I like to think the two guys I met last weekend are more than glorified pen pals. I admit, though, that the scenario sounds eerily similar: get to know a far-flung person through the written word, eventually meet, then return to respective homes and pick right back up with the writing.
Repeat last three steps as needed.
I’ve had only one pen pal in my life, and she was a Japanese girl named Mayumi. I never made it to Japan, but based on what I knew of her I’m sure she has made a trip to the United States. Whatever the case, we never met and I haven’t heard from her since 1991. I wonder how her budgies are doing.
I can’t help assuming that the Internet has pretty much killed off the traditional pen pal. If it is not extinct, then it surely is on the endangered list. Humans’ insatiable and growing desire for immediate feedback have relegated pen pals to online discussion forums and blog comment areas with international participants. Not to mention free IP telephony (Skype), mobile phones and texting.
More than all that, I’m here to start a series of posts covering my first meeting with my two closest online friends. I can’t imagine getting to know two people over a two-year span this well through mere letter writing. Listed alphabetically, they are Moksha Gren and Simon. Trust me, the three of us wouldn’t be able to sustain the effort of writing and mailing traditional letters for nearly as long as we’ve stayed in touch online.
After about 10 months of planning and waiting, we finally met. Frankly, I doubt pen pals ever have had a better time over a four-day weekend that didn’t include sex nor any distant hope of it.
Not even with the drunken butterfly girl.
Nope, we were perfectly faithful, loyal blogfathers who never so much as entered a Hooters. In fact, we rarely went a half hour without mentioning our families, and those moments were for forays into geekery too deep for even our wives to feign interest.
More on my momentous, fun-filled long weekend is coming soon. Can anyone guess where I was for this panoramic view?
Update: Well, because somebody guessed correctly, I’ll fill in a little more detail. I was in St. Louis, 630 feet from the ground, peering out the narrow windows of the Gateway Arch. The baseball stadium on the left is the home of the St. Louis Cardinals; the courthouse in the center is the Old Courthouse; the domed stadium on the right is the home of the St. Louis Rams. The rest I can’t even guess without outside help.
As for why I was there and what else I did that weekend? You really will have to see to believe.
(Note: Yesterday’s post was my 700th published. About 60 days short of three years doing this, I figure that’s one post every 1.4 days.)
Before the thievery on Saturday, there was a windfall of epic proportions.
Sometimes, you just get lucky.
You’ll recall that we were at a place featuring games that spit out tickets rewarding success. I neglected to mention the reason behind Shannon’s vehemence in getting back her swiped tokens. It all ties in with today’s topic — hoarding.
We had tried to convince Benjamin at the first party that he should save his mere 190 tickets (the bulk of those awarded for attending) and combine them with what he would win that evening. For a not-quite-five year-old, that’s a distant probability, and it’s a pipe dream amidst the mob of his peers bombarding the prize counter.
Considering the theft earlier in the day, I’m tempted to say that fate turned the tables for Benjamin that night. Whatever the reason, a game gone berserk buried him in tickets during the second birthday party. More than 840, to be nearer precise. (photo courtesy of Alvis)
Naturally, in the face of a major win we wanted more for our boy. Shannon pushed her Skee-ball lane to its limit while I played a variation on the theme. That’s when the infamous swiper swooped.
When redeeming his fake money for chintzy prizes, Benjamin chose a pretty cool helicopter that flies very well after its ripcord is pulled. Plus a whoopee cushion — because once he saw kids using one at the first party, nothing could stand in his way of getting his own. The helicopter is rated for children ages 8 and up, probably due to the considerable length of 25-lb. test line* on the retractable ripcord assembly and the fast chopping action of the blades. We didn’t think of that until the teen behind the prize counter had handed it over to Ben.
Oops.
Once a brain gets high on hoarding, there’s no telling what it might miss.
* This is a fishing reference, a rarity here that you’ll not likely see again soon.
As I have stated elsewhere, there are two types of people in this world: stump finders and stump dodgers. This is a sledding analogy. When sledding down a hill in or near the woods, the one who goes first is the stump finder. All who go after are stump dodgers.
While I try to blaze a trail when I can, in do-it-yourself (DIY) home repair or renovation, I’m a stump dodger.
Shannon was a victim of a theft and a theft attempt on Saturday. Both by the same person and in the same place.
After finally finishing up a customer call that made me all but miss a five-year-old’s birthday party, I showed up about an hour late to a six-year-old’s party hoping I could just become a big kid and have some fun. For the record, I was there by invitation with my son and my wife, not just because I like attending little boys’ birthday parties. That would be weird.
I enjoyed some pizza, caught up with Alvis’ parents and in-laws, and ate chocolate cake with chocolate chips in it. So far, so very good.
My wife loves skee ball, and Peter Piper Pizza just happens to feature it along with other games wherein one slides in a token and gets out a number of tickets that increases in direct proportion to the number of points scored.
Benjamin, Shannon, and I made our way to the gaming area and, after we had one of the employees get the lanes working, we were rolling wooden balls up the ramps into scoring rings like nobody’s business. Nobody’s, I say. Well, Benjamin never sent a ball all the way up the lane and over the ramp, but he tried. Only twice did he misfire and send a ball into the adjacent lane, and nobody was hurt.
“Hey, give those back!” I heard Shannon shout. I looked up from my lane to see her reaching for a small boy’s hands. In them were tokens. From the look on Shannon’s face, I figured they must be her tokens. She wrenched the coins free from his left hand but he made off with one in his right and quickly slid it into a video game.
Shannon looked at me, jaw slack. “Did you see what he just did?” She plopped her remaining tokens into a small plastic cup. “Here, hold these, please,” she said and resumed her game.
“Yeah, I guess we won’t be setting them down again.” I pointed down at the string of tickets leading from the dispenser to the floor. “Make sure you pull those out every once in a while. Could be nothing’s safe.”
Figuring we had averted the crisis and had set up adequate defenses, we played on.
“Stop it!” Shannon yelled.
I looked to see her putting her hands over the skee balls remaining in her queue. The thieving kid stood there next to her.
I rushed over and said, firmly, “Hey, you get away from her. If you want to play a game, you don’t take someone else’s things. You go tell your mommy or daddy if you want to play.”
This is, of course, how fights start in Hollywood movies. Mommy or Daddy shows up, just happens to be a behemoth, and the victim gets further victimized. Birthday cake ends up in everyone’s hair, kids sit in the corner and cry as their parents duke it out on a table full of crushed party favors. You know, fun stuff.
As fortune would have it, our lives are more normal than that. We saw the child’s mother later and neither of us said a word, despite Shannon’s urging. “You need to say something to that woman. You can’t just let your kid do that.”
Too bad she took that tack. I was hoping to see her square off right there for all suburbia to see. Again, not Hollywood.
I thought of what I might say, but never got up the nerve. The kid looked to be no older than four. Had he been much older than that, it would have been more serious.
I sit at our home PC typing a blog post or some such nonsense. On one of her nights to put Benjamin to bed, Shannon walks into the guest bathroom to assess his teeth brushing progress. I hear them talking to each other, but can’t make out the words.
Until Shannon gasps and says, “Benjamin!”
She then dashes across the hall into the guest/computer room and covers her mouth to stifle laughter.
How would you like it if a bar full of people knew you and your spouse as “the ’80’s-loving couple?”
It didn’t bother us. And it didn’t bother me that those college guys got my wife drunk, nor that more than one set of strangers’ breasts brushed against my back at random times throughout the evening.
After having pizza with old friends, we strolled down Fayetteville’s Dixon Street, a narrow strip that runs through the heart of downtown and up the hill to the University of Arkansas, and stopped at Willy D’s Dueling Piano Bar. A bulky guy sitting on a stool near the front door took our $5 cover charge — a nominal fee considering what we were about to get.
The show was scheduled for a 9 o’clock start, but at 8:15 we found standing-room only. We meandered to the bar and ordered a beer for Shannon — in a $5 plastic keepsake mug refillable for $1 — and a Captain Morgan and Diet Coke for me. Because, after stuffing yourself with pizza, you gotta make sure you go with Diet Coke in your booze. Wouldn’t want any of that nasty HFCS sneaking down your gullet.
Let’s see. What do we have so far… beer, boobs, and booze? Now that’s a night to remember without what came next.
A dueling piano bar, never the same twice, always is a mix of unequal parts stump the band, sing-along, dance party, and vaudeville, with a generous helping of lewdness.
Standing by the bar, we sipped our drinks as we enjoyed people-watching in an environment that welcomes it. The first thing that struck me was the lack of cigarette smoke. In Fayetteville local laws ban all public buildings, including bars, from allowing smoking. It was, if I may, a breath of fresh air.
The crowd indirectly suggesting that we move away from the bar, we flowed to a spot about five feet from a table full of college guys. The show started and the crowd responded with screams, shrieks, and shouts delivered only the way early twenty-somethings can, blending to form a howling unison.
Until my wife started screaming, that is. Each time she responded with those lungs developed by more than 15 years in choir, those vocal chords trained to go on and on without straining, the musicians and some of the spectators turned to look. At one point, a young woman turned back and yelled, “Was that you? You’re awesome!”
How did she become so uninhibited?
In the show’s first hour, we were forced closer and closer until we were against the table full of college guys, where a large, glass mug full of beer sat at an unoccupied spot. One of the youngsters looked back and noticed that Shannon’s beer was only half full. He held the glass mug high and raised his eyebrows at us. Without hesitation Shannon moved her mug closer while he started to pour.
This happened at least five times after that. I offered the guys money (I had cash!), but they declined. After they introduced themselves and shook our hands, Shannon leaned down and yelled, “Thanks for helping an old lady get drunk!”
They waved her off like she was being ridiculous. Then, I leaned down to hear one of them say, “Hey, man, 50’s the new 40, 40’s the new 30, and 30’s the new 20!” I figured that comment, not to mention their rendering her mug bottomless, was their way of saying that my wife’s hot.
And I was okay with that.
See? Lewdness! (click to, um, enlarge)
There were several songs we didn’t know, but the crowd sang right along. At other times, I marveled at the 21-year-olds’ knowledge of classic rock from the ’70’s. Then there was the obligatory hog call. (the video is Quicktime, right out of Shannon’s Kodak camera — if you don’t want Apple’s software on your computer, then get the Quicktime Alternative to play .mov files)
(14 seconds - only got the end)
I think because it was a college crowd, the musicians weren’t getting blanketed by requests (which usually come with money attached). Shannon ripped a page from her planner and I scribbled our respective (but not respected?) choices. I walked up to the stage and stepped up just long enough to place the note along with a five-dollar bill.
The pianist nearest us read it and laughed as he read it aloud. “He said, ‘Baby Got Back.’ She said, ‘Jesse’s Girl.’” After nodding to his partner across the pianos, he launched into staccatto power chords instantly recognizable as the opening of the Sir Mixalot classic.
After the first verse, however, he didn’t know the words and enlisted the help of one of Shannon’s beer buddies. He nailed it.
(15 seconds)
At about 12:30, an entire table emptied and we grabbed two seats. The musicians practically begging for requests, I wrote down a few and, as the crowd dwindled, shouted more.
Moments after wrapping up “Hit me With Your Best Shot,” the woman singer said, “Some Pat Benatar, for our ’80’s-loving couple over there.”
While I appreciate auto-flush toilets on a sanitary level (although generally I spare myself that problem by flushing with my foot), I hate the stupid things. I get my protective paper layer all nicely laid out, then I straighten up to turn around and sit, and the infernal thing flushes and splashes water all over my beautifully stacked lengths of one-ply. Not to mention nearly deafening me. Then I have to start over, trying to find that perfect posture that won’t trip the auto-flush, and usually end up failing. Should have just hovered, I think. Crap.
Worse than that is the kind I experienced before my last flight out of DFW. I get the paper down and sit, thinking I’m home free. Then, as if on a timer and assuming that surely no human could still be “on board,” the toilet flushes, splashing my parts that, as a rule, get wet only when I’m showering or swimming. I become convinced there is a demented fly buzzing near the sensor’s “eye” to torment me.
I have learned to listen carefully for that telltale sound that the toilet is about to go HAL on me. I raise up, wait out the flush, and then hover while wiping off the seat again. (I must avail myself of this rare opportunity to link a related incident that featured LOTS more water.)
Trying to keep the 18-month old from splashing into the pond and the two pre-schoolers from walking into the black snake’s lair, I flipped open my mobile phone and called up to the house.
I had the wrong lens for the picture I was going to take, and the kids were bound to scare away my already suprisingly bold subject.
“Could you or somebody else please bring my blue camera bag down here? I need something from it, but I’m trying to keep the kids from drowning.” I said.
“Sure,” said my mother-in-law.
A couple minutes went by. I looked at the water. Yep, he was there, still as stones.
Shannon’s cousin arrived with the bags and grabbed up his son. Free to shoot pics at will, I swapped out my wide-angle for my telephoto, lay down on my belly, and rested my camera on a metal post that helped hold up the retaining wall.
I had never been that close before; I was in perfect position.
(click to enlarge — cropped to get subject off center)
My Pic of the Week feature (on Fridays) had lapsed, and this photo seemed appropriate considering the 85-degree temps we’ve had lately. Benjamin absolutely loves water fountains and never passes one without taking a drink.
The Project Green pic I picked (below) is from the same Arboretum outing (where I captured one of my all-time favorite people pics).
