Gecko Bloggle

So today we got up around 10am localtime, which is 7am PST, which is still “First Thing” Ripley-mean-time.

Breakfast consisted of fruit-sweetened cheerio-like things, and I gotta say: if that’s fruit-sweetened, I’m afraid of what unsweetened would be like. Coffee-bag (like tea bags) took the edge off, but I just couldn’t seem to get moving. Maybe it’s that this vacation is actually setting in a little, ’cause wow, did I ever zone out for a while there today. The heat here’s pretty intense, but it’s not because of *just* the heat, it’s the humidity.

Okay, maybe it’s mostly the heat. 89% humidity at 72 degrees is totally fine, but not when it’s 89 outside. I’m not going to go look up how to convert that to CDN temps, ’cause I’d probably be embarassed to find out it’s 22 or something mild like that.

Tate sat around on the (slightly pointy) grass for about five minutes before he decided it was either too hot or too pokey to continue, but I managed to get a quick shot of him bein’ cute and stuff.

It seems that the most common question about Tate is “is it a boy or a girl?” ‘Cause he’s just so damned pretty, I guess. I refrain from responding with “You should see him at 11:45pm, when he decides he doesn’t wanna sleep until after the Colbert Report is over.

I gotta say though, it’s better than “You named your baby Cake?”

Ripley got out into the backyard, and ran around a lot, with many rounds of “run to the front of the house and ring the doorbell,” which reminded me of Doorway to Summer, with the idea of cats trying to find the door that would lead to a nice day outside, instead of the crappy rain we usually have in BC. Rip worked up a good sweat under all that hair, and

I’m pretty sure I’m going to vaporize at least one rubber lizard when I get out there with the lawnmower tomorrow (heh, I’m gonna do YARDWORK like a REAL MAN in the SUMMER HEAT). Little do they know I’m going to be all “ewww, my shoes are all grassy now,” when I’m done.

It’s because I look stupid in baseball caps, isn’t it? Dead giveaway.

Next up, we went for a walk to Goshen College, which explains the GCScience wifi I occasionally see from our topfloor bed, ’cause it’s about a block and a half away.

Pretty, and quiet, with some nice wind and trees, and sprinklers Ripley danced around in. Especially fun was the one pop-up sprinkler that didn’t pop up, and instead built-up pressure from it’s rather pedestrian six inch drinking-fountain height until it did a full-on ten-foot jet of liquid comedy, drenching Ripley entirely and sending us and three cyclists running away laughing, thankful for the water on such a muggy day.

We schlepped back home, and I was getting a headache. Headache, plus sunglasses, plus new haircut equals “undercover CIA agent” disguise, I’m told.

So in the afternoon, we went out to a “Super” market of some note (most notable that it was “New” in Grampa’s eyes, *AND* there was a Starbucks inside). We were no fools though, and passed by the $1.75 Charbucks coffee for the higher-octane deli lunchcounter coffee, which was about a buck cheaper, three times the size, and would have left most Seattle yuppies vibrating under their collective moon roof, wondering why this “cheap crap” packed such a punch.

Arwen mentioned about five minutes later that she literally saw me “come back online.” We were meanderthals in this warehouse of food (maybe it was the coffee talking, but American supermarkets are just more colourful), looking at the weird stuff for sale that you can’t buy in Canadian supermarkets to wit:

1. The “Hispanic Foods” Isle (not sure why this felt weird, when Vancouver markets all have an “Ethnic Foods” section, but it felt weird nonetheless).
2. Patriotic Cookies (and similarly Red!White!Blue! yogurt covered pretzels, which Ripley dubbed “pigs nostrils when he found strawberry ones a month ago, so I’m calling them that from now on) and tablecloths, and stuff. And other stuff. Oh, and this thing over here, too. Including bunting. Maybe it’s only because the 4th of July is coming soon, but even when you think you’re ready for flag-waving to wander into the cookie aisle, you’re not. Maple-flavoured cookies don’t count. At least, not to me.
3. Coke Black. (Tried this, and it doesn’t suck. Take a bottle (glass, small) of Coke Classic, dump it into a Tim Horton’s small double-double, and you’ve got the same thing). Maybe I just like that it was more coffee.
4. Booze. Not just $4 bottles of wine that would cost $11 in the BCLD, but crazy stuff, like $11 4Litre vats of Sky Vodka, and what looked like “stubbies” of Becks.
5. “Mexican Coke” which is Coke-flavoured-Coke, but in glass bottles. Just like we used to get before some testing house somewhere started tipping them over on cement floors with broom handles, causing them to explode, and we were forced to buy “safety Coke” in plastic bottles that could happily bounce three feet high in the back of the minivan.
6. Parsnip flavoured orangutan toes, in sauce. (No, not really).
7. Tamarinds, in sauce. With guys in sombreros on the label, so they wouldn’t be confused with “Non-Hispanic” foods. We’ll see what happens there. What’s a tamarind?
8. “Spicy Candy” See #7

Next we drove around while my mental compass made whooshing noises (there’s no mountains, and no ocean, so where am I supposed to look for milestones?), and went to some sorta Amish tourist version of an all-you-can-cram-down-your-laughing-gear, complete with tour buses outside. I tried to convince Grampa that it would be okay, ’cause the tourist buses had their doors open in their best “dinner’s over, let’s go talk loudly to each other about something ELSE that’s not like home” pose.
We passed a cloud of loudness in bad shirts as they left. Disaster averted.

The food was this, and they kept bringing more.

1. BIG plate of chicken. Fried, meaty. Good. (We could have done beef too, I understand).
2. Bowl of green beans. Cooked, buttery, good. Almond & bacon snippets, too.
3. Bowl of mashed (mashed? put-near creamed!) potatoes.
4. Bowl of Breaded Stuffing.
5. Bowl of Monster Oversized Noodles in chicken broth that would make the Campbell’s people cry.
6. Pitcher of gravy. (Seriously)
7. Pie. Pie gooood. I refrained from quoting “Weebl & Bob” with “When come back, bring pie.”

The ride home was an all natural lightshow of the likes you just don’t see in BC. At least, not near the ocean, you don’t. Crazy right-angle rain that bounced a good six inches off the ground, and made me feel like I was driving through the world’s largest carwash (oh yeah, I was driving, ’cause it was FUN, honest!) and we ran into the house once again soaking wet. Yay for air conditioning.

The evening was nice and relaxed, with Arwen and Grampa Virgil talking about religion, and family, and life, and Virgil once again blowing my mind with how many things he’s done/been/seen. He’s 84, and done 300 years worth of living, I tell you. If he ever has any sorta near-death experience, it’s gonna take a good long time to have that whole life-review thing, and we’ll need schematics, and diagrams with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.

Ripley and I stole a National Geographic at bedtime, and read about Polar Bears, NewYork Grand Central Station’s “Lost and Found” department, and street dogs all over the world. Tate continuously threatens to start actually crawling instead of his current “yogic flying” sitting up and hopping on his butt to get around.

I’m not totally relaxed, but I’m getting there.

I didn’t check my Blackberry at all today, and I’m not sure I really want to any more.

And now, I’m going to see if I can hop onto someone’s wifi, and send this post off.