Bringing our bikes out of mothball

This weekend, I FINALLY decided to get our bikes in working condition--they'd been sitting propped up against the house for the past two years like Dust Bowl-era hobos. The seat of one of them looked like an Bloomin' Onion from Outback Steakhouse because we'd parked it within reach of Kitty's razor-sharp claws and she really went to town on it. Also, all four tires were completely flat. I pumped up the two on Margaret's bike with no ill effects, but when I pumped up my own tires, I hear a ripping sound and noticed that with every pump, the nylon belting that supports the tire was ripping in half and the tire bulging out. We risked a bike ride to the store (it was only 7 blocks, so I figured if I blew out a tire, I could still walk it). By the time I'd finished installing the new tires, it was lunch time, so on our inaugural bike ride, we ended up riding to Red Robin for lunch. The trip there was great, but with Red Robin's bottomless pops, I was pedaling REALLY fast toward the end of our trip home. It's surprising how urgent that feeling is when you're sitting directly on your bladder.

Cola wars

Ever since I was a wee lad, I and those around me have called carbonated beverages "pop." As soon as I learned to make requests for what to put in my bottle, I always asked for "pop." (Which made it simple for me as a baby, since I only had to change a single vowel and, voíla! I could say what was likely in my diaper at any given time--so efficient!) I had never heard pop called anything else. The only time I ever heard reference to "soda" was as a shortened version of baking soda--and speaking from experience, you REALLY don't want to drink that stuff! I eventually learned that certain people "back East" called it "soda" but they were a strange lot and far away so you didn't need to worry about it. Imagine my surprise, then, when my future wife ordered a SODA at Outback Steakhouse! Here's me totally incredulous that this nice Utah girl was talkin' all high fallutin' like an East coast socialite and her aghast that this guy she was dating obviously just stepped off the tractor-drawn turnip cart from the Idaho sticks. Despite this point of friction, we still ended up getting married. It probably wouldn't have been an issue, but since we drink enough Diet Pepsi to have warranted our purchase of Pepsi stock in an attempt to make money off ourselves, the topic comes surprisingly often. I tend to try to interject "pop" in all our food orders whenever we're eating out, thinking that eventually Margaret will hear it enough times and turn from the dark side. So far no luck--she still just thinks I sound like a hick. Maybe I should start drinking it out of a quart Mason jar, just to spite her (hmm, not a bad idea--all our glasses only hold 12 ounces--I could eke out an additional 4 ounces drinking out of the jar!)


Anyway, here's an interesting map of a study done on this very topic. Every county in the US was sampled on whether they use the term "pop," "soda," "coke," or other. As it is plain to see, I grew up in a very blue state. In fact I was surprised that there were ANY soda counties in Idaho, but there is--Blaine County, although when I checked the numbers, they had 6 respondents with 1 saying "pop" and 4 saying "soda" (and 1 other). But that was Blaine County--where there are more horses and sheep than humans and the official drink is moonshine. Here's a link with all the facts and figures.

Childhood trauma

I was talking yesterday with a friend who just had a baby and he told me about his belief that there isn't a "right" way to raise a child. Every child seems to had his or her share of traumas, missteps, and accidents and in most cases, they turn out okay, if not just a little dysfunctional. That got me to thinking about my own formative humiliations and how they continue to haunt me today, yet here I am, still somewhat normal.

The first thing to come to mind when I thought of my past traumas was an incident that happened back in 1980. I was in the third grade and was the new kid at school, as my family had just returned to Idaho from Wyoming. Ah, those halcyon days of third grade, when the main worry was what was for lunch and how soon to recess. And recess was a big deal, particularly the playground equipment. The swings were quite coveted, and I remember rushing out at the recess bell, clawing my way past the others in a mad dash to get one of the three seats on the swing set. Given that I wasn't particularly fast, I didn't often make it, and so had to lurk waiting for one of the faster kids to get tired of or nauseous from swinging. Well, one day, rushing out, I saw that there were only two seats occupied on the swing set and I ran over, only to discover that the third swing was hanging from one chain. The black rubber seat had somehow gotten detached on one side and was just hanging there, listlessly mocking me. Well, I got a great idea in my third-grade mind: just sit on the seat and hold the detached side up with my hands. Of course! I sat down on the swing, clutching the seat to my side and trying to sit as close to the chained side as possible, because it wasn't exactly easy to hold that seat up, but I was DESPERATE to swing. After getting in position, I called for a push and someone gave me a push and I soon realized my folly. With only one chain for stabilization, instead of swinging back and forth, I started swinging AND spinning around. I toughed it out a swing or two, but soon, my little hands began to sweat and strain from trying to hold up the seat against the centrifugal force as strong as those NASA spinning machines used to train astronauts and I lost my grip. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't have been a big deal--I would have just fallen to the ground and that would have been that. Unfortunately, the Fates had other plans for me. In a highly unlikely coincidence, as I rolled off the unsupported seat, the S-hook that attached it to the chain caught one of my belt loops. Instead of falling to the ground, I swung upside down and continued to fall, only now with my pants staying up with the swing! My pants were down around my knees and compliments of the merciful gift of post-traumatic stress disorder, I can't remember if my underwear were with the pants around my knees or not. I could barely touch the ground--my fingers just barely skimming the worn patch beneath the swing--so I couldn't get myself free. I don't know how long I hung there--it felt like an eternity what with trying to get free with one hand and cover myself with the other. Finally a fifth grader came over and helped me out of my predicament, an act of kindness unrivaled by even Mother Theresa in my mind. When the movie based on my life comes out, that scene will have the fifth grader played by someone who looks like Jesus and is brightly backlit like they're coming out of heaven--THAT'S how grateful I was! After that, I was always pretty leery of the swings, and I would prefer to forget to whole ordeal, but the current fashion of boys walking around with their pants low and underwear sticking out is a constant reminder of the burning shame of that incident on the school playground.

Fountain of Youth

Now that I'm thirty-five, I've been more and more conscious of getting older. My back sometimes goes out for days at a time, I've found a few gray hairs, and I just got my invitation to subscribe to the AARP magazine. Well, yesterday, I was talking with my grandmother about some pictures that I'd sent her, one of which was a picture of me with my nephew. Evidently when she saw the picture, she didn't know why I'd included a picture of some teenager with the photos. When my mom pointed out that it was me, she was flabbergasted. She said that with that cap on and how skrawny I was, I looked fifteen. My aunt asked me if that was reason enough to start eating more clam dip so I wouldn't look so skrawny and I told them, "No, it's reason enough for me to wear that hat more often!" Any article of clothing that can take twenty years off gets points from me. I wonder if I could wear it to the movies to get a discount?

Here's the picture for the internets to weigh in.

Speaking of deceiving pictures, I remember my photo I submitted to the Norwegian mission office. The lighting in the picture was bad, with a visible shadow cast behind me. Since I have black hair, the shadow made me look like I had a mullet--A MULLET!!! Great!--here I am trying to shake the rural Idaho, just-off-the-reservation look and I submit a photo (that will be my official image throughout my entire mission) of me with a mullet. I may as well have worn overalls and had a hayseed in my mouth. (A picture of me showing my hog at the county fair would have sufficed as well.) Fortunately the mission is a time to reinvent oneself and I made a concerted effort to make people forget about my mullet--now they remember me by my hatred of knocking on strangers' doors, ability to steer religious conversations into meaningless small talk, and penchant for making the missionaries who followed all the rules all the time feel embarrassed about it.

This is a t-shirt design available at www.threadless.com. I'd love to wear this around the reservation and see what kind of reactions I'd get.

Pewter merchant

The Pirates of the Caribbean movie party this weekend went great. I had on my pirate shirt, but didn’t have any leather pants to wear with it (they were at the cleaners after a crazy thing that happened at a night club a while back, but that’s another story). Anyway, I wore some cargo pants that were brown, which I figured looked leather-colored enough. Unfortunately when I got in line with the rest of our group, they said I looked more like a colonial pewter merchant than a pirate. Great—I try to look like Long John Silver and end up looking like Jonny Tremain! Also, since I didn’t want to walk around with the shirt on (afraid of being the victim of a pewter merchant hate-crime) I waited to put on the shirt when I got in line. Of course after I got all dressed, I discovered that I’d left my cell phone in the car and others in our group were going to call us when they got there, so I had to walk back to the mall parking lot to get it. I tried to cop a I’m-a-bloodthirsty-pirate-so-don’t-mess-with-me attitude but it probably came across as a I’m-a-complete-dandy-in-my-foofy-shirt attitude, which is why people probably avoided me.

Margaret got everyone hooks and eye patches, so we were quite the group going into the theatre. There was plenty of “arr’s” being passed around. I had to laugh at all the other pirate-related outfits that the other movie-goers had on. Right behind us in line was a gay couple, one of which had on a high school sports team-style t-shirt that said, “Butte Pirates.” I don’t know what actual residents of Butte would think of it, what with Brokeback Mountain and all, but the Portlanders were sure getting a kick out of it.

After the movie, which was great, we went to a British pub nearby. I was still in my puffy shirt, and was disappointed that it didn’t even attract any attention. No one was inspired to having a glass of rum, either—which I guess confirmed that I WAS dressed as a pious pewter merchant.

Minty medicine

Last weekend while we were in Idaho, Margaret got some mosquito bites that were driving her crazy with her trying not to scratch them. (I don't know what Idaho insects have against Margaret. One time we went camping with my family and she got a hobo spider bite that took almost two years to heal. I was glad that this time it was misquitoes and not killer bees.) Anyway, we got some anti-itch cream for her, and that helped her a lot. When we were driving back to Portland, as the temperature increased in the car, so did the itching of her mosquito bites. She asked me to get the cream out of my bag when we stopped, and all she said was that it was in a white tube. When we stopped, I grabbed the medicine and she carefully applied it to all her mosquito bites. After she had applied the cream to all her bites, she remarked that she didn't remember the cream smelling like mint. She then looked at the tube and realized that I'd grabbed her toothpaste by mistake and she'd put that all over her legs. It really didn't help with the itching (in fact it made it worse), but it did make the car smell minty fresh.

Pirates!

Tonight we're going to see Pirates of the Caribbean II with some friends and I'm vacillating on whether or not to wear a pirate shirt I have. I got the shirt for a friend's wedding, where I was a groomsman. The groom, his best (wo)man, and I all wore pirate shirts, sashes, and boots. (Although now that I think of it, it would have been cool to have the groom in an eye patch and when the veil gets lifted, the bride could have lifted the eye patch--dang! NOW I think of that!) It was fun and definitely different. Margaret and I had a traditional Salt Lake temple wedding, but every time we're in Las Vegas I think it would be cool to go to one of those Elvis wedding chapels and renew our vows. That would be a great juxtaposition to the solemn temple ceremony. Although I wonder what kinds of things we'd have to do to get an Elvis recommend? I can just imagine the interview now: "Have you been listening to Elvis when you wake up and before you go to bed? Do you wear your polyester jumpsuit with gold sequins? Are you living a life worthy of being called your spouse's "teddy bear?"

Next year will be our tenth anniversary; I'll have to ask Margaret if she wants a Vegas wedding chapel with Elvis officiating at the renewal of our vows or a nude ceremony in Hawaii overlooking the Pacific Ocean. (We have to hurry and get that one out of the way before we get too old and we don't even want to see OURSELVES naked anymore.)

Senatorial visit

A few days back, I was at the gym and who should be there at the same time but one of Oregon's senators. (I won't say which one, since this story isn't too flattering and therefore subject to repercussions by the Department of Homeland Security). Anyway, I was getting dressed in the locker room when the senator came in and went into one of the bathroom stalls. When he came out, he was walking to the sinks when someone recognized him and said hello. The senator instinctively held out his hand to shake the other guy's hand--which he reluctantly shook. Afterward, the guy, whose locker was right next to mine, asked if I had seen what happened. He (and I) couldn't believe that he'd shake someone's hand after using the toilet--and it wasn't the urinal, either! I guess that confirms my dad's contention that politician's think their crap doesn't stink (or evidently cause an E. coli infestation).

Speaking of hygiene, I remember one of my apartments in Norway with a bathroom so small (imagine the broom closet in a Barbie dollhouse and you'll get the picture) that the sink hung over the toilet and the showerhead came out of the middle of the ceiling. The whole room was tiled, so it could all get wet--so you could conceivably use the toilet, brush your teeth, and take a shower ALL AT THE SAME TIME. I never did it, in fact the tought still makes me cringe. But I wouldn't be surprised that my insane, hyper-efficient companion (I won't use his real name, I'll just write that we called him "Salsa") did it so he could get even better missionary numbers to report.

Where was PETA?

This weekend, while at my family's place in Idaho, we went up to a state park where the local community had a fireworks show on the lake shore. It was classic small-town fun--not too many people, but enough to make it enjoyable, you got a great excuse to sit around a mountain lake, and the weather was great. The show was supposed to start at 10:00, and at about 9:45, some fireworks pretty close to where we were sitting started going off. They weren't that big, but we figured, "hey, small town." We knew something was awry when a couple of the charges were angled too low and hit the water, exploding from the surface. I'm sure if there were any fish in that area, they were probably floating belly-up afterward.

Finally at around 10:00, the REAL fireworks started going off. We then realized that the ones next to us were some private individual's fireworks, which explained the drunken aim. The real show was actually pretty impressive. What made it go from cool to impressive, though, was the forested venue. In the quiet forest and across the lake surface, the sound of the explosions seemed a lot louder than you would expect. I swear, every deer, squirrel, duck, and raccoon in the area must have been terrified and ready to rampage. Fortunately we left before the animals attacked and got home to enjoy more of my mom's clam dip that she'd made for the occassion. After eating that all weekend, I saw even more fireworks when I stepped on the bathroom scales this morning.