Who Needs Enemies?

So I have this friend, Andrea. She and I met a long time ago when I was working in Georgia. We worked at the same agency in with me starting about six months prior to her. Before she started working we got along fine. I helped her and her (now) husband move into their house and welcomed them to the area. Of course, once we actually were working in the same office our personalities clashed in a big way. I don’t know the technical term but basically we couldn’t stand each other. This continued for about six months but then one day we made amends and have been very good friends ever since. Of course, I use the term friends loosely in her case.

After a few years of working together Andrea decided to take a job in Harrisburg, PA just outside of where I grew up and where most of my family still lives. Since we were on better terms by this point I encouraged her to contact my family for help with moving and getting acclimated to the area. Again, this would seem to indicate a healthy and normal relationship, but it gets better. Now I’m living in the SC and travel frequently to visit my family (still in the Harrisburg area) so I see Andrea and her family quite often.

Nothing about this seems at all out of sorts but the relationship that Andrea and I have seemed to settle in on is one of antagonism and something I like to call my evil social conscience. Andrea has a way of putting me in my place. Now granted, it’s usually deserved but sometimes she’ll take matters into her own hands and goes out of her way to make things difficult at my expense. This almost exclusively happens regarding women. Even though we live about two hours away and she only knows a handful of the women I know (mostly because she introduced me) this happens more than I’d like and usually does not end well for me. Andrea likes to say that her second job in life is keeping me in line. I guess it’s kind of flattering since she’s a wife, a mother, has a high caliber job, and taking care of me is her second job but maybe that’s not much of a compliment.

I can say though, for all of our differences and angst in our relationship, I love her very dearly and cherish her friendship. Of course her husband is definitely the cooler half in that relationship and their daughter trumps them both. Also, she could win a few cool points if she wasn’t such a Barry Manilow fan.

Let's Ride

As I’ve stated in previous posts, this year’s cycling season started extra early due to some unexpectedly warm weather in late March and early April. While I’ve been logging a good number of miles, I still feel like I haven’t been riding enough. Of course, this was all put into perspective when I was talking with Ieva. Upon her mention that she had been very negligent on her riding, I decided to kill two birds with one stone.

The main reason Ieva hasn’t been able to ride much is because she is a new mother and, as logic would dictate, spends the majority of her time being a mother. I got in touch with Ieva and told her that we were going to ride over the weekend. I explained to her that I had nothing planned for the weekend other than, at a minimum, spending time on the trails with her. If she was going to rebuff my riding request she was going to need a seriously bonzer reason. Based on this rigid criterion, Ieva had no real outs and was okay with being told she had to ride.

Saturday morning brought some early discussions about a possible ride plan and some general ranges on time. Since Ieva’s schedule is dictated by the ever adorable Anders, she didn’t really get much say in when things would occur. It was going to be a quick decision so all my gear was prepared in advance. At about eleven o’clock we pulled the trigger. I scooped Cathy en route to Ieva’s and by noon we were on the trail.

We didn’t do a very aggressive or long ride. It was the standard loop up Camp Trail; across the ridge; down Kettle; along Lower Lonberger; Three Bridges; and back to the Forestry Lot, so everything was very familiar. The main difference with this particular ride was the fact that Ieva was included. That made all my dabs and falls, and missed logs, and blown lines, and generally poor riding completely irrelevant. The important part was that Ieva had a great time and the pizza and beer that followed was proof enough for me.

Camp

This past weekend marked the annual spring gobbler hunt and pig roast Brian hosts at his family’s camp. Usually camp officially opens on Thursday night with dinner and typically only a few people make it out therefore the Friday morning hunt is a small group. This year I decided to take a day off of work so I could hunt on Friday morning and enjoy some additional quiet time at camp. While I had never done an entire camp weekend (for any season) I had been out on several single day hunts so I had an idea of what to expect but I was in for a surprise.

So this was the weekend plan: get up early on Friday and hunt all morning, do some work at the cabin Friday afternoon and get a decent night of sleep. Saturday we would get up early to hunt and get back to the cabin before noon to prepare for the evening’s festivities. Even though Saturday was going to be more of a family environment, the two days prior would be full-on man camp. It would be all about shooting guns, playing cards, telling lies, drinking a beer or two, fishing at the pond and doing our best to shoot a turkey. Like most good plans though, there is always room for alterations.

So my abbreviated report of camp goes something like this: we ate way too much food that was way too salty, drank way too much beer, stayed up way too late, got up way too early, and had way too few vegetables (unless iced animal crackers count as a vegetable). I realize this is not the most detailed bit of storytelling but in my defense I’m not leaving out details because there is some code that you can’t talk about camp, it’s more because I don’t necessarily remember a whole lot more than that.

In the end though, it was a great weekend. Being out in the woods for a few days to hunt in the morning and relax on a porch in the afternoon isn’t a bad way to spend some time. As a final note I think it’s important to point out that no turkeys were harmed during the weekend of research for this post. In fact, no one even got off a shot, but it was still a lot of fun trying.

Bor-a-palooza

Lately I’ve been catching some flak from a few of my fans about the lack of pizazz in my posts. This did not come as a new revelation to me. I, for the most part, lead a very simple and boring life. I can only write about snowboarding or mountain biking for so many weeks in a row without getting bored myself. I get the fact that I need to keep things interesting so people will keep coming back but let’s face it, I can’t be “on” all the time. Even clowns cry once in a while (which makes me more afraid of them).

In order to keep with my plan of posting every week I have to let a few duds slide through. Sometimes my quality control system is off but usually I know when a post is going to be poorly received. Sure I could skip a week or two when I can’t think of anything lively to write but I’d rather disappoint a few readers than let the blog languish for an extended period of time. Besides, if I skip one week what’s to say I’m not going to skip ten? Then where would we be? Being able to write what I want when I want is one of the benefits of being the author of this train wreck (actually, that is the only perk I’ve found to date).

So last week was my 100th post. That’s right 100 times I sat down and strung together a bunch of letters to form some sort of tale either true, false, or somewhere in between. Some posts have been funny while others have been downright dumb. I’ll let you form your own opinions about this post but I think I know how you’re going to feel.

I’ll Take Your Word For It

So this past weekend I managed to get in a mix of both work and play. I accomplished a few projects in my yard and also managed to find some time to ride some trails. Sunday turned out to be a bit rainy and overcast but Brian and I decided to make the most of it and headed out for some suffering in Rothrock. I stopped by Spring’s house to pick up Brain but got briefly side-tracked by television and snacks. After about an hour of that we decided to rally and headed to the forest.

The ride was nothing special. It was humid and kind of rainy so by the end I was wet and slimy and in need of a shower. Instead, I decided to hang out at Spring’s for a bit to visit with Brian and Spring and enjoy some more snacks. After a bit, I excused myself from the table and went into the bathroom to blow my nose. As I went to discard the tissue I noticed something in the trash can that disturbed me to say the least. Now, I should mention that Brian and Spring are on the cusp of full-on cohabitation so, being a good friend (or at least a nosy one) I decided to inquire about the sight that was found at the bottom of the aforementioned waste receptacle because I thought it could be a deal breaker for their relationship.

What was the offending sight you ask? Well, at the bottom of the trash can were several cotton tipped swabs (sorry, no product placement here) with jet black ends. Being a person that cares about hygiene I have a box of cotton swabs that I use to clean out my ears so I assume others do the same thing. I figured it was important to inquire about the black ends in case one of the two individuals sitting in the other room had a serious inner ear issue because, while I’m not a doctor, I’m pretty sure that isn’t a good thing.

Once this discovery was made public, Spring began to spin a yarn about how she doesn’t have a steady hand when she puts on her mascara (most likely from all the wine she drinks) and has to remove the excess with the cotton swabs. Since I have no experience with mascara I decided to believe her. Also, I figured even if she was lying, I didn’t want to hear any other justification so with my curiosity appeased the conversation was promptly changed. After all, there are some explanations that should be accepted no matter what.