More Highlights from Hendersonville!

#7) Last night was a total blast with our new BFF's. Except for the fact that they literally live on the side of a mountain. We had to drive at about a 60* incline to get there. Scary. I guess we need to get used to driving around here. Their house was beautiful. Everything seemed to be going well until I learned that they also have an apartment in MANHATTAN. Now I kinda don't like them any more. But their friends are very nice, too, so we'll see how this works out.

8) We offered waaaay too much information about ourselves to these ladies. Sonja, if you read this, you'll know what I mean. Come to think of it, there is a strong possibility that they will choose not to be our frineds, not the other way around. Again - we shall see.

9) Robin made me go get cigarettes for her at the crack of dawn this morning. After I locked my car and double checked that it was locked, I noticed all the other customers not only not locking their cars, but leaving them running as they went inside. FREAKS.

10) See number 9 - there is good money in car theft. Job situation handled.

11) Took a lil ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway today. Couldn't wait. Was so excited. I drove. About 1/100 of a mile in to it, I almost started crying. My jaw was so clenched and my knuckles were so white, I am sure to be sore in these areas tomorrow. It was just like driving up and down a corkscrew with cars coming at us. 2 lanes! I appreciate all this mountain beauty as much as the next guy, but to risk one's life?

12) Then Robin drove. I now have a sore throat from screaming, "I am serious, Robin. Slow the F down"!!!!! I didn't say "F".

13) Made it to homebase in one piece. Iris told us that Joe was sleeping and to not make any noise. I have to say - my parents' house is crazy and wild and loud (I know - not ALL the time, Mom - just when we're there). But the silence in this house is crazy in it's own way.

14) Robin announced she was going to take a nap. She's a good napper. I tried to nap, too, but then I heard rats running around. First one, then a couple, then there were rats running wild in the ceiling. Hundreds, thousands. How can Iris and Joe live like this? DEAR GOD!!! I can't stay here now that I know their house is infested with rats. Oh wait. It was raining. Whew.

15) Robin's phone just went off for the fourth time since I started writing this crap. Sure enough. Joe's at it again.

PS: Hightlight #6

Robin has an annoying ringtone that notifies her when she gets an email or a text. She receives a lot of both, so her phone goes off a lot. Whenever it does, Joe looks up from his jigsaw puzzle and asks, "Vaht is that noise?"

We either say, "What noise?" or "Birds."

Road trip to Hendersonville, NC

We got here yesterday. Took us about 12 hours, but it wasn't too bad of a trip, especially when we saw the Blue Ridge Mountains. I grew up in the Foothills of the Adirondacks, but these seemed 100 times bigger. I can only imagine what they look like in the fall.

Highlights of the trip thus far:

1) We arrived at Iris and Joe's and had the new house tour. Very nice. The best part was when we were going out to bring our stuff in, Joe insisted we go through the garage. We assumed he had some tools or a fishing pool or some crap to show us. Opened the door and I could not believe my eyes! When we took them to the airport a few months ago to come to NC, I asked how they were gonna get around. "We bought a car". That's all that was said. Iris just turned 77 and Joe is about 87. So you can imagine our surprise to see a JAGUAR sitting in their garage.

2) Iris and Joe had to go to physical therapy this morning, so Robin and I were on our own. We got in the car and started looking for a house to rent. Ew. Yuck. Nice, but no fence. Love it - called - no pets. Repeat. We were in the middle of nowhere and two family (in the gay world that means same sex couples) were out for their morning walk. We stopped and asked them a couple questions about the area. Long story short - they are a super nice couple who were very helpful. We are actually going to their house for drinks tonight.

3) Our aforementioned new best friends hooked us up with a realtor who is showing us a renovated farmhouse on Wednesday. Sounds incredible!!

4) We continued to drive around. The mountains are so steep and winding, we both got car sick.

5) Spent a couple hours in Asheville (20-30 minutes away) this afternoon! Absolutely fell in love with the city! It reminds me of Grenwich Village surrounded by gorgeous mountains. We were so impressed by the diversity and trendiness. Were even entertained at an outdoor cafe by a couple of street musicians. They were good, but one of them made me nervous. His pants kept slipping down and we saw frontal nudity. Iris insists we take her there tomorrow.

I should receive the "Sister of the Year Award"

Before I realized the “boys are icky” lifestyle, I actually had a boyfriend whose name was Tom when I was around 15 years old. He came over one Friday night and before we went out, we stood talking to my mom and Nelson in the kitchen for a few minutes. Kyle had recently gotten a fish bowl that had three little gold fish in it. It was just a bowl, not an aquarium or anything fancy. The fish bowl was on the kitchen counter and for some reason, Tom stuck his fingers in it. I suppose maybe he wanted to pet the fish. I really don’t know why he did that.

Nelson had started a weekly routine on Saturday mornings. Kyle , who was seven at the time, would be served breakfast while he watched cartoons in the upstairs den. He would sit Indian style two feet in front of the TV, mesmerized by the cartoons. On this particular Saturday morning, I went downstairs to find my parents talking to each other in a mildly worrisome manner. Not end of the world worrisome, more like the type of worrisome I experience when I find that one of the dogs has eaten one of Robin’s shoes. It starts off like “Oh Shit”, yet quickly becomes and “Oh well”.

So I asked what was going on and my mother nodded her head toward the fishbowl. The three fish were floating on top.

“You’re upset the fish are asleep?”, I asked, being the honor student I was. My mother is a big hater of the sleeper inners.

“They’re dead, Kim”, said my mom. I’m sure what she really meant was, “They’re dead, Dumbass”. Good mothers didn’t call their children names, and neither did mine.
Did Tom murder my brother’s fish? Why, that son of a …….

“Do we have any bagels?”, I asked.

“In the bread drawer”, replied my mother.

“I’m making some toast for your brother. Hand me your bagel and I’ll toast it for you”, Nelson told me.

As I waited for my bagel to toast, my mother made a bowl of cereal for Kyle and put everything on a tray so Nelson could take it up to His Majesty once his toast was ready.

While I waited, something came over me. Something very evil. Something of which I am not proud. (OK a little proud. I am a human being, afterall).

When all was toasted, I offered to take Kyle’s breakfast up to him. My mother asked why, to which I replied, “Why not?. He’s my brother and I love him”.

They should have known something was up. What happened next really could have been prevented had Mom and Nelson stopped me. It really is all their fault. Kyle’s current shortcomings are their fault.

I carried the tray and sat it down next to him. “How come you brought it?”, asked inquisitive Little Kyle.

“Because you’re my brother and I love you”, I said, rustling his little head. Then I just stepped back, leaned on the doorjam with my arms folded and observed. First he shoveled in the cereal without looking at it. Perfect. Next, the top piece of toast. Right on target. Finally, he bit into the second piece of toast. He chewed once, then stopped. Horrified, he spit it out and then looked at the remaining piece of toast.

There laid his other two dead fish, staring up at him.

Kyle’s never been quite the same since.

CANOE RIDE AT FLORIDA SOUTHERN COLLEGE

I could easily be persuaded to do anything but study while in college, even canoeing. Canoeing is a sport, but it involves water and being in the sun, so it would be worth the effort. Besides, how hard could it really be? You sit and paddle a little. Big deal. I would be in the sun.

Florida Southern College had rules. A lot of them. One of them was no drinking and no alcohol on campus. I was 18 years old when the drinking age changed from 18 to 21. I was grandfathered in – THANK GOD! Until they officially announced the Grandfather Clause, I gotta admit, I was scared. Scared, anxious and depressed. I had been buying alcohol since I was 14 years old without difficulty, but this new stupid you need to be 21 years old to purchase alcohol law was going to change the alcohol buying process. Everyone and their brothers would start carding. Were you born before such and such a date signs were posted everywhere. Gone were the days of, “I’m sorry I left my ID at home but I swear I’m 21”. The store owners and cashiers were cracking down and if you weren’t 21 years old, you weren’t buying alcohol. Unless you were grandfathered in. Which I was. THANK GOD.

Betsy convinced me that we should go out in a canoe on Lake Hollingsworth. She didn’t have to ask me twice. She was a good studier and said that we could paddle out to the middle of the lake and then just chill out and study. She was bringing her books. I had planned on just bringing my walkman and of course a cooler full of beer, but decided to bring a book for good measure. A class book, not a book book. If she was going to study, so was I. Maybe. We’ll see. Probably not. Nah. Looking back, bringing that book was a stupid idea, but when you’re young and impressionable, you try to blend in. Even though I knew for sure that I would not be studying that afternoon, I brought the book to fit in.

You could get expelled from FSC for drinking on campus. Technically, being on Lake Hollingsworth in a canoe was being on campus, but we didn’t care. They wouldn’t find out. We didn’t really think about the fact that if Betsy got caught with alcohol, she could potentially lose her tennis scholarship. We didn’t think about getting caught and we certainly didn’t consider the consequences if we did get caught. So we got settled in to our canoe and paddled to the middle of the lake. It was a gorgeous sunny day in late April and I was basking in the warm sun on a lake, so that was like a double whammy – double reflection, double the sun. I was in front of the canoe and Betsy was in back. It was around 12:30 in the afternoon, so we had a good three hours of good sun in front of us. Three hours and 12 beers. Perfect. Wait! Not so perfect. Half those beers are hers. OK, three hours and six beers. I’d have to pace myself, but if she was studying, she wouldn’t drink six beers. She’d have three, maybe four beers, so I could have eight or nine beers. That’d be good.

Betsy was studying or reading or something and kept telling me to shush when I tried talking to her. The more I drank, the more I talked, and the more she shushed and the madder she got. Fine. I realized I had my walkman and decided to just relax and listen to Madonna. I put my headphones on and perched my little face up to the sun like a sunflower. This was the life! The April sun in Florida was the best. It was warm, but still not hot. I was in my glory. If I played my cards right, maybe I could hit a triple whammy and convince Betsy to take me tanning later. She had a car and I didn’t. She probably wouldn’t take me anywhere if I kept annoying her, so I decided to behave for a while and let her study.

“Li-ving in a material world and I am a material girl. Material. Ma-ter-i-a-lllll”. I was chair dancing. I was buzzed. I was getting tanner and tanner and if I played my cards right, Betsy would take me tanning later. “Material, material”.

I caught myself. Whoops. I was supposed to be quiet so she could study. I turned my head around to see if she had noticed. Huh? Betsy was submerged in water, all her books were gone (so were mine, but who cared?), the cooler was gone and within about 10 seconds, my walkman was gone too. There we were. Betsy, me and 10 empty beer cans floating amongst us.

“I was screaming at you to quit moving around but you had your headphones on so loud, you couldn’t hear me”, Betsy yelled.

The canoe had had slight leak in it and I guess when I start bouncing up and down, it started taking in water super fast.

We’d had to sign the canoe out from the dock. The dock was manned by fraternity of nerds, Lambda Chi’s. The canoe was totally under water, but we had managed to grab it before it sank to the bottom of the lake. Here came the Lambda Chi’s in a rescue boat.

“Shit! The beer cans. Sink them. Sink the beer cans! Hurry up. The nerds are coming.”

“Jesus Christ, Kim. How many beers did you drink?”, Betsy asked, half disgust, half awe.

“Half of them are yours. Sink faster. Hurry up”, I shouted.

“I’ve had two”, Betsy shot at me accusingly.

We managed to get all the cans filled and sunk just in time. Like I said before, these boys were nerds. And not the nice adorable nerds that are actually kind of cute and endearing. These were the type of nerds who would just love to report to the dean that they saved us and by the way, found ten empty beer cans amongst the ruins. That was a close call.

Two of the guys jumped out and got the canoe out from the water. They tipped it over and expected us to hop back in it. With there being no ladder, there was no way I was gonna hoist myself back in that thing. Just as I’m protesting getting back in the canoe, agile friggen Betsy just hopped in it. I hated her. So for the next few minutes, Betsy pulled and the nerds pushed and finally all of my being was plopped in the canoe.

Then I stood up and time stood still. The devil canoe tipped over. Was this really happening? There we were. Deja vue all over again. One of the genius nerds suggested that we just get on their boat and two of the guys would get the canoe back to the dock. Whatever. Wonder what time it is. Should I tan before or after dinner?

Show off Betsy lifted herself out of the water and on to the boat. I needed a ladder.

“Can you please put the ladder down?”, I asked.

“No ladder. Have to pull yourself up”, was the response I received.

“You know what? I think I’ll just swim back to the dock. Thanks for your help.” I turned to swim away.

“Afraid you can’t do that. No swimming in Lake Hollingsworth. Too much of a liability for the school what with all the water moccasins”.

“I can’t get in that boat,” I had to admit.

I could tell Betsy was feeling sorry for me.

“Here, Kimi. Let me help you. Give me your hands,” she said.

Betsy was pretty strong and pulled me out of the water. Well, Betsy and a nerd. No way one person could have gotten me out alone.

I didn’t realize what was happening. I was suspended in mid air for what seemed like an eternity. Everyone and everything was in slow motion. What was happening? Jeez, how much DID I drink? Then I noticed that everyone, every single nerd eyeball, including Betsy’s (no surprise there, I’d soon discover), was fixated on the same thing – MY GIGANTIC BOOBS THAT WERE EXPOSED TO THE WORLD. My bathing suit was strapless and I was currently topless. I somehow got myself in the boat and it was a silent ride back to the dock. Betsy couldn’t even look at me without that look of pity with the head cock and the pooched lower lip.

The Lambda Chi’s table in the cafeteria (aka “the caf”)was the very first table as you entered the caf. There were only a couple weeks of school left and I never entered the caf again that semester.

I lost 12 pounds.

Which is stronger ~ a sniff or a whiff????

Whichever is stronger is what I do. Always. If I think the milk might be bad, I can't just take a little sniff. Same with bad meat and everything else. I have to stick my nose all up in it and then suffer the consequences. I never learn my lesson.

Yesterday was no different. Robin was conducting business in her office and the man was very afraid of dogs. So we put some in their crates, and Buddy & Brady joined me while I straightened up the guest room. We have been gone quite a bit lately, for days at a time, and things just accumulate in that room when we get home.

I work out in specific black shorts. I guess they're basketball shorts - very comfy. I saw a pair on the floor and, not knowing if they were clean or dirty, yep - you guessed it - held them up to my face and indulged in a huge sniff (or whiff - whichever is worse). Immediately realized that they were indeed NOT CLEAN.

Then it dawned on me. All my shorts are Adidas. These were not.

Not only were these shorts not clean, they were not mine! Not that I ever wondered, but I guess I now know what Chris, my male my dog sitter, sleeps in.

Something is negatively affecting Robin's brain.

It's either heat or stress.

In the last hour, she literally asked me the following questions ~~~

1) We were at Hillcrest (old people condo) waiting for the elevator to come. She asked, "How will it know what floor we want?"

Um - you get in and push a button with a number on it.

2) Pulling out of Hillcrest and behind a car, she asked, "That's stupid. Why would somebody put their phone number on their license plate?"

It was the dealer thing that goes around the license plate. And I'm guessing, but it seems like the phone number would be, oh I don't know...the delear's number?

3) On the way home she wondered if North Carolina had daylight savings time.

Jeez.

PS: I probably have used this picture before. It's a classic.

And yet another reason to LOVE "Chick fil A"!!!

(As if I needed one.)

On the way home from my parents' house, I decided to have one last fling with junk food. Afterall, once home, it would be back to counting Weight Watchers points, doing the dreadmill, and drinking oceans of water.

Traveling on Sundays is fine. Traffic is normally not too bad and I-95 isn't as scary as usual. However, there is one huge downfall to traveling on Sunday - "Chick fil A" is always closed! Some crap about giving the employees a day off. If there was a "Chick fil A" on every corner in Miami, it wouldn't be such a big deal for me. But the South Florida "Chicks" are few and far between. Whenever I see a new building going up or a restaurant closing down and being remodeled, I say a little subconscious prayer, "Please be a "Chick fil A". Unanswered prayers so far.

On this past particular trip, we left on Monday. We didn't choose to leave on Monday for the sole purpose of hitting "Chick fil A", but it sure was an added perk.

Robin hates breakfast food and hates "Chick". (She doesn't hate chicks obviously.) So I was in luck. If she did do breakfast, I'd have to compromise on the place. Just before we got on 95, we drove through "Chick". They have these itty bitty little sandwiches which I'd never had before. Ordered a four pack meal. The hash browns are also in little bite sized pieces. So cute! So dainty! So me!!!

But here's the thing. When I ordered a large diet soda, I couldn't believe my ears!!!! The lady asked me what kind!

Me: "Diet".

Lady: "What kind of diet?"

Me: "Diet soda".

Lady: "We have Diet Pepsi and Diet Dr. Pepper".

Who DOES this? Who offers two choices in diet soda?

"Chick fil A", that's who.

I love you, "Chick fil A"! Your people deserve to be off on Sundays.

Aw. My family has come up with new nicknames for Robin and me.

Bitch and Butch.

Guess who is who. (Whom is whom? Who is whom? Whom is who?)

I will give you a hint, because you would never guess it otherwise. Robin just got her hair cut short again.

Yes, these are women.

Went to Publix today and shopping was NOT a pleasure. For those non-Floridians out there, Publix' motto is, "Publix - Where Shopping is a Pleasure".

Was checking out and there was a big ole dyke in line behind Robin and me. She looked like the woman in the red shirt.. She was buying a case of Busch (ha! - I made that up and am very pleased with myself at the moment) and a carton of Marlboro reds.

The cashier asked if we were sisters!!! Robin had trouble containing her laughter. I shook my head, "No".

Cashier, "Not sisters? Friends?". She said "friends" with a wink in her voice.

Again I shook my head. Thank GOD we're not related and no I wouldn't choose this "lady" as a "friend". Which is worse? Suggesting we looked alike, or suggesting that we were "friends".

And I used to like this cashier. Nadine? You are dead to me.

All day long, I've been asking Robin, "Do I come across as butchy?"

This was the highlight of Robin's day and quite possibly the entire week.