My New Kite

I thought I'd take a little break from being funny to show you something awesome. I got a new kite. As of now, she's nameless, but I'm pretty sure she's a girl.

The day I bought my kite Christie and I found out that there was a kite festival going on on top of a freaking frozen lake in the middle of freaking winter. So we went.

 Christie tried out her camera for photography class for the first time, hence the black-and-white, scanned pictures, and I flew my new beautiful kite.

 

 [I'm not in this one.]

I've never been to a kite festival before.  It was fun, actually, to watch the sky being boring and gray until a gust of wind came up and suddenly it was filled with color. There was music playing like, Come Fly With Me and other flight-sounding songs.

Anyway. It's a busy one, this week. But life definitely doesn't suck. Hope yours is going well too.

Polka-Dot Fudge

Let me just say that, if it’s upsettingly beautiful outside after it’s been hellish for weeks and Weather.com gives no description of the clouds or storms or anything because the day plans only to be lovely but instead just states boldly that it’s going to be WINDY, you better go fly a kite, if you know what’s good for you.

Preferably on a giant bluff above Holmen.

With your dog. Trust me, twenty minutes in, she’ll start happily rolling in something stinky.

This is my new kite, by the way, the potential filler of the hole Mr. Wingsy left in my heart. Her name is Polka-Dot Fudge, because she reminds me of eating fudge at a nice little candy shop. And she’s polka-dotted.

She’s homemade, too, if you’re thinking Why would Brian spend his money on a piece of crap like that? Well, stop insulting this "piece of crap", because she FLIES. Can you fly? Didn’t think so. She has much more inherent value than YOU, you flightless nay-sayer.

(P.S. Second Grade Journal #3: My Knowledge of Holiday Characters, Revealed is on it’s way.)

What a kite feels like

I’ve always wanted to go hang gliding. Probably because I would then have an idea what a kite feels like. Do you ever look at inanimate objects and ask them quietly, “What does it feel like to be you? I mean, let’s assume you have a consciousness and actually live. What does that feel like, [add their name here, like Dwight Schrute Bobble Head, Fork, or in my case, Kite]?” Sometimes I do that. But whenever I’m flying a kite, I’m always asking that question. That’s why I want to go hang gliding.

And for all you who are thinking that it would be more kitelike to go parasailing because I would actually be tethered to something, you’re wrong. Same to you, skydiving fans.

Hang gliding apparatuses are shaped like delta kites.

While I was sleeping last night, I dreamed that Christie and I went on a hang gliding date. We used special hang gliders that were actually the shape of diamond, Benjamin Franklin-style kites (a little more difficult to control than their delta style, but worth it). Gliding through the air amongst clouds, adjusting our bodies and kites to the gusts of wind, looking down at the patchwork of farms and city which is China (Did I mention we were in China? Well we were.), it was a dream come true.

We were up there for like five hours. Maybe six. (The world record for hang gliding air time is 24 hours, by the way. Look it up.) When we had gotten tired, we landed in the soccer field of a local Chinese middle school, and pushed the little remotes in our pockets to turn our hang gliders into tents. That’s right: tents. A few little soccer players stopped their game to watch. I even remember an old man coming by, shaking the poles, testing the zippers, and saying, “This is a pretty hefty tent, considering that it was formally a hang glider.”

[Have you appreciated the hand-written sound effects so far?]

I have no idea of whether we planned to sleep there that night. But we had to go to the bathroom.  So we tried the school’s locker room, which for some reason both had no vacancy. (All I remember is one of my former roommates being in there wearing a towel and pretending like he didn’t know me. Jerk.)  Christie and I chose to use a smaller bathroom.  While I was going, she was in the bathroom with me. (This would never, EVER, EVER, EVER happen in real life. When I hear of couples talking to each other while the other is in going to the bathroom, even if it’s on the phone, I want to vomit all over everything everywhere in all places in a way that no ShamWow and 409 could ever, ever wipe up. Ten thousand Merry Maids could never rid the world of that smell.) 

There was a shower in this bathroom. And in the shower were two clothed and soaking wet women. While I was going to the bathroom and talking to Christie (which, dear god, would never ever happen in real life), these women opened the shower curtain and started making small talk. We had a pleasant conversation, not bothering with any questions like, “What are you doing in here?” or “Who takes a shower in their clothes?” Soon enough, though, they closed the shower curtain and apparently left.  Then I got a weird look from Christie.

Christie: What was that all about?

Me: What do you mean?

Christie: You think you can just talk to women in a shower while you’re in the bathroom?

Me: What’s wrong with that? You saw yourself that it was just a friendly conversation.

Christie: A little too friendly for me.

Me: TOO FRIENDLY? Are you kidding me?!

Christie: Yes. Too friendly. You were eye cheating on me. I saw you look them up and down.

Me: Of course I did! I--

Christie: So you admit it! 

Me: You didn't let me finish! I was just so shocked to see them fully clothed in the shower. I was merely taking in the situation. 

Christie: Lustily. 

Me: Come on! 

Christie: Whatever.

[I call this one Self Portrait: The Frustrated Toilet.]

And then I woke up. Christie would never be like that, by the way; she's not the jealous type. And she probably would have no problem with me talking to clothed female strangers in the shower. I probably will never get the chance to test that theory. 

Death of a Flying Friend

Somewhere on the campus of Bethel University, there is a tree.

But this isn’t just any old tree. This is a tree like no other. It’s a tree that reaches to heights even unattainable to NASA. Amongst razor-sharp flakes of pine bark, its trunk is covered with broken lower branches that could slice a tomato without bruising the skin or squishing the insides. The ground around it is at a 45 degree angle, making it even more impossible to manage. This tree is a monster.

And my kite, the famous and reliable Mr. Wingsy, has been stuck in it for three weeks.

On a slightly windy day, I decided to take Mr. Wingsy out of a fly up on the tallest hill on campus.  There are a good amount of trees up there, even though a lot of the top of the hill is grassy.  Given how Mr. Wingsy has a humongous wingspan, I figured that he would be able to fly very nicely and well-manneredly above them.  And he did for a while. 

Mr. Wingsy was just screaming for more slack. “Come on, Shreds! Just let out a few more feet!” So I gave it to him. Little did he or I know what a riotous wind war was going on just fifty feet higher.  Even his unswerving, consistent design couldn’t handle the angry gusts coming at him left and right.  And he nosedived. 

“No biggie,” I though to myself, “I’m so good at getting kites out of trees!” So I tugged, and I pulled, and I gave slack, and I pulled again…a half hour went by…I was tired and sweaty from negotiating this kite out of the tree.  With one final burst of energy I pulled for the last time as the string snapped and sent me flailing down on my backside.

(Tear.)

When I went to survey where Mr. Wingsy had been stuck, I could just make out the tip of his wing from miles up into the sky, at the exact top of the tree. No long sticks would reach to that altitude.  Climbing was not an option.

So, along with Christie and another friend, I stole the longest extendable ladder I could find in the Art department, trudged it up the hill (which, trust me, was a long walk), and laid it up against the trunk. Not even half way.  I was lucky enough to find an actual tree that had broken at the roots and hefted it, one handed, up the ladder as far as I could.  With great terror, I wrapped my leg around the rungs of the ladder and pushed the smaller tree above my head, and found that I was still about ten feet from the kite.  I was out of options.

This is probably why I haven’t posted in so long: the pain of the thought of poor Mr. Wingsy, stuck in that Goliath of a tree, possibly to never be flown again.

Just an hour before Mr. Wingsy’s fatal nosedive, Christie painted a picture of him, which is now in memoriam, entitled Death of a Flying Friend.  

Moment of silence, please. 

Mr. Wingsy

I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting (and waiting) for the right time to tell you about my brand-new kite, but the weather has been so bad and the wind has been so low lately that I couldn’t take any worthwhile pictures.

Until now.

Last weekend Christie and I took a five-hour trip with my aunt from Minneapolis to Milwaukee to visit my other aunt. We spent two days walking around Cedarburg doing Emerson Merrick-y things, like peruse antique stores and getting our grub on in little crêpe cafes. A little gimmicky, but big fun.

On Sunday we had a few unscheduled hours, so Christie and I took advantage of the winds off Lake Michigan to break out Mr. Wingsy. 

(That’s my kite’s name.)

Isn’t he great? He looks like a pro and flies like your favorite single-lined childhood dream of a kite. I had gotten rather lonely after I retired my other kite, named M’Kite McAwesomePoppins, who I took with me to Europe this summer. Read my old blog to find out why I can’t ever fly him again.

Anyway. Mr. Wingsy is a dream. I love him in all his RipStop nylon perfectness. 

Just a Flying Frog in Paris

The other night I took an unconscious adventure in Paris.  It was not the Paris I know, however; this Paris was crammed with towering, dusty skyscrapers and crumbling, gray industrial buildings instead of the charming and historical buildings and simple but elegant parks I’m used to. 

This was Paris, in the future.

Okay, I was never told that in my dream, but let’s just clamp on an environmental message to make things interesting.

Somewhere in the mess of city the itty-bitty Eiffel Tower was squished and hiding beneath the other buildings.  (For those of us who have seen the Eiffel Tower, we know that a good-sized building could fit underneath it.  But this is my dream, people. I can’t take responsibility for what my head does on its own.) My only guess is that the Arc de Triumph was now a Burger King.

Despite its drastic differences, Paris remained its crowded, touristy self even in my dream. Travelers with cameras hanging from their necks swarmed like flies to different sites around the city. I was annoyed to be among them.  Following one of the groups, I came to a new attraction called...

“What is this about?” I asked the person manning the attraction.

“It’s your opportunity to see what it feels like to push over Roman ruins!”

“What?”

“We had this attraction in Rome, but the real ones got to crumbly. So we moved here to Paris, where you can push over these replicas! Go ahead; give them a push.”

This is weird, I thought, I have to try it. The attraction was a series of Romanesque columns, about 36 of them, lined in a 4x6 square.  Fancy.

I gave it a timid push and, like giant dominoes, they crashed onto one another and all fell to the ground in a non-messy, plasticky heap.

Pretty dumb.

I looked around for the attraction attendant, but he was nowhere in sight. Umm…I have to stand these back up. I tried to lift some of them into their original positions, and even though they were not heavy at all, they were too cumbersome to align perfectly. I cautiously tiptoed away, hoping no one saw.

OH MY GOSH! ALL OF A SUDDEN I HAD TO GO SOMEWHERE REALLY FAST!!

(Don’t blame me for the choppy storyline. Blame my brain.)

There was no time to take the metro or a car.  No time! I needed something faster!

I needed…

…my helicopter.

(Cue the James Bond theme.)

Yes, my helicopter.  It hovered down, piloted by Christie, to where I was standing. I jumped in and took the wheel. (This helicopter had a wheel.)

We flew low, past the old dusty city. Everything was going well until the helicopter’s spool of string fell out of the side door. Apparently this helicopter was some sort of kite. I watched it drop, and drop, and unwind, and unwind. Reaching out to grab the string wouldn’t work; it would just keep unwinding.

Now some of you readers may not know that if you have a helicopter with a string, it can’t fly correctly unless the spool is in your control. So we were forced to land atop an old apartment building. Luckily for us, our helikite had an emergency setting that allowed us to bound from building to building—like a frog. An Amphibihelikite, if you will. So we leaped our way along, trying to get to that certain place we had to go. Boing, boing, boing.

Finally, someone on a roof caught the spool of string and began to wind it up, and in effect, bringing Christie, me, and our Amphibihelikite down. We landed safely on the roof.  Jumping out, we took the spool from this kind man’s hand an began to hop back in our flying frog/kite thing.

“I’ve been expecting you,” said the man on the roof in a croaky, deep voice. On the far side of the roof, a large glass door pssshhed open, steam rolling out from inside.

And then I woke up, fell back asleep, and had a dream about using the toilet in the middle of a crowded hallway.

Oh, my head.