Saturday Night Frostbite

Yet another uneventful Saturday night. What are my friends doing? Well, a myriad other things. Three are at a girls-only-martini night. One is stressing out about her upcoming move. One is being a good stepmother and watching movies with her kids. Another one is sitting in her back porch listening to the music of the Arts and Jazz Fest going on in Denton right now. Me? I am in bed watching the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

It is hard to write a blog when nothing really happens in your life. In a way I am thankful I have started this blog as it has made me be more adventurous so that I will have something to write about. For instance, yesterday I went to the Arts and Jazz Fest with some friends, and here is what happened:

In my search of things to do this weekend, I asked my friends T and K what their plans were for Friday night. Now, I have only known them for a couple of months and have only hung out with them about three or four times, but they are awesome people and I enjoy spending time with them. That is why when they said they were going to the festival, I was all psyched about it even though I don't really like jazz that much. Upon further discussion of our plans, it was mentioned that they were planning to ride their bicycles there. I thought I had a perfect out by saying that I did not own a bike, but they were ready for me. They had an extra bike. Last time I was on a bike that I remember, before yesterday, I was still in high school. Since I am in that "getting fit" kick I agreed to do so.

At about six, I pulled up in front of their house and after a few minutes of small talk, really good small talk, we started getting ready to leave. I must say I was really afraid of falling and or having the bike attack me as it used to attack Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes. I looked it up and down. Then K started talking to me about gears and the fear intensified. I don't know anything about gears. My bikes had always been the simple, gear-less ones. We set off and, since I was the least experienced rider, I was in the middle of the formation. It turns out that riding a bike is like riding a bike. It takes a little while to get back into it, but it is not that hard. Of course, I was not letting go of the handlebars or doing figure"8"s or taking my feet off the pedals, but I wasn't falling and that is always a plus. The ride down to the fest was 2.4 miles, we found out later, and I rode the grand majority of it except for this really steep hill that I knew I was not going to be able to do. Then again, a lot of it was downhill. I did learn to mess with the gears and I felt all pro and stuff. The ride there was beautiful and uneventful.

We left the bikes at The Cupboard and walked the few blocks to the fest. Once there we walked around and enjoyed some amateur glee-ish performances and some drums that were actually pretty cool. The food was deep fried and fattening, so of course it was good. The ATMs overcharged you every time you used them but that is what happens when you don't think ahead and are going to an outdoor festival. It was interesting trying to find vegetarian food since K and T are vegetarians. We had to settle for fries, tornado and butterfly, and cheese pizza. On top of that we had some watermelon and pineapple that T was smart enough to bring and considerate enough to share. Interestingly, I thought I hated pineapple. I have been avoiding pineapple for ages as I used to hate it as a kid but I loved it yesterday. Sometimes it pays off being adventurous. Now I know that there are worse things in the world than pineapple. Unfortunately, it started getting dark so we had to leave in order not to end up riding at night and risk getting run over. T & K were adamant about not getting run over.

We walked back to The Cupboard and started our trek back. We were going to be riding a different way than the one we had come since we were trying to avoid traffic. The ride back was a little over four miles. I would love to say that I rode the bike the whole way back. Sadly, halfway back I got a horrible leg cramp. It was horrible. Apparently, pain is no fun. On top of that, it was extremely embarrassing. They kept saying that I did not ruin their night, but we had to walk the rest of the way to their house. Honestly, how can a bike riding night not be ruined when you have to walk your way back? At least the weather was nice.

What did I learn from this ordeal? I have great friends. They are extremely supportive. I can't do everything that I think I can. If "No Pain, No Gain" is true, then it stands to reason that pain equals gain. Therefore, I must have gained a lot last night and, apparently, I am still gaining as the pain has not gone away. Will I give up? I don't think so. Despite the pain and the embarrassment and the holding my friends back, both T & K and my gym buddy, I feel good about doing this. Therefore, as long as I have people willing to put up with me, I shall continue embarrassing myself and feeling pain and holding my friends back.

I know this post is a bit scatterbrained. That's what happens when I have nothing else to do on a Saturday night. I seriously need to get a life, but when I went to the store, they had run out. I shall try to come up with more compelling stuff to write about. Until then, please bear with me.

The Kite Walker*

*WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

Sorry about the lack of posts lately.

Me: Hi, my name is Carlos and it has been five days since my last post.
Voices in my head: Hi, Carlos.

I figured I should apologize to the ones and fives of people that read my blog. I appreciate your loyalty and hope you won't take your business elsewhere. Part of the reason why I have not written much lately, and why I started this blog with such a long rambling intro about apologizing for not writing, is that not much has happened lately.

Something did happen out of the ordinary on Saturday, though, and it is what this entry is named after. 'Twas a lazy Saturday afternoon...

The weather has finally gotten nice enough to go outside and not freeze to death. Also, it's been winding so I had the great idea to accept the invitation from a friend to go kite flying. I was going to take credit for having the idea, but I am not much of an outdoors person or even out-of-bed person, so anyone who knows anything about me would not believe me anyway. My friend and I, of course, planned a picnic and everything. We even had the foresight to stop by Subway to buy food and family dollar to buy a tablecloth to spread on the ground. Nothing says "good old-fashioned picnic" like a pre-prepared sub and a vinyl tablecloth from the dollar store. To anyone who cares to disagree I will just say "lunch was delicious". Although, in all honesty, it wasn't. For some reason, subs made with day old bread that keeps crumbling away are not that tasty. Still, the company was good and we had a good laughs. I would share what we laughed about, but I don't remember. It was five days ago! You can't honestly expect me to remember what we talked about. Okay, fine. I do remember what we talked about but, unless you want to hear off-color jokes about men with breastfeeding fetishes, you are better off believing I don't remember what the conversation was about.

So, there we were, sitting on a blanket near a small body of water surrounded by families, laughing about something completely appropriate for that place and time. Especially if you consider the fact that, not far away, there was a church group conducting an Easter egg hunt. Then again, what kind of church conducts an egg hunt on Saturday anyway. They have bigger problems than us telling a few lewd jokes if they can't figure out what day some over-sized rabbit is supposed to hide eggs everywhere for them to find in celebration of their lord being resurrected. Besides, it is not like we were using a bullhorn. It was a completely appropriate private conversation that I just spent a couple of sentences defending. See what I meant when I said I did not have much to talk about?

Well, after enjoying our "delicious" lunch, we set out to see if we could fly a kite. The last time I tried flying a kite, before Saturday, was so long ago that I cannot even remember it. Then I kept hearing phrases like "you have to run" and "run faster" that kept making me uneasy. Especially after reading "The Kite Runner" and I learned what kind of tragedies happen when kids run after kites. You will be happy to know that no kids were traumatized, not to say raped (because who would want to bring up such a heavy and controversial subject in their blog?), in my kite adventure. If you haven't read the book, or seen the movie, you don't get that reference but trust me it is dead on and kinda funny if you find morbid, disgustingly sad things funny. Another reason why the word "run" made me uneasy is because if I can't remember the last time I flew a kite, because it is such an unusual activity, I also cannot remember the last time I ran. Running sucks! Thankfully, I did not have to run since there was a strong wind blowing. Maybe it was because of the strong wind that kite flying did not seem a complicated thing to do. At least not for me or my friend. Her friend that accompanied us, and who I had not mentioned till this moment because my storytelling sucks and because I forgot to credit her as being the other half of the duo that came up with the kite flying idea, had really bad luck. Her kite sucked but, even when she borrowed my kite, she was not a very good kite flyer. She managed to rip my kite and kites do not really fly that well once torn. Needless to say, the joy of kite flying was short lived, though I did get some sun exposure. There is a silver lining to everything and the one to this story is that I now have a bigger chance at getting skin cancer. The good news for you, oh patient readers, is that the story is now over.

Again, there is not much reason for me to have a blog except to submit my acquaintances to pointless stories that amuse no one but myself. Still, I try to make the stories bearable. After all, I did not mention that my kite had a picture of a smiling sun in it and that my friend's kite was a Spongebob. Neither did I mention that the bad-kite-flyer girl's kite was Batman and we kept making, especially her, really bad, as in not funny, jokes about her kite not flying because Batman does not fly. See? I do care about you and try to avoid rambling more than necessary. That is why I know you guys can hardly wait till the next installment. I shall try not to keep you waiting for long.