Just (4 times) around the riverbed

Finally have something to write about! I've had a really hard time getting my thoughts down for awhile now so I've been avoiding even opening up a new post for fear of the blank page that would stare at me for 45 minutes before I decided I could probably find a better way to spend my time. But! A few funny things happened this weekend, so I thought I'd share :)

My mom's birthday was last week so my aunt, uncle, mom, mom's boyfriend, and I went out to a lake on Sunday and had a picnic. We packed up the cars and left around 11am because they were really worried all the "good spots" would be taken by the time we got there. They weren't. We snagged 3 picnic tables, decided that the 5 o'clock rule doesn't count on Sundays (or any day really) and poured ourselves some sangria. From the second we sat down, my aunt had her eyes on the lake and was desperate to rent a boat so we could go out. Somehow I got recruited as her first (and only) mate, so we sauntered over to the concession stand and got a boat.

And here's where we ran into our first problem.

Neither of us had ever manned a boat before, so we asked the guy who was shoving us off for a short tutorial. Here's what he said "one way is reverse and the other is forward. And don't run it into any rocks." Apparently he wasn't too concerned about us crashing back into the dock or any of the other boats around us. How about a little more direction there, buddy!? Nope. Eventually my aunt figured it out and we made our way to the open sea...sort of. As it turns out, our "motor" boat was something I think he called a trolling motor, aka it goes about 2 mph. For awhile I couldn't even tell we were moving. Honestly, I think the wind was blowing us more than the motor was propelling us. I decided to use the oars so that we'd back it around to the other side before nightfall. I'm not sure when the last time I rowed a boat was...maybe never...but it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to get it down. At least we were moving, though!

And here's where we ran into our second problem.

Just as we were rounding the bend (cue Pocahontas), the metal piece holding the oar in place broke, which left us with one working oar and a basically dead battery-operated motor... We ended up having to turn the boat around and travel back to the dock in reverse because it was about 3 times as fast as moving forward. We looked ridiculous. It took 20 minutes to go probably 100 meters. After finally getting back to shore, I was ready to give up on the whole "adventure," but we had already paid for the full 2 hours and they weren't going to give us a refund despite the defective boat. But the guy said he'd give us another boat so we reluctantly agreed. Armed with 2 more cups of sangria (my aunt took a detour back to our pic-a-nic site), we got back in the boat, took our positions, and shoved off once more. We quickly realized that this motor worked much better than our last one, which is to say that we were able to go about 5 mph instead of 2. So I went ahead and continued rowing. Everything seemed to be going fine and dandy. We finally made it to the other side of the..peninsula..? Haha I have no idea what to call it, but we rounded the bend and saw our fellow picnic-ers. On our way back to the docks, we were rounding that pesky bend once more.

And here's where we ran into our third problem.

All of the sudden as my aunt is trying to figure out which way to move the lever to turn the boat so we can avoid hitting a couple of kayakers, the motor decides to jump ship! I'm not quite sure how the screws keeping it IN the boat were loosened, but it almost fell completely into the water! Fortunately my aunt was able to catch it! However, since I was rowing, she was holding onto both cups of sangria, so we were in a bit of a predicament. Never one to waste alcohol, she wound up combining them both into one cup, shoving it in my hands, and reattaching the motor. So there I was, trying to make sure we didn't lose either of the oars while simultaneously ensuring none of her precious juice was spilled. Hahaha I'm sure it was quite the sight to see.

And here's where we ran into our fourth problem.

As she was working on the motor, we were just sort of drifting along wherever the water took us. I was faced toward her so I had no idea where we were headed. It didn't seem like a huge deal since we were moving at a snail's pace. Well hindsight is 20/20, my friends, because it turned out to be a big deal as we sailed straight into a bed of rocks...in an aluminum boat... I noticed we were on that path with just enough time to do absolutely nothing except yell "Shannon the rocks!!!" So much for the man's warning... At this point, she still didn't have the dang motor attached so we attacked that first. Then we tried pushing ourselves out of the rocks while still in the boat, but that didn't do any good so she decided she would get out of the boat, stand on the rocks, and push us out. I was a little wary of this tactic as I wasn't sure how she would get back in....but she seemed dead set on trying so what was I to do? When that didn't work, I told her to hop back to her spot and I would just try using the oars again. Eventually, we escaped our rock prison but not before hearing the awful sound of stone grinding against the bottom of our boat. We were sure our boat would sink at any time, a fact which wasn't helped by the gurgling sound we were hearing! But alas, our fears were unwarranted as we made it back to the shore unharmed and, mostly, dry. I sure hopped out of that contraption reeeaaaall fast though!

All in all, I spent about an hour and a half rowing those two boats and I had the blisters to prove it! Sure makes for a funny story now :)

Quick Takes (11)

Can't seem to find anything to write about lately, so I figured I'd get my quick takes done early for a change and actually link 'em up with Jen and all the Friday faithful.

1. Despite the fact that I've already done the whole graduation thing, I find myself feeling oddly nostalgic and senior-y this time of year. I blame it on the fact that some of my closest friends are a couple years younger so they're in the midst of finishing up school right now. It's not fun to think about all of us being in different cities next year with completely different schedules. It was hard enough coordinating schedules this year when they were all still in school. It's definitely going to take a lot more intentional acts, like scheduling times to talk and finding times to visit.

2. In an attempt to become a better friend, I've been trying to spend less time "liking" things on Facebook and more time emailing/texting/calling my friends. As much as I enjoy being able to keep up with the people I care about via their status updates and pictures, I started to notice I was using it as an excuse for not actually communicating. I'd see pictures of their vacations or read their statuses about plans after graduation and think I knew what was going on in their lives. And I guess in a way I did...but there's so much more to our lives than what we post on Facebook. I wanted more than that false sense of connection, so I cut my brain's vacation short and made plans to reconnect with friends I've lost touch with. I read an article today that brought up some of the same points but in a much better way--here ya go!

3. Confession--I started watching Revenge last week and I'm already caught up on the most recent episode...I would feel more guilty about this if the show weren't only in its second season. But still...I can't say I'm proud. Haha

4. I was walking through town the other day and spotted this little guy. Gotta love the country :)

5. Super intrigued by what can only be described as the newest addition to our grocer's produce aisle.

6. Last weekend six of my friends came to visit!! I don't think I need to explain how needed that was...One of the interesting things that came up was a conversation one of the girls had with a Jewish rabbi who was speaking at an interfaith gathering. Apparently during the event, the Christian representative mentioned something about Catholics praying for the conversion of Jews on Holy Thursday (or is it Good Friday...?). Anyway, the rabbi said that he insulted by that. My friend explained to him that we do it because we believe we have the fullness of the truth and we want others to have it as well. She said it's like parents praying that their children grow up to embrace their faith, too. And then he shared something we were all a little confused by. He said that he wouldn't want to encourage his kids to practice Judaism if they didn't want to, even though he wholeheartedly believed it was the right religion. Hmmm...

7. Despite the fact that I haven't been helping out with Religious Ed classes since December (so many things I slacked on due to my internship... :-/), I like to think I made up for it by making it to our last class. Haha wishful thinking I'm sure. Though my guilt lessened slightly when I found out that my co-teacher's mom ended up taking over the class because M didn't have time to teach either...but she was there Wednesday too! Two of the kids acknowledged my re-appearance with a hug, while the rest didn't seem to remember me every being there in the first place. Perhaps that's why none of them listened to a word either of us said the entire time. They make look cute but they sure know how to push buttons.