Men in Trees

"Here the odds are good but the goods are odd."

Theresa to Marin about the 10 to 1 ratio of men to women in Elmo, Alaska

Afraid

I am not afraid of anything...except really, really big bugs, falling off a bridge, sharp knives and, now apparently, young thugs with guns. The fact that I was able to add this last fear to my list means that my weekend went oddly awry on Saturday. It means that instead of posting a blog about how amazing my dad is for Father's Day, I got to spend time at the police station trying to find the face of the nervous punk who challenged my faith in the goodness of all people.

I should have...I could have...what? Walked home a different way? Left earlier? Later? Been more aware? Yeah sure...any of those would have put us in a different space at a different time... but so what? Everyone assures me that it could have happened anywhere...at anytime... and I think that is what scares me most.

My personal motto is that it is not the situations that you face that define you. It is how you deal with the situations that define who you are. Hockey Boy was brave at the time and has handled everything since with equal bravery. I tried to be brave as well but was not successful. I apparently am not built that way. So now I am trying to not let it define me. I do not want to be afraid to walk in my neighborhood. I do not want to be afraid of every young black kid I see on the sidewalk. I do not want to believe that there is no goodness in people.

I was shaken up but I was not hurt. This is my focus. It could have been a whole lot worse. The officer who accidentally drove up in the middle of this drama and chased the kid...was that just us being lucky... or someone up there still believing in me even though I stopped believing years ago? How many signs do I need?

I will endeavor to be more aware...looking out for thugs with guns...and for really, really big bugs with knives trying to force me off a bridge.

A joke from Jules...

What did we ever do before the technology to get jokes daily from our friends in Georgia was available? This joke arrived in my inbox today and made me laugh, and while I have already forwarded it to most of you who read this, I didn't want anyone to feel left out. Besides I am suffering a severe case of Blog Clog caused mainly by trying to remember who reads this and deciding what I can say with out giving away secrets causing parental embarrassment, relationship failures or breaches of national security.

A male patient is lying in bed in the hospital, wearing an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, still heavily sedated from a difficult four hour, surgical procedure.

A young, student nurse appears to give him a partial sponge bath. Nurse", he mumbles, from behind the mask. "Are my testicles black?" Embarrassed, the young nurse replies, "I don't know, Sir. I'm only here to wash your upper body and feet."

He struggles to ask again, "Nurse, are my testicles black?" Concerned that he may elevate his vitals from worry about his testicles, she overcomes her embarrassment and sheepishly pulls back the covers. She raises his gown, holds his penis in one hand and his testicles in the other, lifting and moving them around.

Then, she takes a close look and says, "There's nothing wrong with them, Sir!!"

The man pulls off his oxygen mask, smiles at her and says very slowly, "Thank you very much. That was wonderful, but, listen very, very closely...

A r e - m y - t e s t - r e s u l t s - b a c k?"


Thanks for the giggle, Jules!

Arrgghhh!

In my eternal search for the real me, I have stumbled on a few interesting alter egos. The latest was a pirate wench, which, if you know me at all, is not that far a stretch. This picture is of me (with fake hair, of course, but authentic wench cleavage) and the other two Lushkateers: Jules (surprisingly not in costume) and Rach (who was a hoochie pirate). It was taken at the annual Blackbeard Festival in Downtown Hampton which is not as much to celebrate the history of pirates but more of an excuse for otherwise normal adults to dress up and drink copious amounts of grog.

My pirate crew (which included a piratized Hockey Boy even though it was Game 3 of the Stanley Cup) decided to skip the Grand Pirates Ball which is both hoyty and toyty. We opted to do the two things pirates do best: hang around the docks and drink rum. Apparently it is also appropriate for pirates to do jello shooters though I don't recall reading that in the history books. There was lots of "arrrgghh"-ing but minimal pillaging and almost no plundering.

As the evening wore on and the rum bottles emptied ("Why is the rum always gone?"), the dock party moved inland for our own safety. Saturdays Downtown the main street is cordoned off for the block party and there are at least 4 bands. Little known fact: Pirates LOVE live music and drunk pirates LOVE dancing to live music. I have pictures to prove this but they are not pretty and are currently locked in a vault in case Rach ever decides to run for public office. Hockey Boy found a TV showing the game and I found a bartender who believed my theory that pirates love Cosmos. Jules remembered why she doesn't come home from Georgia as often as we'd like.

Alas, even a pirate has to call it a day at some point and, in the misty early morning hours, a certain pirate wench and her Hockey Pirate could be seen following their own verson of a treasure map back home. It was time to de-pirate and pack it all away until next year. As far as my alter-egos go, Pirate Wench may well be one of my favourites. Afterall, I'm a girl who likes a little booty.

BONUS: Go to www.piratequiz.com to find out your pirate name!

Stopping to smell the flowers...

I am a big fan of the stopping to smell the flowers theory. Always have been. I use it to disguise the fact that I am not punctual... "Sorry I'm late...stopped to smell the flowers...". People seem okay with that -- although most people don't believe it and just start lying to me about start times which is probably easier in most situations. Today, however, there was stopping involved, and flowers but sniffing was not really an option....

I was walking my used pup, Marley (who is bigger and dumber than in earlier posts) when we stopped to see a whole field of flowers drawn on the sidewalk with chalk. They were quite lovely and made me smile! Made me want to go get out my set of sidewalk chalks myself (oh, you know I have 'em!). I'm no florist or horticulturist or whatever you call people who know about flowers but being able to identify the various species was unimportant. It was about the stopping so stop we did. I tiptoed through the tulips and daisies or whatever they were, careful not to smudge the petunias. It was delightful.

In all fairness, Marley did do a lot of sniffing on that walk so it was not entirely sniff-free but the point is there was stopping...and there were flowers....and I was late for work.