Recently in adventures Category
So the story starts like this: A Finnish girl, a German girl, and an American girl walk into a sauna...
I finally got invited to my very first sauna, which if you didn't know, is about the most authentic Finnish experience you could ever hope for. Finns invented the sauna. "Sauna" is one of the precious few words in the English language that actually came from Finnish. (Only we say it wrong. It should be "SOW-na" and not "SAW-na.") These people have personal saunas in their homes, it is a totally integral part of their culture. (Reminder, it is below freezing here for a huge percentage of the year. These people need to stay warm somehow!)
One of my agency colleagues knew I was new to Finland, so she invited me to join her and a German colleague who is in town for the week. (I am not completely convinced she invited me out of 100% niceness...I'm sure part of it was for her own entertainment to see how hard a prudish American would squirm at all the nudity.) She instructed me to bring a "towel, shampoo, and washing things." I stressed. "What kind of towel? Big towel, or little towel? Should I try to bring a classic white towel? Shoot, I don't have a white towel, I'm going to look like an idiot! Well, I'll bring a big blue one and a big brown one, and decide which one to use when I get there when I see what colors of towels other people have. Oh, and I'll bring this small orange microfiber quickdry towel, too, just in case." I think I was hyper-focusing on the towel situation to take my mind off the other more pressing issue: THE IMPENDING PUBLIC NUDITY.
Here's how it works:
Step 1 - Drink beforehand, and buy more beers to take to the sauna, as it's BYOB.
Step 2 - Walk up to the front door of the sauna building, past all the people sitting out front in zero-degree weather wearing nothing but towels, and try not to freak out at how cold it is and how they are all naked underneath those towels. This public sauna place that we went to is in a working class neighborhood, and it's very old-school. It was built in the 1920s, and is one of the few wood-burning saunas in town:
Step 3 - Open the door of the building, and immediately get hit in the nose with the smell of sweat. Clean sweat, but sweat.
Step 4 - Pay the nice man €10. Give him a few extra if you want the birch whip thingie. (More on that in a minute.)
Step 5 - Go upstairs, and open the door to the women's changing area. (Yes, men and women's saunas are separate.) Try not to laugh and/or freak out when you open the door to find a buck naked 10 year old boy, jumping up and down, shouting "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"
Step 6 - Quickly ask where the toilet is so you can go collect yourself and give yourself a pep talk, and quietly allow yourself a quick freakout at all the boobies you just saw on the way in.
Step 7 - Come back, find a locker, just start stripping your clothes off, and pretend it's not a big deal. ALL your clothes. (It is considered unsanitary to wear a bathing suit in the sauna.)
Step 8 - Proceed to the next chamber, which is a shower room, and bring your towels and shampoo and soap and stuff. Take a shower out in the open, wondering if there is a peephole somewhere like on Porky's. Wash your hair, scrub your arms and legs and everywheres. This shower is not for your benefit, it is for the sauna to keep it clean. Look out for the naked toddler boy who is going around trying to steal everyone's shampoo.
Step 9 - Wrap yourself in your big towel and grab your small towel to sit on inside the sauna. Then have your Finnish friend laugh at you for wrapping yourself in the big towel, reminding you that "it's going to be quite warm in there, you really don't need it." Realize that you were already just naked in front of these two strangers for the past 5 minutes while showering, and it wasn't that big of a deal. Take a deep breath, quit being so uptight, and shimmy out of your big towel.
Step 10 - Proceed to the sauna chamber:
Step 11 - If you want to be hardcore about it, go to the top row where it's the hottest. Otherwise, pick a place further down. There are these little wooden seat thingies that you put down so you're not sitting directly on the hot stone steps. And you either sit on your towel, or use a disposable sauna mat. Sit and relax, taking deep breaths, basking in the heat, and enjoy. After a few minutes, you forget you're naked. After a few more minutes, you can tell how good your circulation is, and blood is getting to every faraway appendage. After a few more minutes, you're covered in sweat and condensation. After a few more minutes, going outside starts to sound appealing.
Step 12 - Go find your big towel, wrap up in it, grab your beers and head outside! This is actually fairly tame, because if you go to the saunas out in the countryside, they follow up the sauna by jumping into an icy lake!?
Step 13 - Sip your beers and laugh at all the steam coming off your body and head.
Step 14 - Go back to the shower, wash off again, and head back into the sauna. If you want to have the fully Finnish experience, you take this little bouquet of birch branches ("vihtas") that have been soaking in water, and you basically whip yourself with them. I've read about this many times and thought it sounded completely retarded. But it wasn't. The birch smells really good, and whipping yourself is kind of like exfoliating. (My Finnish friend said it's a really good cure for cellulite.) After you do it, your skin feels all good and tingly and moisturized.
Step 15 - Repeat steps 8-13 as many times as you please.
Step 16 - Go home in a woozy relaxed daze, and have the best night's sleep you've had in ages.
It was the nicest, most relaxing, most enjoyable evening. The nudity thing which had initially stressed me out so much turned out to be no big deal at all. Once you're in there and it becomes obvious that no one else cares about what your body looks like, and nobody gives a second thought to being naked in front of strangers, you kinda forget that you think it's weird, too. I will totally go again. There are a couple of other places in Helsinki that are a swimming hall/sauna combo, so I think I'd like to try that out, too.
There are lots of Finnish sayings around the sauna, but I think I like this one best: "All men are equal, and more so in the sauna."
I finally got invited to my very first sauna, which if you didn't know, is about the most authentic Finnish experience you could ever hope for. Finns invented the sauna. "Sauna" is one of the precious few words in the English language that actually came from Finnish. (Only we say it wrong. It should be "SOW-na" and not "SAW-na.") These people have personal saunas in their homes, it is a totally integral part of their culture. (Reminder, it is below freezing here for a huge percentage of the year. These people need to stay warm somehow!)
One of my agency colleagues knew I was new to Finland, so she invited me to join her and a German colleague who is in town for the week. (I am not completely convinced she invited me out of 100% niceness...I'm sure part of it was for her own entertainment to see how hard a prudish American would squirm at all the nudity.) She instructed me to bring a "towel, shampoo, and washing things." I stressed. "What kind of towel? Big towel, or little towel? Should I try to bring a classic white towel? Shoot, I don't have a white towel, I'm going to look like an idiot! Well, I'll bring a big blue one and a big brown one, and decide which one to use when I get there when I see what colors of towels other people have. Oh, and I'll bring this small orange microfiber quickdry towel, too, just in case." I think I was hyper-focusing on the towel situation to take my mind off the other more pressing issue: THE IMPENDING PUBLIC NUDITY.
Here's how it works:
Step 1 - Drink beforehand, and buy more beers to take to the sauna, as it's BYOB.
Step 2 - Walk up to the front door of the sauna building, past all the people sitting out front in zero-degree weather wearing nothing but towels, and try not to freak out at how cold it is and how they are all naked underneath those towels. This public sauna place that we went to is in a working class neighborhood, and it's very old-school. It was built in the 1920s, and is one of the few wood-burning saunas in town:
Step 3 - Open the door of the building, and immediately get hit in the nose with the smell of sweat. Clean sweat, but sweat.
Step 4 - Pay the nice man €10. Give him a few extra if you want the birch whip thingie. (More on that in a minute.)
Step 5 - Go upstairs, and open the door to the women's changing area. (Yes, men and women's saunas are separate.) Try not to laugh and/or freak out when you open the door to find a buck naked 10 year old boy, jumping up and down, shouting "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"
Step 6 - Quickly ask where the toilet is so you can go collect yourself and give yourself a pep talk, and quietly allow yourself a quick freakout at all the boobies you just saw on the way in.
Step 7 - Come back, find a locker, just start stripping your clothes off, and pretend it's not a big deal. ALL your clothes. (It is considered unsanitary to wear a bathing suit in the sauna.)
Step 8 - Proceed to the next chamber, which is a shower room, and bring your towels and shampoo and soap and stuff. Take a shower out in the open, wondering if there is a peephole somewhere like on Porky's. Wash your hair, scrub your arms and legs and everywheres. This shower is not for your benefit, it is for the sauna to keep it clean. Look out for the naked toddler boy who is going around trying to steal everyone's shampoo.
Step 9 - Wrap yourself in your big towel and grab your small towel to sit on inside the sauna. Then have your Finnish friend laugh at you for wrapping yourself in the big towel, reminding you that "it's going to be quite warm in there, you really don't need it." Realize that you were already just naked in front of these two strangers for the past 5 minutes while showering, and it wasn't that big of a deal. Take a deep breath, quit being so uptight, and shimmy out of your big towel.
Step 10 - Proceed to the sauna chamber:
Step 11 - If you want to be hardcore about it, go to the top row where it's the hottest. Otherwise, pick a place further down. There are these little wooden seat thingies that you put down so you're not sitting directly on the hot stone steps. And you either sit on your towel, or use a disposable sauna mat. Sit and relax, taking deep breaths, basking in the heat, and enjoy. After a few minutes, you forget you're naked. After a few more minutes, you can tell how good your circulation is, and blood is getting to every faraway appendage. After a few more minutes, you're covered in sweat and condensation. After a few more minutes, going outside starts to sound appealing.
Step 12 - Go find your big towel, wrap up in it, grab your beers and head outside! This is actually fairly tame, because if you go to the saunas out in the countryside, they follow up the sauna by jumping into an icy lake!?
Step 13 - Sip your beers and laugh at all the steam coming off your body and head.
Step 14 - Go back to the shower, wash off again, and head back into the sauna. If you want to have the fully Finnish experience, you take this little bouquet of birch branches ("vihtas") that have been soaking in water, and you basically whip yourself with them. I've read about this many times and thought it sounded completely retarded. But it wasn't. The birch smells really good, and whipping yourself is kind of like exfoliating. (My Finnish friend said it's a really good cure for cellulite.) After you do it, your skin feels all good and tingly and moisturized.
Step 15 - Repeat steps 8-13 as many times as you please.
Step 16 - Go home in a woozy relaxed daze, and have the best night's sleep you've had in ages.
It was the nicest, most relaxing, most enjoyable evening. The nudity thing which had initially stressed me out so much turned out to be no big deal at all. Once you're in there and it becomes obvious that no one else cares about what your body looks like, and nobody gives a second thought to being naked in front of strangers, you kinda forget that you think it's weird, too. I will totally go again. There are a couple of other places in Helsinki that are a swimming hall/sauna combo, so I think I'd like to try that out, too.
There are lots of Finnish sayings around the sauna, but I think I like this one best: "All men are equal, and more so in the sauna."
This is the third in a series of posts where I document the various
stereotypes I observe in weird situations. First I focused on the
various characters at adults-only skate night,
then on the personalities I observed at adult summer tennis camp. Today I would like to focus on yard sale folk. Jackie had a yard sale this weekend, and I hung out all day to try to help out. Here are the personalities that emerged...
The Swooper
The Opportunist
The Repeat Customer
The Scam Artist
The Thorough Shopper
The Bored Neighbor
The Disappointed Guy Who Comes for One Ultra Specific Thing
The Ulterior Motive
The Swooper
- Tactic: to bum-rush the tables and load up on as much merchandise as possible
- Purchases
made: Mongolian hat, wooden bucket full of fake dusty fruit (with
spigot on basket), every tiny crappy knickknack that you expected to
throw in the garbage at the end of the day, a basket to carry it all away
- Total spent: $40 (mostly on items that cost less than $1)
The Opportunist
- Tactic: to purchase items that are possibly collectible (unbeknownst to the yard sale giver) and resell on eBay for a profit
- Purchases made: vase, tea set
- Total spent: $10
The Repeat Customer
- Tactic: to casually look around, buy
some sunglasses because it was sunny, disinterestedly leave....and then
return later to buy something random and retarded
- Purchases made: sunglasses, mirror that shows variations of facial hair
- Total spent: $5.50
The Scam Artist
- Tactic:
to aggressively haggle for a bulk deal, and after the price is
set...continue picking up items and insist they were part of the
original bulk agreement
- Purchases made: used beauty products
- Total spent: $3
The Thorough Shopper
- Tactic: to spend 3 hours looking through every individual item available, try on all the clothes, comment on every single item, want additional information on every single item, and buy only one or two things
- Purchases made: a wire cart
- Total spent: $10
The Bored Neighbor
- Tactic: to come over just to say hello and ask how things are going, and then end up buying something
- Purchases made: television
- Total spent: $25
The Disappointed Guy Who Comes for One Ultra Specific Thing
- Tactic: to show up at the end of the day after everything has been picked over and ask if you have something specific, like a green table lamp with a beige lampshade...and then leave disappointedly when you don't have it
- Purchases made: none
- Total spent: $0
The Ulterior Motive
- Tactic: to act as though they are there to browse, and within 30 seconds of arriving ask if they can use the toilet inside your house
- Purchases made: one necklace
- Total spent: $0.50
Background Fact #1: The new roller derby season started up, and this season is particularly exciting because they are having the bouts at a new venue. Previously they were all at a drafty ol' military hangar out at Magnusson Park, and you basically had to sit on the concrete or on the super uncomfortable aluminum bleachers. But now? Key Arena! Former home of the Seattle Supersonics! Excitement! Cushioned tiered seating! Lights! Production value!
Background Fact #2: Every roller derby team has a gimmick and a gimmicky mascot. One of the teams has a space theme, and they all wear black and silver and have celestial-type names. Inexplicably, their mascot is a small-framed troll of a guy who wears silver boots, carries a leopard-print scepter, has greasy hair, yellow rat teeth, and wears a bunch of Mr. T-style necklackes (but silver) and a set of black coveralls unzipped down to the...well...unzipped WAY too low. I will not dignify his existence by mentioning his name or posting a photo, just know that he is vile and makes my skin crawl. Apparently the only words in his vocabulary are "rat" and "city" and "throttle" and "rockets." And he continually shouts those words into his bullhorn. (Note: I usually shout back: "ZIP UP YOUR DAMN JUMPSUIT!!!")
Background Fact #3: Jackie loooves to give me hell about this guy.
So there we were, or more accurately, there Jackie was on the front row at the bout. I was sitting about 10 rows back with the boy, and suddenly I saw my little Jackie up on the Titantron!?! One of the announcers was interviewing fans to get their take on the new venue, and she went right up to Jackie on the front row and asked what she thought of Key Arena. My friend! On the giant screen! I know her! It was very exciting. Jackie nervously whispered, "It's great." Then announcer lady asked, "Could you be any more vague?" To which Jackie replied, "It's really great?"
Then after her nervousness wore off and Jackie realized she now had an 'in' with the announcer, an evil little thought crept into her head...
The next thing I know, the announcer lady is calling over the aforementioned mascot to pass along a "message" that Jackie has just given her. So over the PA system at Key Arena in front of 5,000 people, I suddenly hear: "Hey, [insert mascot's name here], your biggest fan is out there and wants to say hello. Where are you, Halee? Stand up and wave!! Halee?"
...
...
I cowered harder than I have ever cowered in my life. And that mascot had so much hope in his beady little eyes as he panned the crowd to make eye contact with his alleged biggest fan...but little did he know that the girl he was looking for was essentially laying on the sticky floor to avoid detection, and sending Jackie a text message that said: "You suck harder than anyone has ever sucked ever."
The end.
Background Fact #2: Every roller derby team has a gimmick and a gimmicky mascot. One of the teams has a space theme, and they all wear black and silver and have celestial-type names. Inexplicably, their mascot is a small-framed troll of a guy who wears silver boots, carries a leopard-print scepter, has greasy hair, yellow rat teeth, and wears a bunch of Mr. T-style necklackes (but silver) and a set of black coveralls unzipped down to the...well...unzipped WAY too low. I will not dignify his existence by mentioning his name or posting a photo, just know that he is vile and makes my skin crawl. Apparently the only words in his vocabulary are "rat" and "city" and "throttle" and "rockets." And he continually shouts those words into his bullhorn. (Note: I usually shout back: "ZIP UP YOUR DAMN JUMPSUIT!!!")
Background Fact #3: Jackie loooves to give me hell about this guy.
So there we were, or more accurately, there Jackie was on the front row at the bout. I was sitting about 10 rows back with the boy, and suddenly I saw my little Jackie up on the Titantron!?! One of the announcers was interviewing fans to get their take on the new venue, and she went right up to Jackie on the front row and asked what she thought of Key Arena. My friend! On the giant screen! I know her! It was very exciting. Jackie nervously whispered, "It's great." Then announcer lady asked, "Could you be any more vague?" To which Jackie replied, "It's really great?"
Then after her nervousness wore off and Jackie realized she now had an 'in' with the announcer, an evil little thought crept into her head...
The next thing I know, the announcer lady is calling over the aforementioned mascot to pass along a "message" that Jackie has just given her. So over the PA system at Key Arena in front of 5,000 people, I suddenly hear: "Hey, [insert mascot's name here], your biggest fan is out there and wants to say hello. Where are you, Halee? Stand up and wave!! Halee?"
...
...
I cowered harder than I have ever cowered in my life. And that mascot had so much hope in his beady little eyes as he panned the crowd to make eye contact with his alleged biggest fan...but little did he know that the girl he was looking for was essentially laying on the sticky floor to avoid detection, and sending Jackie a text message that said: "You suck harder than anyone has ever sucked ever."
The end.
It has been two entire weeks since the Southfork event, and I suppose it has taken me that long to quietly reflect on the evening to the point I can actually write about it. (I kinda wanted you to think I had run off to have an affair with Bobby, and left you here wondering just like the end of a cliffhanger episode, not to be resolved until the following season...)
In order to preserve all the memories of the night, I decided to do the ol' standby of taking a recorder to tape little snippets of what was going on. An audiolog, if you will. And thanks to technology, I was able to do that on my phone and have it all pre-digitized. The synopsis you will find below contains all the commentary, in my hilariously bad and sickly and scratchy and pre-pubescent voice. I did not feel good. But I toughed it out, as this was something I simply could not miss.
And now, the events of November 8th at the 30th Anniversary Dallas Cast Reunion and Barbeque transcribed and recorded for posterity...
In order to preserve all the memories of the night, I decided to do the ol' standby of taking a recorder to tape little snippets of what was going on. An audiolog, if you will. And thanks to technology, I was able to do that on my phone and have it all pre-digitized. The synopsis you will find below contains all the commentary, in my hilariously bad and sickly and scratchy and pre-pubescent voice. I did not feel good. But I toughed it out, as this was something I simply could not miss.
And now, the events of November 8th at the 30th Anniversary Dallas Cast Reunion and Barbeque transcribed and recorded for posterity...
We didn't really have concrete plans for my second night in LA, so we did what seemed most logical: to head down to the neighborhood of THE Church of Scientology International Celebrity Centre and snoop around.
The next day we watched this documentary on a disillusioned (and highly vocal) ex-Scientologist, but...it put us to sleep. No one could stay awake through this thing. I looked over at Kris when we both woke up and realized we had both nodded off and she said, "Shit. I think I'm a Scientologist now."
- We walked up to the center, fully knowing every move we made would be
videotaped, and every word we uttered would be recorded. I took that
opportunity to loudly reiterate my confusion between "dianetics" and
"diuretics."
- As we walked around to a dimly lit side street alongside the complex, a bicycle cop / security guard / Scientology Overlord stopped in his tracks, turned around, and started slowly trailing us. I still managed to snap off this shot of both the parking dungeon and the castle where they keep the snails or Xenu's ashes or whatever.
- There was a set of apartments directly next to (maybe even physically connected to) the compound. We wondered if that was just an unfortunate location for some tenants...or if this was some sort of safehouse for wayward thetans. Then we came across the most exciting find of the evening. What appeared to be an actual E-meter machine sitting on a cart just inside the apartment gate!!
- Then suddenly, a real, live Scientologist shuffled past us! I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly, but I think he had on a tuxedo. (For some reason, in my mind all Scientologists always wear tuxedos.) He hurried by, and did not offer to audit us although he was clearly making a beeline for that E-meter.
The next day we watched this documentary on a disillusioned (and highly vocal) ex-Scientologist, but...it put us to sleep. No one could stay awake through this thing. I looked over at Kris when we both woke up and realized we had both nodded off and she said, "Shit. I think I'm a Scientologist now."
Remember this dumb idea? Where my friend Kris and I were going to attempt the impossible and get me from LAX to the theatre downtown in about an hour, with the goal of making it in time to see the beginning of the "9 to 5" musical at 8pm? Well....welcome to the exciting conclusion!
I flew on my first Virgin America flight ever, and I must say I'm pretty impressed with the airline. The seats were roomy and comfortable, the aesthetic was really space-agey and clean-looking, the in-flight entertainment system (particularly the game Anagramarama) was truly entertaining, and the cherry on top was the fact that I was surrounded by about 25 twenty-something boys from Italy. But I was not impressed with their airspeed. We were supposed to touch down at 6:20, and when Kris called me at 6:25 asking if I was on the shuttle yet, I had to sadly report that I was still on the tarmac. My confidence level on a scale from 1 to 10 slipped to about a 6.5 that we would make it to 9 to 5 on time.
I finally got off the plane and speedwalked to the shuttle stop, hoping I would just catch the one going by since they start at Terminal 1 every half hour on the hour. I figured since I was outside at about 6:35, there was no way they could make it from Terminal 1 to Terminal 6 in five minutes, and I'd be gold. I was not gold. I must have just missed the last one, because I ended up waiting/pacing there for 25 minutes. Confidence level dropped to 5.0.
Once on the shuttle and on the freeway, I saw nothing but a sea of brake lights, and my confidence temporarily dropped to a 3.0, until I realized we were allowed in the HOV lane and were blowing past everyone and it returned to a 5.0. I was on the phone with Kris, giving her a play-by-play of which exits I was passing so she could coordinate train timing.
I pulled up to Union Station at 7:50 or so, watching Kris sprint past the bus to the ticket counter to buy my tickets. Once I was allowed to disembark, she and I took off running to the underground subway tunnels. We breathlessly arrived on the platform, only to see that the next train didn't arrive until 7:57. Confidence level 2.0.
But at 7:54, our train was inexplicably early! We got on it and stood at the doorway as if we were in sprinter's blocks, ready to explode out of the train at our next stop and haul ass to the theatre. It stopped. We ran.
We didn't exactly know which way the theatre was, so we took a few gambles and ran up several flights of stairs. After running so far with my heavy bag and Kris in heels, we started to slow down. Confidence level and lung capacity sank to a 1.0, when we finally made it to the doors of the theatre, only to find it was a whole theatre COMPLEX and we were at the wrong one! We still had about a block to go...fuck! I was just ready to lay down and die and forget the whole caper.
We limped and stumbled to the right theatre, and surprisingly the front doors were still open and attended by ushers. No music. 7.5. We realized we had to walk up three flights of stairs to get to the balcony. 7.0. We made it to the top and were greeted by a smiling usher who uttered these magic words...
I flew on my first Virgin America flight ever, and I must say I'm pretty impressed with the airline. The seats were roomy and comfortable, the aesthetic was really space-agey and clean-looking, the in-flight entertainment system (particularly the game Anagramarama) was truly entertaining, and the cherry on top was the fact that I was surrounded by about 25 twenty-something boys from Italy. But I was not impressed with their airspeed. We were supposed to touch down at 6:20, and when Kris called me at 6:25 asking if I was on the shuttle yet, I had to sadly report that I was still on the tarmac. My confidence level on a scale from 1 to 10 slipped to about a 6.5 that we would make it to 9 to 5 on time.
I finally got off the plane and speedwalked to the shuttle stop, hoping I would just catch the one going by since they start at Terminal 1 every half hour on the hour. I figured since I was outside at about 6:35, there was no way they could make it from Terminal 1 to Terminal 6 in five minutes, and I'd be gold. I was not gold. I must have just missed the last one, because I ended up waiting/pacing there for 25 minutes. Confidence level dropped to 5.0.
Once on the shuttle and on the freeway, I saw nothing but a sea of brake lights, and my confidence temporarily dropped to a 3.0, until I realized we were allowed in the HOV lane and were blowing past everyone and it returned to a 5.0. I was on the phone with Kris, giving her a play-by-play of which exits I was passing so she could coordinate train timing.
I pulled up to Union Station at 7:50 or so, watching Kris sprint past the bus to the ticket counter to buy my tickets. Once I was allowed to disembark, she and I took off running to the underground subway tunnels. We breathlessly arrived on the platform, only to see that the next train didn't arrive until 7:57. Confidence level 2.0.
But at 7:54, our train was inexplicably early! We got on it and stood at the doorway as if we were in sprinter's blocks, ready to explode out of the train at our next stop and haul ass to the theatre. It stopped. We ran.
We didn't exactly know which way the theatre was, so we took a few gambles and ran up several flights of stairs. After running so far with my heavy bag and Kris in heels, we started to slow down. Confidence level and lung capacity sank to a 1.0, when we finally made it to the doors of the theatre, only to find it was a whole theatre COMPLEX and we were at the wrong one! We still had about a block to go...fuck! I was just ready to lay down and die and forget the whole caper.
We limped and stumbled to the right theatre, and surprisingly the front doors were still open and attended by ushers. No music. 7.5. We realized we had to walk up three flights of stairs to get to the balcony. 7.0. We made it to the top and were greeted by a smiling usher who uttered these magic words...
"You just made it."We were all wheezing and sweaty, and sank breathlessly into our seats at 8:10. Literally one minute later, the lights dimmed and the curtains opened...
Today was the big Ballard Seafood Fest, which is kind of like a combination of a state fair, Groom Day, and a mall's food court with nothing but stall after stall of Long John Silver's. I do not care for seafood. Here is how I amused myself at Seafood Fest, despite my dislike for seafood:
- Ate a huge ear of roasted corn that was dipped liberally into a vat of butter.
- Nibbled on the elephant ear that Leslie bought, and in doing so, also became covered in a light dusting of powdered sugar just like the elephant ear.
- Laughed at a bike pizza delivery guy trying to deliver a pizza IN THE MIDDLE OF SEAFOOD FEST. (!?)
- Followed a guy who was walking around in full-on corpse paint. He did not eat any seafood. But he did roll several cigarettes, and occasionally stopped to switch out the CD in his Walkman™.
This is a second in a series of posts where I document the various stereotypes I observe in weird situations. Last time I focused on the various characters at adults-only skate night, today I would like to outline the various stereotypes I encountered at last week's tennis camp. Matt and I signed up for this intense clinic, it was about 2 and a half hours every night for a week. With a bunch of people who took it waaaaay too seriously:
- Middle-aged balding guys with something to prove
Quantity: 1
Uniform: matching black official tennis™ shirt and shorts, paired with radioactively white shoes
Specialties: serving as hard as he could against lower level girl players just to be a douche, cussing when missing shots in warmup or other times it really didn't matter - Middle-aged Asian lesbians
Quantity: 2
Uniform: baggy shirts and shorts, wrist guards, short hair, glasses
Specialties: looking androgynous, volleying, grunting - Asian girl who thought she was starring in her own tennis manga
Quantity: 1
Uniform: pigtail buns, expensive tennis dress, spandex coverings on shins and upper arms (?)
Specialties: giggling, nodding at everything the instructors said, giggling, standing behind the instructors to point and help reiterate the points they were making as if she were their own personal Vanna White, taking way too much pride when they used her in example scenarios...and then ruining the example scenarios by putting shots away unnecessarily - Asian girl who was terrified of everything
Quantity: 1
Uniform: aeropostale tracksuit
Specialties: making a very concerned face, making a very confused face, making a very scared face - The guy who had no business being in an intermediate class
Quantity: 1
Uniform: head-to-toe lacoste
Specialties: hitting the ball out of bounds, hitting the ball into the net, hitting himself with his racket - The girl who did not take it all that seriously, joked around too much, and smarted off to the instructors, especially the cute ones (ahem, I mean YOU Federico)
Quantity: 1
Uniform: "ridin' dirty" motorcross t-shirt with a tennis skirt from target, these rad shoes
Specialties: managing to be in the bottom level despite taking tennis lessons for 3 consecutive years, choking on important shots, laughing at everything
- Surprisingly coordinated chubby wiggers
- Quantity: 2
- Uniform: Baggy jeans, FUBU shirts, untied skates
- Influences: Sweetness's gang on "Roll Bounce"
- Specialties: Fancy footwork, shadow skating with one skating immediately behind the other and mirroring every move, suddenly "losing footing" when skating by a cute girl requiring them to put their hands on her waist to "steady themselves"
- Former ice dancers
- Quantity: 3
- Uniform: Spandex, tight, form-hugging
- Influences: Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov
- Specialties: Extending arms out like a bird while gaining speed around curves, pairs skating, twirling
- Middle aged guidos reclaiming 1978 roller glory
- Quantity: 3
- Uniform: Tight tshirts tucked in, high belted jeans, moustaches, bald spots, blinking lights on skates
- Influences: Sonny Malone, John Travolta
- Specialties: Doing the weavy-leg in-out thing, skating on toes, leaping in air to change from skating forward to backward, skating as close to the wall as possible and kicking the wall with the outside skate while skating by it
- Middle aged BFF reclaiming 1987 roller friendship
- Quantity: 2
- Uniform: Floral rompers, wrist guards
- Influences: DJ Tanner and Kimmy Gibbler
- Specialties: Skating hand in hand, dramatically lifting the push-off leg in perfect unison with each other
- Middle aged people in center of rink, doing the electric slide the entire time
- Quantity: 2 - 25, depending on what song was playing
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Uniform: Varied
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Influences: Various
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Specialties: Stamina?
For whatever reason, when I have played recreational tennis in my adult life I have always played against boys. This has made me pretty complacent about losing. I've pretty much deciding that losing a set 6-3 to a boy is a triumph for me. Their wings and legs are long and strong, where my wings and legs...well, let's just extend this into a complete chicken metaphor and say that my wings and legs are the ones that have been sitting under the heating lamp at Allsup's since the morning shift.
I played Matt for the first time ever on Memorial Day, and oh how I will remember it! He hadn't played in 10 years, so I was just certain that I would obliterate him. Much like hangman, I was going to take him out limb by limb. I didn't want to make him cry, but I wanted him to be awe-struck with my polished 2.5 level playing. Well, muscle memory is a fascinating/stupid thing, and he kicked my ass 6-2, 6-1. Now we're going to go to tennis camp together at the end of this month! We're going to ride over together, and get slurpees after if we play good! Maybe we'll get matching Lacoste tennis whites, which we can also use to dress up as preppie tennis zombies for Halloween!
That was not the point of this post. The point of today's post was to recap my match(es) last night with Wade, the first of many in a series of Tennis Tuesday Challenges. Wade and I have played quite a few times, and of course he always wins. (See "Wings and Legs" chapter above.) It was an exciting match, my best against him ever and I actually took him to a tiebreak! (For one minute, I wanted to refused the tiebreak and make us play until someone won two consecutive games. I love it when there are insane scores like 28-26.) Neither of us really knew the proper way to score/switch ends on a tiebreak...in retrospect, I should have requested a draw. Because that weasel beat me. It was so close. And I was so tired and sweaty, because a 7-6 set to someone who is used to 6-1 sets is like playing two sets! We started picking up to leave when...
..."he" finally spoke up. "He" was an older wirey little snakey man who had been practicing his serve alone in the court next to us. He said, "Do you two mind hitting around with an old man for a little bit before you leave?" Well, I had seen the way he hit the ball, and I was scared of him. He hit it hard and low and mightily. I felt bad for a second with Wade and me playing doubles against him playing singles, but the dude kept us on the run! From his mouth came a fountain of wisdom, and he gave us all sorts of awesome tips, and I was able to hit it back to him almost as hard and low and mightily (although admittedly with a lot more squealing when I got excited). I wanted to call him our tennis fairy godfather and thank him, but that felt wrong so instead I muttered under my breath to Wade "Thanks, Mr. Tennis Leprechaun."
I played Matt for the first time ever on Memorial Day, and oh how I will remember it! He hadn't played in 10 years, so I was just certain that I would obliterate him. Much like hangman, I was going to take him out limb by limb. I didn't want to make him cry, but I wanted him to be awe-struck with my polished 2.5 level playing. Well, muscle memory is a fascinating/stupid thing, and he kicked my ass 6-2, 6-1. Now we're going to go to tennis camp together at the end of this month! We're going to ride over together, and get slurpees after if we play good! Maybe we'll get matching Lacoste tennis whites, which we can also use to dress up as preppie tennis zombies for Halloween!
That was not the point of this post. The point of today's post was to recap my match(es) last night with Wade, the first of many in a series of Tennis Tuesday Challenges. Wade and I have played quite a few times, and of course he always wins. (See "Wings and Legs" chapter above.) It was an exciting match, my best against him ever and I actually took him to a tiebreak! (For one minute, I wanted to refused the tiebreak and make us play until someone won two consecutive games. I love it when there are insane scores like 28-26.) Neither of us really knew the proper way to score/switch ends on a tiebreak...in retrospect, I should have requested a draw. Because that weasel beat me. It was so close. And I was so tired and sweaty, because a 7-6 set to someone who is used to 6-1 sets is like playing two sets! We started picking up to leave when...
..."he" finally spoke up. "He" was an older wirey little snakey man who had been practicing his serve alone in the court next to us. He said, "Do you two mind hitting around with an old man for a little bit before you leave?" Well, I had seen the way he hit the ball, and I was scared of him. He hit it hard and low and mightily. I felt bad for a second with Wade and me playing doubles against him playing singles, but the dude kept us on the run! From his mouth came a fountain of wisdom, and he gave us all sorts of awesome tips, and I was able to hit it back to him almost as hard and low and mightily (although admittedly with a lot more squealing when I got excited). I wanted to call him our tennis fairy godfather and thank him, but that felt wrong so instead I muttered under my breath to Wade "Thanks, Mr. Tennis Leprechaun."
