Heights Are for the Birds

My Los Angeles sister had a birthday this week and she wanted to take a balloon ride, so her husband organized one over Temecula. It seems that region now sprouts vineyards and beautiful landscapes. So they got up at the crack of dawn to be in the basket by 6:30. They were there with several other crazy people armed with bottles of champagne and off they went like Mary Poppins. She loved it.

I would have turned green and hung my head over the side and thrown up the entire time. I do that on boats, too. 

I remember years ago taking a chairlift ride over a theme park with Alf and my children. My legs dangled from the seat and there was only a minuscule handlebar keeping me in.

There was too much sky and space around me.

I couldn’t look down.

I couldn’t look up.

Either direction made my stomach flip.

I had to keep looking straight ahead and pretend this was a bad dream that I’d soon wake up from.

Then it the middle of the ride, the chair stopped. The cable made loud, crunching noises. There I was suspended between earth and sky.

I began to perspire.

My hands locked onto the handlebar.

One of my flip-flops came off and sailed into the giraffe area.  While my children squealed with delight, I was having a panic attack.

The ride resumed with a jolt and continued on forever.

I wanted to yell at the top of my lungs that I wanted off! Nobody warned me this would be hazardous to my health. So I did the next best thing – I closed my eyes, took deep breaths, and visualized strangling the owners of the park. There should be warning signs in large letters before a person gets on one of these things. How do skiers do it? I know. They’re packed into parkas and boots for protection. Me? I was in shorts and sunglasses. More in keeping with a Margarita on the ground.

Calvin says, “I love heights. I can drool and fart to my heart’s content.” 

 

 

There’s Real And Then There’s Real

At a cafe. Lunch break. Two techies drinking coffee and talking.

Techie 1: You have no patience for obvious arguments. You want the different, the new, the next creative idea.

Techie 2: I want the real.

Techie 1: What if it’s not out there?

Techie 2: The real is always out there, even if I have to invent it.

Techie 1: If it’s invented then it’s not real.

Techie 2: People with no imaginations say that. Where did the laptop come from? Fifty years ago it wasn’t real.

Techie 1: I was thinking mountains, storms, earthquakes. That’s real. Could there be categories for real?

Techie 2: I guess. Maybe theory vs absoluteness. The laptop started as a theory but became an absolute.

Techie 1: And an earthquake is an absolute and will never be a theory. We’re talking origins.

Techie 2 – checking his cell phone: That’s way too philosophical for me.

Calvin says, “Good grief. That’s enough to scramble my beagle brains. How about we talk farts and bad doggie breath? Now that’s real.”