It is What it Is

I'd Really Like To Get Down Now Please

In all of my musings about Camp McDowell, I can’t believe that I forgot to mention the most perilous part of the entire weekend – the high dive. (It’s interesting to me that I wrote about both my terrible swimming lessons and Camp McDowell last week, but completely forgot to mention it. Subconsciously, it must have been floating around up there somewhere, but I guess I never put it together.)

We covered that I’m not the  greatest swimmer. (I do love the water though, I’m just more of a lazy river/"let’s float this one out with a cocktail" kind of gal.) Well, I also happen to have a little trouble with heights. I think it began when I broke both of my arms falling out of a tree house, but with the anxiety in this brain of mine, it’s entirely possible the phobia would have come about regardless.  

(Technically speaking, I think I have what is known as obsessive bad thoughts rather than a phobia. I can be in high spaces – I didn’t miss out on the top of the Hancock building when I spent the summer in Chicago, but all I think about when I’m too far off the ground is falling. It’s pretty much the only notion/image that runs through my head once I’m more than 10 feet off the ground. Once I saw Clueless, even the third floor of the mall could make me a little sick to my stomach. Am I the only person in America traumatized by Clueless for reasons other than the fact that Alecia Silverstone’s love interest ends up being her former step-brother? Probably.)

But, you know, I’ve done a lot of work to understand myself better in the past few months. I turned 30. I have a prescription for Xanax. Surely, I thought, I can handle the high dive now.

Four Camp Memories* and a Wedding

There are plenty of places I've been that I thought I would never see again. Camp McDowell in Navou, Alabama was definitely one of them. Despite the fact that Camp McDowell is the Episcopal camp in Alabama, and I am, in fact, an Episcopalian from Alabama, one week back in the summer of 1993 was more than enough for me.

There are only three things that I can remember about that week (and the name of my pictured cabin counselor is not one of them, Dawn?):

1. A boy with a mullet had a crush on my friend Leah. He came over to me at the swimming pool one day and asked me if she liked him back. I had to turn him down for her. The next day, we saw the same mullet-ed boy making out with another girl in the pool. It wasn't so much the betrayal that shocked me as much as the seeming lack of hygiene and supervision. All I can remember thinking is, "All of these people in one body of water, and now those two are tonguing each other in the middle of it. This can't be sanitary," plus, "Why doesn't the lifeguard care?"

Not What I Wanted to Hear From Paula Deen*

Last week, the SO and I had to make an impromptu visit to Savannah, Georgia for some family matters. Between both of our work schedules, we also knew that we'd probably get to spend less than 24 hours in town.

After the SO price-lined our hotel (one of his favorite activities), I jumped on the web link he sent me to check out the amenities we would be enjoying in the 14 hours between check-in and check-out. Of course, there was your standard pool, restaurants and fitness center, but what immediately caught my eye was the advertised proximity of Paula Deen's The Lady and Sons Restaurant.

I like to think that Paula and I have a lot in common, and the short list includes a love of butter, cheese, cheese grits and deep frying.

Knowing that we were going to be cutting it close by rolling into Savannah just around 9:00 p.m., I asked the SO to call and see if we might make a reservation for the last seating. I also figured that even if they were booked, there would hopefully be a bar where we might be able to find open seats and order dinner.

The he broke the news to me: "They only take reservations for parties of 10 or me. I'm sorry."

Heathens and Happy Hernando

A few weeks ago, the SO and I took a trip to DeSoto Caverns outside of Childersburg, Alabama. (I like to do really cheesy things, and the SO likes to take pictures, and amazingly, these two interests often coincide.)

For those of you who don't know, DeSoto Caverns is the country's first recorded cave (I don't know what this honor means either), and it's a rather amazing natural phenomenon full of stalactites, stalagmites and the like. (By "the like," I mean stuff I didn't bother to pay attention to in either science class or the guided tour.)

The good people who own the cave have seen fit to fill the area around it with attractions like panning for gemstones, a maze and water gun shooting forts. The attractions are pretty fun, and a good way to drive up the price of admission. Of course, rock candy and fudge are for sale in the gift shop, too.

The SO and I had a good time. We engaged in some archery. (I say we didn't keep score. The SO claims victory.) I fed some llamas, and of course, there was the panning for gemstones, maze-running (that I did kick ass at) and cave-touring. But, there were two rather troublesome aspects to the whole adventure.

1. The mascot for DeSoto Caverns is Happy Hernando. Now, while I have no problem with lying to children in some respects -- the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, "Of course Mom and Dad never smoked pot" -- I have my limits. And turning Hernando DeSoto into Happy Hernando, the cutest of the conquistadors, just seems wrong. After all, we're talking about a man known for his cruelty in wiping out and enslaving indigenous peoples wherever he went. Dressing him in all primary colors and adding a jaunty hat doesn't seem like enough to whitewash that past. 

From the Archives: Laurel and Annie Travel the World

Well, as we boarded the minibus bound from Pattaya to Bangkok, Annie found a large knot on her foot. It's probably some disease caused by the lizard that shared our tropical hell hotel room for a couple of days, but she took an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory right after the discovery, and we think she's going to make it.

She's a brave soul.

I think Annie and I have never been so happy to leave a place as when we left Bangkok. We were on an Air France flight and thanks to my high school French teacher always calling Air France "Air Chance," my anxiety level was a little high.

I was about to have my faith in the French restored merely by the presence of personal TV screens at your seat until we encountered the meanest French stewardess ever. She was downright scary, and I'm glad I got to sleep through most of the flight.

I did watch a nice French film as I tried to remain cultured despite the fact that my taste has been seriously deteriorating since we left the U.S. This is primarily due to the fact that every English-speaking program shown abroad sucks. Annie and I actually looked forward to seeing Yes Dear at our hotel in Pattaya. We also loved Sorority Boys . All sad but true.

Of course, my attempts to culture myself went awry when Annie convinced me to watch Kangaroo Jack after the French film. If I come home only interested in CBS and UPN programs, I'm sorry.

Attacked at the Aquarium

I love a good aquarium.

There are many exotic fish I've had the privilege to see up-close and in person -- including a hammerhead shark. When I was 18, my parents took my sisters and I to the Great Barrier Reef.

(Whenever anyone asks about your trip to a reef, they always say, "Did you get a piece of the reef?" as if the first rule you learn on the reef isn't "Never, ever step on the reef." Those things are far more fragile than they might seem on TV.)

There are also some less than-exotic fish I've had the opportunity to see up-close and in person. My father took me to the Bass Fishing Museum in Eufala when I was a child, too.

So, a few weeks ago, when I went to Atlanta, the aquarium was one of my first stops.

Mace in Your Face

I have worked in plenty seemingly-less-than-safe areas: downtown parking garages, poorly-lit parking lots next to wooded areas, restaurants in neighborhoods that seemed abandoned by the time you finished closing up from the last shift.

I've even lived in the suspect cities of Washington, D.C., Chicago and Durham, North Carolina. (For those of you thinking Durham doesn't belong on that list, please keep in mind they were on the hunt for a serial rapist during my freshman orientation week at Duke.) Even Birmingham is no picnic with its high homicide rate and large incidence of robbery and break-ins. And need I remind you of the potential peril that was my apartment in Nashville?

But, for most of my time in these jobs and cities, I didn't worry too much about my safety. (By "worry too much," I actually mean "purchase a firearm." I always worry -- it's just a matter of degrees.) If I could find someone to walk me to my car, I would. If I couldn't, I'd go anyway, keep an eye out and have my largest key ready for stabbing if necessary.

Then, I took a new job a couple of years ago, and I really started to worry. It wasn't that the locale was that different from anywhere I'd worked before, it was the comments I heard around the building that got to me, like "the security guard had to draw his gun on the guy" or "someone chased me up the stairs in the parking garage." (Plus, it was a genuine, bona fide runner who had been chased in the stairwell. She stood a shot. I, with my hobbies of wine and Lost, did not.)

Like a lot of my thoughts, none of it really went anywhere for quite awhile. I worried. Sometimes I worried more, sometimes I worried less. But it was still just worry.

Worst Date Ever

As I mentioned earlier this week, I'm no stickler when it comes to romance. I don't have to receive a dozen red roses on every important occasion, and I'd be perfectly fine if no one ever dedicated a Celine Dion song to me on the radio.

However, I do think certain qualities (apart from my short list of fidelity, truthfulness and not signing on with extremist groups/militias) are important to keep love alive:

Thoughtfulness: "My partner seemed really stressed about getting everything done today, I think I'll pick up dinner on the way home."

Paying Attention: "My partner said it was very important that I get this video back to the store today, I'll do that right now."

Reason/Rational: "My partner is not a fan of Pink Floyd. His/her birthday is probably not the time to buy the complete works of Pink Floyd and force my tastes upon him/her. Maybe I'll buy something he/she likes instead."

The story I'm about to tell you completely violates all three of the above. And, while these events did not happen on Valentine's Day, I think the lessons about love -- or lack thereof -- are more than appropriate to the spirit of the holiday.

Travel Needs

The one thing I desperately needed in San Francisco? A topographical map. Sure, San Francisco is known for its hills, but none of that seemed to occur to me as I looked at our grid-like map each morning to plot our trek through the city. 

My failure to account for San Fran's landscape wasn't too much of a problem for the walk to Fisherman's Wharf or Chinatown, but it was far more than I bargained for when I decided the Significant Other [SO] and I should have no problem getting from Union Square to Grace Cathedral/Nob Hill.

I may be prone to exaggeration, but I really don't think there is any hyperbole in saying that this involved a near-vertical ascent. Between gasps, the conversation went something like this:

"How far are we going again?" SO said.

"Top," I said. "To the top."

Conversation and Interpretation

Sometimes, you know exactly where someone stands on issues of race. "I'm afraid of black people" and "All Hispanics are lazy" are pretty strong indicators. In other instances, the personality of the speaker usually lets you know if the comment is racist or said in irony to draw attention to others' prejudices -- "If that's the way they feel, then maybe the Jews shouldn't have killed Jesus" or continued use of the term "Freedom Fries" eight years after the fact. 

Then, there are times you're in Sausalito having a few drinks while you wait for the last ferry back to San Francisco for the night and you have no idea whether or not your bartender spends his weekends plotting the downfall of the federal government and conducting eugenics experiments or just watching the ballgame with his other open-minded friends.

This is one such story.