And Then There Were Two...

29^th April 2008. The time is 10:00 and I am listening to the mournful sounds of some classical piece drifting through the coffee shop something moody with violins, cellos and harpsichord. It seems appropriate enough however.

Things in California are going okay. To be honest, the time has flown by very fast and I feel like I am in some sort of dream and that I will wake up tomorrow and still be in Dallas. I don’t FEEL like I am in California, nor have I done a lot of Cally kind of things. Maybe it is all still sinking in.

This weekend I traveled to fabled Richmond, Virginia to be in my good friend and valued New Prussian citizen, Andrew McMahans’ wedding. It was fun but I still can’t believe he is married. Here is the thing, back in high school and early junior college, the five of us: my brother, me, Andrew, Scott and another friend named Matt all hung together pretty much non-stop. (Except after 10 P.M. when Andrew had to be home in bed.) Matt pulled the trigger first and got married about ten years ago. One down, but us other four were still around. Then Scott went and done got hitched a year or so ago. (How long HAS it been?) It’s okay, still over fifty percent of “the five” are single. Then it happened, Andrew found the desire of his heart and somehow wedded her. That means three out of five are married and my brother and I are now the minority. How it ended up being us two I have no idea, but I feel as though I am standing on an island all alone now, the last remaining bastion of some old guard, gone and almost forgotten. Oh well, congrads Andrew. Now go make babies, New Prussia needs more citizens. And now I proudly present...

Fun with Charities:

So there is this charity called Shoes for Africa. You have probably heard of it and undoubtedly Andrew has done much work with them while in Sudan. Anyway, what they do is take your old shoes and give them to people in need in Africa. Every girl I know has about 20 pairs of shoes and I wonder if they take red high heels. Anyway, this charity has inspired me to come up with other charities of my own that take similar donations. (BTW- there is one that takes your old glasses as well.)

‘Undies for Down Under – Every day hundreds of people in Australia go without a decent pair of underpants. Now you can donate your used boxers or whitey tighties to this wonderful cause. Please wash first.

Bra’s for France – I am told women in France go topless at this beach. Of course this must be due to a shortage of tops, which this charity plans to change. Please donate your old Bra’s or Bikini tops.

Glasses for Cambodia – Okay, this one is really, really mean and I was tempted to leave it out, but hey, I have already come this far… Anyways, if you know a little history you will get it, if you don’t then it is just as well. Think Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Coats for Antarctica – Under funded scientific research teams, forced to use all of their funds on equipment and transportation, saved money by skimming on cold weather gear and are now freezing to death in the snow and ice. Your old coats can save their lives but only if you donate them in time. However with global warming this may not be an issue much longer anyway.

And now time for...

Great Moments in OCD History: I’ve decided I will never go surfing. Granted this probably would never happen anyways, but it sure as hell won’t ever happen now. My roommate for two weeks, Travis, is a surfer and he has confirmed my worst fears about this activity. They call it the brown tide. That occasional moment when swimming through the Ocean that the water gets a dirty murky brown and they find themselves floating amongst the remains of human waste and sewage! For God’s sake, what is wrong with these people? Swimming in human filth? Not only that, but he admitted that recently a bunch of syringes were found washed ashore at one of the beaches he surfs at! Okay I understand the allure of extreme sports, the rush of parachuting or the glory of snow boarding out of a helicopter on the top of some mountain. I can see the temptation for such things. However you aren’t parachuting into a vat of syringes or snow boarding down a mountain of dung. (Would that be Mt. Crap-a-towa?) I mean seriously, can you image the horror of swimming in blue waters when all of the sudden you notice oblong, brown chunks of stuff floating by, brushing up against you? Perhaps you are surfing along, floating on a wave of feces, when you wipe out, fall in the water and it all rushes into your mouth and up your nose! I would kill myself in anxiety if something like that happened. I mean if I were to invent a form of torture, it would involve something like this. Maybe I would start water boarding with brown tidewater. Now that would be enough to make any terrorist gush in a torrent of information. It is certainly enough to keep me out of the water. Incidentally, this weekend a man was killed by a Great White shark off the coast of San Diego, giving me yet another reason to stay out of the water.

Well that is probably enough potty humor for now. I will come back with more later. Roll tide, roll.