Deep Conversations

Before starting this post, let me just say that I've honestly had a drafted post in my "Edit" file for weeks now on the making over of our upstairs bathroom. However, I've held off posting it since I still don't have the pictures to upload (for the extra flavoring).

Now, on to the post.

This is (nearly word for word) a conversation had by my mother and I in front of our local Family Video tonight, arguing over who would take back the movie:

The time - 10:30 p.m.

We're on our way to pick up my brother and need to return a rental by midnight. We're sitting in front of the movie shack - I in the driver's seat, my mom in the passenger's seat, closest to the building. There are no other cars in the parking lot, save for one silver pick-up truck. My mom is in her "pj's," a pair of pastel capris coupled with a robin's egg blue t-shirt. I'm wearing a pair of Nike shorts and a Pitt Zoo t-shirt. These are important facts, so pay attention. Now, on to the dialogue.

me: "You've got the DVD?"

Mom: "Yeah. Here."

"Well no, you go - just stick it in the return slot."

"No?!"

"Yes?!"

"No!"

"Why not?"

"Look at me! I'm in my pj's!"

"So? I go INTO the store in my pj's all the time."

(look of horror) "Well I'm not getting out the car looking like this."

"C'mon, I'm in the driver's seat."

"So?"

"So?...I don't want to put the car in park."

"Uuuuugh..."

(two seconds of silence)

(unison) "You gonna go? NO!"

me: "Why'd you wanna come?"

Mom: "To keep you company?"

"Wha?...okay, come on. Just go stick it in the slot. You don't even have to go inside."

"But there's a guy in there!"

"Since when do you care?? You're married!"

"I'm in my pj's!"

"Those're barely pj's. I'm in shorts and a t-shirt, and I'll probably wear those to bed, so I'm in my pj's too!"

"I'm not going!"

"C'mon, please? I'll give you a quarter?"

(cocks head) "Uh, no."

"No really, a quarter. (silence) Okay, two quarters, both my own, too."

"What?! No!"

"Okay, three quarters....a dollar."

(silence) "No! Just do it yourself, you dork."

(gasp) "Are you serious? You wouldn't take a dollar to walk, oh, thirty steps to drop a movie in a slot? Are you crazy? You can pick the type of money, change or paper..."

"No."

(long pause)

"...would you pay ME a dollar?" (grins)

I ended up doing it. *sigh*

Playing Catch Up on the Updating

Okay, folks, this is going to have to be done practically bullet style to fit it all in before I leave, but I’ll try my best to put it into sentence form before then. Here it goes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday was definitely a lazy day. Almost everyone else had day trips planned for other islands (some went as far as Nagshead, others went to Kitty Hawk to see the Wright Brothers’ museum). With nothing to do but play pool, gin, and black jack all day, Rob decided we should go in the pool (as I mentioned in a previous post, we had an in-ground pool just outside our room). As it turned out, the pool was a good diversion – someone had left some pool-friendly sports equipment outside by the water’s edge, which we grabbed and used for lacrosse (didn’t stay with that very long) and also badminton. Well, the lacrosse game wasn’t working well with only two people, but when we switched to badminton, we couldn’t smack the little ball far enough across the pool. Therefore, we decided to combine the games: use the badminton’s sponge rackets but the lacrosse’s wiffel ball. This seemed to work for us, and we got some really good volleys going. We decided to call it quits after awhile, but not before I took a wiffel ball to the head – I had just reached around to pick up the first wiffel ball that had been floating in the water behind me when I turned around just in time to take Rob’s spare wiffel ball serve right between the eyes. I had happy little wiffel ball holes imprinted on my forehead for the next several minutes.

Rob thought it would be fun to switch it up a bit and rent some bikes to cycle over to Avon and see The Dark Knight at the Avon theatre. Good idea, except that when I Googled the directions, it would be an 18 mile bike. Up hill. Eh…

Luckily, my grandfather and uncle were heading that way to go watch the ships come in (as mentioned in the previous post) so we hopped a ride with them. That night, we went and watched it AGAIN with our cousin Dan. It was just as awesome.

Wednesday, we finally got the bikes. The rental place was about two blocks distance from our – it feels like I should be saying “penthouse” for some reason? – beach house (yeah, beach house), so Rob and I walked over. We were figuring on getting gear bikes this time since they’re a little lower to the ground for me and have handlebar brakes for Rob. Win win, right?

Wrong.

We got there and all of the midget gear bikes were taken. BLAST! So we spent ten minutes looking for a bike I could manage to get up on. Finally I decided to suck it up and take a cruiser bike, which ended up being just as difficult, but I didn’t want to put the poor woman through any more trouble to find a different one. It ended up that for the rest of the day, I had to get a running start with the bike and then hop on while the peddles were turning (yes, it’s as hard as it sounds). About a mile later, Rob hollers up to me to stop and that his bike is “gay.” I reassured him that no, it was just in unisex color and that no one would question is orientation for riding a light blue bike. He didn’t think that was funny. Here, his gears on his bike were stuck. On the toughest gear to ride. Dang it. So what else would we do – we rode all the way back down and swapped his bike out for a cruiser. (I couldn’t believe how many times that morning I felt like screaming expletives at the top of my lungs, and all over these stupid bikes). So we started back out, and what do you know, it’s black as night up (x) miles ahead. I had seen on the forecast that it was going to rain, but it had said that the day before and didn’t so I hadn’t really taken it seriously. We made the decision to just turn around and head for the Salvo-Waves area instead of going towards Avon. Surprisingly, we must have just missed the rain that was following us, because as we road back through our town and into the next, the roads were nothing but puddles. Deep puddles. Puddles that, as we road through them, splashed up onto our clothes and faces. Gross. And to top it off, Rob was hungry (no surprise there). We stopped at the famous (to our family) Down Under restaurant, looking a mess. I grabbed an old stretchy book cover from my backpack and used it to wipe off our faces, which were covered in sand and mud. Rob ended up getting this burger called “the Great Australian Bite,” which was a giant ½ pound burger with everything on it and topped with a sunny-side-up egg. We stopped at some other shops up the road from that, searching for souvenirs, and ended up popping in to the Seaside Treasures shop again to torment the boy at the register get some ice cream. We ate the ice cream outside; when we were finished, I ran down to unlock the bikes while Rob made one last attempt to screw with the poor shop boy’s head, asking him, “You look just like Jesse McCartney! Has anyone ever told you that???” to which he replied, “I hope not?!”

After that, we crossed the street to another shop, "Reef," and got Rob a sweet henna tattoo across his shoulder blades. We then pix-messaged a picture of it to our mom who then called us back, freaking out that I had been his consent to get a real tat. Rob proceeded to lead her on for another few minutes until I finally put her out of her misery and reassured her that it was only temporary. That was so much fun. :-)

When we got back to the house, Rob went down to the beach to do some boogie boarding while I chilled in the hot tub. Rob came back to report that he had successfully swum out to the anchor and had touched it; and also that he had ridden a monster wave that broke his boogie board in half. Go Rob!

We played a hilarious game of Taboo that night - I say hilarious because anytime my grandma plays with us, we're going to have some hilarious clues given. Some of my favorites from that night were:

• "It rhymes with...'balloon'!" (answer: babboon. and technically, you're not allowed to say "sounds like" or "rhymes with" but grandma heeds no laws)
• "Well, first of all, he's black." ("black" said as though it were "he's a serial killer." I don't even remember what the answer was for this clue because I laughed during the entire duration of the clue)

Some other funny answers thrown out by the group were:

• jockette n. a girl version of a jock (according to my aunt and uncle who yelled that out simultaneously...the answer was actually "cheerleader")
• fulcrum n. a point of rest, on which a lever turns (but guessed by Rob when all my grandma could say was "it kinda does this thing wherrrrre...")

That was a great night; I laughed so hard that evening.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The higher-ups decided that Thursday would be a good day to take a trip over to Ocracoke (or as Rob first thought it was pronounced, "Oprah-copes") and spend a day shopping and playing on the beach. To get over to Ocracoke, one must take the ferry which is conveniently stationed next to tons of great shops where one can blow all his money. My uncles found some really cool stunt kites that they picked up, assembled, and flew while waiting for the ferry. Since it was "kite festival" day there, they had little stations set up for little kids to "build their own kite" by coloring a piece of paper than tying it to some other sheets of paper and a ribboned tail. It was actually a pretty good kite - Katrina, my little buddy of 6 years - made one and really had it soaring. We got over to Ocracoke and stopped in at Captain Ben's restaurant where Rob finished his meal in less than five minutes and helped everyone else eat their meals too (they would pass down anything left over and dump it on his plate, which he loved).

From there, we went to the beach. Everyone flew their kites while I read my book and my aunts built sand castles. Rob even got chased down and pecked to death by a killer stunt kite (seriously, he get hijacked from behind). On our way back, it was just my grandma, my uncle, and I. We were making light conversation when my grandma asked, "Jim, do they have any deer out here?" (The way she asked made it sound as though she was asking whether or not they were in stock...) Just as she got the last word out of her mouth, my uncle slammed on the brakes and swerved.

"What was THAT?" she asked.

"That," he replied coolly, "was a fawn. Any more questions?" I stifled a guffaw.

We stopped at a Food Lion so my uncle could run in for some groceries. My grandma and I waited in the van and saw a nice couple walking to their car. "What a shame. She's such a pretty girl, too," my grandma mumbled. I wasn't sure what she was referencing, so I just sat there. Moments later, she asked out loud, "Why can't they just find boys in their own color?!" I realized what she was talking about.

"Grandma, there's nothing wrong with a white girl being with a black guy." Her head turned to me as far as it could as she whispered, "Yeah, well it just ain't natural!" Again, I held back the giggles.

The Adventures of Vinny and Christine

My sister and I had a very successful trip to the mall on Saturday: I stopped in at Hot Topic and picked up a Paramore CD for way cheaper than I would have had I gone to Borders (sorry, Borders, I love you but it’s true). After browsing around the sales racks, we moved on to Payless where – after what seemed like hours of trying on every black ballet style shoe they had – she picked out these.

When we got home, I gave Max a bath (for which he was ever so grateful). He really is the most hilarious dog to watch when he’s feeling frisky, especially after bath time: he goes tearing down the stairs at breakneck speed and then proceeds to leap – no, pounce – from one piece of furniture to the next as fast as he can, digging his nose into the cushions to dry off/ itch his little bearded snout. In our living room, we sort of have the Bermuda Triangle set-up going on where the couch, loveseat, and easy chair are all within jumping reach for him. Technically, he’s not allowed to do that. But he’s SOOOOO CUTE.

After changing out of my “wet dog” scented t-shirt and shorts number, I decided to make that fudge I promised my grandpa. He’s hilarious in that he has this cute and yet annoying habit of repeating stories he’s told before anytime he hears (which is rare to begin with) certain “trigger words.” So the evening before, I had to listen to him retell his tales of attempting to make fudge but never being able to get it to set up. I, being the amazing cook and baker that I am (HA) would never make that error.

Psh.

I decided to use the directions that had come with the monstrous jar of marshmallow fluff I had picked up the night before. I found it strange that it didn’t include any particular temperature to which it needed heated, since usually it’s like 300* or something of that sort. Shrugging while putting away my candy thermometer, I thought to myself, “I guess this is why the recipe’s name is “Never Fail Fudge” – there’s no temperature reading required…”

Au contraire, my friends.

Typically, fudge sets up in 2 to 3 hours. Five and a half hours later, the stuff was still goo. “Sludge Fudge” is what I named that horrible batch of blech. The next morning at church, I saw my grandpa standing in the choir loft. We made eye contact and, in his only-pappy fashion, he began to pantomime eating my fudge with a spoon right in front of the entire congregation. I would be embarrassed except for the fact that it’s Pappy. Pappy could probably get away with murder.
So after church, I took him home since his car was in the shop, at which time he commented on the tastiness of the fudge and how he appreciated me chopping the walnuts smaller this time so he wouldn’t choke. I laughed and apologized for how runny it was and advised him to keep it in the freezer to harden. He smiled and used another one of his little catch phrases, one that I particularly love: “Sam, you know why they put erasers on pencils?”

“Because everyone makes mistakes,” we said together.

And isn’t that the truth.

As far as the rest of my weekend went, my mom, my brother, and I watched – back to back, mind you – “My Cousin Vinny” (which was hilarious) and Steven King’s “Christine” (which was more freaky than scary, but still great). Something tells me that would have been quite a dream sequence for someone once it came time to go to sleep.

In closing, Happy Monday!

Busy, busy, busy

First off, happy belated fourth.

Moving on.

So here's my timeline of the past three days:

• Thursday: work - home - volleyball until 2:00 a.m. - LotR on Gamecube until 4:30 a.m.
• Friday: tennis with my dad and twin B until 1:00 p.m. - MAJOR in depth weeding of the back and front yards - trees and rhododendron bushes - running the lawn mower on both lawns - running out to Giant Eagle for fudge ingredients (to make for my cute begging grandfather) - stopping in at Family Video for National Treasure II (I had seen it, family had not) - coming home and watching NT II until 1:30 then popping in Robin Hood, too [w00t!]
• Saturday: trip to J&S with dad and twins
  
• CURRENTLY: taking twin A to the mall to follow through with a deal I made her.

Being the negotiating girl that I am, I "paid" her to clean my room, but with shoes instead of money. So now we're off to the mall to pick out a good pair. Pictures will be posted once they've been purchased. I also need to wash the dog today and find time to work on my draft for class and loaf. MUAWHAHAHAHA...