dear god. i am like the master of never-ending sims. we’re talking two weeks now.
last night i took debbie to pick up her car, and then we went for a bike ride. she originally borrowed one of the mountain bikes that our apartment complex keeps locked up out front, but the stupid thing was practically unrideable. you could turn the gear shifter, and yet the gears didn’t shift. and the right brake was so poorly adjusted that you couldn’t even pull the handle far enough to actually engage the brake. i’m disappointed that the office doesn’t do a better job of maintaining the bikes, but oh well. fortunately, i have my old hybrid, so debbie took that one, i hopped on my fancy bike, and off we went.
we rode up to hercules, over to saturn, all the way down saturn to nasa 1, then over into nassau bay. when we reached the lake, we noticed these weird pump-like things pumping copious amounts of water out of the lake and spraying it in two giant liquid fans onto the pavement. they were draining the lake, and yet creating a minor flood in the rest of the park. very bizarre. from nassau bay, we rode to a really cool little playground where we played on the monkey bars and ran through the obstacle course, then past debbie’s old person doctor, down nasa 1 and back up el camino and home. the verdict: debbie’s knee can handle riding a bike! hurrah!
i watched tv and lounged around for the rest of the night, occasionally taking 5 or 10 minutes to unpack something else or put away clothes. i’m still not completely settled into my new place, but it’s always a gradual process for me. anyway, after “the o.c.” on fox (which i am strangely liking), i was flipping channels and at some point ended up on mtv, which was showing a show called “newlyweds” about jessica simpson and her husband. in this episode, they decided to go camping.
yes, you can already picture it, can’t you? pop princess, her hubby, hubby’s brother, and hubby’s brother’s wife pack up the expensive sport utility vehicle and head to yosemite national park. watching the two men try to set up the tent, which they have obviously never done before (evidenced by having to read the instructions) was hilarious. they work, while the girls just sit around and look bored.
later, the boys go searching for firewood. nevermind that this is a national park, and though i’m not 100% sure, i’m guessing that gathering firewood is prohibited. anyway, cut to a shot of the boys using some sort of rope to throw up over a branch of a nearby tree and try to pull the branch off the tree!! whoa whoa whoa. 1) illegal. 2) live wood does not equal successful fire.
anyway. somehow they did manage to start a fire, with other wood they gathered. they cook food and drink miller lite. jessica simpson is not convinced that there are actually bears in yosemite, and thinks hubby might be merely trying to scare her. thus she “accidentally” leaves her louis vitton purse (containing all her toiletries) in the tent the first night. hubby gets angry, tells her not to mess with the bears.
next day, they decide it’s not a hiking day, and go driving through the gorgeousness that is yosemite. sheesh.
next day, they decide to hike. cut to scene of hubby’s brother’s wife inspecting a brochure describing all the hikes in yosemite. the following is a direct quote, and i can only assume she’s referring to half dome: “a 17-mile hike? why would anyone do that?? i mean, why would you really want to do a hike that takes 10-12 hours?” this was followed by much laughter on my part. anyway, they hike to the top of some waterfall (yosemite falls maybe, it was hard to tell), at which point they proceed to refill their water bottles with river water, oblivious to the fact that it probably needs to be purified first.
they hike back down, retire for the night, and the next day all jessica simpson does is complain about how sore she is and read more danielle steel. at the end of the trip, they pile back into the SUV, declaring that “well, it would have been better if we hadn’t had to put all our stuff in the stupid bear locker every night.”
oh my. i needed a good laugh.
