Pickles & Dimes

This year’s camping trip was affected slightly by the weather – twice – as we waited to drive to Jason’s parents’ house on Friday until after we made sure the storms weren’t going to shatter our windows at home. (Every time thunder rumbled, our basement windows rattled ominously. We also got two inches of rain in 90 minutes.)

Then on Saturday night, another nasty storm blew through, sending us sheets of rain propelled by gusty winds, tornado warnings and angry lightning, so half of us took refuge in the basement while the rest of us decided not to get drenched in the pouring rain and stayed in the garage. We sat there huddled with our friends, their two kids and two dogs, and right after the radio announced, “[Town we were in] is in the bullseye of this storm,” and we started to get a little scared, Jason’s dad threw open the garage door and bellowed, “What are you guys doing?” We all jumped a mile and sheepishly ran for the safety of the basement. Seriously, the only way that moment would’ve been scarier was if he had been wearing a hockey mask and brandishing a smoking chainsaw. So we all sat in the basement, shivering wetly: eight adults, four kids and four wet dogs that smelled like, well, wet dog. After the robotic weather radio man finally gave us the all-clear, we shuffled outside to our campers.

And then the power went out.

And that is how we ended up going to bed before 10 pm in our damp camper listening to our popup shake every time the ground rumbled from thunder and counting “One Mississippi, two Mississippi…” every time lightning flashed.

Shorty slept through it all, obviously.

But besides the brief bad weather, the weekend was awesome. Lots of great food and games, and the kids had a blast on the bounce house, inflatable water slide and kiddie pool.

The adults played more Minute to Win It games.

Try to put the hat on your head. While it’s attached to a fishing pole. And you’re blindfolded.

Use a straw to suck up an M&M…

And transfer it across the way to deposit onto another straw.

Blow up a balloon and use the air to blow plastic cups off a table. (This one was my favorite. I skipped doing it last time because I figured “Me + Asthma = Nothing Good Can Come From This,” but it was easy.)

Stick a pedometer on your head and shake your head to see how many “steps” you get in 60 seconds. (This one hurts your neck SO BAD.)

Jason & Shorty were tuckered out. It was maybe 85 degrees, even though it was cloudy, but the humidity was INSANE.

Shorty was great. As spoiled at it may be, having a separate camping chair for him means he sits in it instead of getting wound up around other chairs or picnic tables. Jason & I even got to leave his sight to eat dinner. I went over to check on him and found him in doggie heaven, sitting contentedly in his camping chair while one of the men he used to habitually bark at was scratching him behind his ears. He did SO GOOD at not barking at people. SO GOOD. It might sound stupid, but we were so proud of him for being a good boy.

We kept Shorty on his cable tie-out because even though he gets along with all the other dogs that were there, he also likes to bolt for the road (and not listen when we yell for him to come back, choosing instead to bolt at high speed in the opposite direction). We did finally let him off-leash to play with the other dogs when they were running around the yard, and he immediately took off full-bore for the fastest dog, trying to herd her and play-growling the whole time, which is hilarious because his “growling” sounds exactly like trying to start a car with a dying battery: RowrRowrRowr. Then he got overexcited and started sprinting around at 100 mph and decided to take a flying leap onto his camping chair, which obviously wasn’t bolted to the ground, so he hit it hard, sent it flying and then did a nifty barrel roll while we laughed our asses off. He’s the best dog ever.

Wow, you guys wanted to know what books I read, huh? You must be totally bored. And if not, prepare to be, because I am waaay behind on current books (although a few newer ones on my reserve list at the library are finally coming my way). I’m keeping track of the books I’ve read so far in 2010 through an app on Facebook, but I’m going to put it out here too, in case you’re interested (I find most of my new reads through other people’s recommendations). The ones in bold are the ones I really, really enjoyed. Your mileage may vary, especially if you are not into books depicting government coverups, murder or the end of the world as we know it and the resulting breakdown of civilization. No romance/vampire novels here. (Also, when I find an author I like, I tend to catch up on everything they have written, hence the repeat authors.)

9th Judgement by James Patterson
Impact by Douglas Preston
At First Sight by Stephen Cannell
Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
The Devil’s Workshop by Stephen Cannell
Finishing School by Max Allan Collins
The 4400 by Greg Cox
Breathless by Dean Koontz (who, as you may already know, is always iffy though usually entertaining)
What Every BODY is Saying by Joe Navarro
Dr. Death by Jonathan Kellerman
Cat & Mouse by James Patterson
The Rift by Walter J. Williams
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Being Dead by Jim Croce
The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell
Noah’s Compass by Anne Tyler
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
The U.S. Army Survival Manual
Under the Dome by Stephen King
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
One Second After by William Forstchen
Velocity by Dean Koontz
The Stand by Stephen King
FlashForward by Robert Sawyer
Above the Law by Tim Green
Pursuit of Honor by Vince Flynn
Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jeremy Pournelle
The Face by Dean Koontz
Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling
Wolf and Iron by Gordon Dickson
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornsby
Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsay

My four most recent reads:
Tricky Business by Dave Barry

I’ve always liked Dave Barry’s newspaper column. Then I saw this book in the clearance section of Half-Price Books for $2.98 and snapped it up. Since I am a fast reader, I am loathe to pay full-price for books (unless authored by Stephen King), so I have to wait to get them from my library, which is why I’m so behind on the current bestsellers. I read this book in an hour and a half while I got my hair colored. It was fairly amusing, not entirely believable, but I’ll give it 3 stars.

Marlene Dietrich by Alexander Walker

I’ve read nearly every biography on Marlene Dietrich. Then I saw this one at Half-Price Books and lunged across the aisle in front of a startled elderly gentleman (he was the right age to remember Dietrich – he might’ve been reaching for the same book!) to grab it. Unfortunately, I hated this book – absolutely hated it. Walker’s tone was so damn arrogant and stupid and smarmy; his main focus was on pointing out how other biographers got certain bits of information wrong. Which is fine, I guess, since it is a biography concerned with detailing the facts of someone’s life, only Walker didn’t expound any further on the correct version of Dietrich’s life, which is too bad, because she was utterly fascinating. And since Walker seems to think of himself as some kind of genius biographer of the stars, it was disappointing that he couldn’t manage to dredge up one single photo that hadn’t been published by every other book written about Marlene. A total disappointment. Zero stars.

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larsson

I was one of the last people on this bandwagon, and when I finally read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I didn’t like it. I thought it was slow and boring and only somewhat OK. In fact, when people kept going on and on about The Girl Who Played With Fire, I thought, “Is this going to be a situation like The Road? Where everyone hated that book and I read it and thought it one of the best books I’ve ever read? Like that, only the opposite?” So I finally got the second book and it was excellent. I loved it so much I paid $4 to rent The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest from the library, which I’m reading right now, and is also very, very good.

The Quickie by James Patterson

I usually like Patterson’s books; they’re the perfect beach read and only take me a couple of hours. Only this storyline was competely unbelievable: A woman sees her husband kill her lover, who is a cop, and instead of turning in her husband (whom she believes is cheating on her), she hides the evidence. Oops, did I mention she herself is a police detective? Yeah. Anyway, I’ve noticed this annoying habit of Patterson’s in almost all of his books, this one included. He’ll take a seemingly random, normal sentence and add an exclamation point to it. The first few books I read where this happened, I actually assumed it was a typo because the sentence was so basic, like, “And then he pressed down on the accelerator!”

Huh? I mean, it’s not even an exciting, unexpected plot development like, “And then he pulled off his face-skin to reveal that he was actually a dragon!” I don’t get it, but apparently, this is an important plot device for bestselling authors. I’m going to try it:

“And then I grabbed a piece of cheese from the refrigerator!”

“And then I put on my socks!”

“And then I ended this lame book review entry!”

Oh my god, there is nothing like a vacation to make you realize that you never ever want to work again. For real. Therefore, do not disappoint me, Ticket O’Powerball! Today I came back to work after handing off a very disgusting proposal that was due while I was gone (doing 95% of the legwork before I left and fielding a few phone calls during my time off) only to come back this morning to find out it was postponed and wasn’t due until today, isn’t that lovely? The short answer: NO.
***
We ran the 5k at this year’s Tater Daze (featuring mashed potato wrestling!). Jason took off with the super-fast runners at the starting line, while I hung back with the rest of the sane people. As usual, the first seven minutes felt horrific, and my stomach sloshed for the first two miles, but overall I felt pretty good, awesome actually, and finished in 33:22. That’s slower than my last 5k and my goal of finishing in under 30 minutes, but 2-3 minutes faster than I’ve been doing it at home lately (my training runs have been regressing). Jason kicked serious butt and finished in 28:23, a minute and a half better than his time last year and many, many minutes better than me. It is my goal some day to defeat him. But it was a nice race with perfect weather and both of us ran our first mile faster than we’ve ever done before. (My new strategy is going to be to sprint the first mile; I figure I feel like crap anyway, so why not, right?) We’re looking to do one more race this summer, so I’ll have another chance to meet my goal. Plus, I finally broke down after the race and bought regular running shoes (not the $29 Target specials I’ve been wearing that are killing my feet) so I’m sure I will set some kind of world record now. It is almost a certainty.
***
I used our hedge trimmer for the first time on Friday and was literally drunk with power. You should’ve seen me; I think it took only five minutes to trim the two giant, silently-plotting-my-death bushes in our backyard plus our giant raspberry bush. I was literally stalking around our yard like Mike Myers looking for new weedy victims to chop down. There also may have been maniacal laughter, but I’m pretty sure that was coming from elsewhere. I also weeded the whole yard, planted three plants to replace the ones Shorty killed off, put down new cedar mulch, and washed off our patio furniture. Also, there was napping. And I read four books.
***
Jason’s truck needs a new third brake light gasket. (Self-diagnosed by me and Google, and confirmed by our mechanic). No one sells just the gasket, only the entire light kit, which I found out by calling five different places and embarrassing myself at one by asking if they carried a casket for a 2003 Ford Ranger. Oddly enough, they don’t.
***
OK, there is some kind of job title at work that involves the word “Gatekeeper,” and no one else seems to find this funny when it’s said out loud. I find it very hard to believe that no one in this office has seen Ghostbusters.

Having to stand up repeatedly for people during baseball games.
Look, I understand that I’m going to have to stand up so that people can get to their seats, leave to get food and drinks, pee, whatever. But when I have to stand up repeatedly for these same people more than four times? I hate them and their drinking addition/bladder problem/jimmylegs/whatever, OK? For a 3-hour game, I will maybe get up once. Ninety percent of the time? I don’t leave my freaking seat. I try to be all Zen about it, so when someone says ‘excuse me’ the first few times, I’ll nod and smile, but when they’re leaving for the 4th time and it’s only the 2nd inning? Yeah, I won’t even make eye contact because I’m annoyed at their constant aisle pacing and how it’s interfering with my enjoyment of the game. Especially if they’re leaving in the middle of an at-bat – learn baseball etiquette, dammit. And when people come to our end of the aisle and want to pass through, even though their seats are on the opposite end? Whyyyyyy? Seriously! Don’t make 15 people stand up for you because you’re too lazy to walk 20 feet and make only two people stand up, OK?

People doing things only because they heard about it on Oprah, not because it’s plain common sense (i.e., not texting or talking on their phone while they’re driving).

When I’m super swamped at work and at my wit’s end and basically being punished for being intelligent and organized and with-it by having to constantly nag others for information and/or getting assigned additional projects, and someone trills, “At least it’s job security!”

When actors/bands get all huffy when they make it big, acting like they don’t want the attention (Kristen Stewart, Kurt Cobain).

Commuting.
Every night, I make a Sophie’s Choice and decide which way to take home (I have two choices, neither good). Sometimes I wish I could see a traveling blue line, like in the Olympics, so I could see where my Alternate Commuting Self is in comparison to my Sitting in Traffic Self. In my quest (called “I would like to get home before being killed by any one of you 2,500 a-holes traveling my route”), I try to get home as soon as possible. I am kind of like the main character in Stephen King’s “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut,” only without the scary creatures or wormhole shortcuts or the whole getting younger bit. Anyway, my shortcuts are few and far between, but I try to get home faster by limiting the amount of times I brake. It is remarkably easy not to brake (for me), but everyone else seems to have this knee-jerk reaction to seeing brake lights on the car in front of them. So here is what I do:
1. Get behind a car
2. Leave a decent amount of space between me and that car (but not so decent that jerks in the other lane decide to cut me off)
3. When I see the car in front of me brake:
a. Check if car in front of THAT car is braking
b. Ease up on the accelerator
4. Only brake when absolutely necessary, which is less than 25% of the time

I just wish everyone would do this, instead of stamping on the brake any time they see brakelights, cop lights, tow trucks, hazard lights, clouds, birds or air motes.

Man, I am cranky! It is a good thing that I have tomorrow off.