August 22, 2002
This weekend, my love and I are going sea kayaking for the first time, up in the San Juan Islands. We leave tomorrow, so today I've been bustling about, trying to Get Stuff Packed, get the house somewhat tidied, and generally do the sorts of things one does before leaving home for a few days. I've been a busy woman lately, what with going down to Wolf Haven to do my volunteer tour guide thing a couple of times a week, gearing up to go back for my Master's degree (and getting delayed by the financial aid process, surprise surprise,) and a bunch of other stuff that's happening - it'll be nice to get away and not have to do any kind of work at all this weekend. At 3:30pm, I hopped into the shower, no longer able to withstand the vaguely sweaty feeling of the somewhat humid weather we're having today.
As I was just about to rinse the shampoo out of my hair, I hear the doorbell ring. I pause, trying to make sure it's not a trick of the pipes - oftentimes in the shower, I think I hear the phone ring, when it's actually just the pipes singing. I hear the doorbell quite distinctly again, though, as the bathroom door is open, and the front door only about 15 feet away. I sigh. If it were our usual UPS person or the mail man, he would have simply rung once and walked away. I know first-hand that the shower can be heard from the front door, so whoever it was obviously thought it was quite important.
"Who is it?" I holler over the water.
"Peb bumdol," I make out.
"Who?!"
"PET CUBDOL!"
I couldn't understand what he was saying, so I hollered "just a minute," turned off the shower, wrapped myself in my robe, and strode, dripping water and shampoo quite liberally, to the front door.
"Pest control," the man standing on our front porch says, quite
superfluously at this point actually, given the exterminator's rig he's
wearing.
"Yes?" I reply, polite but obviously somewhat disgruntled. And dripping.
"I just wanted let you know that I'm on the property, in case you saw a
strange guy walking around."
"Ok, great. Thanks."
He pauses.
"Yes?" I ask again, still dripping, becoming less and less polite by
the nanosecond.
"Well, that's all. Pest control on the property."
It took every ounce of self-restraint I possessed not to point out the irony of his being "pest control" as he dragged me out of my shower and to my door, soaking wet, simply to point out that he was going to be on the property. He comes once a month at our landlord's behest, it's always the same guy, and he always says the same thing. I know who he is. Even if I didn't know, doesn't he think the exterminator's spraying rig would sort of, y'know, give it away? Or the stench of bug spray permeating the house? Does he really think that it's so important that I know he's here that he must interrupt my ablutions?
Pest control, indeed.
But as I said, tomorrow, we leave to go sea kayaking. We're touring with Sea Quest Expeditions, because we're pretty impressed with their mission, general outlook, and the bios of their guides. Lance and I have both wanted to do this for years, and as an early birthday present, we're going - I suspect we'll love it. However, it's not as if either of us need an additional expensive hobby, now, is it? I mean really. Kayaks don't come cheap. But once the initial investment is made (2 kayaks, a couple of paddles, couple of spray skirts, life vests, dry bags, roof rack, a few sundry other items,) it's practically free, right? Right. Yet I suspect that with me out of work and going back to school, and with Lance looking to go back to school himself, it'll be awhile before any sea kayaks adorn a roof rack on the Trooper; we just don't have about $5,000 to throw around at the moment (figure $2000 - $3500 for the kayaks themselves, almost a grand for the roof rack and all its accessories, a few hundred bucks for the paddles, and several hundred dollars for other accessories. Ouch.)
So, in spite of The Pest Control Guy and his lingering damndable stench, it's a good day. It hasn't rained here in several weeks, though, and things are very thirsty in the Pacifc Northwest. We had a couple of spits the other night, but less than a tenth of an inch it was. I'm all for warm and sunny, but plants and trees are suffering, and I hate to see that. It'll be good to get out onto the water, and hopefully see some whales, otters, sundry birds and other critters, whilst gliding silently along in a tiny little boat. I'm imagining it to be sort of like the motorcycles of the water. Well, perhaps more like the bicycles of the water, since the personal watercraft would be the correct analogy, in truth. But whatever the right image, it'll be awesome.