fire and listen to records. In the morning you go to breakfast at a fancy restaurant and celebrate birthdays and the weekend and all that is to come. On the way to Lake Shasta you will stop in the tiny town of Rogue River to get some diner coffee and buy a dream catcher. You make it to Shasta in the afternoon and proceed to set up your tent (everyone else is inside on beds and air mattresses but it's nice to have your own little cave). You check out the lake, you jump in, you drink white wine with icecubes and eat hotdogs, you set up the badminton net and witness the most spectacular, aggressive dive for a shuttlecock you've ever seen. Blood is drawn. At some point the dancing starts and you start whirling around on the linoleum kitchen floor for hours and hours and hours. Cars filled with your friends file in throughout the night. It's exciting. Conversations range from catching up, updates on adventures, boyfriends, jobs, engagements, to African Killer Bees, cloud formations, stories from years past, feats of strength.

You go for runs in the morning. Some woman will say to her kid, Look honey, those people are running on their vacation. They're crazy. You will laugh politely, unsure if she actually hates you for doing this. After breakfast, you swim across channels to access the best, grassiest peninsula where you will float around on rubber rafts, eat Doritos, and watch your friend Brian leap from the bushes and throw a makeshift spear made out of a cattail at one of your friends. You'll see an osprey catch a fish. You wish the sun wouldn't hide behind the clouds. Later you will battle Brian in a choreographed Jackie Chan kind of way and vanquish him with a mimed stab to the chest. After dinner you will apply temporary tattoos to your body, because this is what adults do, and you'll end up with a neck tattoo of a panther killing or perhaps mating with a snake. You dance and talk, you watch the sunset, you lie in a meadow filled with lavender and look at the stars.

On Sunday you  experience Shasta in the best kind of way, via pontoon boat. Your generous adult friends rent a boat and all of you go out on the water and you will do this safely and responsibly because you are adults. The weather is the best it has been all weekend and you find a sheltered cove where you swim for hours, floating on life rafts, eating candy, and narrating the interactions of the jet boat people like it's a nature show. You will pull into a different cove on the way back and make rock piles on the shore, proof that you were there. You'll see deer hiding in the shade of the trees as you motor slowly up one of Lake Shasta's many arms. You will stay on the boat with Liz and Alexa to form the All Girl Crew (AGC!) and aid Captain Jesse in his efforts to return the boat back to the marina after dropping everyone else off. You will try not the laugh when the boat comes in a little hot and the marina guy's tone turns to panic as the boat bounces off the dock. You and Alexa will carry the heaviest, largest cooler ever across the dock, stopping to drain it out of desperation and then wait forever, while it drains.

You'll go back to the house, where people are lazing around in the grass, in the sun, wearing borrowed hats and listening to Alexa read from Book 1 of the Avian Gospels. You will eat barbecue and a burger that is just a patty between buns and some ketchup and it will taste like the best burger you've ever had. You play charades, two-person charades, and act out completely ridiculous scenes, such as fighting over an orange at Winco and then shooting your adversary. You'll sip beer from the bottle and end up cleaning the kitchen late at night after making the biggest vat of macaroni and cheese that has ever been made, because that's what adults do when they eat adult food. The night will end lazily, with minimum rush, because it's the last night and everyone wishes they could stay longer, but you can't and in the morning you will get up, pack up, clean up and then drive back to Oregon.

That's adult partying.

Getaway

Guess where I'm going tomorrow?

I'm going to need this:

And these:

And I might see one of these (if I'm lucky):

Give up? Well, this should make it easy:



Ooof. It's even better than I remember.

Faster than Lightning

Surfing was only one highlight of the past weekend. Some of you don't know this, but I actually have a secret skill. I am a race car driver.

That is a slight exaggeration but every once in a while I go to the track with my dad and I drive his BMW race car. It's a 1991 318i that he has Frankensteined into this amazing tiny but powerful beast. Roll cage, huge engine, racing slicks, short shifter, and probably a million other things that make it fast and easy to drive. I usually go out to PIR (Portland International Raceway for the laypeople) but this weekend was a special treat. We went out to ORP (Oregon Raceway Park for the laypeople; car people love acronyms) for a special racing weekend.

This track is a crazy rollercoaster. If driving PIR is like driving in Houston (flat), driving ORP is like driving in San Francisco. There are banked turns, drops, dips, places that you drive straight and fast even though you can see the track due to all the little dips, and weird off-camber spots were you just hope your car doesn't fly off the track. Sometimes it does. There were plenty of dust clouds billowing over the course of the day, but I emerged victorious in that I didn't go off track or ruin my dad's car. He is usually my instructor when I go to these track days. Having Tim Wright as your instructor means that you hear a lot of, " MORE THROTTLE DON'T BRAKE MORE THROTTLE GO FOR IT!!! and then you go for it. It was definitely my favorite track day so far in my limited history of track days. Now you know who to call when you need a getaway driver.

Do you have any secret talents I should know about?

Seattle Ho!

I paid a visit to Alexa's new home a few weeks ago. True to form, I am only now posting about it, but it doesn't make the adventure any less special. Jocelyn and Ruby (her trusty canine companion) and Carin and I rode up in a cloud of glory, passing through some foreboding rain showers only to find a glorious sunset behind the skyline. As usual, I was starving and on the verge of panic by the time we arrived (I don't know why I don't keep an emergency stash of granola bars on me at all times). I sent Alexa a text telling her we were ten minutes away and that supper better be on the table. It was a joke of course, but one of those jokes that's not really a joke because you hope with all your heart that it's true. Her reply: Oh just you wait.

She greeted us with sangria and roasted root vegetables and we ate and drank and took over her kitchen and made it a miniature dance club. The floor was shaking. We then went out on the town but it was Pride Week and bars everywhere were stuffed to capacity and blasting techno. We made our own fun and admired some mid-century furniture along the way. The night closed out at a strange place with boys go-go dancing on cubes. I believe this was due to Pride, but I'm not actually sure. Either way, the evening was an adventure.

Saturday involved a wonderful brunch at Smith (by suggestion of Nate, one her roommates). He really came through. Check this place out. I am pretty proud of our breakfast spots in Portland, but Smith was a serious, serious contender. Dead animals on the wall, cutting board plates, bloody mary's filled with pickled vegetables, and really great food. I had the BLT and it is highly recommended.  We spent the rest of the day milling around, eating food, sitting in the sun in the backyard, and bbq'ing. Alexa and I ran to her local and took two of the worst photobooth shoots of all time. What an embarassment.

Sunday was coffee and reading in the sun at the cafe down the street, and then we caught the bus down to the Pride Parade to meet up with Carin. Drill routines, ribbon dancing, pony play, glitter, and pasties. For a very interesting recap of the Pony Play segment, please refer to Alexa's blog here and here. A description and a rebuttal. Fascinating stuff.

We made the trek back to Alexa's house and spent a few quiet moments in her kitchen booth with some mac n' cheese before making the trek back to Portland. I left with a expanded love for Seattle in my cold heart. Thanks to Alexa for a perfect time.

1. Seattle. Obviously. 2. Sleater-Kinney Road. That is rock history right there. 3 and 4. Haven't you ever wished that you could step through some shrubbery and find a magical world? Maybe we did. 5. Pride Parade flair. 6. We got friendship bracelets because we're friends. 7 and 8. We found Carin by the fountain. She was wearing her mermaid dress and she gave us glitter eyes.

Sasquatch's Last Stand: The Journey

This truly was the last year I will go to Sasquatch (though, if the perfect storm of bands were coming through, I could probably be convinced to go for a day or two. But I would be pissed about it). Anyway, things were made extra special by the attendance of one Killian McKilroy and one Bryan Davis, two old friend who hadn't been in these parts for a fair amount of time. I traveled with them up to the gorge and Killian took a bunch of photos with his sweet new camera. You can see some of them in this post. He's a good photographer. I still haven't developed my film, so at some point this summer you will see a few more stories and hear a few more tales relating to Sasquatch.

As it was, we hopped in a rental car and traveled up the mighty Columbia. The weather had been pretty crap in Portland, so it was nice to escape the rain and slowly make our way into the more sun-soaked east. It was a relatively uneventful ride. We did stop at a rest stop completely overrun with incredibly tame, obese squirrels. We stopped to watch a few people feed them Cheez-Its, marveling at the creepiness of it all and feeling mild disdain for the sort of people who would feed squirrels crackers at rest stops. I left Bryan and Killian with the people and the squirrels while I went to the bathroom. By the time I had come back the people had left and the boys had taken their place. The tables had turned. We were now the freaks holding Cheez-Its in our hands, filled with glee whenever a squirrel came close and ate a crumb out of our hands. There is video proof of this.

We eventually continued on, but not before contributing to the inevitable premature death of several squirrels by snack-food. Additional stops included Replica Stone-Hedge (worth a stop), a gas station where I purchased a neon worm toy that smelled of lemon Pledge and a toy cellular phone with a kitty/puppy hologram on it, and an abandoned house surrounded by gnarled trees straight out of Tim Burton movie. Killian picked up a tick. I thankfully did not. We rolled into Wildhorse Campground triumphantly (we did get lost for a while but not before seeing a double rainbow) and claimed our place in camp.

Roast Beef

Last weekend I went down to Corvallis with Sam and Kyle Arthur in a large diesel truck (borrowed from my dad). We were on a mission to pick up some free furniture from Kyle's dad's place and decided to make a night of it. Friday night Corvallis. Woooo.

For those of you who haven't spent a lot of time in Corvallis, it has a large state university. That's about it. Of the two state universities in Oregon, it's the one that is more focused on agriculture, science, engineering, and other such things. Serious things. Things that involve wearing Carhartts and shoes with rugged soles and being socially awkward. If you want to experiment with your sexuality, get your nose pierced, or grow some dreads, you should go to Eugene.

Anyway, it was a total ghost town. We walked from Kyle's dad's house to a local bar, bought a pitcher, and watched some tough girls play pool. There were beards, and sweatshirts, and old grizzled men wearing stained baseball hats. Sam started to fall asleep. He was actually concerned that we would have to carry him back to the house.

Kyle Arthur would not be defeated and attempted to take us to another bar in town, the "Dirty Dirty" Peacock. There was a cover so we didn't go in, but it did look more promising. The windows upstairs were steamed up and shuddering with bass. The crowd looked, well, less good ol' boy than the last place, but still pretty tough. The kind of girls that bleach their hair with home kits and aren't afraid to dump a beer on your dress. We continued to a place called Impulse.

Oh Impulse. Ye of terrible bartenders, rap music videos, and a wall of couches covered in pillows. There was a DJ playing and hoochies dancing  (actual hoochies! They were wearing awkwardly short dresses that required tugging down every five seconds, which they managed to incorporate into their self-conscious dancing). I was impressed by a trio in red and black,  accenting their dancing with high kicks. You can't go wrong with high kicks.

We sat on the couch with the mountain of pillows and people-watched. A girl who looked like Meg from Family Guy stood against the wall near the bathroom. Every once in a while she would sidle closer to the dance floor and start waving her hands around. Then she would get embarrassed and retreat back to the wall like a turtle wearing a stocking cap. We saw scrunchies. We saw super-aggressive, hands on the knees grinding. We saw the most awkward white dancing we have ever seen.

AND THEN. Remember the high-kicking dance trio? They got on stage. They said, "We're Roast Beef!" and then they started rapping. They were actually a female rap group. Amazing. They were like Salt n' Pepa if Salt n' Pepa was just okay and had a crappy sound system, but they had some synchronized dance moves, decent style, and added a whole new element to our Corvallis adventure. We were like, Roast Beef. Awesome.


But as we were leaving we saw a poster. They were actually called Rose Bent. Not quite as great. But still pretty good.

Adventure at Mt. Hood Meadows

So, you guys remember that OC when the gang was trapped in the mall and they had to crawl through the vents and then they played hockey to decide who slept in the tent and they were forced to forage for cheese and cracker gift baskets? No?

Well, that basically happened to us last weekend. Except for it wasn't Orange County, it was Mt. Hood Meadows. And it wasn't a mall, it was the Meadows lodge. Aaaaand, we aren't in high school or tan, but we were wearing snow pants and tired from our big day with amazing powder and high winds. It's like we live parallel lives.

We took the Greasebus on Saturday. Check it out if you haven't. It's a great service and it's good for the environment. The only problem was that the biodiesel supplier had switched them over to the pure form of biodiesel which gels up at low temperatures. And for April, it was really cold up there. We had an amazing day, snowboarded all day with great enthusiasm, and then ended up back at the buses which refused to start. Various remedies were tried but temperatures were dropping and the likelihood of a succesful startup was getting slimmer and slimmer until it was clearly impossible. The teenage boys in the back were getting restless. Everyone was trying to "help" and were pushing their solutions on the drivers like they were actually retired biodiesel mechanics.

Finally it was determined that we would have to find another way down. The buses were retired for the evening and all the Greasebus riders were released into the closed-down main lodge. Liz and I were wandering the hallways aimlessly when we heard drumming. We ran up the stairs to find the bartender unleashing his drumming skills on the lodge's drumset (a band had been playing earlier). The bar was closed but he made us pity drinks in to-go cups and sent us on our way. We spent the rest of our time doing cartwheels, lounging on cafeteria tables, and sipping from our to-go cups. It was pretty great.

We got a ride down in a Meadow charter bus (it was a school bus and I ended up in the wheel-well seat, such a bummer) and we all made it safely home. It was actually really fun  and it allowed me to use the obnoxious OC reference you read above. How often does that happen? There's nothing like a little uncertainty to make you glad that most days go as planned.

The Great Outdoors

Last fall, Sam, Jocelyn, Tom and I went camping at the beach. Correction. We went "camping" at Fort Stevens State Park. We had pretty big expectations because an acquaintance of Sam's had told him that it was this great place to camp. We went there and apparently, even though it was late in the year, we should have made reservations. However, there was a prime spot left. The man behind the desk showed us on the map, "It's right by the bathrooms and the showers. The ladies will like that." He winked at us. It really was. It was right next the showers. And the Oregonian newspaper box. So much convenience! We got up in the morning and laughed and laughed. Even more funny was that Sam's friend did not tell him it was a "great" place to camp. We looked at the text in the light of day and it turns out he said it was "tight". Never trust the opinion of someone who uses "tight" as a synonym for "good."

Adventures in Film

If you aren't at work with your boss peering over your shoulder, check out these videos:

My friend Ben put together a collection of scenes that he filmed in the last year. He does this stuff for a living and it's pretty awesome. Check it out here.


If you ever wonder what it looks like when I snowboard, rest assured it looks nothing like this. Totally, totally crazy. I usually prefer snowboard videos that look kind of homegrown and backyardish (makes me feel like I could be there too) but this is a whole different breed. Terrifying. I got chills watching those slabs of snow slip off the peaks.

Resolutions

Here is the first sunset of 2011. 

I have never really liked the whole New Year thing. I often find it depressing, or I make poor choices, or I end up doing something disappointing while it seems that everyone everywhere else in the world is wearing cool sequined dresses at awesome parties where they take flattering photos of each other and throw confetti  and kiss in a carefree it's the new year way and have the best time of their lives while I'm standing in some linoleum-floor kitchen looking at a digital microwave clock with a large drink in my hand.

Anyway, I had a great adventure this year involving a car trip up to Bellingham with Sam, the Lion's Inn Motel, Mt. Baker, cherry bombs, sparklers, creepy alleyways, timed photos in front of City Hall, champagne, Dick Clark and donuts.

It wasn't all family-oriented fun however. There were two distinct challenges:

1. I started driving up I-5 and my snowboard rack popped open and I pulled onto the shoulder just in time to watch my brand-new board slide down my windshield. That was nice. But we fixed the rack and continued on. Round 2.

2. Mt. Baker was bullet-proof. It is a gorgeous, steep, awesome looking mountain but that sort of thing just isn't fun for me unless there's fresh snow. Which there wasn't. And after ragdolling down a sketchy line through the trees, I didn't want to snowboard anymore. So it was kind of a short day. But we are totally prepared for next time.

Rest assured, none of this ruined the fun. Not when you're having an adventure. I found my childhood home in Burlington. We drove by it and I would have taken a picture to show you but someone was peeping out from behind the curtains, most likely preparing to call 911, so we left. I also took Sam through Seattle, showed him Pike Place Market and posed with a Justin Bieber cardboard cutout. The things you do for love.

Anyway, my new year's resolution may have been to be a nicer girlfriend but I think I immediately blew it by mocking him for spilling cold coffee all over himself (it still makes me laugh thinking about it), so I think I should move on from that resolution and find a new one. Maybe to floss every day. Did you make a resolution? I feel like the whole thing is kind of lame, and they never work (my goal last year was to be a nicer, more positive person and I think everyone saw that failure in action), but I still like the idea in theory and I like to hear about the futile resolutions other people come up with.

Happy 2011.

Life Saver

What a weekend. I watched the new Harry Potter movie with Sam last night. While we watched it  I thought about all the myriad times their lives are in danger and they manage to survive through wit or pluck or magic. It struck me a little differently. I've always wondered if I would be able to keep it together in a life-threatening situation. And now I know that, at least sometimes, I can.

Huy and Sam and I went up for opening day at Meadows on Saturday. I was so excited to share a resort that I absolutely love with Sam. We had some issues with his bindings falling apart run-by-run but finally got it together and started taking some runs together. And then we got to this gully and decided to go down it. Gullies are fun. You can ride up the sides and there are little things to jump over and Sam found this tree to slide on and then he disappeared down a little drop and it sounded like he fell. I went down around the other side and found his board and his legs and that was it. He was buried face-down in some sort of hole. He could only move his legs a little bit. I started digging around him and tried to pull on him, but obviously couldn't move him (he weighs about 170) and people have about two and a half minutes when they're buried in an avalanche and I was just using my hands and couldn't find his head, had only uncovered his back and finally one of his arms and I was yelling for help and it had been about five minutes but no one was around and we were hidden in this gully, anyway. It was the most terrifying thing I have ever experienced. By far. I have nothing to compare it to. I sincerely thought he was going to die. Finally I just grabbed onto his board and I pulled him out. I must have had an adrenaline rush because it wasn't that hard, it just kind of happened and he popped out. He told me he expected to see like, three people standing there, but it was just me. He had created a little pocket with his hand so he still had some air but his face was still kind of purple. And we both just kind of sat there and tried not to be hysterical. And we hugged and tried to warm up my hands because I took my gloves off at some point, in the panic, and they were frozen.

So, we took a few more runs after that (we took a break and dried out our goggles and whatnot) and the whole day felt so surreal, with this disaster averted, this thing that you hear about happening to other people but never to you, and it's staying with me. I still can't believe it happened.

New Project

 My partner in crime is a mail-order bride.

In an effort to embrace the west side of town, Shola and I have decided to form a westside blogging alliance. We are going to start crossing the river on a regular basis to conduct social experiments. We met last week at Secret Society to form a plan of sorts (if you haven't been there you definitely should. It's my favorite place to get a nice cocktail in Portland). A list of possible field trips has been developed but we welcome feedback, advice, and requests.

We're meeting at Beauty Bar for the martini/manicure special this week. Do you know about this? $10 martini and manicure. That's a great deal and there's an appealing element of novelty to the whole thing. Though, I hadn't really thought about it until now. I guess you really wouldn't be able to drink the martini while receiving the manicure. Unless there are long bendy straws. But a martini out of a straw . . .? I'll keep you posted.

Try Not to Drown

Now that the rain is really starting in earnest (I'm not even sad because I know that it's snowing in the mountains), I really have to say goodbye to swimming in the sun until next summer. I'm not sure there is anything better than jumping into water, cold or not, on a hot day when you have nothing else to do. It's a way to measure good times. It adds pomp and circumstance to otherwise typical events.

Once, when visiting Gisborne, my friends Elizabeth, Belinda, Tyler, and I went to a bar and drank beer and danced to the Clash and on our way home we decided to jump off the bridge in the center of town. We left our clothing in little bundles under some trees near the water's edge, and ran out on the bridge in the dark in our underwear. Cars honked at us. We stood on the concrete railing, giggling. Elizabeth jumped first, before the countdown had ended, and we followed blindly into black water. An otherwise typical night transformed.

From top: Lake Crescent on the Olympic Peninsula, Shi Shi Beach, Siouxon Creek

Blood, Chainsaws, Freaks and Lasers

In the spirit of Halloween, I have been working on terrifying myself. This included a trip to the Milburn's Haunted Manor last Friday.

I'll be honest. I have only attended a few haunted houses and am certainly not a connoisseur. The first was when I was eight or nine. Maybe older. Our Aunt Sharon took us to Enchanted Forest. We were having a great time until she suggested we go into the Haunted House. I got about 10 feet in and when the first dummy with an ax fell out of a trapdoor, I yelped, "I don't like this!" and we marched right out the front door. The next haunted house was at Disney Land when I was thirteen. Pretty mild stuff. I had a bad shag haircut and an equally bad attitude. Was more terrified by the Small World Ride. The third and fourth were the aforementioned haunted corn mazes, which were certainly fun and relatively scary.

Milburn blew them out of the water. If the website alone doesn't entice you (please check out this feat of technology), I will say this. I screamed, convulsed, almost knocked over my friends, and gibbered with terror. I don't want to give away any surprises but it was intense. I was losing my voice by the end of it. They offer three separate features for $20. You should do all three.

Recapturing the Magic

The trifecta of amazing was, well, amazing. Here is a quick summation of the events:

Hooters: Insane. Absolutely insane. It was UFC night at Hooters which meant we had to park in the Safeway parking lot due to the sheer mass of Hooters attendees. We had to sit with randoms and they were turning large groups away due to the two- to three-hour wait. The wings were satisfactory. People love taking their children to Hooters. Charissa and I donned leopard-print leggings which would remain the sartorial theme of the evening. Laurence befriended our table mates and Charissa and I impressed and amused them with our UFC commentary.

B-ball: We jogged over to Irving Park. In the rain. Played a game of PIG. Charissa wore the leopard-print leggings and booty shorts. I wore the leopard-print leggings with a Fernandez jersey and leg-warmers. Laurence and Sam fell to the wayside, Charissa and I battled it out for the gold. I turned the corner with a three-pointer and emerged victorious. Picture to follow.

Dirty: The leggings made the transition to evening. 4loko with licorice straws. We caught the bus on MLK and then walked across the Burnside Bridge where we were accosted by Kyle Arthur pretending to be a creepy crack distributor. There were a lot of poles on high platforms, light-up disco-square dance floors, scenes from Coyote Ugly playing on a large TV screen, and many awkward people. I befriended an Egyptian exchange student wearing Ali G glasses, hanging out in Dirty by himself. I'm not sure why. I felt sorry for him. Charissa and I did attempt to dance on the poles. If you can call attempting to climb the pole like it's the rope in gym class while wearing slippery leggings dancing (it wasn't really dancing). At one point a random girl started dancing with me and cried, "Save me from that creep!" I turned around. It was the Egyptian guy with the Ali G glasses. Birthday drinks for Kyle Arthur (it was his birthday! Happy birthday Kyle Arthur!) and then we went to Tube. Things kind of fell apart at that point, as they are prone to do at Tube due the logic vacuum located in the back near the bathrooms.

Aftermath: So many episodes of Twin Peaks.

* Image source

Dirty. Um. Yeah.

It's good to experience new things. So, my friend Charissa and I decided a while ago that we wanted to investigate a side of Portland that we have never experienced. The spray-tan, hair-gel, push-up bra'd side of town. Specifically Dirty. The nightclub. Add some wings at Hooters and a quick game of pick-up basketball and you've got yourself A Day!

I'm not sure why we decided this because I just took a look at the Dirty website and even I am getting cold feet. I don't want to scare anyone but look at those photos. I love kitsch. I love trashy. But this may be too much. I'm know I'm going to end up seeing people from highschool here. The website advertises thirty-five stripper poles, as well as some swings? Thirty-five? Whose grand vision was that?

Huy asked me to post a dress code on here. Um. Judging by the photos I would suggest that the men grow some ridiculous facial hair, buy some Paris Hilton sunglasses, and spray your face orange. Maybe pick up a tall-tee encrusted with rhinestones and work on your best "I'm a gangster from Beaverton" pose. You are going to need it.

Ladies? Just don't wear much of anything. You know, wear a nice tube dress or something. And maybe swing by Mystic Tan.

Some girl with a Coach bag may try to make out with you for a photo op. Avoid this.

Note the classy shirt.

Requisite pose and facial hair.

These photos are from their website. Apparently someone waltzes around with a big camera and takes party photos. You can buy these! We may end up with mementos!

So Wholesome it Burns

It is seriously fall. I'm getting sad. The days are getting impossibly short and this is only the beginning. I just bought a light box and am hoping that prevents me from becoming a lunatic this winter. We'll see.

On a lighter and much more pleasant note, some friends and I are doing this on Saturday afternoon. Yes, we are going out to Sauvie Island and celebrating fall. So wholesome. This includes picking pumpkins and going on a hay ride and drinking cider and probably an ear of corn and maybe a caramel apple*. Liz wants to sing songs on the hay ride. And then, once night descends (this is happening earlier every day) we are going to go through the Haunted Corn Maze. So great.

Alexa and Furell (visitor from New Zealand) and I went through one a few Halloweens ago and it was actually a really terrifying experience. There's a lot to deal with. Random shrieks of other maze-goers coming from every direction. Rustling in the corn which usually, in real life, would be a bird or something, but in the corn maze always turns out to be a horror movie come to life freak in a mask who gets in your face until you run away. And then you start thinking about the sort of people that would volunteer to work a haunted corn maze and imagining that they are probably deranged psychotics who are actually plotting to make this a real haunted corn maze and start killing their victims and dragging their bodies off into the corn and soon the paths are slick with blood and the corpses are stacking up and no one can find their way out and I think it's pretty obvious that I have unwittingly written out the plot to a new horror movie. You saw it here first.

* To be honest, I'm not into caramel apples. They are sticky and messy and the good part is only on the outside and then you have all this apple on a stick to eat and your teeth are filled with sugar-goo. They are one of the only sweet things I'm not into.

Photo source

No Coast

While I've touched on the whole East coast/West coast thing, there's an entire realm that hasn't been brought into the equation: No coast. Sam is from the Midwest. The. Midwest. It's not surprising. He has that certain wholesome quality that people from the Midwest possess. It's very charming to someone like myself. Something about being from a state bordered by the ocean brings out a different quality in people. Some may call it "pretentious". I prefer "discerning" or something of that nature. Something mildly positive.

Anyway, I was tasked with meeting a million members of his enormous family. This stressed me out for several reasons: (1) I suck at groups, (2) I suck at small talk, (3) I suck at interacting with small children (there were going to be many), (4) I'm from the West coast, and you know how those people are, and (5) just the general fear that they would all hate me and Sam would decide that he hated me too and I would end up banished from the campfire ring, lost in some cornfield, trying to figure out where the Chicago airport was.

While it would be much more interesting if something like that did happen, I'm afraid I will have to disappoint you. As far as I know, nobody from the Grant clan hates me. They seemed to like me. They were friendly and welcoming and all the things good people from the Midwest are. All the kids were running around with swords, the leaves were changing, beer was consumed in epic amounts, and I didn't do anything particularly embarrassing. In fact, as stated yesterday, I held a baby.

This was a pretty big deal. I feel like babies are similar to dogs as indicators of character. If the baby/dog doesn't like you, it means there is something inherently wrong with your soul and you may in fact be evil. So, this was something I was pretty worried about. The Grant family watching me and thinking, Hmmmmm, Rachel repels children. Get out the wooden stake.

I should preface this by explaining that I'm not a baby person. They are terrifying. The only other baby I have had any experience with was a girl named Ayla and I would sit and talk to her like she was a tiny therapist, explaining how my day was going and what I ate for lunch. Probably a total bummer. I don't hold babies. When I was very young, I tried and dropped it and I have avoided the experience ever since. So it was kind of stretch for me to do the baby thing and make my voice high and wave my hands around and smile a lot. These things don't come naturally.

On the second day, we were hanging out around the picnic table and Sam's mom suggested that I try to hold Evelyn. Put out your hands and see if she comes to you! Moment of truth. I put out my hands, fearing the worst, and then she put out her hands and suddenly I was holding a baby. And she smiled and didn't cry the entire time. Sam took photos which will show how extremely awkward I was, but that's okay. It was a little miracle and sometimes those things have to be documented. We became friends and by the end of the trip she was telling me stories in her made-up language and laughing at them hysterically. I feel like I am slightly better at life now.

Adventures in Middle America

I haven't updated forever because I haven't been home. I went to a place called Illinois. Illinois is located in the United States in what is known as the Midwest. If you look at a map of the United States the state of Illinois does not appear to be in the middle of the west as the name implies. It's actually pretty east. It is not a typical place for a vacation. At least, not a typical vacation for me. I went there with my boyfriend to hang out with his family and go on a camping trip at a state park near Rockville, Indiana. He has a huge family. Last year 82 people attended. Was I intimidated by the whole venture? Yes. Incredibly. I was so out of my comfort zone about the whole thing that I was actually resentful. Fortunately, I was so awkward about it the night before we flew out that Sam ended up asking me why I was being so weird and I had to explain to him what was going on. That helped.

It would take me a while to detail all of the things that happened while I was there. Some were expected and perhaps typical: corn fields, hot dogs, midday light beer drinking. Some were not typical, at least for me: I held a baby. I played flashlight tag in woods in the middle of the night. I bought a soft pretzel with cheese from Amish folk. I met so many people that I could only remember a handful of their names and spent a lot of my time smiling and trying not to be disappointed with myself every time I was greeted with "Hello, Rachel" and I had to say, "Hello . . .. ".

Unfortunately, I have been up since 3:30 a.m. Central Standard Time and really don't have much more to say. I may elaborate a bit later on, but I've reached my communications quota for the day.

The Last Wedding . . . .

Of the season, but probably the first of many. Rachael (with an "a") and Kale, the pioneering couple of our friend circle, were married two weeks ago, most likely setting things in motion that cannot be undone. They say weddings are contagious amongst friends in a similar manner to children and divorce. We'll see how things work out. I have some predictions.

I flew into San Francisco on Wednesday for the bachelorette party (reunited with Alexa, adorned Rachael with bling and a pimpstick, got confetti in my suitcase, and insulted some englishmen wearing pink). Alexa and I spent the next day in the city achieving attainable goals like napping in the park, eating frozen yogurt by the pound, seeing some old friends, and eating tacos for dinner. Goals are so much better when they're attainable. I'm never going to have a lofty goal again.

We drove up to Sea Ranch the next day. The Northern California coast is spectacular, craggy, and blue. The sun was shining the entire time. We stayed in a gorgeous house that slept eleven (had family dinner and mini friend-reunion, sing-alongs, dance parties, sunbathed, read, took photos in the sunset, hot-tubbed).

And then, the wedding. It was lovely and emotional and all the things a wedding should be. The bridesmaids were all in pink (a source of some trepidation) but everyone looked beautiful and/or handsome. Everyone in the wedding party rose to the occasion and gave a great toast (my favorite part of weddings) and then we danced like maniacs (my second favorite part). Our friend Kyle Carnes was the wedding photographer. He was running around like a mad man but it was definitely worth it. Here are some of the standouts and here is his website in case you are looking for someone to document your shining moment.