Friends and Rivers. (episode 1)

I love my friends. I have been blessed beyond measure by the friends God has placed in my life. The following is the first in a series of blogs that will intermittently explain why I love my friends.

Episode one occurred last weekend.
Location: New Braunfels.
Friends: Marc, Drew, Kimo, and Erin.
Setting: a river, a cliff, and a Volkswagen bus.

Marc drives a Volkswagen bus. I like having one good friend who owns a VW bus. Its just fun and it makes me, by default, really cool. However, if you have several friends who own VW busses, you are probably a weirdo.

We loaded up in the bus and headed to the cliff by the river. Wading across the river is freezing in December, but fortunately this time the water was really low.

Then we hiked to the cliff and and rappelled for a while. It was totally fun.

I’m not a fan of heights. I like adventure, but I hate heights. I also hate snakes. As I was rappelling down the cliff, I got to a section of rock that is covered by this thick green vine stuff. Just as I kicked off the rock, a huge red, black, and yellow snake slithered right where my feet were. I freaked out. Fight or flight gets really confusing in a situation like this. I could let go of the rope and plummet to my death (flight), or land on the snake and risk death by poison (fight.) Instead I just stayed on the rock screaming, “There’s a snake, there’s a snake, there’s a snake!” I realized that when it comes down to it, I don’t give a crap if red and black is a friend of Jack. I’m not hanging around long enough to find out. I’m pretty sure I rappelled faster than I ever have in my life.

Anyway, I love my friends because they are fun. I love that we can load up in a bus, go to the river, hang out, and laugh. I love that sometimes we can be deep and serious, but other times we can jump off of rocks or laugh until we hurt. Yep, I love my friends.

Ok, caption contest. Both of these pictures need funny captions. Any thoughts?

First picture, Kimo and Erin.

Second picture, Drew and Kim.

Please share your ideas. :)

Slightly Imbalanced

So there I was, minding my own business, when I heard the distinct sound of an imbalanced load of towels spinning in the washing machine. Annoying, but easy to fix. Open the lid, rearrange the towels, restart the washer. No big deal. As I opened the laundry room door, I stepped into an ocean of raging water. The washing machine was bouncing across the room like a pogo stick as water was violently pouring onto the floor. Something had gone terribly wrong. I quickly splashed over to the washer and hit the button to stop the spinning, but the water kept pouring out of the machine. At that moment, the thought occurred to me that I was standing in water with electrical appliances that were plugged in and running. So I jumped on top of the washer. Yes, that was a good move. Always safer to stand on top of electric devices submerged in water. Water was still gushing onto the floor. I knew I needed to turn off the main valve connected to the wall, but I was still concerned about the electric situation. So I grabbed a sock. Yes, always grab a sock when turning off water valves. I’m not sure what I thought the sock would do, but it did give me enough confidence to grab the valve and stop the surging water. I breathed a sigh of relief and splashed back into the pool at my feet. Still standing in water, I was calmly surveying the scene when my roommate Erin yelled, “The dryer is still on!” With swift cat-like reflexes, I lunged toward the doorway and landed on the carpet, barely escaping with my life.

Erin and I stood there for a while, each quietly realizing how much work we had ahead of us. We don’t have a shop-vac, or anything similar. We have towels and trash cans. The carpet situation was serious enough to merit renting a Rug Doctor from the local grocery store. The hallway was soaked and water extended to nearby closets and walkways. We spent the next 5 hours cleaning. During that period, I had time to reflect on the situation. I had cheated death. Certain disaster was about to wreak havoc on me and my friends, but I had saved the day. Ok, I’ll be honest, that’s how most of my daydreaming starts… major crisis, everyone else freaks out, I am a hero, etc…but I’ll explain that another day. Anyway, I decided to call my brother Paul to see if I really could’ve died. He said no. Apparently, I wasn’t in any danger. He said something about valves and hoses and told me some stuff I should check. He knows these things.

Anyway, I am alive and well. My washer still doesn’t work. It’s leaking water from under the bottom of the whole thing…not the hoses, not the connections, but under the whole machine. Feel free to offer insight or thoughts, or to just come over and fix it. Meanwhile, I will keep daydreaming about saving the world and not being afraid of electricity.

Why the chair?

Location: The teacher bathroom at my school.
Problem: The black chair and the bookshelf.
Question: Why?
Answer: Not sure, but I find them disturbing.

The black chair showed up about a year ago. Awesome. I don’t get to go to the bathroom whenever I want. Teaching just doesn’t allow for it. Finding time to chat with co-workers is also nearly impossible to schedule during a typical day. Imagine my joy when the black chair arrived, and I instantly realized I could chat with my co-workers while using the restroom. Perfect! No thanks. Then, about 6 months ago the bookshelf showed up. Our school has a library, classrooms, teacher’s lounge, and a work room, but somehow the fully-stocked bookshelf landed in the teacher bathroom. I’m a little grossed out by this. Hasn’t everyone seen the discovery channel specials about toilet germs flying out when you flush? I’m pretty sure lots of gross things fly out, swirl around the room, and land on every available surface. I wouldn’t eat a cookie that had been sitting on that shelf all day, so why would I pick up a book that has been collecting toilet funk for months? Anyway, one day when I didn’t have a co-worker to talk to, I checked out some of the titles on the shelf. Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller is a great book (see photo, top shelf.) I read it a year ago, not in the school bathroom. I highly recommend it. In fact, I can send you a copy if you are interested. When you are finished, you can take a swab sample from the cover and grow things in a Petri dish if you want.

Turkey Worship

I was a pilgrim when I was 7. I have a picture. I wore a white apron-type thing made from butcher paper and a cool hat. My friends were Indians. They ran around school shouting, “Hiyahyayhiya” and attacked people. It was fun. Since dressing as an attack Indian or a religious zealot is totally not PC anymore, it's nearly impossible to dress up elementary kids for Thanksgiving. So, we decided to be turkeys. I love my students, partially because they are so willing to be goofy. Nothing could’ve persuaded them that their outfits were ridiculous and should not be worn in public. They wore them in the hallways, to the bathroom, to the library and even to lunch. I realized about half-way through chapel that 12 of my students were in full turkey attire singing praise and worship. I couldn't help but laugh. Yep, I was that teacher, and they were those kids, and I loved it.

I'm pretty much Michael Phelps

Foreign men in Speedos are teaching me to swim. I know how to swim, and I’m quite speedy if I only need to swim 20 feet. I just never learned how to breathe while swimming. I always swim as far as I can while holding my breath, then I stop and doggie paddle until I can garner enough air to swim again. It only seems like a ridiculous strategy if I imagine doing that as a runner. I don’t hold my breath and run as far as I can, jog in place until I can breathe again, and repeat the process until I reach my destination. That is awkward and very not cool, but all my life I have allowed this madness in swimming…until now. Charged with great resolve and determination, I typed in “how to swim” on YouTube. That’s when the nice speedo-donning foreign folks began teaching me swim lessons.

Towards the end of a particularly successful day of swimming (I made it the length of the pool breathing properly,) I was thinking, “I’m pretty much Michael Phelps.” Moments later, exhausted and clinging to the edge of the pool, I remembered all the Olympic infomercials about how perfect Michael’s body is for swimming. I wondered if I had any of the same swim-body perfections. I did some research:

Apparently, Michael is 6’4” and has a 6’7” wingspan, size 14 feet, double-jointed knees and ankles, and disproportionately short legs.



I am 5’3” with a 5’3” wingspan, size 7 feet, and single-jointed knees and ankles. At first glance, that makes us sound significantly different, but let’s not forget the disproportionately short legs. I have a short whole body, which means less drag and a serious advantage against tall people. Combine that with 20 years of anaerobic swim training, and we’re talking serious potential.

See you in London Michael.

kimberrykim...an explanation

A friend once told me he thought it was weird that people call me Kim Berry. I thought it was weird that he thought it was weird, considering that is my name. He was pointing out that people say both my first and last name when they are referring to me. I’d never noticed. I guess it is a little strange, especially when there are no other Kims around to differentiate between. Other friends call me kimberrykim. At first I wondered why they were throwing another kim on my name, but ok, whatever. It didn’t occur to me until later they were calling me by my e-mail address.

When I got my first yahoo account, I wanted the perfect address, something fun and catchy. I tried various combinations of cutesy e-mail addresses that people would appreciate and remember easily; only to be told repeatedly that someone had already stolen that address. Meanwhile, the system suggested four boring arrangements of my own name no one had yet claimed. I tried for hours to think of the perfect address. I finally gave up, accepted my fate, and became kimberrykim. I obviously didn’t know at the time that I was renaming myself, otherwise I would’ve kept hotchick88 like I planned. Anyway, I’ve grown to appreciate kimberrykim. It’s one of those names that only my real friends call me.

It occurred to me recently that I could officially be kimberrykim forever if I marry a Korean guy with the last name Kim. So, I did some research. Evidently there are 6.67 billion people in the world, 60% of which are Asian. Yay! However, Korea makes up only 1.1% of the world’s population. Bummer. But, I was not discouraged because that’s still 72 million people. I started shifting from idealist to realist to pessimist when I began considering all the factors.
There are:

72 million Korean people, but…
24 million people live in North Korea. I will probably never meet them. But,
48 million people live in South Korea, but only…
24 million are male, and only…
4.3 million are between the ages of 26-36, but only…
516,000 are single, of which only about…
154,800 are Christian, and about…
32,000 have the last name Kim!

That’s awesome!! But consider this…only about….
12,000 appreciate The Office, of which only about…
8,500 are totally into 24, of which only about….
4,700 like playing stupid games with friends, of which only about….
2,500 like camping, of which only about…
540 like waterskiing, of which only about…
4 would be ok with eating green beans and cereal for dinner most nights.

My chances of officially being kimberrykim forever are about .000000000078%.

Anyway, I wanted a cool name for my blog. I tried some other stuff, but nothing seemed right. I still like kimberrykim...but you can call me hotchick88 if you want.

Maybe?

Maybe I will start blogging soon. Maybe.