Epic Day
It was Sunday and I had already made pancakes, fixed the gliding rocking chair, tightened Luke’s crib, then ridden the wave of inertia to take on the broken screen door that had nearly faded off my to-do list, and finally written up near perfect modals/conditionals quiz before the Starbucks reached its half-life. Darcy interrupted my groove to say she wanted to go to Trader Joe’s while the boys were still napping. She had been sick all weekend, so I offered to go if she wasn’t feeling up to it.
“No way,” she said, “I need to get out of the house. Besides, you got to go to Home Depot this morning.”
True, I did get to go to Home Depot. To go to Trader Joe’s on top of that would just be shameless hedonism. And I had gotten some big items crossed off my list. Bonus: while Darcy was still shopping and the boys still napping, I snuck upstairs to watch Tiger make two classic shots: a pure 5 iron followed by a 21 foot downhill “slider” putt to get the birdie he needed on the 18th hole to win his 64th title, his 5th straight on the PGA, his 8th straight worldwide…in HD!!! We’ve had HD for 8 months, but I thought I had to pay extra or get some special cables or something to actually see it. I finally found the stations that carried it way up in the 200’s. This has brought newfound clarity to my life, just in time for March Madness and the Masters.
Lucy and I celebrated Tiger’s achievement by taking a stroll and soiling some of the town’s most exclusive and well-manicured properties in that extra sweet extra evening light that had been oppressive darkness just a week ago, and would have still been dark this week and next had some genius not decided to start daylight savings a few weeks earlier.
Yes, I was feeling great, until I got this email from Ted about his day on the slopes at Tahoe:
You should've been there. It was a 9.0 out of ten: sunny off and on, snowing off and on, a foot of fresh snow, and we hiked 30 minutes to the top of Mt Judah to do an untracked run. Couple of beers, a few tokes*, all in all a great day.
I had had a great day, too, of the New Fun variety, but here was Ted soiling that with his Old Fun gloating. That’s been his game ever since it was Ted, me, and Scooter living in our first apartment on Maui, figuring out how to optimize paradise on 7 dollars an hour, making steady progress as a team, when, in the course a couple of weeks, Scooter, then I, suddenly, without warning, both barricaded ourselves in our rooms with lockdown, unofficial live-in girlfriends, who only came out to use the bathroom for half an hour two minutes before Ted needed to.
That happened around Christmas time, so Ted made sure to share his pointed New Year’s resolution with us: “I’m gonna hook up more this year.”
To everyone’s surprise, he went out and did it, sampling the exotic fruits of the island while Scooter and I spent more and more sunny days and tropical nights in our bedrooms, entangled in circular, skull-wrenching arguments.
Since then, I have been certain that every bit of fun Ted has had has been to spite me. My lockdown girlfriend eventually crated me up and shipped me back to the mainland, to New York City. (Eventually to become my lovely lockdown wife.) And just when I thought I was over Maui, Ted would ruin my sidewalk brunch with a dawn report about the head high glassy swells at Honolua and the California divorcee he had met on the boat the day before, and only just dropped off at her hotel on his way to the break.
Eventually, Ted got locked down himself, and he was laid up with a hurt neck for awhile, so there were fewer glowing surf and scamming reports to rile me further up as I flipped through traffic reports on the LIE. However, he read my New Fun manifesto, I’m certain, and decided it was time for a new offensive, one that went straight after my weakness, my affinity for mountains and snow. He left Maui (a necessity after 10 years, haoles who stay in the sun too long end up with skin like a potato you find behind the stove – an affliction the locals happily call “haole rot”) and started anew in the Bay Area. Now, he’s snowboarding in Tahoe every other weekend and making sure I hear about every turn. They’ve had an epic season, and I am happy for Ted, I really am.
Ted’s companion on the mountain, Johnny A.: “was a mess, as you might guess. Smoking hash-laced keef (not sure what that is nor how to spell it) and hash-oiled and weed-filled joints, trying to do three sixties but pulling out and landing like a beached whale, cutting in line, yelling at random people, calling his buddy in SF to give him the half hour updates. He died his hair and beard orange, but you could still tell it was him.”
This was the same Johnny A, with whom I had my last unbridled week of old fun in Whistler, 5 years ago already. Johnny A., the wildman whom I saw voluntarily poop himself in the surf at Hookipa (some things you can’t unsee), letting it slide down his leg before paddling out, with the theory that it all comes out in the salty wash.
My new buddies also poop themselves, involuntarily though, and hopefully not for much longer. I put aside Ted’s email to watch them hold hands and jump around in a circle singing, “Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posy”, skipping the part about the ashes, which they don’t have down yet, and falling down in a fits of laughter, again and again and again and again. Andre then grabbed a tambourine and told me (not asked) to play guitar while he jammed along on percussion, showing more rhythm than 20% of Caucasian males, of any age. I could smell Darcy’s grass fed meatloaf was almost finished, and I cracked open my one and only Long Trail of the evening before taking on the Times Sunday Crossword. I’d say the day was at least a 9.2 out of 10. I’d say it was epic.
*of cloves
“No way,” she said, “I need to get out of the house. Besides, you got to go to Home Depot this morning.”
True, I did get to go to Home Depot. To go to Trader Joe’s on top of that would just be shameless hedonism. And I had gotten some big items crossed off my list. Bonus: while Darcy was still shopping and the boys still napping, I snuck upstairs to watch Tiger make two classic shots: a pure 5 iron followed by a 21 foot downhill “slider” putt to get the birdie he needed on the 18th hole to win his 64th title, his 5th straight on the PGA, his 8th straight worldwide…in HD!!! We’ve had HD for 8 months, but I thought I had to pay extra or get some special cables or something to actually see it. I finally found the stations that carried it way up in the 200’s. This has brought newfound clarity to my life, just in time for March Madness and the Masters.
Lucy and I celebrated Tiger’s achievement by taking a stroll and soiling some of the town’s most exclusive and well-manicured properties in that extra sweet extra evening light that had been oppressive darkness just a week ago, and would have still been dark this week and next had some genius not decided to start daylight savings a few weeks earlier.
Yes, I was feeling great, until I got this email from Ted about his day on the slopes at Tahoe:
You should've been there. It was a 9.0 out of ten: sunny off and on, snowing off and on, a foot of fresh snow, and we hiked 30 minutes to the top of Mt Judah to do an untracked run. Couple of beers, a few tokes*, all in all a great day.
I had had a great day, too, of the New Fun variety, but here was Ted soiling that with his Old Fun gloating. That’s been his game ever since it was Ted, me, and Scooter living in our first apartment on Maui, figuring out how to optimize paradise on 7 dollars an hour, making steady progress as a team, when, in the course a couple of weeks, Scooter, then I, suddenly, without warning, both barricaded ourselves in our rooms with lockdown, unofficial live-in girlfriends, who only came out to use the bathroom for half an hour two minutes before Ted needed to.
That happened around Christmas time, so Ted made sure to share his pointed New Year’s resolution with us: “I’m gonna hook up more this year.”
To everyone’s surprise, he went out and did it, sampling the exotic fruits of the island while Scooter and I spent more and more sunny days and tropical nights in our bedrooms, entangled in circular, skull-wrenching arguments.
Since then, I have been certain that every bit of fun Ted has had has been to spite me. My lockdown girlfriend eventually crated me up and shipped me back to the mainland, to New York City. (Eventually to become my lovely lockdown wife.) And just when I thought I was over Maui, Ted would ruin my sidewalk brunch with a dawn report about the head high glassy swells at Honolua and the California divorcee he had met on the boat the day before, and only just dropped off at her hotel on his way to the break.
Eventually, Ted got locked down himself, and he was laid up with a hurt neck for awhile, so there were fewer glowing surf and scamming reports to rile me further up as I flipped through traffic reports on the LIE. However, he read my New Fun manifesto, I’m certain, and decided it was time for a new offensive, one that went straight after my weakness, my affinity for mountains and snow. He left Maui (a necessity after 10 years, haoles who stay in the sun too long end up with skin like a potato you find behind the stove – an affliction the locals happily call “haole rot”) and started anew in the Bay Area. Now, he’s snowboarding in Tahoe every other weekend and making sure I hear about every turn. They’ve had an epic season, and I am happy for Ted, I really am.
Ted’s companion on the mountain, Johnny A.: “was a mess, as you might guess. Smoking hash-laced keef (not sure what that is nor how to spell it) and hash-oiled and weed-filled joints, trying to do three sixties but pulling out and landing like a beached whale, cutting in line, yelling at random people, calling his buddy in SF to give him the half hour updates. He died his hair and beard orange, but you could still tell it was him.”
This was the same Johnny A, with whom I had my last unbridled week of old fun in Whistler, 5 years ago already. Johnny A., the wildman whom I saw voluntarily poop himself in the surf at Hookipa (some things you can’t unsee), letting it slide down his leg before paddling out, with the theory that it all comes out in the salty wash.
My new buddies also poop themselves, involuntarily though, and hopefully not for much longer. I put aside Ted’s email to watch them hold hands and jump around in a circle singing, “Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posy”, skipping the part about the ashes, which they don’t have down yet, and falling down in a fits of laughter, again and again and again and again. Andre then grabbed a tambourine and told me (not asked) to play guitar while he jammed along on percussion, showing more rhythm than 20% of Caucasian males, of any age. I could smell Darcy’s grass fed meatloaf was almost finished, and I cracked open my one and only Long Trail of the evening before taking on the Times Sunday Crossword. I’d say the day was at least a 9.2 out of 10. I’d say it was epic.
*of cloves
posted by D&d at 9:09 PM
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