Adventurers Are We

My friend Lauren and I are adventurers. For example, she wants to be a professional mermaid. And I parked a really big truck perfectly on my first try. See? Adventurers are we.

This summer, we're keeping track of all the awesome things we do as adventurers. (I say "this summer," as though it isn't still spring. It sure doesn't feel like spring, as "bed time" now means lying on top of my covers and listening to raccoons dig through the dumpster out my open window.)

Fun Things We Do, #1: Riding the Legacy Trail.

The whole trail is something like 10 miles one way, but we only rode half of it - which is still 10 miles there and back. We felt pretty good until we were done and sitting in the truck on our way back, and then we were pretty sleepy. BUT NOT TOO SLEEPY TO DRIVE! Because we are responsible with big trucks that aren't ours. (Did I mention how well I parked it, on my first try?)

If you're a Lexontonian, I highly recommend the Legacy Trail. I'm already planning when we can go again. Look how happy my Schwinn is in that picture up there. He had a hard time stopping to pose for a picture, he was so street-greedy. Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee, he said. In so many words.

Fun Things We Do, #2: Ultimate Frisbee.

We take fun very seriously.

And I love Ultimate Frisbee. It fills me with joy and delight and pleasure and other generally positive feelings. There is something deeply fulfilling about leaping into the air and snatching a flying disk out of the sky which otherwise would have sailed away on the currents of oblivion (or at least would've just fallen down on the grass). Today was Sunday #1 of many Sundays to come playing Ultimate Frisbee in Vineyard's front yard. Hopefully by the end of the summer we all won't be as winded as we were today. Happy first day of non-stop running and jumping and sweating profusely. (HOW DOES THAT NOT SOUND LIKE THE BEST ACTIVITY EVER!)

Jesus said, "Where 8 or more are gathered with a Frisbee, there I am in the midst of them." Roughly paraphrased.

I'm glad I have Lauren to go on adventures with me. Stay tuned for more adventures from we adventurers. :)

C-I-T-Y, you can see why

I haven't met many of my neighbors, though I've caught glimpses of them. They're like those butterfly clams we used to catch on our vacations to Florida, who would stick their little pink tongues out until they realized they were in our hands, and then they'd swiftly retreat and pretend like no one was inside their pretty pastel shells. Unlike those clams, however, I can't pry open my neighbor's homes and reveal their lying fleshy bodies. Or make necklaces out of their walls.

The other day I went to my car to retrieve my iPod, however, and noticed a man sitting in his suburban (I had to google image that to make sure that's what it was - and I was right!), just chilling out. That's okay, I often like to sit in my car with the windows down in 90-degree weather next to the dumpster that smells like dead raccoons (as a friend of mine so eloquently put it). When I pulled my head out of the backseat, his suburban had used some sort of stealth mode to creep up behind my car, and he was leaning out of his window. "Excuse me," he said, "I just moved here, and I'm looking into Internet providers. I've been asking around as people come out of the building...."

In my mind I was thinking several things.


1. Do not stand too close to his car.
2. Be helpful and friendly, but not too helpful and friendly.
3. I wonder if this guy is a creeper.
4. Well, if he's telling the truth, maybe he'll find a good Internet provider and he can tell me about it and then I won't have to do any of the annoying research.
5. Wait until he is gone before going into my apartment, so he doesn't know which one's mine.


Since then I've seen this fellow talking with several other apartment-dwellers, so I feel pretty convinced he was just taking some quiet time to himself out in the parking lot, meditating on Internet providers. Ommmmm....Windstream....

I've seen several attractive men riding bicycles, but fortunately for me I don't have to worry about them hitting on me, because the only time I see them is when I, too, am exercising, and we all know how freakish I look when I exercise. Thankfully my hair is short enough that, after sweating and running into the wind, my hair sticks up straight in the front, a la Roxanne Ritchie.

Who wouldn't want to hit on this?

I've also noticed that men don't honk at me when I walk down the street. I think it's because females are much more common here in the city than they are in the country, and to see one walking down the street is not worth honking at. Life's so different far from cow country!

I've been making a lot of different foods, too, now that I'm not living at home where the men like meat and potatoes at every meal. At first I thought the spinach and artichoke hummus on my sandwich was gross because it looked like mold, but now I think it'll be a good way to keep other people from eating my food.

Random coworker: "Do those cheese puffs have mold on them? Yuck! I'm definitely not eating those."
Me: "Bwa-hahaha, THEY'RE ALL MINE." (My imaginary dialogue is always so believable, isn't it? Especially since spinach and artichoke hummus goes great with cheese puffs, and as we all know, very rarely am I seen without a cheese puff in my paw.)

Perhaps I will try this "slathering of green goop" method on other things that I don't want people to use. Like my sharpies. And the little lever that I stuck double-sided tape onto that keeps the paper cutter at the perfect measurement for cutting weekend handouts.

"Can I move this lever from 5 1/2 inches...why is there green goop all over this?"

Don't move my lever.

P.S. I confess to riding my bike multiple times without a helmet.

someday my prince will come

This past week I was sitting at a red light. I had my windows down and I was singing loudly with the Beatles. I looked to my right and saw the car sitting next to me, a man probably in his 50s at the wheel. He looked at me, and I looked casually away as if my head was simply vacillating like a fan in the summertime. But then I grabbed my cell phone and took a picture.

Yes, that is a car covered entirely in fake flowers and Disney princess stickers.

Snow White and Belle seemed to be his chosen favorites.

I have no idea why.

I mean, has he ever seen Pocahontas?