Super Giant Fish at our Front Door

So, I just realized the Big Buck Hunter has been in our front entryway for OVER TWO YEARS. I keep holding out hope that one day we'll class it up enough to move that thing somewhere... not so obvious. Like a Man Cave. Chris DEFINITELY needs a Man Cave. I think his new ploy is keep buying hideously unsophisticated things that have no business in the house so that we end up with so much redeneck man-crap in our front foyer that I have no choice but to agree to let him have a man cave. And, oh, yeah, his giant mounted fish finally arrived.

You can't quite tell here, but this thing is "to scale" meaning that fish is about 6 feet long.

Note the Big Buck Hunter in the background...

And, in the true irony that is my life, the boys fired up the Big Buck Hunter and began playing while I was typing this blog.  (They had to move the fish out of the way first, of course.)

An Iowa Wedding: The Bachelorette Party

The bachelorette party was a day-long adventure that started out with cake and cocktails at the Barefoot Bar, then progressed to a day of meandering down the lakes in a pontoon boat stuffed full of twenty-something ladies, bottles of booze, and various “gifts” that will not be shown in pictures on this blog due to their lascivious nature.  But they were responsible ladies, and had the foresight to pay the boat rental place to supply them with a driver for the boat.

Meet Tyler.

Tyler is 19 years old.  He was also the lucky employee of the boat rental place who got chosen to drive our boat.  He was pretty happy with this outcome.  

This picture is where we returned to the boat rental place and he had to "show off" his good luck to all his male co-workers.  Thinly disguised as having one of them take a group photo.  

During the boat float we did the usual: jump on giant trampolines in the water until the homeowners came out and shooed us off, stop at Arnold's Park for a quick roller-coaster ride, dance while wearing stick-on mustaches (yes, that's what Tyler's wearing in the first photo), and attempt to learn how to get back in the boat without a working ladder.  After the boating was more bars, and outdoor concert, and a surprise appearance from a pirate (okay, he was actually a Captain Morgan sales guy, but he did give out free hats to everyone at the bar).  

All in all, a successful party to celebrate the impending end of A-Star's single days.

The Nerdery

The twins, Frick and Frack, have a younger sister, A-Star.  Here is a picture of the three of them:

And now the lovely miss A-Star has gotten married.  I will share that story in another post, but the lead-in here was that the twins and I took a flight out to Iowa last weekend for the wedding.

On the return flight, I was sitting middle seat, between my husband on one side and Frick on the other.  We had stopped for a layover and this was the second leg of my flight.  My husband happened to glance over and notice I was reading a different book from the one I was reading on the earlier flight.

He says to me:  "Are you reading two books at the same time right now?"

Me: "Yes, I am.  I need the paper book for takeoff and landing, when my Kindle has to be turned off.  It's not as interesting as the book I'm reading on my Kindle, so this is just to 'tide me over' until we can turn on our electronic devices again."

Him: "Oh, wow, I don't think I've ever read a book to 'tide me over' until I can read another book.  You are such a nerd."

I just shrugged, and went back to reading my book.  Until we reached cruising altitude, of course, when I would start reading the other book.

How to travel with big furniture and tiny cars

Today on the freeway I passed a mustang convertible, top down, with about 6 patio chairs crammed in the backseat at odd angles. The driver who, for some reason in all his 50+ years of living did not have a better solution, must’ve figured that his wife holding on to the legs of one of the chairs counted adequately in place of a tie-down strap.

I will say that one thing I’ve taken for granted since meeting Chris is the convenience of a pickup truck. Between him and his friends, there is always someone with some way to move lots of stuff from point A to point B.

Back in my single days, this wasn’t always the case. I did have a hatchback car which I took full advantage of, but a hatchback car is still a car, and therefore has its limitations. Like the time I decided I needed a new TV.

I had just graduated college, packed up all my things, and moved to Los Angeles. No job, no prospects for a job, no plan, and only a tiny savings to keep me fed, clothed, and housed until I found employment. Because the old TV was one of the sacrifices I made in the move, I decided a new TV was in order.

I found one at Wal-Mart for about $300. Keep in mind, this was before the flat-screen era, so this baby was 42” of cathode ray tube-style fun:

(This is not the actual TV)

Seeing as how I had just moved, I had no friends or contacts in the city. I happily let the nice Wal-mart salespeople load up the TV on to my cart, paid for my purchase (hello credit card), and sauntered out to my Mitsubishi Eclipse GS and popped open the hatchback. I realized at once I had a problem:

I couldn’t lift the TV out of the cart to place it in my vehicle. 

I managed to overcome this problem by standing there for a bit, looking sad and lost and confused, until finally one of the skinny teenaged boys that are forever running around collecting the shopping carts came over and the two of us heaved it into the back of my car. I realized that I now had another problem:

The TV was so big that I couldn’t shut my hatchback closed. 

The pimply-faced teenager was looking around, like some bungee cords were going to magically appear. They didn’t. I took pity on him and explained that I wasn’t going very far, so “I would just drive slow” and the kid left to go corral more shopping carts. I managed to sort of keep the hatchback closed by tying it down with a contraption made of elastic hair bands and a plastic shopping bag. I figured it would do for the 8 or so blocks that I had to travel.

I made it to my new apartment without incident, but was again faced with another problem:

How to get the TV out of my car and into my apartment.  By myself, now.

I couldn’t carry it – it was far too heavy. Thankfully I was on the ground floor, so I didn't have to manage any stairs, I just had to navigate from my parking space in the back of the building around to the front door.  In the back alley, there was still a stack of empty boxes that I had recently set out there after unpacking my things. I grabbed a box, broke it down to a flat piece of cardboard, and set it behind my car. I very carefully (re: a lot of grunting and heaving) rolled the TV out of the back of my car and on to the cardboard. Somehow managing not to have it come crashing down on to the pavement.  The cardboard then became a “sled” upon which I dragged the TV all the way around the building and into the front door of my apartment.

It was a successful move. Idiotic, but successful.

Although I must say that story pales in comparison to the time we moved a whole bed – mattress, boxspring and all – using only my friend’s Honda Civic and some ingenuity. But we’ll save that story for another day.

Incidentally, here is a photo of the actual TV, in that very apartment.  We won't comment on the VCR or cassette-tape player stereo system or the Nintendo DS, all of which were already on the verge of being outdated when the photo was taken.

Nor will we make mention of the fact that I owned an actual candelabra and a cat-shaped fan-pull.  The beer mirror that I picked up on a sidewalk sale in downtown Seattle should at least earn me back some coolness points.

Cruise Tip #3: how to swim a horse

Today we will give you instructions on how to "swim a horse."  In 10 easy steps.

Step #1: Realize that when the brochure says you will be swimming a horse, this means that you will be swimming a horse.  Not just gently prancing it across a shallow stream.  Dress accordingly.

Step #2: Try to ignore the fact that you look completely ridiculous wearing a bicycle helmet while riding a horse. Because, you know, they ran out of riding helmets.

Step #3: Find an idyllic river.

Step #4: Find a horse that can swim.  This one is important.

Step #5: Make sure that Mr. Miyagi is there.  He makes everything awesome.

Step #6: Learn to be trusting of the one-eyed Mexican cowboy who is going to be leading your horse into deep water.  Most likely he did not lose the eye in a horse-swimming accident.

Step #7: Make sure to be one of the first people to volunteer to swim the horse.  Because the horse just swims little circles in the same area and, eventually, the horse is gonna have to poop.  And you don't want to be the person swimming the horse in the water it just pooped in.

Step #8: Riding a horse bareback while it swims through the water is exhilarating.  And cold.

Step #9:  Make sure you point and laugh at all your friends and make fat jokes as the poor horse struggles to pull itself out of the water and up on the shore while carrying the extra weight.

Step #10: Enjoy your ride back to the horse corral while in damp swimclothes.  And also don't adopt the stray kitten hanging around the cowboy's camp.  No matter how cute.

O Californians, how you drive... me insane

An Open Letter to my west coast friends on the open road:

Dear California Drivers,

I know this is going to be a hard, but you are going to have to break yourself away from your unhealthy obsession with the left-hand lane.  When driving down a freeway with more than one lane in any direction, it is common courtesy that the left lane is for passing.  Yes, I said it, PASSING.  As in, NOT MEANDERING DOWN INDEFINITELY.

You see, common driving courtesy says that you should drive in the right-hand lane, even if you are going the speed limit.  And then, when you come upon another vehicle that is travelling at a slower speed than yourself, you move over into the left-hand lane.  You pass the slower vehicle.  You then get back in the right-hand lane.

Here is a list of things you really should not do in the left-hand lane:
* Drive slower than the speed limit
* Drive the speed limit and refuse to move over to the right-hand lane when a car comes up behind you who is obviously going much faster than you are
* Continue to drive in the left-hand lane while travelling at roughly the same speed as the semi-truck in the lane next to you, effectively blocking all faster traffic from passing you
* Drive in the left-hand lane when there is no one on the roadway except you.  Because eventually some car will come up behind you and you will refuse to get over or remain in blissful ignorance of common driving courtesy and they will be forced to pass you on the right.

I do a lot of driving in a lot of other states and I must say, although there are the occasional offenders in other states, in California it is an epidemic.  It's bad enough that they drive in the left lane just for kicks, and it's worse when they refuse to move over for the cars behind them.  Most other drivers look in their mirrors and think, gee, this driver is travelling at a faster speed than me.  Let me just pop on over to the right-hand lane for a bit so he can go about his business and drive on past me.  Not in California, oh no.  They think,  well, I am travelling the speed limit so I have every right to be in the left-hand lane, who cares about common courtesy.


And while I'm at it, can I just add one thing?  When it rains, or snows, or is foggy, or does something other than be sunny and 70 degrees, DRIVING SLOWLY WITH YOUR HAZARD LIGHTS ON IS NOT A SOLUTION.  Unless you are announcing to everyone on the road that you, in fact, and not the weather, are the real hazard on the road.

Driving slowly in inclement weather?  OK, fine.  Driving slowly with your hazard lights on?  Not OK.  Driving slowly with your hazard lights on in the left hand lane?  DEFINITELY NOT OK.  And yet you, California drivers, have been observed by yours truly doing all of the above on numerous different occasions.


Thank you for your time.

Very Sincerely,

K GLAM

** Side note: the fact that I just signed up for my online defensive driving course to defer a speeding ticket has absolutely NO BEARING whatsoever on this letter.**

EDIT:  Actually, it does have some bearing - in my favor.  Below is an excerpt from my class:


Driving slowly in the left lane: If you are in the left lane and someone wants to pass, move over and let them by. You may be "in the right" because you are traveling at the speed limit, but you may also be putting yourself in danger by making drivers behind you angry. In many states and provinces the law requires you to travel in the right lane and use the far left lane only for passing. Besides, it is simple courtesy to move over and let other drivers by.

Cruise Tip #2: rednecks like big fishes

For their birthday this year, Frick and Frack (that's my husband and his twin, in case you were having trouble following there) got to go on a fishing boat in Cabo with their friends Sleepy E, Wobbie, and Vegas.  It was Sleepy E's idea (shout out to him and the lady), and it totally rocked.

It wasn't supposed to be a whale-watching tour, but they got to see THIS:

And then, to top it all off, Chris caught a 160# Striped Marlin.  Well, it was really a collective effort, but Chris happened to be the one holding the reel at the time so he got the credit:

And of course there were the usual "beggars of the sea" hoping for handouts of fish:

After you catch the fish, they give you a couple of options.  You can keep it, or you can throw it back.  If you choose to keep it, you can either ship the meat to your house or donate it to the tour boat operators as part of their gratuity (so it doesn't go to waste).  But if you choose to keep it, after you've figured out what you want to do with the meat, you can then choose to HAVE IT MOUNTED AND MAILED TO YOUR HOUSE.  For a fee, of course.

Let's think about this for a minute, and see if you can figure out which option my husband chose.  And remember, this is the guy who wanted Big Buck Hunter in our front entryway. 

If you guessed, "MOUNT IT!" you guessed correctly.  In just a few weeks, plus fees and shipping and handling, we will be the proud owner of a 160# striped marlin to hang over the Big Buck Hunter game in our foyer.

This man needs a man cave STAT.  Before my foyer starts looking like a Bass Pro Shop.