Chicken fingers of the sea

Today, I was in an exam prep course all day. There is nothing quite like relearning 4 years worth of material to really make your brain melt into a puddle on the floor. So, when we finally finished, I was happy to go out with some friends to wind down. We went out for delicious pub food. I couldn't decide whether it would be a good idea to order the chicken fingers, because I usually try to eat things that are close to natural. I mean, I know that most pub food is pretty processed, but do chickens even have fingers? My friend had fish and chips, which I called "chicken fingers of the sea", and we laughed and laughed, because, as I mentioned, our brains were in a giant puddle far from us. We proceeded to have many similar laughs that they thought I should blog, but I thought I wouldn't remember. I'm often right. Once my friend assumed something, and I said, "You know what you do when you assume, right? You make an ass out of you and me. Actually, I don't really feel like an ass. You assued." Then we laughed and laughed.

This laughter was probably a combination of our missing brains, the pint we had, and the fact we'd just inhaled a bunch of ice cream. Two of us got the same Blizzard, but mine was made by someone who appeared a bit stoned (he seemed really confused when I tried to pay him), so it had way more Crispy Crunch. The moral: Always choose the stoned fast food server. (Unless meat is involved, then the rules all change.)

This made me think of the time I was at Marble Slab and the child in front of us was begging her mother to get her a cone. It was quite the ordeal and when she finally got it, she excitedly ran up to order. I thought, "Good job, little one" and was happy for her. Until she ordered. "What do you want in it?" the server asked. "Sprinkles!" she said. And I just felt sad. She did all that work convincing her mother to spend money on Marble Slab ice cream, where the entire gimmick is that you get to choose anything you want to mix in with your ice cream, and she chooses a fake ingredient. It was obvious that girl was not getting it again for a really long time, and she had no idea that she'd pretty much just added sugar. And dye. And maybe some sort of shellac. Okay, so I'm not really sure what the exact recipe for sprinkles is, but what I do know is that they add nothing but aesthetic value to anything. Well, except for vanilla dip donuts, but ice cream is not a vanilla dip donut. In fact, maybe if she had asked for a vanilla dip donut to be mashed into her ice cream, it would have been worth it. By the way, I had Belgian chocolate ice cream with Reese peanut butter cups and raspberries. It tasted like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but with the bread replaced by awesome.

I'd like to write more in this post, but I realize that it will likely just result in me repeating various bad jokes about chicken fingers. Tomorrow, I'll try to scoop my brain off the floor and use it to write something that will really blow your mind. Or, I'll just bitch about how much it sucks to be mauled by a bear. Either way, I'll enjoy it.

No longer lost, again

Following on yesterday's cow-petting success, when I woke up today, I decided that this was the day I was going to make it to the elusive river that somehow evaded me last Thursday. My saga began with Shamus reminding me of the correct direction and Lilliput telling me that if I see a Dairy Queen on the way then I'm going the right way and if I cross a river, then I've missed it. In this way it really was like a mystical quest, because there were challenges and obstacles along the way, like not forgoing my river trip for a delicious Blizzard. But I made it, reaffirming my recent blog theme of "If at first you don't succeed, try again". Apparently it works both with scary cows and missing rivers. I suspect that you don't believe that I made it, based on my track record, but here is evidence.
Note the water, and the bike helmet, and the horrible helmet hair. That's right, I did not fake this. I actually found a river.

Once I got there, it wasn't quite what I built it up to me. Don't get me wrong, I mean, the river was nice, but I was somehow expecting more at this point, like mystical fairy ferry boats to take me to the land of gumdrops and infinite bubble wrap on the other side. There were few of these, so, I just biked along, singing "Just around the river bend" and smiling at strangers who did not seem to have the same trouble I do finding rivers. Then I remembered that my brother had told me there was a Heron preserve down the river path, and I had a new goal: to see the Heron preserve. I biked and I biked, and just when I thought all was lost I saw it. And it said no bikes allowed. So, I decided to just keep going, and realized with excitement that there was a Heron trail, which only seemed to discourage motorized vehicles. So, I started along it and quickly found this:
Disappointing. Except, now I have a new dream, and that is to complete the Heron Loop Trail before I die. I didn't say it was a good dream, just a new one.

Eventually, I reached what seemed like the end of my riverside bike trail and decided to head back. I decided to take a slightly different path, which I expected would keep me near the riverbed. Instead I ended up here:
I hope that having seen this, you have the proper respect for the fact that I found water at all, given my "special" sense of direction. You can't see it in this picture, unless you are superman, but there is a person in the gravel pit to the right. He seemed to be dancing, or exercising. Either way, I couldn't figure out why one would specifically come to a gravel pit on a random path to do either. But then I thought, maybe, just maybe, he'd been path dancing and then suddenly realized he really needed to gravel pit dance. I wanted to make friends at this point, but I think my multiple attempts to get a picture of him dancing didn't win his affection, so I just kept biking.

As I biked, I got introspective (or delirious, it's sometimes hard to tell when one's had too much sun and not enough food/water) and thought about how the best part of being someone who has the ability to get lost even on linear trails is that I know I've always found my way home eventually. This might not seem like a positive part of getting lost easily as much as a neutral thing, but it's actually good because it works well as a metaphor for life. And everyone knows that metaphors rarely lie. I mean, with the obvious exceptions, like when they trick you into thinking you're on fire while dancing or that various household appliances can purr and therefore may actually be cats. I think I was getting to a deep thought about life, but now I'm just feeling betrayed by all the horrible lying metaphors that have hurt me over the years. You'll have to wait for another post to hear my thoughts on river finding as metaphor.