Story Time (paddling style)

(Because I haven't subjected y'all to an Indigo novel for some time now...)

*this was partly written on May 28th. It has sat in my draft folder for 2 weeks. I figured I should finish & post it. So I did.*

The entire right side of my torso from my lower back (possibly down into my hip) to the bottom of my neck feels like one giant sore muscle. Normally when muscles are sore you can pin point which ones are sore. Sort of like an anatomy lesson through pain. Nope, not today. It's just one big sore muscle that runs from my neck to hip. Entirely self-inflicted of course. Maggie and I were borrowed by Hope Afloat for Saturday because they needed a couple of extra paddlers so they could go to the False Creek Women's Dragon Boat Regatta in Vancouver. Neither of us had ever been to a Van festival so we were both willing recruitees. I suppose I should admit we had some reservations which stemmed mainly from the fact that we only know one Hope Afloat team member. And we were traveling by bus to Van on Friday, staying in cluster housing at Gage Towers at UBC overnight and then spending the day at the regatta before coming home again. The average age of their team is probably about 50.

I should note here that we don't even bus anywhere with our own team. We drive. Ok, our team never rents a bus, we had the option once, but we prefer not to. We like our own space.

Off we went on the "Fun Bus" at 3pm on Friday. The Fun Bus was a rolling Christmas party this year. 'Twas complete with Christmas candy and cookies, a gift exchange, caroling (with song books), a Christmas trivia contest for which Maggie received the "Smart Ass" award because she managed a fabulous 17/20. She tried to suggest that it go to the person with the next highest score as it was going to be an ongoing thing and the winner was expected to bring the "trophy" back for the next bus ride. Unfortunately that didn't work out for her as I had the next highest score. So she is at this moment in possession of the award (I shall try and get a photo of it before it moves on to the next recipient).

The Christmas cheer was replaced briefly in Vancouver by the chicken dance, the hokey pokey, and the Macarena on the way to UBC. There was also a brief interlude of hilarity with Maggie, her cell phone and some "interesting" text messages from Ballboy. He suggested that we should follow the Chicken dance with the Macarena. We were in the middle of doing just that when he sent the message. That was slightly creepy, and the first of 3 such impeccable timing incidences that occurred in the small space of 24 hours.

We started off our stay at UBC by seeing a rat. I had the bright idea to walk up 17 flights of stairs to our rooms. I don't claim to be the smartest individual sometimes. But really, it made sense to balance out the upper body workout I was going to get the next day with a lower body one right? After getting settled, we admired the view and then went off on a hunt for coffee, during which someone referred to the "S" place as Mecca. This was either a sign of extreme coffee deprivation, or perhaps general insanity due to too much "Fun Bus". We did, however, venture inside. Aside from coffee (decaf) we came out with something far more important. Something even I couldn't justify not purchasing on the spot from the "S" place. Travel Scrabble. Yes, our gaming addiction in travel form. In glorious, inspired, brilliant, travel form with little tiles that snap into the game board, tile racks that have flip lids and snap into the back of the board for storage, and a game board that closes in half with a case you can zip closed so that you can put your game away and finish it later.

We've already worked out a joint custody arrangement. This was made very simple by the fact that we are basically the only people that will play the game and that it will be most often brought out at d. boat festivals.

Fast forward to 845 am Saturday morning. We are browsing the goods in assorted merchant tents at the festival site. Our team tent is up (good lord, 22 women and only 5 or so that had any inclination or ability to set up a tent. Two of which were Maggie and I), and we have until 930 to be free and wander around before warming up and marshalling for our first race. Maggie was contemplating which of 3 purchases to make and I was being dutiful jacket and bag holder, and honest opinion giver as she tried things on. A certain acquaintance I have was briefly discussed - wondered where his team was in order to stay clear of the vicinity - and I happened to look up and come into direct eye contact with said individual as he walked by. Jeez. We hadn't even been at the race site for an hour and I had already run into one individual I can do without seeing. 52 teams there. If I had been looking for someone would I have been able to find them? No. Of course not.
Impeccable timing incident #2. 10 mins later we were walking towards the finish line again briefly discussing said acquaintance when he emerged from the porta pottie directly in front and to the left of where we were walking. Good thing we were looking where we were going otherwise there would have been a collision. This of course made us burst into fits of giggles. The timing of it was just too perfect. Again, very creepy.

Racing occurred. We were to have 3 races; you don't find out when the next one is until all the first heats are complete and then they arrange the 2nd ones. Then after the 2nd round you find out your times for the 3rd one. Our first race started out terribly. Before we even left the dock things were bad. The boat we raced in first was a Gemini. There were four Gemini's and four 6-16's (those are boat brands). 4 refurbished Gemini's. I'd hate to meet an original Gemini; the refurbished one were bad enough. We actually had to leave a paddler behind because she and her seat-mate couldn't both fit in the last seat together. It only got worse when we nearly hit another boat right after the start. I won't get into the details of the how and why, I'll just say there were a number of aspects working against our tiller at the time and they added up to us going off course. Our tiller, however, did a wonderful job and got us back on track after we came to a full stop. We ended up finishing the race in 3 mins and 19 seconds. Six seconds behind the next fastest boat (yes, we were last in our heat) and that was after they took off 3 seconds off from the other boat's time because we nearly hit them. We were proud of ourselves for our comeback.

More racing occurred. Thankfully, in the 6-16 and not in a Gemini. We had better times in both of the next two races which was nice. I don't know how we placed overall and it doesn't really matter. Usually Hope Afloat does very well against other teams of cancer-survivours, but this was an open festival (otherwise we couldn't have been paddling with Hope Afloat) so there was no differentiation between survivour's teams and the rest of us.

The bus ride home was slightly more subdued. We did do a secret Santa gift exchange which was fun The first thing Maggie said to me when she was handed her gift was "you got my name didn't you." Who would have thought it was possible to have a distinctive "gift wrapping style"? I got a mug from Maggie. A mug covered in cute little drawings of rabbits and gp's and mice and hamsters and gerbils that said "I love my pet" on the inside. Totally perfect for me.

Impeccable timing incident #3. Ballboy's fault again; he called Maggie's cell phone to ask her to call him when we got back. We were just pulling into the parking lot.

I was supposed to go to a swing dance that evening but after realizing that I didn't even know if anyone I knew was staying for the dance after the workshops (that had been going on all day) I decided instead to have coffee with a friend. A good way to end the day.