Twelve

Since we’re getting in the habit of achieving last summer’s goals, I decided that it would be fun to finally go on that coastal hike that Michael and I wanted to do last year. Unfortunately, when I checked out the trail I found that, once again, we would have a high tide problem. But you know what? I’m sick of obstacles. I’m sick of Mother Nature trying to tell me what I can and cannot do. So I persuaded Michael that we could get to the coast, hike the several miles in to the beach, and see all the natural wonderfulness before the ocean whisked us away.

This, apparently, was an error in judgment. Tides do not like sassy ladies to challenge their authority. More on that later.

We deposited the kids with my parents (Junk food! Toys! Constant attention!), and headed out for the drive to the ocean. We used to be road trip experts. There was no blue highway too rural for us. So much of our history together involves a travelling adventure or an odyssey. But these days, I am tired. Time is in short supply, and my butt gets sore if I sit too long.

We discovered this time around that what may look like a short distance on a map could really be a very lengthy, tedious drive on a poorly-maintained gravelly road. I had hoped to spend a little time in a town called Pysht --- because, really, how funny a name is that!? I thought, “Hey! I could do a remote blog from Pysht!” But it seems that Pysht is too small a place to actually have a building, so we must have driven right through it. This cracked me up. “Hey Michael,” I said. “I think we already pashed Pysht. I am Pysht off! Hee Hee Hee.” (At this point, Michael thwacked me on the back of the head with the map).

My interest in Pysht reminded me of one of our notorious wild goose chases. We were on a road trip up to the Canadian Rockies, and we decided to meander through rural Washington instead of taking the direct route. In particular, I saw on the map that Ronald McDonald was buried in the northeastern part of the state. No one told me that he had died! Poor, grief-stricken Hamburgler! We definitely needed to go see Ronald’s grave and lay a greasy french-fry bag by his headstone. Something like seven hours later, we finally stumbled upon his memorial site. Except this wasn’t Ronald McDonald’s grave after all. It was the gravesite of RANALD MACDONALD -- not a junk food-selling clown, but, rather, the first man to teach English in Japan. My dream of standing on a mountaintop and mournfully singing the early 1980s jingle, “Big Mac, Filet O’Fish, Quarter Pounder, French Fries, Icy Coke, Thick Shake, Sundaes, and Apple Pies,” was dashed.

Anyway, once we pashed Pysht, it was a mere 2 more hours to our destination. This offered me the opportunity to ask Michael, “What are you thinking about?” nearly 3000 times (His responses: nothing, baseball, weather, nothing). I have since learned that it was a good thing that we did not stop to explore the loveliness that would have been Pysht, because a human foot in a tennis shoe washed up on the nearby shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca that very day. Many such disembodied feet are turning up on beaches throughout the area, inspiring feelings of general creepiness and providing a reminder to keep up-to-date with one's pedicure.

We arrived at the trailhead just in time for the rain to start. The hike involved three miles of boardwalk trail to the beach, three miles along the beach, and then three miles back along a different boardwalk. Michael went into the ranger station (remember how he loves a pretty ranger?) and was told that high tides were no problem. You just had to climb up and over the impassible parts. In my normal, city life, I tend to walk about 3 miles a day. 9 miles with a little up-and-over shouldn’t feel that different, right?

Wrong.

3 miles along a rocky beach with the tide rushing in does not make for an easy stroll. To this place’s credit, it may have been the most gorgeous, rugged, jagged coastline I had ever seen. And for a moment, I sighed heavily and drank in that seemingly untouched beauty.

Then I had to stop sighing and climb upon a huge dead tree and slide my way across its branches to escape the rushing water. After that, we had to lie down flat and wiggle on our stomachs to get under the next fallen tree. A quick shimmy up some enormous boulders preceded the realization that we were completely stuck. I’m not sure what was louder – the crash of the waves or the crescendo of my whine.

So Michael, what you may not have heard over the noise was the fact that there is no one I’d rather dangle off the edge of the world with than you (even if I get blisters and the bugs make it impossible for me to eat my lunch). Happy 12th anniversary.

Eleven

Does anyone remember this? It was one of the classier moments of our wedding. I recall that the professional photographer was up too close, trying to capture the romance of the cake-cutting. And I thought to myself, "Why do we need a picture of this? This is not particularly exciting." Then it occurred to me that my mother smushed cake on my dad's face at their reception, so hmmm.....I smeared a little on Michael, just to keep the tradition alive.

What's interesting about this photo is that it came two seconds too late. If it had been couple of beats earlier, you would have been able to see the RAGE in Michael's eyes. And if it had been just one second earlier, you would have seen him crush a huge piece of cake onto my face, and then more of it down into the front of my expensive silk dress.

So here's the thing about wedding dresses from the 1990s. They weren't those light sheath things that women are wearing these days. Dresses in the 1990s were heavy. Plus, the ladies at bridal shops impressed upon vulnerable brides the need for "appropriate foundational garments," so in the end it was like wearing two whole outfits on the big day.

When Michael did his cake trick, he managed to wedge the cake underneath the fancy foundational garment, making it impossible for me to get it out without stripping off the whole ensemble in the hotel bathroom. So I didn't. The rest of the evening, I had to feel the squish, squish of buttercream every time I moved. The first dance? Squish! Throwing the bouquet? Squish! The Big Exit down the stairs to the getaway car? Squish!

Ah, love. I don't think our wedding was the first time that Michael realized that I can be really annoying, and I've certainly taken annoying to new levels since then. Who controls the clicker in our house? Me! That has meant that Michael has watched a lot of Celebrity Fit Club this summer (Come on, Marcia Brady was on it! That's hilarious!). Who won't go see any movies with violence, gore, or death-by-serious-illness storylines? Me! That's a lot of WhenHarryMetSally-esque films for the poor man. Who gets crazy cravings around 11 pm? Me! Our household conversation goes like this:

Me: I want french fries.
Michael: Now?
Me: I can't stop thinking about them.
Michael: (sigh) Do you want me to go get you some?
Me: No. It would be really bad of me to eat french fries this late.
Me: But I'm really hungry.
Michael: I'll go get you some.
Me: No! I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm just sharing my feelings with you.
Me: But I'm afraid I won't be able to sleep.
Michael: I'm going to get some.
Me: Can you find an organic kind?

But really, we've had so many good times, too. There was that week on the Redneck Riviera, when no one else was there. It was like we owned our own little piece of Alabama -- eating out at Bubba's and then drinking gin and tonics on our white sandy beach! Or how about that backroads trip across Spain, where we went looking for ruins (and skulls! So many skulls! We found one building that was made out of 1,245 of them). And then there was the day that we found out about Blue and Green, when we shared that combination of exhilaration and panic (Michael got pulled over leaving the doctor's office, and he showed the ultrasound pictures to the cop! No ticket that day.).

So Michael, we've known each other a long time. I remember when you wanted to be like the guy in the Strawberry Statement, and I remember when you grew your hair long so you could wear a ponytail. Today, even though you like to play fantasy baseball just a little too much, I still think you're the coolest cat around. Happy eleventh anniversary (tomorrow)!