September 29th 7:04pm - September 2010 Quote of the Month

Three-year-old (screaming/crying): "My doodle's wet. I don't like wet doodles."
Three-year-old (continuing to cry): "My doodle's fat! My doodle's fat!"
Me: "Your doodle's fat?"
Three-year-old: "Yes, right here, (points to balls) right here it's fat."
Me: "Oh, baby, that's where you'll get balls."
Three-year-old (stops crying): "Bouncy balls? Do they bounce, Kara?"

September 26th, 2010 11:32pm - Sydney and Regurgitation


I rarely pride myself on my story-telling skills. My oral skills are lacking. At best they're average. However, I was in Sydney and had been staying for a few days with some Sydneyites I'd traveled with in India. The previous day we had guzzled alcohol for fourteen hours on Manly Beach. And I don't just mean cheap beer. I'm talking cheap boxed wine (goon), rum, whiskey, and beer.
There is no ozone layer above Australia and the sun was blazing like a joint. We were on the sand the entire day. Drinking booze for, again, take note, fourteen hours.
The following morning I was still raging drunk and rolling with a story. I had woken up, realized that I hadn't consumed water in twenty-seven hours, and downed half a carton of orange juice out of a glass big enough for a cyclops. An hour later, one of my friends barbecued breakfast while I lay on my stomach on a towel in the park. I felt amazing. The two Sydneyites I had traveled with through India, a brother, and seven of their friends surrounded me, captivated by my powers of speech. My words held them.
They nodded along like bobbleheads to my every syllable. They laughed before I said the funny parts. I was a story-telling god.
I recounted July 4th a few months prior. There were Jello shots out of brownie tins, keg stands without legs being held, phones found in microwaves, friends screaming because they forgot their mortars while being assured by others who had remembered theirs, and people kissing an AK-47 before pretending to shoot it by aiming at the house.
There were people who played Circle of Death for hours. They woke up the next morning having never heard of the game. I was in the midst of telling about my four male friends who decided upon playing strip flip cup. Losing team had to be naked. One of the naked guys placed the unlit end of a lit sparkler in his ass. He chicken-danced around the yard with it. I opened my mouth to say that he had removed it from his own ass and shoved the lit end into our friend's naked asshole.
But, I never got to tell that part of the story. I opened my lips, and then a massive liquid bomb exploded from my mouth. There was no warning. I was spiraling a spectacular story, and then orange juice projectile vomited from my mouth. I wasn't even feeling hungover.
"He took the sparkler," and then, boom, spit and orange juice blasted from me. One minute I was a story-telling lord, and the next I was a crazy bitch who had just thrown a liquid volcano out of her mouth. There was a moment of silence, like in church, and then everyone sank, laughing in hysterics.
"What was that?"
"I just met you. Who are you?"
"How was that possible?"
"What was that?"
"Who are you?" repeated twenty-three times from the seven people I was meeting for the first time. I lost the story-teller masterhood. I still felt fantastic. I was just confused by my body.
When stomach muscles had recovered and everyone had eaten breakfast, we played cricket.
Twice when I ran to retrieve the ball, enormous liquid cannons shot from my mouth like a freaking demolition team. Once, the juices projectile vomited from me and landed on the ball.

September 21st, 2010 6:00pm - Solscape and a Storm

Before I went to Australia, the boyfriend wanted to stay at an oasis on the beach for five days. We would kayak, fish, swim, surf, and ride bikes. Raglan, New Zealand's most notorious beach town, claims the longest left-hand break in the world.
The last time I took a surfing class was six years ago in Hawaii. My surfboard collided with the instructor's head, he crawled out of the ocean, and someone had to replace him. I wanted another surfing lesson. In Raglan. We hadn't anticipated that one of the largest storms in the world would still be raging on New Zealand.
The boyfriend drove us through wind, rain, and hail. I have 20/400 vision. I can hardly drive in the sun. In preparation for the trip, Boyfriend took it on himself to book our accommodation.
Our conversation a week prior:
Him: "I'm going to get us an awesome place to stay right on the beach. In a hut or something. On the beach!"
I was skeptical. I'd been backpacking through seven countries for a year and a half. I knew how to locate decent hostels.
Me: "Are you sure? I'm looking online now and I really don't mind booking it."
Him: "I just found the perfect place. On the sand. We can stumble out onto the beach. Boom!"
Me: "Oh sweet, what place is it? I love stumbling out onto the beach!"
Him: "I'm not going to tell you, it's a surprise. I'm a genius. We're staying on a beach!"
He sung the last part. Over the next week he spoke of how excited he was. He praised his powers of discovery.
The place was called Solscape. It was not on a beach.
Raindrops assaulted the car's windshield as we drove up a hill, a ten minute drive away from the sand. Wind smacked my hair into my eyes as we got out.
"What is this place?" I asked.
It looked like a crazy commune cult. Midget burnt red and puke green cabooses dotted the grass. We were expected to sleep in them. I saw one bathroom.
"The website said eco friendly... I thought it was on the beach," he replied, looking around confused.
"Did it say it was on the beach?" I asked.
"No... but there was a picture of a beach on the website."
"Was there a caboose on the beach?"
"No... but there was a picture of sand!"
"There was one picture of one random beach to show the surrounding area and you take that to mean the hostel is on the beach?" I persisted.
"False advertising!" he exclaimed.
We had a bottle of rum for the night. We stayed at Solscape the one night. A small bed took over ninety percent of our caboose. There weren't electrical outlets. After drinking rum by ourselves while sitting on the bed, he started to get claustrophobic and I started to get depressed.
The cabooses surrounded a large wooden circular communal kitchen, so we went there with the remainder of our bottle. In a short time, we altered the quiet lull of eco friendly conversation into a yelling, rum-chugging drinking game of Pyramid. I ran back to the caboose for my laptop so I could play party music instead of the nature sounds softly projecting a tranquil atmosphere. We gave away shots and made friends.
The next morning, we relocated to my hostel of choice, Raglan Backpackers. When we checked out of Solscape, the receptionist apologized for the noise the night before.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "This is a peaceful place to rest and meditate on life's journey. I sincerely hope you're not leaving because of the noise. It's never been that loud here before. Ever."
"Um. No, family emergency," I responded.
Raglan Backpackers offered hammocks, free bike rental, a hot tub, sauna, golf and surf lessons, kayaks, and fishing rods. I was ecstatic to do everything. I did nothing. It stormed the entire time.

September 17th 4:14pm - Canoe Club and a Storm

One night when I was drunk and wandering the streets, someone told me that the University of Auckland's Canoe Club threw raging parties. When I heard this, I stomped in a circle enacting my best version of a Native American rain dance. I might as well have been wearing a feather headdress and a loincloth. I chanted on the sidewalk in intoxicated enthusiasm. Apparently when I'm liquored up, I associate canoes solely with Native Americans.
Predictably, I joined the Canoe Club.

New Zealand is two-thirds the size of California. Australia is essentially the size of the United States. The weekend I paid forty dollars to go on a trip with the Canoe Club, a storm the size of Australia hit New Zealand. In 80 mph monsoon gusts of wind, rain, hail and devastation, the Canoe Club guys wanted to raft for two days and camp for two nights. Outside. In tents. In one of the largest storms of the year on Earth. Everyone signed up still went.
So that we delayed driving directly into the tempest, my driver suggested we leave Saturday morning instead of Friday night. When we left Auckland, the rain was still bombing around and mighty gales harassed my sanity.
Because the rain had been too painful to sleep in, the night before everyone had relocated from the dirt to a backpackers' accommodation a quarter of a mile down the road. I was pleased about this, as I would spend Saturday night under a roof instead of homeless in a storm.
When commercial rafting, the guides take about twenty minutes to pump up the rafts and assemble everything. With the Canoe Club, it took over two hours. Thirty of us huddled in small groups whispering happy, sunny memories as the rain pelted our bodies and the winds leaked into our souls. Dutch Girl danced to keep warm. But she's a good dancer. She gyrated and swung and thrust. I curled my toes to try to prevent hypothermia. I was wearing sandals.
I had borrowed a military jacket from the boyfriend, and a wet suit from the parents I work for. I struggled putting on the wetsuit more than I've struggled with anything in my life. My legs were too big, my neck too wide, and my hands too frozen. I broke nails and wet skin ripped off my fingers. It was the dad's wetsuit. As I zippered up the neoprene eighteen minutes after starting, I realized I might have trouble breathing. Dutch Girl then pointed out that I had put it on backward.
"Isn't it painful having the zipper in the front of your throat?"
Yes, it was painful. I couldn't swallow properly. But my body couldn't take going through the process of getting the wetsuit off and back on again. My life already hated me.
One of the raft guides wandered over and looked at me like I was wearing a bikini in 2010's biggest storm in the world.
"Do you have any poly pro?" he asked.
"What's that?"
He sighed.
"What about booties?"
"Sandals?"
He sighed again and provided me with a pair of booties for a six-year-old. When I shoved my feet in, I felt like I had nipple clamps across my toes.
I didn't have any poly pro, but everyone else did. Poly pro keeps you warm, dry, and comfortable. Before we ever got on the river, I was sopping wet and considering the possibility that frostbite might spread across every inch of my skin.
Once we were on the river I tried to concentrate on staying inside the raft. Because of the rain and my eyesight, I couldn't see rocks until we collided with them. I also couldn't detect the movement of the other paddles. Thus, I couldn't synchronize. I primarily held on. The wash of rain had flooded the river. The rapids were faster and the water deeper. We flew down the river. I didn't know until later that every raft threw at least three people into the water, and almost every canoer flipped over. By the end of the run, strangers were in our rafts, and our rafters were in strangers' rafts. One person was still in the river.
That night, I was still so wet and so tired that when I assisted in making dinner, I cooked the pasta for the spaghetti before the carrots and garlic and onions had even been diced. When my driver walked in and saw what I was doing, he confiscated the knife and tossed my bottle of wine into my hands. This was good, as I was thirsty and sure I was about the chop off part of my finger.
Many drinks and a few hours later, I noticed that in addition to myself, a few of the rafting guides were suffering from speech impairment and loss of balance. I went to sleep confident that I was God and I would stop the rain.
I awoke the next morning to the sounds of rain and snoring. The rain crashed into the windows of the backpacker's dorm. The one most responsible for our lives, the Captain, slept on the floor underneath a bottom bunk. He didn't have a blanket.
The storm continued, and we persisted in rafting a second day. I would have rather stared at a white wall. But, because everyone else did, I stood in the rain, contracted hypothermia, and put on the wetsuit. It only took me fifteen minutes the second time around.
We altered rivers the second day. Twenty-seven seconds in, the first raft got stuck on a rock. After four minutes spent dislodging it, the raft inched along for another thirty seconds before getting jammed on another rock. Every raft lodged on the same rocks. It was like watching a flock of sheep follow the leader, each one in procession tripping over the same stones. What should have taken four minutes to raft down, consumed forty. Three hours later, we were where we should have been after an hour.
I was confused, because rain poured down on us, but the rafts stuck on rocks every minute. We later found out that nobody had released water into the river from the dam.

September 12th 2010 9:40pm - Trampoline with a Three-Year-Old

When we're inside the house, the three-year-old I babysit relishes playing Judo Kick. He screams, "Judo kick!" and hurls his body into my legs.
When we're outside the house on the trampoline, he enjoys playing horses. He screams, "Horses!" and hurls his body into my legs.
Bruises generally garnish my shins.
A few days ago, he shrieked, "Horses!" and almost dislocated my hand while dragging me to the trampoline. He then introduced the hoola hoop.
"Horses jump through hula hoops," he informed me.
The night before I had drunk a bottle and raised hell. I was too hung over and too tired to protest to a three-year-old. I elevated the hula hoop, and he either jumped through it or bull-charged into it.
After every time he jumped through, he'd ask me if he had jumped over the hula hoop. I was more likely to vomit on him, but I didn't tell him that. I agreed that he'd bounced over the three-foot high hoop. Every time. He began referring to himself as Superman.
Far too soon for Superman, my arm and brain terminated function. I blame the ethanol fermenting inside my head. I forgot to exercise caution in the hula hoop's placement. One edge of the hula hoop rested on the trampoline while my skull rested on my bicep.
The three-year-old continued flinging himself through the hula hoop. Instead of tumbling onto the jumping mat, his shoulder would smash into the trampoline's outer safety pad rim. He'd land on one arm. He'd slam his head into the mesh. He'd smile. He bounced right off the trampoline. Superman landed on his head. He was inches away from crushing the bunny.

September 8th 8:30am - Going for the Boob

I have never found large nipples especially attractive. My mom recently apologized to me for endowing me with dwarf nipples.
"Your grandma had such lovely large nipples," she wistfully informed me.
"That's okay," I assured her, "I can't imagine tiny boobs and massive nipples would be a good look."

Some days, I wear slutty shirts or hooker dresses. They're not skanky on me, because I have no boobs. If I ever fit into an A cup, they might be scandalous. Some nights, I put the baby to sleep. When he barks, bawls, or bellows, I swing or dance him around.
Last night, I wore a purple shirt with a plunging neckline. The shirt strategically bunched, and I wasn't wearing a bra or tape to cover my nipples. The baby roared. I cradled him against my body, sang to him in my horrendous voice, and spun in circles. After I cooed for four minutes like a goddamn pigeon, he quieted down. I slowly swayed back and forth.
I thought that I could do this, I could have a child. In ten years.
Then the baby's mouth sucked on my nipple. My titty must have peeked out when I was twirling like a circus performer. Before I could react, the dad walked into the room. I faced the door. He looked at my eyes and at his baby attached to my boob. I opened my mouth. He walked out.
He had been looking for his wife.

September 5th, 2010 7:12pm - Dirty Car

When we drove into the Auckland rugby field's parking lot for the nine-year-old's rugby game, the mom disclosed that delinquents gather there during the weekends. I saw five thirteen-year-old males drinking energy drinks and listening to music playing from a phone. "Be careful," she warned, "Just make sure none of our kids go near them." I smiled. In California, I would have seen thirteen-year-olds smoking cigarettes with condoms in their pockets. One might have had a gun.
During the game, I picked up the three-year-old by his feet and swung him in circles. He shrieked while pitching through the air. After I set him down, he begged to go again. The seven-year-old cried because she wanted a turn.
"You always do fun stuff for him," she shouted. "Never for me."
Instead of telling her that she weighs too much and my arms are too weak, I consented. I picked her up by her feet and completed two rotations. I then accidentally dropped her on her head.
I don't understand rugby. I don't know why, if you score a touchdown, it's called a try. Clearly the attempt was more than a try. After the game, when the nine-year-old asked if I was impressed by the conversion, I was confused. Three minutes later, I understood a conversion to be similar to a football field goal.
We walked towards the car, the three-year-old on my shoulders, the five-year-old holding my hand, and the nine-year-old detailing every tackle he made and interrogating my opinion on most of the plays. I play soccer. I know more about fencing than i do about rugby.
We approached the car to find the rear windshield's dirt layer transformed into a pornographic playground. Stick figures were doing sheep doggy-style. Open mouths projected moaning dialogue bubbles. "Fuck me this dirty," and "I like pussy this dirty," were scrawled into the dust next to pictures of penises.
The nine-year-old had stopped ranting about the game.
"What's pussy?" he asked.