Ketchup
A brief word about rowing. Skip down a bit if you're give-a-crap impaired.
4:28:56
A very respectable time for GG Crew this morning, but we know that we can hit the water harder on Wednesday. There was one factor that threw us for a bit of a loop this morning - new paddles!
The old paddles are, frankly, beat to shit. They have wide, frayed edges on the bottom where they've been pounded against the inner hull of the canoes by countless Mäusehaus guests. I'm no expert, but I suspect from a hydrodynamic standpoint that wide and frayed is not something you want to see in an implement that you expect to knife cleanly into the water.
The new paddles gleam, they are sleek with multiple coats of varnish. (I've seen the varnish Gnomes backstage, and believe me, they know a thing or two about wielding a brush.) The thin leading edge parts water molecules like a cheerleader's thighs.
Unfortunately, the new paddles are so sleek that they are a bitch and a half to grip. Luckily, one of the gals on the team is a spanish web performer, and she can get her hands on some rosin before our next row... my next question is, what's a good method for quickly removing rosin from the paddles so that random Mäusehaus guests don't get a handfull of goo?
I did learn a valuable lesson this morning though... I took a couple hits of albuturol before the race, rather than after. Wouldn't you know it, I could breathe all the way around the island!
My rowing was hampered just slightly by the injuries I sustained yesterday. More about that in section 2!
***
I took a digger during our Piano set yesterday.
If you're not familiar with das Mäusehaus, at the end of Main St. there is a little cafe known, once officially but now traditionally, as "Coke Corner". That's where you'll find the Main Street Ragtime Piano Player. (The guys they hire for this gig are really, really good, and they typically have a vast repertoire of musical knowledge. Their music and the shade makes the cafe a nice place to relax for a while.) Since the recent revamp of the Dans, we've had 1 set per day with the Piano player, and it's a favourite for us, them, and hopefully the guests. (I see certain faces there over and over again, so I suspect this is the case.) I recently found some picture online taken during the set, you can see them here. (Warning, extremely image-heavy link. Dialup users beware.) Scroll about 1/3 of the way down for a few pictures from the piano set.
Anyway... that's all to preface my point, which is that during a certain moment of choreography that has us lined up in front of the piano doing a silly little vaudevillian dance, we drifted too far upstage (which, translated, means away from the audience). When it was my turn to step further up and then walk backwards along the line, my right calf made rather forceful contact with the platform supporting the piano, and it was not long after that when I realized that my wrist was not designed to catch the weight of my entire body.
I'm not sure how I made it through the following soft-shoe number.
Long story short, I'm taped and wrapped and iced and ibuprofened. I worked through my answers with the physical trainer until she gave me permission to row today, instead of a ride in an ambulance yesterday (the nurses would have poked, prodded, iced, (which the trainer had just done) and then told me that the Doctor had already gone home for the day. I had a gig to get to last night, and rowing to do this morning, dammit.) And I am now in possession of a "referral" in case it looks like I can't dance on Wednesday.
Which is going to make hauling boxes today and tomorow extra special fun, but more about that in section 3!
***
So, I've been moving. This move has been extra stressful for one particular reason.
I should preface this by saying that I've moved over and over again. By the time I was in the sixth grade I had been in 11 different schools. Barring jobs in Japan and NYC, I've been in SoCal for the past ten years, but even if you don't count moving for those jobs, I still managed to move about 5 times during this period. (The trips to Japan and NYC weren't complete and total upheavals, by any means... I was allowed 4 suitcases when I went to Japan, but I figured if I couldn't fit what I needed into 2, I didn't need it.)
For the longest time (we're talking about since I first went off to college... to give you an idea of scale, my 20 year H.S. reunion (which I most likely will not attend, since I recognized roughly 5 people at my 10 year reunion (and I was related to 2 of them) which suggests to me that I'll recognize perhaps 2 people at the 20 year (assuming family doesn't show up (unless it's an exponential thing, in which case I may only recognize that dude with the buck teeth and the mole)) and since I see my best buddy from Kindergarten through High School on a regular basis (Happy Birthday, sir_skullybong!!!) (I've quite lost track of nested parenthetical statements at this point, how are you keeping up?) is next year) and when I went off to wherever it was I was going off to this time, The Dad™ had a handy-dandy garage with a seemingly endless supply of storage space.
Eventually, The Dad™ grew weary of dealing with all of my crap. (A statement which applies both literally and figuratively, depending upon which era of my life we're talking about). To his credit, the only things that have gone missing in all these years are a few random editions of the original Hardy Boys mystery books (remember the hardbound books with the blue spine? So damned cool. I had 'purt near every one of those books... I suspect they disappeared in a garage sale due to some well-meaning efficiency from a relative who was not aware of my sentimental attachment to the books). I got a storage unit about three years ago, and began shoving crap into it at a rate usually only seen by Monty Haul roll-players shoving treasure into a bag of holding.
A quick aside for kayotae, "Monty Haul" and "bag of holding" were gaming references.
Monty Haul is a term used for any campaign or series of adventures where there is loads of loot to be had, so called for the game show, Let's Make a Deal. It is a term used disparagingly by gamers who prefer a grittier world more akin to reality... where reality is used to denote a world in which magic-slinging hirsute dudes in pointy caps hoodwink midget gourmands into running off and sticking sharp sticks into hypothyroidal iguanas.
A bag of holding is perhaps best described as an infinite repository... just picture gatcat when in close proximity to beer, and you'll have the general idea.
Well, The Dad™ is remodeling his house, so all of my aforementioned crap that has not previously been moved into the storage unit has to get moved, and damned quick. I don't have time to sort through the stuff now - I'll get stuck reading things like the 20 page report I wrote in the third grade on the Greek Empire, complete with pictures - so it's all going into my infinite repository (which turns out isn't so infinite after all) and another space I recently inherited from gatcat, who coincidentally had just completed a ritualistic, fetter-obliterating bonfire... a course of action which is looking more and more attractive to me in direct proportion to the gross weight of the back issues of Analog that I schlep from the garage to the back of my truck.
Okay, don't spam me... no one's burning any books, especially not any classic Ray Bradbury tales. Books are the last thing I'll give up.
But that HO scale model train set, circa 1972? Gone. Along with 2400 cubic feet of densly packed crap. What the hell am I going to do with the 4 foot tall bright yellow plush banana I won at the May Festival in 1974? Or the WWII U.S. Army Captain's dress uniform I wore for a "Home for the Holidays" concert 10 years and thirty pounds ago? I've got 25mm hand-carved giraffes and rhinoceri made with loving care by little Ethiopian kids slaving away for Unicef... I never did figure out why Unicef had them carving trinkets instead of archimedes screws... but maybe the price will go up if I can confirm it's from a lost artist.
Buy your Ebay stock now... cuz here it comes.
~j
4:28:56
A very respectable time for GG Crew this morning, but we know that we can hit the water harder on Wednesday. There was one factor that threw us for a bit of a loop this morning - new paddles!
The old paddles are, frankly, beat to shit. They have wide, frayed edges on the bottom where they've been pounded against the inner hull of the canoes by countless Mäusehaus guests. I'm no expert, but I suspect from a hydrodynamic standpoint that wide and frayed is not something you want to see in an implement that you expect to knife cleanly into the water.
The new paddles gleam, they are sleek with multiple coats of varnish. (I've seen the varnish Gnomes backstage, and believe me, they know a thing or two about wielding a brush.) The thin leading edge parts water molecules like a cheerleader's thighs.
Unfortunately, the new paddles are so sleek that they are a bitch and a half to grip. Luckily, one of the gals on the team is a spanish web performer, and she can get her hands on some rosin before our next row... my next question is, what's a good method for quickly removing rosin from the paddles so that random Mäusehaus guests don't get a handfull of goo?
I did learn a valuable lesson this morning though... I took a couple hits of albuturol before the race, rather than after. Wouldn't you know it, I could breathe all the way around the island!
My rowing was hampered just slightly by the injuries I sustained yesterday. More about that in section 2!
***
I took a digger during our Piano set yesterday.
If you're not familiar with das Mäusehaus, at the end of Main St. there is a little cafe known, once officially but now traditionally, as "Coke Corner". That's where you'll find the Main Street Ragtime Piano Player. (The guys they hire for this gig are really, really good, and they typically have a vast repertoire of musical knowledge. Their music and the shade makes the cafe a nice place to relax for a while.) Since the recent revamp of the Dans, we've had 1 set per day with the Piano player, and it's a favourite for us, them, and hopefully the guests. (I see certain faces there over and over again, so I suspect this is the case.) I recently found some picture online taken during the set, you can see them here. (Warning, extremely image-heavy link. Dialup users beware.) Scroll about 1/3 of the way down for a few pictures from the piano set.
Anyway... that's all to preface my point, which is that during a certain moment of choreography that has us lined up in front of the piano doing a silly little vaudevillian dance, we drifted too far upstage (which, translated, means away from the audience). When it was my turn to step further up and then walk backwards along the line, my right calf made rather forceful contact with the platform supporting the piano, and it was not long after that when I realized that my wrist was not designed to catch the weight of my entire body.
I'm not sure how I made it through the following soft-shoe number.
Long story short, I'm taped and wrapped and iced and ibuprofened. I worked through my answers with the physical trainer until she gave me permission to row today, instead of a ride in an ambulance yesterday (the nurses would have poked, prodded, iced, (which the trainer had just done) and then told me that the Doctor had already gone home for the day. I had a gig to get to last night, and rowing to do this morning, dammit.) And I am now in possession of a "referral" in case it looks like I can't dance on Wednesday.
Which is going to make hauling boxes today and tomorow extra special fun, but more about that in section 3!
***
So, I've been moving. This move has been extra stressful for one particular reason.
I should preface this by saying that I've moved over and over again. By the time I was in the sixth grade I had been in 11 different schools. Barring jobs in Japan and NYC, I've been in SoCal for the past ten years, but even if you don't count moving for those jobs, I still managed to move about 5 times during this period. (The trips to Japan and NYC weren't complete and total upheavals, by any means... I was allowed 4 suitcases when I went to Japan, but I figured if I couldn't fit what I needed into 2, I didn't need it.)
For the longest time (we're talking about since I first went off to college... to give you an idea of scale, my 20 year H.S. reunion (which I most likely will not attend, since I recognized roughly 5 people at my 10 year reunion (and I was related to 2 of them) which suggests to me that I'll recognize perhaps 2 people at the 20 year (assuming family doesn't show up (unless it's an exponential thing, in which case I may only recognize that dude with the buck teeth and the mole)) and since I see my best buddy from Kindergarten through High School on a regular basis (Happy Birthday, sir_skullybong!!!) (I've quite lost track of nested parenthetical statements at this point, how are you keeping up?) is next year) and when I went off to wherever it was I was going off to this time, The Dad™ had a handy-dandy garage with a seemingly endless supply of storage space.
Eventually, The Dad™ grew weary of dealing with all of my crap. (A statement which applies both literally and figuratively, depending upon which era of my life we're talking about). To his credit, the only things that have gone missing in all these years are a few random editions of the original Hardy Boys mystery books (remember the hardbound books with the blue spine? So damned cool. I had 'purt near every one of those books... I suspect they disappeared in a garage sale due to some well-meaning efficiency from a relative who was not aware of my sentimental attachment to the books). I got a storage unit about three years ago, and began shoving crap into it at a rate usually only seen by Monty Haul roll-players shoving treasure into a bag of holding.
A quick aside for kayotae, "Monty Haul" and "bag of holding" were gaming references.
Monty Haul is a term used for any campaign or series of adventures where there is loads of loot to be had, so called for the game show, Let's Make a Deal. It is a term used disparagingly by gamers who prefer a grittier world more akin to reality... where reality is used to denote a world in which magic-slinging hirsute dudes in pointy caps hoodwink midget gourmands into running off and sticking sharp sticks into hypothyroidal iguanas.
A bag of holding is perhaps best described as an infinite repository... just picture gatcat when in close proximity to beer, and you'll have the general idea.
Well, The Dad™ is remodeling his house, so all of my aforementioned crap that has not previously been moved into the storage unit has to get moved, and damned quick. I don't have time to sort through the stuff now - I'll get stuck reading things like the 20 page report I wrote in the third grade on the Greek Empire, complete with pictures - so it's all going into my infinite repository (which turns out isn't so infinite after all) and another space I recently inherited from gatcat, who coincidentally had just completed a ritualistic, fetter-obliterating bonfire... a course of action which is looking more and more attractive to me in direct proportion to the gross weight of the back issues of Analog that I schlep from the garage to the back of my truck.
Okay, don't spam me... no one's burning any books, especially not any classic Ray Bradbury tales. Books are the last thing I'll give up.
But that HO scale model train set, circa 1972? Gone. Along with 2400 cubic feet of densly packed crap. What the hell am I going to do with the 4 foot tall bright yellow plush banana I won at the May Festival in 1974? Or the WWII U.S. Army Captain's dress uniform I wore for a "Home for the Holidays" concert 10 years and thirty pounds ago? I've got 25mm hand-carved giraffes and rhinoceri made with loving care by little Ethiopian kids slaving away for Unicef... I never did figure out why Unicef had them carving trinkets instead of archimedes screws... but maybe the price will go up if I can confirm it's from a lost artist.
Buy your Ebay stock now... cuz here it comes.
~j