No, I did not catch the clap.

Very funny, though.

To sum up, because I'm sure you're dying to know... here is the summation of the things i caught:

sunfish: 4

trout: 0 (the only trout available to be caught were lake trout, and they live quite deep...)

large mouth bass: 2 that counted. several more that were so tiny that when my sister tried to lip them to remove the hook, her thumb could barely fit into its mouth.

small mouth bass: several, but 3 nice ones. including one caught while sitting indian style on the back of my sister's boat. which, if you've ever tried hooking and fighting a nice bass while seated in a fashion where you could feasibly fall in after the fish, you know what a challenge this is.

rock bass: a half dozen or so. spiny little creatures.

toothy creatures: too many! "Dad, can you take this off the hook?" several northern pike and several more pickerel. and sightings of alligator gar and bowfin. i should add that these sightings were promptly followed by anonymous and i promptly removing our lures from the water.

perch: funny story about the perch. i actually took off several, but when i think about the fish sperm on my hands after taking one off, it's possible i had millions of potential perch in/on my hands. (for the record, this was not my fish, it was anonymous' fish that i was removing when it... unloaded.) i haven't been tested, but one assumes that it was not carrying the clap or any other STD that a human could possibly get by um.. handling perch spunk.

clams: 7. i have no idea how i managed to catch so many. they do not sit on the ground. they float. so imagine my surprise when i caught one after another using my various lures. it's a talent, passed on to me by my mother.

sunburn: absolutely! across my nose and face, and a bit on my forearms. most of this has faded, but i am peeling about the nose and cheek.

the desire to have children: this waned in and out. holding baby e when he was asleep on the boat: yes. watching the babies run all over while their parents tried to keep up: no. watching them be fascinated by things like their belly buttons, elbows and a deflated balloon: yes. watching them try to launch themselves downhill: no.

we got back late yesterday and today i returned to work, so naturally, i'm tired and about to head to bed. but fishing, and more importantly, the first all family vacation (mom and dad, sisters with husbands and babies and me and my own husband) was relatively pain free. minus of course, the accidentally hooking suffered by anonymous, the lure to the back of the head j suffered at the hands of my dad, and the lure to the stomach he suffered at the hands of my mom -- but other than that... good times.

Gone Fishing

OK, SJ’s gone for the weekend on a fishing expedition so you’re stuck with me. To fill the long, lonely hours until she returns and graces this blog with entries people will actually comment on, I’ve developed a game. I’m going to list things that SJ could catch this weekend, along with the odds of each. Place your bets by listing your choices in the comments section. No money has to change hands; perhaps we can just do ice cream for the winner (now that’s my kind of game!)

Here we go… Things SJ may catch this weekend:
A trout: 2:1
A bass: 2:1
A sunfish: 2:1
A hook on her sleeve: 6:1
An eel: 15:1
The boat’s propeller: 10:1
A shark: 20:1
An old tire: 25:1
A catfish: 8:1
A cold: 1:1
Your write-in answer: _______________

I should probably tell you that I have no idea how odds work. So it’s going to be tough figuring out who won. Yeah, I took a class called “Ideas in Mathematics” in college. I’ll probably just buy myself an ice cream. But you should too. Isn’t this fun? We’re all winners at FunnyGals!

Livin’ the Dream

As a kid, I thought it would be really cool to be on the radio. In fact, I have a cassette tape somewhere in this house o’ boxes of mine that has me pretending to be a radio DJ. Both sides of the 90-minute tape are filled with music and my witticisms.

While I went to college with the intention of becoming a radio or television newscaster, I got sidetracked into newspaper journalism somewhere along the way (probably because I could relate to the students on the university’s newspaper staff more than the AV geeks who worked in the television studio and the pot-smoking metal heads at the radio station).

While I have loved my career as a newspaper reporter (got a couple of hours? I have stories about covering the police beat that will make you wonder about how some people even make it through the day) and editor, I’ve always had it in the back of my mind that perhaps I should pursue something on the radio.

To sum up the last three years or so, I worked toward that goal and just got a job doing the news on a pretty well-known radio station on the weekends. Perhaps I was distracted by having to get up at 4 a.m. on Saturdays and 5 a.m. on Sundays (yup, this night owl has been seeing early morning from a whole new angle). Or maybe I was too nervous about getting the timing down, hitting the right buttons and trying to sound like I knew what I was doing. Nevertheless, it took two weeks for it to hit me.

Finally, two years after taking a different radio job, eight years after graduating from college, 12 years from going to college to study journalism, 20 years after I made that tape… I’m finally doing what I’ve always wanted to do. And I don’t think it gets much better than that.

Hyper McHyperpants strikes again!

The Pretend Husband has been fighting a cold (and losing) all week, and was completely exhausted last night. So exhausted that he tried to sneak upstairs and go to bed without my knowledge. Perhaps because he anticipated what would happen next.

After noticing he was gone, I tried to tempt him back downstairs with ice cream then finally went up to join him (after the television show I was watching ended because, you know, I have priorities… which are mainly ice cream and television). I’m sorry, but I have to be kept up for a few nights straight (like, say, during a trip to Vegas) for me to even fathom going to bed at 8 p.m.

I guess I could have gone back downstairs and left the PH to a good night’s sleep, but– let’s be honest– that’s just not me. Instead, I started pulling stuff out of boxes (good news, my passport isn’t expired, I found the key to my lockbox and Molly the Peekapoo looks great in a tiara!). I found a list of quotes that my family assembled during holidays together (a favorite was my dad’s comment while helping both teams during a game of Cranium: “I’m the answer slut!”) and the book of quotes the PH and I have been keeping from the beginning of our relationship (most of which may or may not be pretty R-rated, so I’ll spare you the details).

The PH was a good sport about having to listen to the quotes again. And he gets extra points for going along with my pleas to re-enact his proposal after I found the box my ring came in (“No, then you got down on one knee… get down on one knee! Then you said… do you remember what you said? Say it!”)

But he drew the line at the in-depth discussion about what makes people cheat and what kinds of things lead to the demise of marriages. You know, those sort of light discussions that are just perfect for right before bed… especially when you’re under the weather.

I finally let him turn out the light at 10 p.m. after he admitted Molly’s the cutest tiara-wearing dog he’s ever seen. Boy, do I make that guy earn his sleep!

it's a twister, auntie em!

nothing says warm spring days in New England like a tornado.

yes, i said a tornado.

wednesday, as the heat and humidity sank in around southern Connecticut, where i work, we started to hear rumors of threatening skies. threatening skies meaning.... tornadoes. i'm from very hilly new england, where we don't *have* tornadoes. in fact, i don't even know how to spelll it. e, or no e?

no idea.

regardless, everyone was in a tizzy. i admit, i did get nervous when i saw the warning. at the time, we did have a huge pile of granite sitting in the driveway, which, under the wrong circumstances could turn into a pile of dangerous small and possibly lethal projectiles. very scary.

but alas, we managed to get through it with minor wind damage and i heard that there was a bit of a run on canned goods. which always makes me laugh. because really, if the heavens are going to open up and you're going to baraged by fierce winds, is a can of peas really your best option for survival in a tornado? i suppose it would be if it were *really* heavy. it could act as a kind of anchor, really.