Jeffy wishes I would learn to ride the gondola

Last night I had this really bizarre dream. And, shut up Jeffy, I know you hate reading about my dreams, but you were in this one.

I dreamed that Jeffy and I had gone skiing in Europe, and oddly the resort was at the top of the mountain, and we had to take this weird silver ball-shaped gondola thing down to the base of the mountain to get on a ski lift to go back up the mountain so we could ski down again. I know that doesn't make any sense, but my dreams usually don't.

I was worried because I wasn't sure how to get into the gondola thing. The guy running the gondola said "we take the top off and you get in". So he took the top off and we got in so now we were sitting in basically a silver bowl with chairs but nothing to hold onto except the side of the bowl. Then the gondola guy pushed the bowl off of the platform we had just been standing on. I was like what the fuck is this guy doing? we aren't strapped in yet!

I looked up and saw that the bowl was suspended to a beam by four stretchy ropes, and we were plummeting down towards the bottom of the mountain when suddenly the ropes got taut and made us bounce up towards the platform again. Jeffy was sitting with his arms spread out on the chairs to either side of him, and he had his legs stretched out in front with one foot crossed over the other. He didn't seem to have a care in the world. I was clinging to the side of the bowl for dear life and sliding off of my chair.

Then the bowl flipped over and I almost fell out. I yelled to the gondola guy, as we fell past him, that I wanted off the gondola. He said "no one gets off the gondola". I was like "oh god Jeffy, we're going to die" and he said "I wish you would learn to just relax and enjoy yourself". I said I was afraid because we were falling and the gondola was out of control so how could I relax and he said "no matter how many times I take you somewhere, you never learn to ride the gondola, and then you annoy me".

I looked over the edge of the bowl and realized we were about to hit the ground at a very fast speed. Then I woke up.

why I make fun of canadians - my fake shark attack

Sometimes people think I make fun of canadians because it's so easy. But that's not true. I make fun of them because they have this canadian way about them. You know how clothes are sold in discount places if they're defective? Canadians would be the defective americans sold in those shops.

Case in point...

I was on a vacation in St. Maarten with my friend Rita (links to other stories from this vacation are at the end of this post; they also make fun of canadians). On the second day of our vacation, after spending the day snorkeling, we went to a pizza place for dinner. We overheard some canadians talking about how dangerous it was to swim in the waters of St. Maarten. Rita, being much more social than I, interjected into their conversation to report that we had spent the whole day in the water and except for seeing some barracuda, had no problem.

One of the guys (who later in the night tried to bite beads out of my hair, subsequently getting us kicked out of a bar) said "No, it's very dangerous! Just today I saw a woman get attacked by a shark in knee deep water!" All the other canadians decided they would be safer spending the rest of their vacation golfing.

I thought golfing in St. Maarten? Seriously? For fuck's sake. Or maybe I said that out loud to them. I was a few beers into the evening so the rest of the conversation is a blur. But, being obsessed with sharks, I found it intriguing that there had been an attack. I made Rita promise that the next day we would go snorkeling to find the man eater.

Later in the evening, however, I realized that I was the one that the canadians thought had been attacked by a shark. What happened was...

Earlier that day, I had promised Rita I would teach her how to snorkel, but I was so hung over all I could do was lay on my chair 3 feet from the water and contemplate cutting my head off so it would stop hurting.

I finally fell asleep, and Rita, who was pissed about the snorkeling, decided it would be funny to put some cheese puffs between my toes. I hate cheese puffs and had been making fun of her for eating them all morning. Finally the drinks guy came around, and I managed to wake up enough to order a pina colada (hair of the dog that bit me).

Then I decided, after my drink arrived, that I would feel even more refreshed if I went into the water. I should mention here that the beach we were on was a topless beach. So, there I was, topless, hung over, carrying a pina colada and smoking a cigarette as I waded into the water. I imagine myself looking like a blond, skinny version of Bill Murray.

I waded into the water, focusing on not getting my cigarette wet, when suddenly I felt a pinching pain in my foot. I looked down and about 10 fish were biting my right foot. "What the fuck" I thought to myself. I lifted my right foot out of the water, and the fish suddenly focused on my left foot, biting me again. "God dammit!" I yelled, and then proceeded to start high stepping in the water, boobs flopping around, trying to keep at least one foot from getting bitten. Finally I am pretty sure I shrieked like a hysterical school girl and ran out of the water (spilling my pina colada).

Rita was doubled over on her chair laughing. I threw what was left of my pina colada on her and yelled "I could have DIED!" Later she told me about the cheese puffs between my toes. We ended up taking them with us when we finally went snorkeling, after I had a second pina colada that didn't get spilled, so we could get the fish close to us.

So that was my fake shark attack, courtesy of canadian imagination (bet you didn't know they occasionally have imagination).

I wish I could say it was the worst thing to happen on that vacation (besides almost drowning in the hotel pool, having a pervert lick my foot, and being accosted by other canadians), but later that week, because of snorkeling, I almost killed myself in the bathroom. For more on that vacation see http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2009/03/hott-tomato.html and http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2007/02/commodal-concussion.html.

Luv R/X - climbing for couples

So My Other Nine Lives is not my first two year book project...

In 2007 a guy named Dave was looking for a co-author for a book that was the brain child of my friend Joe (aka Brassy, I've written about him before - http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2009/03/rebuttal-by-joe-josephson.html), who at the time owned First Ascent Press (at this point I didn't know Joe). The book was supposed to be a serious relationship book to help couples who climb together.

Dave initially wanted to get this girl who was a famous climber with big tits to help him. Unfortunately she was depressed and hating on men because she had just had a bad break up (which begs the question why Dave thought she would be a good co-author - see comment about "big tits"). Anyway, he was talking to my friend Will and Will sent him a link to my blog. Then Dave read my blog and asked Will what I was like because he was looking for a co-author.

So I was sitting in a customer office at 730 in the morning when I see this email from Will:

She's one insanely bright, very ironic and overall entertaining person. She could well be good for the project. As per usual, the best way to deal with her is straight up, so I've cc:ed her. FF, meet Dave and vice versa. You two have no fun together now, y'hear?

I was like, what the hell is this? Then I saw this email from Dave:

Will,

 

Thanks. “Bright” can be a bit of a liability in the molasses of the modern aether, However, irony is always appropriate, and “insanely” anything is invariably promising. It’s the next question that always gets me into trouble.

 

“But can she type?”

 

Hi, Franki.

I was excited about the prospect of writing a book, and a bit put off by the "can she type" question. So instead of doing the appropriate thing, which would have been to think before responding, I sent this:

  

Of course I can type. My favorite word to type is vagina. If that's not in your dictionary maybe you should switch to the US version of English, rather than the Canadian version. In the lower 48* we also recognize crotchless as a word.

Hi David.

*based on contiguous land mass

 Surprisingly, Dave took me on as a co-author. I was excited and put together an outline, with bullets for each chapter. I put together a schedule, estimates on the words for each chapter based on the overall word count Dave had supplied. Will must have known what I was in for, because his last email said:

Nice to see two friends having some fun and possibly work. I take all credit and no responsibility for the creative celebration or disaster that may ensue. Good luck.

(highlighting added by me)

Over the next 6 months I wrote 140 pages, about 50K words. Dave wrote nothing. He didn't even read the stuff I wrote. I would send him chapters with a request for comments, and when he finally got around to responding to my emails it was usually a one word sentence making fun of me, with a picture attached of Dave skiing, climbing, or doing other stuff that was NOT writing the book.

In the end, Joe's publishing business went bankrupt. The book was never finished. Dave never wrote anything, except to add a line that said something to the effect of  "allowing your climbing partner to have a bite off of your gas stationed purchased burrito shows you are a true climbing couple".

I recently talked to Joe about taking what I wrote and trying to condense it into a series of articles for a climbing mag. He seemed enthusiastic, but he hasn't read anything yet. 

That's why I need to paint him a magic writing dinosaur. Then maybe he'll want to write with me.

 

painting and plants

If you've never been to the Denver Botanical Gardens (http://www.botanicgardens.org/) I highly recommend it. It's almost a crime that I lived here for so long and just went. I liked it so much I bought a membership for myself and my dad.

There's tons of cool indoor plants. This one was my favorite. It's called the lollipop plant. How ridiculous does that look? And I guess I have a more than usual appreciation of people who can grow plants and not kill them. I've even managed to kill a cactus. One of my favorite cacti has some kind of mange. And my stupid white peace roses are probably dead (there's nothing but stems left, though one stem is still green) and the dirt has some kind of mold on it.

There's a whole room of orchids, and plenty of outdoor gardens to walk through, with cool statues. It was fun to see even with all of the snow.

And, hee, I had to take a picture of this person's painting. In the main building I saw 3 painters set up in these little areas where they can put an easel. She paints like me! But maybe worse.

Which reminds me, I owe my friend Joe a painting of a writing dinosaur...maybe I'll do that today...

soup!

My soup turned out really well! It even looked like the picture in the book. And I didn't die even though the chicken broth I used had expired.

I brought some soup to the FRG when we met at the climbing gym, and he said it was good.

Maybe I am learning to cook. Which is good, since I plan on redoing my kitchen, and want to justify the cost beyond adding to the resale value of my house.

dead babies, dead ambition

My brother and I were joking all last week about the dead baby painting at DIA (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_denver02.htm#Part%20Four%20-%20Dead%20Babies%20and%20Commander%20Skeletor). So at first I thought that's why I had a disturbing dream on Saturday...

In the dream there was a completely featureless crying baby, and me. We weren't even standing on a floor or in a building. The space around us was three dimensional, and gray, but it wasn't "real" space. Anyway, the baby was crying really loudly and annoyingly (even though it didn't have a mouth) and I started smacking it, and then hitting it really hard to try to make it stop crying. Even though I was hitting it hard it didn't make a difference, the noise stayed the same. So finally I thought "I have to kill this baby to get it to shut up" and then another part of me said "if you kill this baby, you will die".

So, understandably, I was freaked the fuck out when I woke up. I knew the baby was mine even though I don't even have a uterus to have a baby. So I looked it up in my dream book and under baby one of the things it said was "represents a secret dream or ambition". I think the baby is supposed to represent my book, and even though I keep wanting to give up and just say fuck it, I have to see it through because it's going to scream in my subconscious for the rest of my life if I do.

Or else, I had too much to drink that night, and had a fucked up dream that is the fault of my brother constantly laughing about the dead baby painting at DIA.

By the way, don't shake the baby.

http://www.practicenotes.org/vol1_no3/dont_shake_the_baby.htm

puree of vegetable soup - another reason why I hate cooking

So today I decided to make some healthy vegetable soup. My friend Cam lent me a Williams Sonoma cook book with soup recipes that, she said, "even a moron could follow".

So I decided to make the puree of vegetable soup, which is leeks, carrots, potatoes, zucchini, garbanzo beans, some tomato paste, and a few other things. I used a box of open chicken broth for the broth part, even though it's been open in my frig for 4 weeks and expired 4 March. I asked the FRG and he said it was okay to use it.

Anyway, the first thing I had to do was finely chop leeks and put them in some oil. I've never seen a leek before, and had no idea what part of it I was supposed to put in the soup. So I watched this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6zHAIfyJxI. I gave it a thumbs up even though it wasn't really helpful because her leek didn't look like my leek.

Then I texted the FRG and asked if a leek is comprised of one leaf thingy or the whole stalk thingy. He said to put in the whole stalk thingy, which is not what was in the video. And he said to peel off the outside leaves if they looked "old and dry". Well, the whole damn leek looked old and dry to me. I started peeling off the outside leaves and then there was like nothing left. So finally I just chopped off the really bushy looking parts and this is what I had left. I have no idea if this is the "leek" part that was supposed to go in the soup.

The FRG insisted I get one of those rocker knives that make it easy to cut shit up if you know how to use a knife. I decided to use it today to cut up my leek and vegetables. After about 30 seconds I stabbed myself in the palm with it and changed my game plan to putting everything in the chopper thing I bought from pampered chef at the party where I got drunk because I saw some guy get hit by a train in downtown Baltimore (got the chopper back from Miss Daisy when I moved):
(http://blonstar40.blogspot.com/2008/02/bad-train-story.html).
The whole soup had to go into the blender anyway, so I figured who cares if I cut it by hand or not...

So I got everything "simmered" (not sure what that means, so I put the heat on medium and went outside and smoked for a while), pureed in the blender, and was down to the last step, when I came across the sentence "add salt and pepper to taste". What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Why don't you just tell me how much salt and pepper to put in? Because this is supposed to be a cookbook for morons! I don't know how to taste if something needs more salt or pepper!

I swear, this is why women get a bad rep. The cook book was written by a woman. Why don't you just tell me how much fucking salt you want? Why are you making me guess? Oh, I know, so you can say "that's wrong, I wanted more salt (or less salt) you don't know me at all, I guess you don't care about me". That's why guys get frustrated with women, all you ladies out there. So, next time you write a cook book, think like me, a female engineer. Add MEASUREMENTS because I know you are capable. How do I know you are capable...

Because most women can tell you how much they weighed ten years ago and what size clothes they wore. So how is it that they can't tell you how much salt they put in their fucking soup?

I may bring some soup to the FRG tomorrow if I don't die from eating expired chicken broth. I'll let you know what he says (unless I am dying from food poisoning).