Love Hurts...Well, So Does Friendship

Being friends with me can be a health risk.  In Kindergarten I broke Zach Cornberg's arm by jumping on him.  At a track meet in high school my forceful headbutt to Bret's sternum almost send him to the hospital.  These things are almost always accidental, but I still think it takes a brave person to be my friend.

In high school I loved to give hugs.  I still do, but in high school my hugs were very aggressive in nature.  If I spotted a good friend down the hall or across the street, I would run up to her and squeeze her until she yelled out in pain.

One spring day at Eureka High School I was walking out of the science building after class.  As soon as I stepped out of the double doors, I looked to my right and saw Jenna standing in "The Row," our usual hangout between the main and science building that consisted of grass and some benches.  Jenna had recently become a very good friend of mine.  I was only 15 and a sophomore, so I felt really cool hanging out with a senior (with a car!), especially someone as cool as Jenna.

When I spotted Jenna, of course I had to go hug her immediately.  I dropped my bags where I was standing and broke into a sprint toward Jenna.  Jenna had fallen victim to many an Abby hug before, so she knew what she was in for.  Or so she thought.

She stepped backwards to brace herself, but what she didn't know is that Dillon Adams's skateboard was right behind her.  She stepped on the skateboard at the same time as I made contact with her, sending us both flying through the air.

The next thing I knew, I was on the cement on top of Jenna.  Once we figured out what had happened and got up, I saw that Jenna's jeans were ripped.

"I am so sorry!"

"Oh, don't worry about it."  Jenna was always too nice to me.

But I wasn't very worried about the jeans when I saw Jenna limping to her 5th period English class with Ashley's help.  I apologized more, but Jenna said she was fine.

That Saturday was Jenna's senior prom.  I went and saw Jenna, who was on crutches.  She had gone to the Emergency Room after her class, and it turns out she had sprained her knee and her ankle. 

Well, I guess I had sprained her knee and her ankle.  I felt immensely guilty for making Jenna attend her senior prom with crutches and couldn't stop apologizing.

"Oh, it's okay," Jenna said.  "I don't like dancing, anyway."

Jenna and I still hang out almost every time I am in Eureka.  She doesn't let me drive and is probably a little bit more careful whenever I go to hug her, but somehow Jenna still wants to be my friend.

Me and Jenna: Still friends, but I try not to hurt her anymore

Let Me See Your Thong

My roommate is dating my brother.

"Wow, isn't that awkward?"  I get the same response almost every time I tell someone this.  But the truth is, it's fun to tell each other the weird things he says and talk about the possibility of being sisters-in-law someday.  Katrin and I never really feel weird about her boyfriend being my older brother.  However, I think Syd sometimes feels awkward about his sister and his girlfriend living together and constantly talking about him.

Syd just transferred to my school, so now he comes over to our apartment a lot.  One day Katrin and Syd were hanging out in our room in between classes.  Katrin was sitting at her desk typing something up and heard Syd pacing back and forth behind her.

"Ooh!" Katrin heard Syd making ogling noises and turned to see him holding up a pink thong he had found next to our dirty laundry hampers.

Her jaw dropped.  She just stared at him and couldn't even say anything.

"Please tell me these are yours," Syd said, a little bit worried by his girlfriend's silence.

Katrin burst into laughter.

Syd picked up the pair of jeans that were lying where he had found the thong.  After looking at them for a second, he dropped both the pants and the thong onto the floor.

"I have to go," he said and walked out the door.

The next day Syd, Katrin, and I were in line at the Cafeteria together.  I saw a dime on the ground and, since I always pick up change, bent over to get it.

"Abby," Syd said when my underwear peeked out of my jeans.  "You shouldn't bend over."

"Why?" I said, giggling a little bit.  "I thought you like to look at my underwear."

Me, Syd, and Katrin.  Apparently the only picture I have of the three of us is from 2009 and includes Elvis the Elk.

Making Way for Ducklings

 

When I was in preschool my dad brought home ducklings. My brother and I were, as any four- and six-year old would be, very excited. And so Wild, Peeper, Speedy, and Mighty Duck (my personal favorite) became part of our family. They were Mallards, so they were the cutest little balls of black and yellow fluff I had ever seen. We cuddled them and played with them, and they followed us around like we were their mother duck.

The ducklings soon grew out of the cute, cuddly phase. And teenage ducks are not too pretty. They simultaneously lost their baby down feathers and grew new, adult feathers. By the next spring, though, they were full-grown ducks. Wild, our only boy duck, had a beautiful green head and the females all had a purple stripe running across their wings.

I was overjoyed when, in first grade, Mrs. Nelson told us that we would be hatching ducklings in class. We put eggs in an incubator, watched them hatch, and got to play with them just as I had played with my ducks when they were babies. I still chased my ducks around the yard in order to catch them and cuddle, and I still brought them bugs I found for special treats, but baby ducks are just so much cuter and more fun than grown-up ducks.

The next spring my best friend Holly and I had a great idea. We knew that eggs usually needed to be sat on by their mothers to stay warm enough to hatch, but we also knew that there were other ways of keeping the eggs warm (as we had observed in our first grade classroom with the incubator). What else is warm? We asked ourselves.

Our beds! Of course! We would keep the eggs under our pillows while we slept! What an ingenious idea to come from the minds of second graders!

And so we each took a few eggs from the little hutch in my backyard. Holly walked the three blocks to her house, swinging a little cloth bag of eggs as she went. The eggs cracked from being swung about in this way, but thankfully there were plenty more where those came from.

I think it was two or three days before one of the eggs broke in my bed. I didn’t say anything to my parents for a long time, but it was hard to deny when my mom went to wash my sheets. The other eggs never hatched, and we learned after some research that duck nests and incubators are a lot warmer than beds.

With age comes knowledge. We had failed once, but by third grade we really knew what we were doing. Nesting ducks get really mad when you take their eggs away, so my mom had begun boiling and replacing eggs so that the female ducks still had something to protect and keep warm in their nests. To keep track of which eggs were which, my mom marked the boiled eggs with an X in red nail polish.

So one day Holly and I went out to the hutch in the backyard and grabbed the eggs out of Peeper’s nest, marking each with a red nail polish X.

All we had to do now was wait. We didn’t have to worry about keeping the eggs warm or cracking them. Our work was done; it was all up to Peeper now. She continued to guard her eggs like a good mother. My mom thought she had outsmarted the duck, but Holly and I giggled as we anxiously waited for the new ducklings to hatch. We were the smart ones, now.

My mom had no idea what Holly and I had done until one spring day when little beaks began to poke their way out of the blue-green eggs in the backyard.

Butt Buddy

My friend Alicia and I love to exchange “awkward Caf stories.” As I have said before, things I say are often overheard and taken out of context. Also, our school Cafeteria is pretty small, and the close quarters cause inevitable bumping and brushing. A couple weeks ago I was dancing over to the vegetarian line and almost smashed into my World Civilizations professor. People are seldom paying attention to where they are going, so I have been stepped on and run into more times than I remember.

My favorite awkward Caf story, however, was completely my fault.

I walked into the Cafeteria and headed straight toward the vegetarian line. I’m not a real vegetarian; I’ve actually just been a pescetarian for a few months. But anyway, out of the questionable array of choices my school’s Cafeteria offers, the vegetarian options tend to be the safest.

As I reached the line, the girl in front of me went up to the counter to grab a plate. She walked back to the line and headed toward where the line ended, right behind me. I had seen her in line in front of me, and really I didn’t think that grabbing a plate merited losing a place in line.

“Go ahead,” I said as I motioned with both hands extended in front of me. But apparently I hadn’t been paying much attention, because there was a guy standing in line right in front of me. Each one of my hands, extended in front of me, perfectly cupped each one of his butt cheeks. As soon as I realized what had just happened, I immediately retracted my hands.

“Oh my gosh! Sorry!”

“Oh,” he said, seemingly unfazed by my groping. “It’s cool.”

The worst thing (or maybe the best thing) is that I go to a very small school of about 3,000. I see this guy, whom my friends and I refer to as my “butt buddy” or the “butt guy,” almost every day. I wonder if he sees me and says to his friends, “That’s the girl who grabbed my butt in the Caf.”

Butt buddy, if you ever read this, I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable that day. I hope our interaction was as entertaining for you as it has been for me and my friends, and I hope that this story is one that you tell when someone brings up the topic of “awkward Caf stories.”

Thoroughly Em-bare-assed

My roommates and friends constantly ask me how it is that I never get embarrassed. I am one of the loudest people I know, and as my stories progress my voice gets louder and louder. This means that the stranger in the restaurant, the person passing by on the street, or the professor in class hears only the very end of the story, which can often sound pretty scandalous when taken out of context.

There was the guy at Denny's who only heard me say "vagina." He looked up, smiled, gave me the nod, and said, "What's up?" He hit on me because he heard me say a part of the female anatomy. I was talking about The Vagina Monologues.

Then there was the guy who, walking past me on campus, heard me say to my friends, "I didn't realize she was naked until after I had taken the picture!"

He stopped in his tracks, turned around, and looked straight at me. "Now that is a very interesting statement!"

There was no use even trying to explain. I had been telling my friends about a parade I saw while I was studying abroad in London. I had been taking pictures of all the great costumes when I looked up from my camera and realized that the lady dressed as a cat, whom I had just snapped a picture of, was not dressed as a cat at all—she was painted as a cat.

It comes as a surprise to many of my friends that situations like this rarely make me blush. I find them funny more than anything else. It takes a little bit more than words to get me embarrassed. But it has happened.

One summer my best friend Carlie and I spent a week with my family at our cabin in Twain Harte. One day we were out at Pinecrest Lake and decided to rent a kayak. We paid $15 and were led to our boat, which we were allotted an hour to use. We were pretty ambitious and decided to kayak all the way across the lake and back in an hour.

We paddled for a little while, maybe ten minutes, but got tired and decided to rest for a few minutes. We sat in the kayak, gossiped, and took in the beauty of the lake, the bright blue sky, and the trees all around us. We continued this cycle of rowing and resting until we reached the other side of the lake.

We basked in the sun for a few minutes on the far side of the lake before heading back to the opposite shore. That's when I looked at my watch and realized it had been almost 45 minutes since we rented the kayak.

"It's okay," we joked. "We're cute girls. If they try to make us pay extra, we can just flash them."

Still, though, we decided we had better book it and try to get back in time. We began paddling back, but this time we had a system. We sang upbeat Taylor Swift songs to keep our rowing in sync.

I hate    that    stupid old    pickup truck    you never let    me drive...

Completely out of breath after singing the whole way across the lake, we pulled the boat up to the dock a little over 20 minutes later. We were late, but not too late.

The cute guy who was working at the lake this summer came over and held the kayak to the side of the dock, steadying the boat so we could get out without falling. He was crouched down right in front of where Carlie was getting out and right behind where I struggled to get both feet onto the dock.

I finally got all the way up and was in the most awkward squatting position right in front of this cute guy, who was in the same squatting position right behind me. This means that his face was directly behind, and mere inches away from, my butt.

I guess a string had come untied while I was crawling onto the dock, because right then my swimsuit bottom fell off completely.

"Oh, we're just trying to flash you to get a discount!" Carlie told him in what I think was an attempt to make me feel less embarrassed.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," he laughed. "Sorry, you've got to flash me before you pay."

Whenever my dad talks about stories of his nudity, he likes to use one of his favorite puns and say that he was very em-bare-assed. I can definitely say that in more than one way, this incident was quite em-bare-ass-ing.

Me, Carlie, and the swimsuit that contributed to my wardrobe malfunction

Ballin!

"I wish I was good at basketball," my roommate Katie said as we watched the Butler vs. Virginia Commonwealth Final Four game.

This sparked a discussion about how none of us were ever very good at basketball.  We have friends who play, we like to watch it, but none of us are very talented when it comes to this sport.

I did play basketball for two years, though.  Third and fourth grade I was on a team with one of my best friends.  Hannah's dad and my dad coached our team of nine- and ten-year-old girls, and it was really only because of this setup that I played at all.  I probably would have done anything Hannah did.

Saying that I wasn't very good at basketball may be an understatement.  I was pretty terrible.  I usually didn't even attempt to steal the ball from anyone.  I was abnormally short and skinny, so I guess I was pretty intimidated by the girls who, like my friend Hannah, stood above five feet tall.  I was pretty fast and never ran out of energy, but all I ever did was run from basket to basket, following the ball and hoping to catch a rebound, which I would then pass to Hannah so she could go score.

My dad made constant bribes to try to get me to play more aggressively.  I remember him offering to take me and Hannah to McDonald's if I scored a basket.  Eventually his standards were lowered and I was offered ice cream just to shoot.  The next year when my dad coached my Little League team, he paid me just to swing at the third pitch, but that's another story.

Like I said, I was terrible at basketball.  But Hannah was pretty good.  Actually, I think we had quite a few talented girls on our team.  I'm pretty sure we won a lot of games (not that I paid much attention to the scores).  While I was running around aimlessly, Hannah was scoring, passing, even fouling!

One particular game Hannah fouled out.  I could tell she was really upset sitting on that bench, so I decided I would foul out too.  The only reason I played was to hang out with Hannah, anyway, so I would rather sit on the bench with her than run around on the court without her.

So as a member of the opposing team ran toward the basket, instead of waiting for a rebound I ran straight toward her.  Instead of trying to block her pass, I just grabbed the ball, which was still in her hands.  My first foul.

"Good job, Abby!" my dad yelled ecstatically.  The opposing side must have thought he was crazy.  Most coaches would have been upset about a pointless foul like this, but my dad was happy.  And the fouls kept coming.

I needed one more foul before I could join Hannah on the bench, and the other team had the ball.  I ran and met the girl in possession at the half-court line, where I grabbed for the ball.  This girl wasn't having it.  She grabbed it and pulled back.  I pulled harder.  I may have been small, but I guess I was pretty strong because the girl ended up on the floor.  And she still didn't let go of the ball!  So neither did I.  I grabbed the ball, trying to pry it out of her hands and dragged this poor girl about three feet across the court before I finally heeded the ref's whistle-blowing.

I had fouled out.  I don't think my dad had ever been so proud of me.  I walked, smiling, over to the bench and joined Hannah.  Two years I was on that team, but I think that ten minutes was the most basketball I have ever played.

My Favorite Toilet

One of the highlights of driving up Highway 101 north of the Bay Area is Laytonville.  Not many people live there (the population is about 1,300), and not much happens there.  But on the side of the highway that runs through the five mile stretch of primarily farmland is a toilet sitting in a field.

Yes, I just said that one of the highlights of northern California is a toilet.  I can't even count how many times I've stopped there.  You just can't see a toilet on the side of the road and not want to sit on it.  The ground is usually wet, so we get mud all over our shoes and cars, but the pictures of us pretending to use this stinky, mold-growing toilet are worth it.

Across the road from the toilet is a barn bearing a huge sign that says, "Don't Forget the Magic!"  On days we didn't stop at the toilet because it was raining or we were in a hurry, we would still always read the sign out loud.  It's a great message, but I never thought it had any connection with the toilet across the street.

In December three of my roommates and I were driving up to my hometown, Eureka.  One of my roommates is also from Eureka, but for the other two, this was their first adventure into the far corners of northern California.  When we entered Laytonville, I told them that we needed to make a stop soon.

They were just as fascinated as I had hoped when we pulled over to see the toilet.  We hopped across a stream of muddy water and took turns photographing each other on the toilet (actually, in front of the toilet...it was wet).

As we were taking pictures, a man stuck his head out of the barn across the street—the "Don't Forget the Magic!" barn—and yelled something to us.  None of us understood what he said, so we laughed and hesitantly said, "okay..."

As we pulled back onto the highway, the man waved his arms, beckoning us to come back to his barn.  Four girls in no hurry, we loved the randomness of the situation and turned around the first chance we got.

We parked and approached the barn, but the man wasn't out in front anymore.  The door was open, so we peeked in.  "Hello?"  We took a few steps in, passing a box full of walnuts and a single orange ping pong ball.  A rocking chair hung from the rafters above a giant gumball machine.

"Oh, you came back!"  The man jumped up from where he sat poking a hot metal rod through some sort of metal box.  "You need to sign my toilet journal!"

He led us to a big, high table where he gave us two journals, one to sign and one full journal to look through.

"Do you girls want anything?  A beer?  A smoke?  A soda?"

"No thanks," we laughed.

"Well, here.  At least take some candy for the road."

He introduced himself as John and told us that he loved talking to everyone who stopped at the toilet.  He asks that they sign the journal with their names and where they are from and always keeps refreshments handy to share with travelers.

Some entries in the journal were one or two lines.  Some addressed John by name or referred to him as "Toilet Guy."  He told us about his grandchildren and his daughter-in-law, who started a website so that he could keep track of even more Laytonville toilet enthusiasts and even get their pictures.

It wasn't until I visited the website that I found out that John McCaffrey, the man in the barn, is actually responsible for the toilet.  Since he retired, his daughter-in-law writes on the website, John has been doing lots of strange things like this to entertain the folks of Laytonville and those passing through.  She mentions a "doorknob tree" and birds made out of old shovels.

A friend who asked John what the sign on his barn means says that he replied, "It means don't forget the magic in your life, whatever it is."

Well, thanks for a little more magic, John.

Mendocino County's Finest Rest Area