Archive for the 'Life' Category

The Attention-Grabbing Grapefruit: A Sociological Adventure

Hey folks,

So, Kyle’s been telling me for a long time that I should “sit in” on his blog and make “guest posts,” so I thought I’d post this here, seeing as he apparently missed this story. So, without any further adieu, I give you:

The Attention-Grabbing Grapefruit: A Sociological Adventure
(…or, “Everybody Wants to Be a Good Samaritan, Especially When It’s Easy.”)

Last week, Kyle, Papa, and I went shopping at Costco. If you’ve ever been to Costco, you know that the highlight of the experience are the loads of good samples… unfortunately, I burned my tongue on some cajun chicken pasta penne stuff, which pretty much ruined the remainder of my sampling. I hate it when that happens!

We also had hot dogs there for lunch — two dogs split among us three, a perfect amount. As we left the eating area, I saw a little puddle under our cart. I looked at the underside of our cart but saw no broken bottles or anything, so I figured it must have been from someone else…

Wrong. As we were loading up the car, we discovered that we had a leak after all. It was the grapefruit! One of the fruit at the very bottom was rotting, and leaking grapefruit juice! I didn’t want that thing in the car, but it was at the very bottom so it would’ve taken a while to get it out, so Papa put it on the roof! I protested at first, because a) I was afraid it’d fall off, possibly leading to an accident, and b) I knew we’d get honked at by lots of “good Samaritans” notifying us that we “forgot” to load up our fruit. But, we did it anyway.

As I was backing out, looking over my shoulder, Continue reading ‘The Attention-Grabbing Grapefruit: A Sociological Adventure’

Another Shot At Dancing

As you may not know, while I am a fairly flexible guy, I’ve never been much for dancing. Physically, I’m a dancing god (I’m taking my own word for it ’cause I’ve never tried) but emotionally. . . ah, no.

It’s not that I haven’t tried to dance (Well, reluctantly at least). Before today, I had one other introduction into dancing, African dancing. Pa encouraged both Luke and I to go. He said that it would help us “loosen” up. Well, First going in, I could see that 90% of the people there were ladies and the other 10% were a little. . . not that there’s anything wrong with that. Aside from that, they were all “peace-y.” Now, I like my peace as much as everybody else, but when the dance teacher explained a dance move to the class by saying, “imagine you are pulling back an arrow. . . an arrow of love.” I groaned. Who am I, Cupid?! As you can see, it wasn’t a good start. Continue reading ‘Another Shot At Dancing’

Roses

Today, it was time to prune the Ghanko (spelled something like that) tree ’cause it was just getting way too big and was hanging over the road ‘n all.

It was pretty easy to trim ’cause we had new saw blades so it cut easy. The branches were very long and shot out far. They were also kinda bouncy. When cutting the really long ones, I had to wait for the cars to pass before cutting it off. A couple times, there were a few harrowing moments (lawsuit wise). I was halfway through cutting a big one when, halfway through (which I believe I already mentioned), It broke off. Fortunately, there was a branch below that was going parrallel to it so it was fortunate that it was right below it. So, it was balancing on the branch and I was holding the butt of it so it wouldn’t fall. Once the car passed, I pushed it off the branch and it started to go into the road but it bounced back to the curb.

Anyway, after getting it pretty manageable, we noticed that or neighbor’s rose bush/tree (it was pretty high) was getting tangled in our bamboo so I went up and tried to take out the part that was going into our property but it was hard ’cause not only was it tangly, there were massive thorns on ‘em and I didn’t have gloves on. I cut off a big chunk which was a bit of a mistake. I tried to pull it down (’cause the rose branches were right above me. But it was stuck on bamboo and itself. I got the pole pruners to sever the little ‘uns which would hopefully loosen it a bit to bring it down. After getting a few pieces off, I swept ‘em to the side and went back to prune more. Then *snik!* Up went a 1/4″ thorn into my toe! That was annoying! Why don’t people plant the thornless kind!? I tell ya, when the barefoot look comes back into style, roses will be much less popular.

Anyway, I finished the rose tree and then cleaned off my foot. It felt fine after a while.

Freezing Water

Well, last night was supposed to be the coldest night in 20 years. Well, I’m not sure if it was ’cause I slept right through it but I’m sure it was chilly ’cause in the morning, I went outside and the pan of water I left out there was frozen. (I would have gone ice skating but I’d only be able to fit one skate in the pan. Luke and I took the ice and threw it on the deck. It shattered interestingly.

You see, on Mondays and Fridays, we have a tradition of biking down to the beach to do our yoga and Tai Chi. Afterwards, we have a swim. It’s turned into a ritual for in order to get hot cocoa at marinis, we have to dive in the water.ice.JPG

Ok, back to the story. Since it was 42 degrees out and there was a chilly breeze, we weren’t sure if we were gonna bike down to the beach and do all that stuff. Well, I don’t know how but somehow, we decided to go. Boy, it was chilly outside! The bottoms of my feet felt like the heat was being sucked right out. Normally, when we go out, my feet feel fine but it was especially cold today. Anyway, we got our bikes out and rode to the beach.

When we got to the beach, we locked up our bikes and headed out on the sand. It was quite windy. We went to our usual spot by the big boulders and the cliff hoping the wind would be less there. It wasn’t (which wasn’t a problem of course). I was wearing a swiming shorts, shirt, vest and a warm windbreaker/jacket. I could feel some of the wind but none of the sun (even though it was chilly, the sun was out which was warm). I took off my upper clothing. The wind was much colder (since it was hitting my chest) but it was a bit better ’cause the sun was wamer.

After Yoga, we were getting ready to do Tai Chi (by starting Tai Chi). I noticed that the tide was out and the on the other side of the rocks, there was a little mini-beach that was usually covered by the ocean but was visible now. I decided to skip Tai Chi and check it out. Since the tide was out, I could get 3/4 of the way there without getting wet. Then I went in and had to go around the cliff. The water was rougher by the cliff than it was in more open part of the beach where we normally go. I had to walk slowely and carefully ’cause there was a lot of big slippery rocks in the sand. The water didn’t feel like a hot tub, let me tell you.

Anyway, I got to the beach and checked it out for a short time. I saw that there was a cave that went in a ways. I was worried that the tide would come back in again so I didn’t stay too long. Going back seemed easier than going there. After I got out of the water, it was pretty cold. I ran back (which dried off a lot of the water) to my jacket and towel and all and dried off. My hands were the coldest. After drying off and bundling up, we walked back to our biked and proceeded to bike along the wharf to Marinis. It was nice biking along the wharf ’cause the wind was at our backs so it wasn’t as cold and wasn’t hard to bike.

When we got there, we ordered a coffee and two hot cocoas. The coffee was piping hot so we all took turns wrapping our hands around it. We got back to normal tempature in there. Afterwards, we stepped outside and the wind was there to greet us. We got on our bikes and biked home. It was much harder biking home ’cause the wind was against us.

When we got home, we ran a bath. I was the last one to call “dibs” so I had to wait ’till the end but it gave me time for a preliminary warm up.

Finally, bath time! Whoo! It was worth the wait! Piping hot! So hot, it felt cold!

New Year’s Festivities

Well, this has been a very quiet New Year. Usually, the mall is packed with boozers, partiers, the occasional stabber and some people wild as mixing Pepsi and Mentos. Well, we went down to hear Luke play some Blues at Lulu Carpenters. As we all walked down, we saw these various groups of people gathered together and were doing partyfull things but I mean it wasn’t packed. Wasn’t too weird either. . . oh, besides the guy dressed up as a monk in a jet black robe and hood combo with a rope belt and holding a lantern. Continue reading ‘New Year’s Festivities’