What follows is one hundred percent fact. I would swear to that, if it were not for the two relatively minor embellishments for literary effect. See if you can spot them.
…So on with the story… or rather series of events which inevitably led to two damaged toes.
Where were we?
Oh yes, The Spanish Inquisition. No Wait. We were past that.
Manifest Destiny.
Fast Forward
Penguins… oopse Rewind.
Concert.
Sand.
Penguins
Bar fight.
There we are. Gambling. No wait, I covered that.
….ah yes.
Upon returning home, the grind started again. But there is respite. And it comes in the form of giant aardvarks…
I mean giant baseballs, which we shall affectionately call softballs… Because when people get bigger, they get softer, generally.
So there I am playing a game of baseball with oversized balls. What a fun break from the normal work week (or weak… pending what I'm told to do). My coworkers and I don our black shirts and black caps and head to the field.
Amber joins as our expert amateur photographer.
She documents my impressive talent at bat. I won't say that I am great, but every time I get up to bat, I hit the ball, sometimes out of the park, but I blame that on those pesky foul lines.
While I may shine at bat, I am something to behold in the field, not because I am so damn good, but rather because I am the epitome of sadness out there. One might be inclined to believe that when I field, I am playing an entirely different game—Dodgeball.
But I really do try. It's just sometimes I'm busy drinking my beer, or it's the fact that the last shot of tequila has me seeing two softballs… one of which I always catch. Unfortunately, it is often the imaginary ball.
Eh, so what if I am an offensive player. I know that I have fun. In the end I look at the winning team, not as the one that has scored the most points, but rather the team that has managed to consume the most drinks… that way I am always a winner… and often the most valuable player.
So how does this all relate to my toes?
It's really quite simple. You see on my team is a coworker by the name of Vanessa. I went to a concert with her. Well first I went to a concert with my dear friend Ula (Lauren)
...which is a-whole-nother story.
Through a series of events, leading to more ups and downs than bedsprings in a Swedish brothel have seen, I found myself at the Decemberists concert out at Edgefield.
Colin Meloy, the lead singer started the show by making the remark that he would start out with the happy songs, but "Fear not, there will be death, oh yes, and plenty of it."
Well there was. As if Edgefield doesn't already carry a haunted past for me. While I was there, I saw Grace Buderus,
who as you might recall was the maid of honor at my wedding. I heard her say my name to a friend, and then turn a blind eye to my presence. Whatever happened to civility…to be humored with acknowledgement, a wave or a nod? Oh well, the night will not be ruined.
But wait, was that "Jericho"? Why yes it was. "Jericho" is the best friend of a former co-worker and quasi-ex-girlfriend of mine. This means that she was probably there.
And then, during the show I stood behind who I presumed was the twin sister of one of my dearest friends who moved to Hawaii, and has since stopped talking to me.
But I would not be broken by all these ghosts from my past. I resolved to enjoy the show, which I did. However as I was leaving, I passed Katie,
a friend who recently decided that I "irritated her and bothered her friends." (Ouch)
I left the concert feeling rather dismal.
But things looked up. I had another concert coming up; to remind me that concerts don't all have to be filled with drama. Unfortunately they do. I was interested in seeing "The Dandy Warhols"
with Amber, but she was set on never going to a show with me, as a result of repeated drama surrounding the shows I attended. I asked until she got upset… resolving to accept her firm stance.
A day after she told me to ask someone else for the twelfth and final time (slight exaggeration) I asked someone else. Two hours later, Amber says, "I was thinking that I've carried it long enough, and if you haven't asked someone else, I would like to go see 'The Dandy Warhols' with you."
Crestfallen, I told her I had asked someone. She quickly dismissed her interest and encouraged me to enjoy my time at the show with Vanessa.
The show arrived on time. Vanessa did not. The band played late. Vanessa did not.
As she had a migraine, she left early. I enjoyed the concert, but I chalked it up to another summer concert that did not go as planned.
Now, you ask, what does this all have to do with my swollen toes.
In due time.
------------------To Be Continued.
What follows is one hundred percent fact. I would swear to that, if it were not for the two relatively minor embellishments for literary effect. See if you can spot them.
Two toes on my left foot are swollen…
or bruised, I can't tell for sure, as I have yet to look at my feet to examine the damage inflicted on them by one ultra violent….
…..wait, I must back up to fully capture this tragedy, which I blame on Audrey Tautou, of the movie Amelie, and a bizarre proclivity to enjoy some pesto.
You see today after work…
….no, not quite yet…
… It started with a game of scrabble.
No, it was the pajama party,
which followed the first uneventful concert of the summer.
Uneventful concert, you ask. Well I suppose to understand that I would find it best to describe why my summer concerts all have been eventful. I'll get there soon enough, and then you will have an understanding of why my toes are throbbing in my black leather shoes.
Before concerts, there was softball.
Before softball there was sand…lots of it. Over four thousand cubic feet.
Multiply that by about four thousand
In all reasonable explanation of the damage to my toes, I could probably back up to 60 years ago and a few months to a time where several white guys in uniform
decided they wanted to have cheap power at the expense of several others livelihood.
But that would take far too long to write. Besides if I went that far back, I would have to talk about a tea party, taxes, and boats,
and well that just isn't worth it.
So… Let's start with sand. Lots of it. Shall we say buckets and buckets? Guess this correlates to the aforementioned boats, but only minimally.
Oh wait, before the sand was one of the aforementioned eventful concerts… June 19th. My favorite Portland band, Pseudosix, was playing.
I think it was the 19th. I had invited over twenty friends to come join me for the show. No one came. Well, Amber came at the last minute as she sensed my disappointment with my friends. Bless her for coming, but perhaps this could be to blame for my throbbing toes… which I will get to.
But first, we must cover penguins and pirate's booty.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Fancy that, eh…. First I rewind…. And then I get excited. Blasted toes, they got my brain all off-kilter.
So the buckets of sand. Yes, that is where we were. I fear this is taking too long.
Oh well, patience is a virtue.
The sand was delivered. The sand was packed… or as we so affectionately said, "pounded up."
Then the sand was carved down.
Next thing we knew, we had a sculpture of pirate penguins manning a boat. Or would it be penguinning a boat. Whichever floats your boat, no matter.
Then we added some bling, et voila, pirates booty.
Right about now, you are probably wondering how this relates to my swollen toes.
Well, I'm getting there.
You see, unfortunately, I was due to head to our favorite toilet bowl (Pendleton) that same weekend for my ten year high school reunion. How drastically disappointing that I did not get to linger for Sunday's mass chaos, when they packed dynamite into our sand sculptures to blow them to smithereens, much like the three trick-or-treaters in A Nightmare Before Christmas wanted to do to Santa Claus.
Well, the ten year reunion was uneventful. Except for one thing. Boy, some people certainly can hold a grudge. For the most part it was not as awkward as I had anticipated. It was not worth the trip though, as I returned with a hangover, a gambling addiction, and a black eye.
Actually no gambling addiction, but you know me, that's not in my nature. Anyway, I humorously commented to an old rival, "Hey, aren't you the guy I stole a girlfriend from in the tenth grade?"
Apparently he was still upset about it, because zero point two seconds later his fist was kissing my left cheekbone.
I stumbled back a step, but took it in stride. I swung back, but missed. In a frantic moment, I took a second swing landing squarely on his jaw, knocking him off balance. He stumbled over a chair and almost went down, but his friend caught him. Like out of some old police movie, Kyle broke a beer bottle to make a makeshift weapon. Before it got too out of hand, Amber jumped in to break it up. Jon made some sly remark about the women in my life always stepping in to break up my fights.
Amber and I left to go to the casino. We walked in with forty dollars to blow on blackjack.
We walked out with one hundred and seven…
but for some unknown reason went back in and lost most of our winnings.
On a whim Amber through down five dollars on Black 47 on the roulette table.
Ka-Ching…
we pulled our stuff from the motel six, and stayed at the presidential suite out at the casino. We gambled all night long… losing our winnings. All in all we walked out only down about twenty dollars. But it was fun.
By now you probably have strong doubts as to how this all relates to my throbbing toes.
I promise it will make sense in the end.
And I will get there.
One of these days.
------------------To Be Continued.
