Arts and Crafts

It’s been a while since we’ve seen family.  Jenn’s parents came to visit in April and we went back to Colorado to celebrate Dan’s graduation in May, but we’ve been getting homesick lately.  So as the dog days of July descended upon us, we could not wait for my sister Jules, her husband Mitch, and Brynn and Jonah’s four cousins to come visit.  It was going to be a great chance to catch up with my sister and her new family.  Her family isn't really new to her, but is to me.  Being in Denver, while she’s been in Wyoming, we’ve visited a few times, but there’s only so much time you can hang out during a three-day weekend or the holidays.  Especially when we’re usually splitting time between all of the family we have back in Sheridan.  Bottom line, I always felt a little shorted so I couldn’t wait to get some quality time with the Crafts.

All the cousins, minus Emmett...it's hard to
get them to all look at the camera.

For weeks beforehand, Brynn ran around saying, “My cousins are coming!  12 more sleeps!  11 more sleeps!! ........ Two more sleeps!!!  One more sleep!!!!”  Yes, her reaction deserved every one of those exclamation marks.  Jonah didn’t really know what was going on, but would trail behind his sister, yelling randomly and thumping his chest.  Their excitement was infectious and so we found ourselves counting down the days...er sleeps, until the Crafts were here.

With 10 people in our house for a week, it was going to take some finagling.  We gave Jules, Mitch and  baby Emmett Jonah’s room complete with queen-size air mattress.  The other three kids were in the basement, splitting two beds between them.  Cozy, but with all those people packed in, it sort of reminded me of home.  I grew up with five younger siblings and sometimes the additional stray human my parents couldn’t say no to.  So if I’m not yelling over at least four other people and participating in five conversations simultaneously, it just feels too quiet. 

I’ll quickly cover all the things we saw, because for me, the real story took place at home.  We saw the Museum of Natural History, where Nora was shocked it was free, Jules made a terrible joke about the “elephant in the room” and we saw a little piece of home in the form of dinosaur bones from Wyoming.  We got a babysitter and took the Craft kids (minus Emmett) to their first ever professional sports game to see the Nationals play the Mets in celebration of Henry’s 7^th birthday.  We sat four rows back from the left field wall, Jules and Jenn drank a two foot tall margarita (each) and Nora came an inch away from catching a home run that bounced off the foul pole.  We went to the zoo on a ridiculously hot day.  We bought Henry a new shirt (to be explained), I had to carry Brynn a quarter mile uphill to get to a bathroom and we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches right outside the gorilla enclosure.  We went to Mount Vernon and the kids got to sift wheat, pet horses and lambs and throw rocks into the Potomac.  While we were recharging from all of this at home each day during naptime, the Crafts went to Annapolis, the Lincoln Memorial, Einstein Memorial and the White House.  We had a great last day as Steph and Peter came up and we just hung out before the Crafts had to head back. (Gasp)  I need to sit down.

A quick explanation/apology to the Crafts.  Every single one of them except for Mitch got sick while they were here.  A really bad stomach bug had each one of them tossing cookies at some point.  Funny how different the germs can be 2000 miles away.  For Henry, it caught up to him on the way to the zoo. So he needed a new shirt.  Sorry Crafts!

After all of that, I got to play video games with my new nephews/niece, make fun of my sister with my brother-in-law and make my newest nephew smile for the first time (for me at least).  It was a really great time and rediscovering my sister and her family was the best part.  When you’re six years older than your little sister, you move on with your life and sort of assume they haven’t.  For a long time, my picture of Jules was frozen as a goofy 16 year-old kid, mooning the neighbors, getting caught for trespassing and having epic battles with her Spanish teacher.  While I was graduating college, starting a new job and buying a house, surely she wasn’t actually moving on too?  Seeing her making sure all the kids had packed everything they needed before each day in the big city, fussing over Emmett like any good new mom, and coincidently her struggles leaving Emmett with a non-family babysitter for the first time made me realize that my baby sister is all growed up.

Electricity is Neat

I like electricity.  I like it a lot.  I think it all started when my friend got a Nintendo.  The crazy way those volts and amps all worked together to continually stop me from getting the third warp whistle in Super Mario Bros simultaneously fascinated and frustrated me.  I like electricity so much I spent seven and a half years studying it college.  So when a storm rolled in and wreaked havoc on the DC power system, it was a pretty rough 48 hours.  Being without power also conveniently combined with one of the hottest spells of the summer.  The following is a chronicle of the events that transpired during that time.

Friday, June 29th 10:32 pm

Jenn and I are startled awake by wind blowing incredibly hard and rattling the windows such that we're worried they might actually break.  We lose power almost immediately.  We stay awake for another hour assuming power will be back on any minute.  Little do we know (because we can't get cell phone coverage, and because we just really had no clue) that over four million people in four states had lost power in that last hour.  I fall asleep grateful I had saved my place in Batman: Arkham City 30 minutes earlier.

Saturday, June 30th 5:30 am

Kids wake up sweaty and uncomfortable.  They then wake us up. We are also sweaty and uncomfortable.  We check the fridge and everything is still nice and cold.  We start drinking milk like we might never see the stuff again, then decide to head into the city and see the outdoor monuments while we wait for power to come back. 

Saturday, June 30th 9:15 am

Still no cell coverage, still no power, still ridiculously hot and humid.  At this point, Jenn remembers her iPod has radio and she listens to a station that finally tells the full scope of the problem.  Three million people still without power.  Cell phone coverage has come back so Jenn's iPhone becomes our link to the outside world.  We go buy ice to save some of the things in the fridge.  News says freezer should be good for 36 hours, so we postpone that worry, despite the 20 lbs of fish we have in there.  That would smell awesome.

Saturday, June 30th 3:00 pm

Kids are up from a short and sweaty naptime as the temperatures hit 102 (felt like 106).  I checked and pool isn't open either.  Funny thing is almost all the businesses in our area are open and have power.  The line to McDonald’s is ridiculous.  It's like everyone is worried the power outage will affect the supply of Big Macs to the greater mid-eastern shoreline.  I have a brief panic attack as I wonder if that could actually be true.  In the end, my head prevails over my stomach and I get back to inventorying our canned goods.

Saturday, June 30th 9:00pm

Kids are in bed downstairs to keep cool and we're upstairs by the window reading books by candlelight.  By 9:15 my eyes are aching and we fall asleep by 9:30...or try until Brynn realizes we're sleeping downstairs with her and she decides to keep getting out of bed and come see us…repeatedly. (Editor’s note:  Not really sure how Philip remembers this, since he fell asleep in about 15 minutes, and I got to lay in bed with Brynn for the next HOUR AND A HALF, until she fell asleep.)

Sunday, July 1st  5:15 am 

Still no power, and the power company's website has not shown a lot of progress.  We decide to take up my sister's offer and go visit her in Charlottesville.  This saves our sanity as they have air conditioning, hot food and cold beer.  Steph and Peter opening their home to us is especially gracious since they had just come back from vacation the day before.  I find a place that has ice, buy two packages and bury the fish in it before hitting the road

Sunday, July 1st 6:45 pm

We’ve had a great day with Auntie Steph and Uncle Peter.    Steph puts a candle in my birthday pie and as I blow out the candle, there is one obvious wish on my mind:  "Please let me be able to play Batman Arkham City tonight."  Though we didn't know it at the time, power was restored to our house one hour later.  Thank you so much S&P!

All-in-all it was an exhausting weekend, but in the end we only lost a package of chicken nuggets, some blueberries , two frozen pizzas, but not the fish.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to buy a 4000 W generator and play some Batman (not in that order).

Gone Fishing

I get to work with a bunch of great guys at my job.  Smart, down to earth and rudely hilarious, when they invited me on a deep sea fishing trip, I answered with a “Hell yes.”  It took a while, but we finally settled on a ship called the Bi-Op-Sea in Nagshead, North Carolina.  About a six hour drive from here, we decided to spend two nights at a campground right by the fishing center to save money.  Six guys went on the trip.  The crew:

Bryant:  The boss man at work, but really just one of the guys.  A tall, handsome, ridiculously built man who also coaches AAU basketball ad brews great beer in his spare time.  Yeah, I really wish I could hate him, but he’s way too nice.

Jason:  A Maryland alum who was a legend on our program well before I met him.  The dude has forgotten more than I may ever be lucky to forget when I inevitably contract Alzheimer’s.

Zach:     Smooth operator, great golfer and fighting to stay single.  The best way to explain Zach is that women come into our office to bring him food.  Not us, just him.  I won’t lie, I take notes.

Warren:   Your friendly neighborhood redneck, by his own admission.  He owns four tractors, seven chickens and I think a couple of horses.  He doesn’t really need any of them, just enjoys having them around.  He lives about 80 miles from work so he can have enough space to roam and fire his multiple guns in peace.  A guy after my own heart.

Ed:          The newest guy to the group at work and stupidly smart.  You mention pretty much anything and he knows a lot about it.  He and Jason spent a half hour figuring out how the Nintendo gun worked in Duck Hunt and Ed started applying physics equations I’d never heard of. 

It’s a humbling work environment

We headed out early Friday morning.  We timed our trip around a Chick-fil-A lunch and hit the campground by 1:30.  We set the camp up in 30 mile per hour gusts and settled in to enjoy the homebrew Bryant brought.  I cooked up some bacon wrapped filet mignons and corn on the cob and we dine like cavemen kings.

We woke up at 4:00 the next morning, or rather other people woke me up at 4:00; I was more than happy with waking up at 4:45, grabbing a bagel and jumping in the car.  After a great breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and a fire toasted bagel, I was grateful for the extra 45 minutes.  We made the 90 second drive to the marina, hauled our cooler full of beer and lunch meat onto the boat and got ready to make the two hour ride out to (hopefully) tuna infested waters.  It didn’t take long for the first person to get sick.  Even with two doses of Dramamine in his system, Jason found himself laying on the couch cast in a lovely shade of green.  After an hour-long nap he woke up feeling much better and just in time to see the first fish get caught...

We stopped , set our bait out in the water and about 90 seconds later, we had our first hit.  Bryant was closest to the fish fighting chair (necessary for the 60-80 lb tuna we were hoping to catch) and brought in a nice 40 lb Wahoo.  Almost simultaneously, the pole next to me got a hit.  As I went to grab it, it was gone.  I checked the line and the nasty sharp teeth from another Wahoo had snapped it clean off, hook and all.  Jason and Zach both got hits and between the two of them, Jason’s slipped off and Zach brought in a ten pound baby dolphin fish.  Finally my turn came and it was another dolphin fish, but a big one.  My arms were killing me towards the end of the fight and I could see the biggest fish we had seen so far just over the bow.  The first mate leaned over to pull it in and as he went for the grab....the fish slipped off.  Grrrr....next time.  

Overall, we waited about two and a half hours and we only had one Wahoo and five dolphin fish and three beers in my belly to show for it.  No tuna.

Our captain heard over the radio that other boats have had luck a few miles away.  I used this opportunity to make and eat my first sandwich.   At that point it was only 10:00 in the morning, but I did eat breakfast at 4:00.  Sandwich was awesome and as I finished the last bite, we settled in for some dolphin fishing (not actual dolphin Jules).  I reeled in my first fish, a 25 pound dolphin fish.  When I tell you this story in the future, pay no attention to these details.  However big I tell you the fish was: that’s the truth. 

By noon, it was getting hot and we were still short of what we’d been hoping for.  There was beer, meat and good company, so we didn’t complain too much.  We hit a big school of dolphin fish and immediately we had four hits.  We jumped up, grabbed a line and started trying to get them all in.  It got tricky because if a fish swam from one side of the boat to another, you had to keep with it, moving your pole over and under the other guys also trying to bring in their fish.  We had an incredibly intense three hours and found ourselves with 37 dolphin fish, one lone Wahoo and about four birds.

No, birds is not some fishing term for a type of fish or bait.  Sea gulls rolled in and kept stealing our bait from under the water.  Many times they got hooked and we had to reel them in, get the hook out of their mouth while they tried to bite and claw at us, then let them go to do it all over again.  One of my favorite moments happened when the first mate reeled in a bird, took the line--bird and all--and smacked it loudly against the boat’s side.  The hook dislodged and the bird flew off disoriented and into another stupid bird.  We were all so pissed at them, we had a good laugh.

Our captain wanted to try one more spot for tuna before we call it a day.  We all agreed having caught enough fish that we can hold our heads up high when we head home.  We saw pilot whales, a hammerhead shark and actual dolphins, but no tuna.  Our captain stayed out an extra hour trying to find some tuna, but despite everyone’s best attempts, we headed back to shore tuna-less.  All-in-all a pretty good haul and the final weight of fish caught that day was 212 pounds.  We dropped off the fish at the cleaning center to be picked up before we headed out the next morning.  We had a guy cut off the tail of the Wahoo so we could have some fresh sushi with dinner.

So after a night of 30 mile per hour wind gusts, we were initially glad that the night was much calmer.  This changed after a short rain brought out the mosquitos.  

A sidebar on mosquitoes.  I hate them.  I hate them a lot.  When I say I hate them, if I was ever to start a charity, I would start a charity for the complete eradication of the species.  I hate them.....did I say that?  Anyways, my unreasonable hatred for these f#*%ers started when I played deep right field during our mid-spring baseball season growing up in Houston, Texas.  None of the kids could hit it that far, so I spent the entire time in the field swatting mosquitoes and using the sort of swear words a seven year-old uses like “butt-munches” and “fart-heads.”  Twenty-five years later, I’m using slightly different swear words, but sharing the same immature thought I had when I was seven: I wish I could kill every mosquito in the whole world right now with a single thought.  I hate them. 

So anyways, we tried to enjoy our dinner of venison steaks, potatoes and sushi.  Yes, we had the Asian guy make our sushi, but we’re really not racist, it just worked out that way.  The chefs did a great job, but there’s something about losing a pint of blood to parasitic insects that took the fun out of a nice dinner.  We each grab a couple of beers, head to the tents and pass out early after a long day.

We woke up around 6:00, make a good breakfast, pack up camp and pick up our fish as soon as the place opens up at 8:00.  The drive home was pretty silent as everyone fought sleep (a fight I lost...twice).  There was a scary moment when Bryant’s car suddenly lost power and the check engine light came on.  But after we stopped for a few minutes, and restarted the car, the fault cleared and the engine sounded good so we hit the road again.  After that the rest of the trip was smooth sailing and we each went our separate ways with about 20 pounds of fish filets each.

The next morning, we got to work and immediately there were several things going wrong.  As we shook off the cobwebs of an exhaustingly fun weekend and started working through the issues, we were all sharing the same thought: I’d rather be fishing.