Adventure

Mud bath

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I am happy to say that I checked riding in the back of a pickup truck naked and plastered in mud off my bucket list at a young age. Times with Jody were always an adventure even when her dad wasn’t taking us to the bar or we were trying to fight off teen boys.

Jody’s dad was a farmer, so that in itself was always an adventure. I remember walking around the barn during milking time. Looking at the bull raging in his pen was always exciting. One day while we were riding around the field in Jody’s go cart, she told me that the bull got loose. We sped around getting stuck in the mud, trying to get away from the bull that never showed.

Sometimes Jody’s dad would take us on his tractor. I remember sitting on the back of the hay wagon getting caked with alfalfa. That night I sneezed while my grandma plucked all of the alfalfa out of my hair. It was a big tangled up mess.

But the best story was when I went with Jody to the gravel pit. Her dad bought the property and was building a house. It was a warm day and one of the pits looked like a hot tub of mud. So we took off our clothes, except our underwear, and jumped in the mud. We were neck deep in our hot tub of mud when Jody’s dad found us. We had to sit on some lumber and hold onto the bar on the back of his truck to get home. What a sight we were. Two preteen girls, naked and covered with mud, sitting up in the back of the truck for the world to see. That was one fun day until Jody’s grandma hosed us down in the milk house.

Snow tires

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In our school district, we have a late bus that drops kids off at various locations after after school activities. The late bus has been a good experience, well except for that one time. What can I say? Snow tires!

When my son was in middle school, he took the late bus to the drop off spot after wrestling practice. One dark, cold, winter Friday night I went to pick him up and had a little adventure. I attempted to make a Y turn and slid on the ice into a snow bank. So here I was with the back end of my car hanging out sideways on the road. My headlights were buried in the snow and I was afraid that oncoming cars would not be able to see me. Yeah, right about that time I had the image in my mind of getting hit by the bus. I called my husband in freak out panic mode. He was in the middle of making supper and couldn’t get there right away. 

Right after I called home two men, that were strangers to me and each other, showed up and pushed my car out of the snow bank. I really appreciated their kindness. Immediately after that, my son showed up on the late bus. He got in the car and exclaimed that he forgot his homework and wrestling gear on the bus. Big problem because the wrestling meet was the next morning. So here I am trying to flag down a school bus in the dark. The first stop I tried to send my son to get his stuff but the driver didn’t see him and left. So here I am driving along side of the bus waving and honking trying not to hit kids wandering around in the dark. Finally my son got his things off the bus. 

In the meantime, my husband set aside supper to help get me out of the snow bank. Except, I was no longer there. He was getting really worried that perhaps by snow bank I meant ditch. Or something really bad happened, like the bus driving around with my car in its front grill. I tried calling him in the process, but he already left. Thankfully, we all made it home safely that night. This winter I will be sure to have good snow tires.  

Get a clue

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image

As a runner, I cringe every time I see this picture. In my former life, I was an actress. Ok, I had several lead parts in community theater to be more accurate. I wore these shoes when I played the part of Ms. Scarlett in Clue. It was my favorite part. I loved the character, I loved the music. It was one of the best times in my life. I walked in those shoes for 8 shows. I even dyed my hair dark brown. I got to make out on stage with Mr. Green, played by my husband. People asked us after the show if we were married to each other because if we weren’t we wouldn’t be married much longer. We had the chemistry. It was wonderful. 

But things weren’t always wonderful. Sometimes there was more drama back stage than on. Like that time that my husband was cast as “the husband” and I was the maid. I hated the part of having to be a servant of my husband and his new “wife”. The new wife was my age, beautiful, and outgoing. She demanded attention when I did not. The first time she met my husband she said to me, “your husband is so hot that I could do a little lap dance for him.” Needless to say an instant friendship wasn’t struck. That was the first time that my husband and I stepped down from a role. About a year later, his “wife” left her husband for another guy that she had a part with. 

I had a few other great roles; Cinderella, Glinda the Good, and the Sour Kangeroo (Seussical). We also had our whole family involved, it was great. My husband played the part of Scrooge and my son was Tiny Tim. Those were the days. 

Last night I watched my daughter perform as Alice in Alice in Wonderland. She is now filling out college applications for musical theater. She started at age 8 as a dwarf in the performance Snow White. Since then she has been in 30+ shows. There is nothing in the world like watching your daughter perform. It makes me miss the stage. I will be back. But I will not be wearing 3 inch heels. I wonder if I can perform in running shoes? 

Bean runs

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I have another confession to make. I am totally addicted to Jelly Belly jelly beans. I recently became a hummus addict too, but that is an altogether different bean. Last night we were invited to a bonfire. They had an excess of Almond Joy candy bars that my husband gladly disposed of. However, being good hosts, they noticed I was empty handed and wanted to know my poison. They gladly gave me 2 packs of Jelly Belly jelly beans. I devoured the first pack immediately. However, the second pack said energy sports beans. Oohh aahhh, that was interesting.  I decided to save those for my run today, then promptly forgot them there. 

Last year I decided to give something up for lent for the first time. Ash Wednesday fell on the anniversary of Aunt Grace’s birth and death. Yes, she passed away on her birthday! So I felt that it was a proper time. I decided to give up all snacking after supper and all desserts. I gave up cheesecake, tortes, cake, pie, pudding, ice cream, and all candy. Well, except for Jelly Belly jelly beans. But I could only eat a few at work in the morning. God knows I get paid beans!! You do know I run marathons for fun. If I start whipping myself or decide to give up beer and cheese for lent, please talk me out of it!

So if it was just a regular old candy bar, I would have said forget it after it was forgotten. But these were Jelly Belly sports beans. I NEEDED to try them. Our friends live 3 miles away. Since I was planning on running 6 miles I thought it would be perfect to run there, get the jelly beans, and run back home. But this involved change. Gulp! I run around a 6 mile block sometimes once, twice, three or more times on one run. I have been doing the same exact route for over a year without deviation. I run the same route, at the same time, on the same exact days. A couple months back a friend said that I needed to change my route to make sure that I am not favoring one leg over the other. So sometimes I run my route backwards. Lol. Change is hard. 

I know my route. I know when the train comes. I know what time the cops sit at the intersection. People know me. My haters would have to find someone else to force off the road into the ditch. My stalkers would need to find someone else to honk and wave at. People talk about me. They stop me on the road. They ask me what I am doing, when I am running my next race. They smile and wave. I recognize the bikers. I even get taunted. An older guy from church told me that he saw me walking (what!?!) and said that so-and-so who is older runs faster than me. She is better, you SUCK! I had ungodly thoughts like tripping her on the way up to communion. Terrible, I know.  Then I stalked her to find out she is a walker. Lies! Oh, the grief I get. 

So I decided to change my route just for one day and hesitantly embrace the unknown to get the jelly beans. Once I got them, I devoured half the bag on the way back. Then I thought, oh crap. What if the serving size is 2 jelly beans? I  worried that having a half a bag would cause explosive diarrhea. About scared the crap out of me. I don’t like those kind of runs. Check the label. Check the label!! Serving size, one bag. Good, good. It’s a miracle, I survived change. Now I can say I am spontaneous and open to change in arguments! Yes, but don’t expect me to change my routine again anytime soon. Unless you have jelly beans, that is. 

A stranger weekend

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Well I can check sleeping with strangers in a hotel room off my bucket list. Seriously though, I am not sure flippant things count as checking something off my bucket list. Do they? Or do they have to be long drawn out meticulously orchestrated premeditated plans like running a marathon? I certainly find that a lot more enjoyable! Or do I? I mean really, it was a hell of a lot of work. But I don’t enjoy the spontaneous checking things off my bucket list that I just added 5 minutes ago. Maybe these things need to be on separate lists. Maybe I am too structured. Are there rules? Hmmm. 

About the sleeping with strangers….. As some of you know, my best friend Lisa moved to Florida this past summer. She is probably sitting on the beach in the sun right now…ok, I have to stop thinking this way or my sanity will not be intact for winter. Anyway, after Lisa left Cindy came in and took her place. Cindy invited me to a girl’s weekend away with her two childhood friends that I didn’t know. We shopped, went out to eat, and got a massage. It was nice even though throwing an introvert in with complete strangers who know each other well can be a little awkward. I mean, I couldn’t share any juicy gossip. But I am quick with the jokes and love to make everyone laugh. 

Unlike Lisa, Cindy is not a runner. Gasp! Shocking, I know. She said she wants to put a 0.0 sticker on the back of her car just to spite me. She said opposites attract. She is crazy, fun, and carefree. I am excited to see what adventures we will share next. 

Grounded for life, part 2

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Sometimes things happen that really aren’t technically our fault, but could be because we didn’t do anything at all to stop them. Guilt by association. Inaction as an action. It is rather embarrassing sometimes to talk about events that happened when I was a child, the age my children are at now. Events that were stupid and childish looking back in middle age adult eyes. 

Today’s story takes place out in a very rural area by Mary’s house. I mentioned Mary previously, she was my friend that had 14 or 15 siblings. I can never remember. Please don’t make me mentally count each one by name. Randy wasn’t an only child either. He had 4 brothers. He shared a father with his oldest brother, each of his younger brothers had a different father. His older brother was along for the ride. Mary’s house was always a zoo, so we decided to take a walk. It was autumn, I remember that because the corn was high and ready for harvesting. Later that evening we were running through the corn fields hiding out. Randy’s brother lifted me up to see if I could see anything over the corn, but it was dusk and the husks were so high I could barely peek over. 

The trouble started when we got to the creek. Randy and his brother found a large sheet of plastic lying on the road near the bridge. It was like bubble wrap plastic. They thought it would be a great idea to burn the plastic. I still remember the sizzling and cracking sound of the burning plastic. To make matters more troublesome, Randy and his brother pulled out the signs for the bridge and threw them in the ditch. Around this time, Mary’s dad drove by on the way home from his third job. Mary told the boys that her dad was going to call the police if he saw the fire and suspicious activity. Not long after that we may have even heard sirens. And that is how I ended up over my head in a corn field at dusk. 

Mary decided she wanted to call her sister to see if their dad said anything. She babysat for the farmer’s kids down the road and said we should walk there so she could call home. I remember walking into her neighbor’s house at night to use their rotary phone. The TV was on and the farmer snored softly in his chair never waking up. I don’t know where the rest of the family was. It seems surreal that night in a stranger’s house as Mary called home. Mary’s dad didn’t see anything, so we walked back to her house. No one got grounded that night. 

Grounded for life, part 1

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The first time I met Randy was on the school bus. The bus was full when Randy got on except for one seat, my seat. He sat down next to me, jumped back up looking for another seat, and after finding none sat down next to me again. He nervously explained that he couldn’t sit by me because I was too beautiful, but there was nowhere else for him to go. He stuttered, chuckled, and wiped sweaty palms on his jeans. It was a couple weeks later in the middle of May that he asked me out. It snowed 6 inches on that day. My first relationship lasted as long as it took the May snow to melt away. But a friendship was struck since that first day. 

It was later that I learned more about the real Randy, but I will never know for sure. He never told the same story more than once. He loved to laugh and have fun. That was part of the problem. I learned later that he was in foster care for stealing a car for joy riding. Randy never caused me any harm, however trouble seemed to follow him everywhere he went. 

As a teen, I never had any boundaries. I was treated as an adult at a young age. I guess it was a benefit for having many adult responsibilities. For the most part I was trustworthy. There were times, however, that I wished I was grounded. Like the time Randy came over with a couple of friends to go out. For some reason, I was afraid of Randy’s friend. He was downright shady. There was something bad about him. My mom told me to go out and have a fun time when I really wanted her to say that I was grounded for life. I remember sitting in the back of this guy’s car. The floor was rusted out in the back seat. If you sat in the middle, you could see the ground. I was afraid that a bump would cause the whole back seat to fall out. 

There were other outings with Randy. He went to meet up with someone to talk about things that future felons probably discuss. I was offered a beer. Being the goodie two shoes that I was, I did not drink it but put it in my trunk. My dad found the beer. He told me I could get in a lot of trouble for that so I took the can and smashed it against some rocks. But I didn’t get grounded. 

The time I did get grounded though probably saved my life…

The adventures of Hickory

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Our foreign exchange student from Japan arrived safely Friday night. She was tired, so we gave her a little cheese and sent her off to bed. She already has the knickname of Hickory, very similar to her own name. I liked the name so much it made me long to have one more child. What? Wait! No!  Forget about that, but it is nice to have one teen in the house that doesn’t talk back. Lol. Everything is exciting and new for her. Her sense of wonder reminds me of a 2 year old without the tantrums. So far it has been a very pleasant experience. Paul and I would like to have a foreign exchange student longer than a week when our youngest is in high school. 

Saturday morning, Paul made bacon and pancakes with real maple syrup on top. As is customary when we have a family meal, we say a prayer in thanksgiving for our meal. We tried to explain to Hickory our culture and beliefs. Paul asked Hickory if she knows what Christianity is. “No” replied Hickory. He asked if she knows God. “No” replied Hickory. He asked Hickory if she knows about Jesus as he was bringing out the cheese. Very excitedly Hickory replied, “Yes, I know cheeses”. I suppose it will be confusing if we send her home with a cheesehead. She may end up telling her parents that we have a strange culture. Stories of us Wisconsinites worshipping cheeses before eating it. Stories of us worshipping strange men in cheese colored uniforms while wearing cheeseheads. Makes me wonder what other people think of us, huh? Don’t ya know? 

Hickory also arrived bearing gifts from Japan. She gave us green tea cookies and chocolate, a fan, soup bowls, chopsticks, and saki. The saki was wrapped in newspaper written in Japanese. Of course, I am thinking of sending back some good WI beer wrapped in newspaper. I could wrap it up and send it back in a cheesehead for protection. Hickory’s dad is a sushi chef. No pressure, right? We have been making a lot of “American” food for her. Paul is making his homemade pizza tonight. It is the best pizza ever. Good thing you don’t know where we live. We are thinking of getting her dad either a Brewers or Packers apron. Now if we could only get some brats and cheese to them…hmmm. 

Other than that, we have been trying to show Hickory as much of our culture as we can. Last night we went to a chili dump. Some of the other foreign exchange students were there. They had a bonfire, live music, pumpkin carving, a piñata, and other yard games. Today we played miniature golf and had a picnic at a park with the school group. I hope she really has a good experience here. And she doesn’t go home telling everyone that we worship cheeses. 

Welcome home?

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On an airplane right now sits a young 13 year old girl flying from Japan with a few of her classmates to America. Her destination, my house. We will be hosting a foreign exchange student for 1 week. She doesn’t speak a lot of English and is probably nervous about the kind of family she is going to meet. I would be nervous if I was her too. Especially if she read some of my blogs from the last few weeks. Lol. 

Thankfully Jake made it home safely before her arrival. After my son and his friend tried to stop Jake from running away, Jake started his journey on the railroad tracks in the rain. He walked all night to obtain his sense of freedom as he told his friends. He walked 30 miles that night. Then he was cold, tired, and hungry and decided to turn around and head back home. Maybe the adventure of all of the survival reality shows spurred him on. Never mind the search efforts back at home. If I had to place bets on any of my son’s friends winning a survivor show, it would be Jake. He is a tough avid outdoorsman. When my son asked Jake how his sense of freedom felt, Jake replied terrible. I would suggest marathon running for Jake next time instead of running away. At least he would get a medal. I think he learned his lesson, so it is probably best not to say anything for awhile. 

Talking about running, I did get in a 12 mile run today. I had no motivation at all. It was cool and very windy. I spent half of the time running against that strong wind. At times I felt like I was running in place. That was almost enough to knock the wind out of my sails. Lol. Today I feel hungry! I haven’t felt hungry in months. I think my body wants to go into hibernation mode to put some meat on my bones for winter. 

I hope our foreign exchange student likes it here. I have always wanted to do something like this. I guess I will find out how good I am at nonverbal communication. What an adventure!

The 1st (planned) overnight sail

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Last year for my husband’s birthday, we planned our first overnight sail on our sailboat. Technically, it wasn’t our first overnight sail. But we won’t talk about that. If you want to read about everything that could go wrong without sinking the boat, feel free to read the accidental overnight sail post. It was pretty funny, but not at the time. 

As I mentioned briefly previously, I got my first ear cartilage piercing for my 40th birthday. I am a very ritualistic and rule oriented person, at times borderline OCD. My world consists of order, rules, rules, rituals, and more rules. My rules. My structure. I am an extreme person. That is just the way I am. So, I got my ear pierced for my birthday. It required cleaning 3 times a day for 12 weeks. Ok, I got that, no problem. My husband’s birthday was exactly 12 weeks to the day after I got the cartilage piercing. It would be perfect to change the earring right before we left for the overnight sail, or so I thought. I had a hoop earring that I wanted to try. 

Removing the back of the earring stud required a lot of yanking. My ear was “ear itated” before I got the earring out. Then it started to swell and bleed. I tried to get the hoop in which was impossible. I could barely get it into my regular ear piercings. Hmmmm, now this is where I really went wrong. I put a nickel earring stud into the ear cartilage piercing and left for the overnight sail. 

It was a perfect early fall day for a sail. It was warm and windy, but not too windy. We sailed several hours to get to the resort. Once we got there, it was during the week and the pool was closed for the season. There was not much to do. By the time we got there, my ear doubled in size. I thought that maybe my piercing was infected. I was so stressed that I couldn’t eat. Worried. This is the point when my acid reflux acted up again as an adult but I didn’t know at the time what it was. 

The next day we headed back home. I called the ear piercing place and they said I was probably allergic to the nickel earring. I found that strange because I didn’t have problems with nickel in my regular ear piercings. They suggested putting the piercing stud back in. This was problematic because I was on open water and didn’t have any other earrings with me. The minute I got home, hours later, I put my piercing stud back in and haven’t taken it out since. I am almost afraid to. I felt bad that my seemingly great idea turned my husband’s birthday into a big mess of anxiety. I have only stayed overnight on the sailboat once since then. It was for our anniversary when the big unexpected storm hit. 

Why does everything have to be so eventful in my life?? Well, it sure gives me things to write about and at times things to laugh about.