How Do You Remove a Rabbit From a Sousaphone?

Remember when I confessed to y'all that I'd never been to the ocean?

Well, check that one off the bucket list.  Sort of.  I guess it depends on who you ask.  I technically went to Galveston and the Gulf.  There's lots of argument about whether the beach of Galveston counts and whether to qualify the "gulf" as an "ocean".  But for a kid who's always been able to see the opposite shore of whatever body of water she's looking at, it's the damned ocean.  It was mesmerizing.  The wind, the waves, the seagulls fighting over dead fish.... all of it.

I wound up going to see my friend, Allison, who is in nursing school down there.  Allison was one of my favorite campers like a 1,000 years ago at summer camp.  Since she's 30 now, I guess I can stop referring to her as one of my "kids".  Allison leads the kind of life of adventure that I always think I want to lead.  She's been so many different places -- studying in Mexico and Guatemala, doing desert conservation in Arizona, leading canoe trips on the Canadian border, blowing up dams, and measuring tree growth in Alaska, just to name a few. 

Then I remember that I really treasure things like television and microwaves and toilet paper.

Allison's adventures both make all the "responsible" adults in her life insane and jealous all at once.  Now she's settled into pursuing a career in nursing.  I think it's just a cover to work a couple years in civilization before she's off delivering Pygmie babies in the Amazon, but whatevs.  I'm just hatin'.

Here's a little photo re-cap of my Bucket List weekend:

This is Allison.  Allison went to OU.  The burnt orange scrubs are both required by school and sure to cause a fierce rash to her Sooner blood.  I will not take this opportunity to point out the obscenely white tennis shoes.  I will also not point out that someone advised her to get Skechers Shape-Ups.  Or that she took their advice.  That would just be cruel.

The Skrehart family is one of the most intelligent and creative thinking families I've ever known.  It does not surprise me at all that Kathy used her evil genius to exploit Pinterest for this:  Skittles-infused vodka.  Literally, you just take vodka, drop in a handful of Skittles, and then strain out the weird gelatin coating that melts off.  What you're left with is neon-colored jars of Heaven.  I drank a lot of Neon Heaven.

 Oh yeah.  We went to the beach.  It was dreadfully, dreadfully cold.  I did not stick my foot in as planned.

 Kathy and Allison looking for shells on the beach.  And freezing. 

 If you live in Galveston, in a house without a verandah, I'm thoroughly convinced you're not doing it right.  I wanted to knock on doors of houses without verandahs and ask the resident within what the hell they were thinking.  This is a relatively tamed down version of a Galveston home as it's not hot pink or turquoise, like below:

This is the view from Allison's verandah.  It was a dreary day, so my camera didn't really capture the vibrancy of the house colors.  We had a weekend-long debate about what color we would all paint our houses if we owned homes here.  There's also a marigold yellow house directly across from Allison's apartment that I kind of coveted.  It mattered very little that they *might* have drug deals happening on the front porch or that there was a port-a-potty stationed in the front yard.  Truthfully though, I think that if you don't go with some sort of rainbow sherbet motif, you're really letting the entire city down.

 Apparently, if you cut down a tree at your house (or it's blown down by a massive hurricane -- whatevs), this tremendous artist with a chainsaw will come carve it into something magical.  This yard's tree stumps turned into the Tin Man and Toto from the Wizard of Oz.  The Tin Man and Toto happened to be celebrating Mardi Gras at the time.

 Back to drinking.  If you look closely, you'll see that, in celebration of Mardi Gras, we drank the grape, lemon, and lime vodka first.  You'll also see, if you look closely, that we drank out of Allison's "Sip and Strip" glasses.  When the glass temperature changes, the rejects from CHiPs begin to shed their tank tops and tighty-whiteys so that they're wearing nothing but unbelievably out-of-date facial hair and a smile.  I really can't describe how proud this child makes me.

So... apparently the coast is Hurricane Country?  Hmm... I seem to remember something in a book somewhere mentioning this.  All around the city, there are water line markers from the big storms.  The middle silver plaque is the big storm of 1900.  The blue mark at the very top?  Hurricane Ike in 2008.  Allison's there for reference, and she's like 5'6".  I took this moment to have a very serious discussion/review I entitled, "Hurricane Warning = Get the Hell Out".  Really.  Get the Hell out.

So... to recap.  I saw the ocean.  I hung out with great friends.  I drank delicious drinks and ate delicious food.  Additionally, I was introduced to the delightfully awful 1970's tv show "Emergency!" whereupon I learned about the history of paramedics (a couple of upstart "rescue men" and one young doctor's willingness to put it all on the line for 'em), what to do if a child swallows a quarter (pick him up and shake him -- literally, this is what the doctor did), and how to get a bunny unstuck from a sousaphone (hint: chloroform and a strong air flow, but I'd just recommend not putting your rabbit inside a sousaphone.) See for yourselves here:

http://www.hulu.com/emergency

I am now chock full of wildly irresponsible medical know-how.  And views of the ocean.

All in all, time well-spent.