Cool Runnings (Except with Dragon Boats instead of Bobsleds)

It's Rose Festival Dragon Boat Race weekend! With our ragtag bunch of beginner paddlers we hoped to:
1. Have enough paddlers show up to fill most of the boat.
2. NOT come in dead last. Or something like 20 seconds behind everyone else in our heats. If we keep our fingers crossed and do extraordinarily well, we're hoping MAYBE we can get a medal in Division 4. (Even though you generally have to beat a blind team, a deaf team and the Special Dragons to get there. *sigh*)
3. Have some decent weather.
4. Eat lots of Fran's rice balls.
5. Have some fun!

About half the team showed up for our last practice on Wednesday night. Not unusual. Every practice we wonder if we will have the minimum of 10 show up to be able to go out on the water at all. Often Fran recruits a couple people from other teams, or even random tourists, to go out with us so we can practice at all! Everyone was told to show up on race day NO LATER THAN 8:30 am. Preferably 8:15. Or earlier. Lennie contacted everyone else later to let them know.

Race Day. 8:30 am. We arrive at our tent. Stan looks around and asks, "Well, do we have enough people to go out?" Of the 25 people on the roster, there are 5 at the tent so far. Plus Austin is rumored to be off smoking somewhere, and Lennie, Fran and Keegan are at the coach's meeting. That's 9.... So almost enough! (Of course a full boat requires 19-- 16 paddlers, a tiller, a caller, and a flag catcher.)

Thankfully the day's off to a slow start as there are random boats anchored in the Willamette along the race course! So while the race officials move the finish line and the Coast Guard tries to get the boats moved, we do have more time before our race anyway.

By 9:30 (our original marshalling time) we're still a bench short and we haven't heard from either of the flag catchers.

As we head to the marshalling area, two more paddlers show up and Robert the flagcatcher calls Keegan and says he is there but can't find us. The paddlers didn't bring their team shirts. Lennie goes back to the tent to round up a couple extra shirts. Robert finds us, but is wearing the red team shirt from 2 years ago. Lennie goes back and gets him a shirt, too! Now we're off to our first race!

The first heat we got 3rd place, with 2nd & 3rd VERY close. We were ECSTATIC not to be last!! Then the next heat we got 2nd place!!

We were placed in Division 3, which was in itself a big improvement from last year. We were happy with that even though it meant we probably wouldn't get any medals this year.

Sunday morning. Quarter final race. We're matched with teams that had similar times to our best the day before. We feel we have a good chance of getting a 2nd place, or at least the "fastest 3rd" and advancing to the semi-finals. If we can get a good start. And keep the timing together. And no one pulls out. Yeah, we could do it.

We're lined up at the start in lane 2. The boat in lane 1 is awfully close to us and starts to draw right just as the starter judge calls alignment and the horn blows...

GO!! Our right side paddles are occasionally intertwined with Lane 1's left. I am on my lane, though, with the flag sited right between the dragon horns, and I am NOT moving out of their way unless we will actually crash! We are exactly even all the way down the race course, with rarely more than a foot or two between the paddles! With that craziness going on beside us, we have no notion of where the other 2 boats are compared to us. Stay the course, don't crash, stay on the lane, don't crash, watch the flag, watch the paddles, don't crash, flag..... As Robert climbed onto the dragon head, all I could see was his hand and the oncoming flag...GOT IT! Apparently the boat in Lane 1 had to veer off slightly to the right to get their flag, so we WON THE QUARTER-FINAL! And... broke 3 minutes! 2:57 was 10 seconds faster than the day before!

I was surprised how exhausted I was when I got off the boat! Clyde, who runs the tiller clinic, was standing on the dock when I got off the boat. I gave him a big hug and said "Thank you SOOOO much for that tiller clinic!!!" He looked a bit surprised and said, "So...it was helpful then?"

Rob came back to the tent a while later with the line-up for the semi-final race. All the other teams in our heat had previously beat our best time by at least 5-7 seconds. We told each other that if we could pull together all the best of what we've done so far, we could get a 2nd place and move on to the finals. WE CAN DO IT ZEN!!!!

We headed down to the dock, loaded the boat, and had a while to wait as the Portland Spirit wanted through the race course. While we sat there we took a couple pictures, and Fran gave us the MOST AWESOME PEP TALK EVER. "You guys have done just AWESOME this season," she began. "This will be our last race together, but you have all done SO good and pulled together SO well..."

"FRAAAAN!!!! Ok, we might have been thinking it, but we weren't going to SAY it! What kind of a pep talk is that?!?" "Oh!", laughed Fran, putting her hand to her mouth. "Did I really say that out loud?"

So...we lined up in Lane 4, got off to an awesome start, and all four teams were dead even all across the race course. Nearing the end of the course, I thought we MIGHT be pulling ever so slightly ahead! So I called the end of the race a little early, with a "WE'RE IN THE LEAD!! FINISH IT WITH EVERYTHING!!"

Fran can never hear me call the finish, but Keegan at lead stroke can, so she always looks up and repeats it to Fran. Keegan told me later that while looking at the other lead stroke, she could see the three other dragon heads even with us through the whole race. But between the time she looked up at Fran and looked back at Rob, the other dragons were gone.

We had actually surged forward that much! WE WON the semi-final race by more than 2 seconds!!! Time: 2:53. Apparently the race announcer was going on excitedly about how they'd never seen anything quite like this!

Ya know, we might actually be able to win this! Wouldn't it be great to be able to present PCC with a trophy that says 1st Place!! (Lennie's been working really hard to get the school to pitch in more money for the team--they paid all the entry fees for 2 races this year plus a bus to go to Olympia this year. He's looking for more races and some team equipment for next year...)

Final race. We're feeling pretty good about this one. "Paddlers prepare to start...GO! "ONE! TWO! CRACK! Suddenly we're not going anywhere. Keegan says she looked at the other boats and thought, "Where are they going?!?" A couple people in the middle stopped paddling. Timing was way off. Ryan turned and shouted something to Lennie, who was in the back row. Lennie stopped paddling and yelled up the boat. Sky quit paddling, and with a paddle HANDLE held aloft, turned and yelled "WHAT DO I DO NOW????"

Lennie handed the extra paddle up to our powerful midstroke, but by then there was no catching up. Apparently the paddle broke in spectacular fashion on about the 3rd stroke and pieces of it flew and hit other paddlers. No one was injured but everyone was quite startled! Sky had tried to just keep paddling with the handle, having been programmed by Fran that, "No matter what happens, the most important thing is to keep in time!"

We actually came in just a couple seconds behind the rest of the pack. Keegan and Sky were pretty bummed about losing until Sky got to carry the broken paddle around, and get everyone's awed reaction to the story!! And we do have a 4th Place trophy, medals, and something else no other team has--the Power of Thor Trophy and a really great story about how to lose an epic race in epic fashion.

The Endless To-Do List

People often ask "what have you been doing lately?" and I find myself saying, "not much, but I've been really busy!" which always makes me wonder what in the world I'm wasting all my time on. So I decided to actually make a list of what I DID do today...

Wake up at 4am when Nick's alarm went off. (Apparently he thought he might do some last minute studying for finals...*sigh*)
Get up and have coffee with Stan, get dressed to let Nick drive to school. (Driving practice. Though he decided to take the bus to study more.)
Filled out additional financial aid paperwork for MHCC. Spent 45 minutes on hold to find out which on-line form they wanted me to use.
Breakfast (cereal)
Yoga class
Reschedule a bank appointment as I am double-booked for this evening (oops)
Process a return of defective shoes to Zappos, including repacking defective item.
Take package to UPS Store
Return a purse (grandma purchase) to JC Penney
Fill out an online survey to get airline miles
Eat lunch (cottage cheese & pineapple, not too time consuming)
Answer a number of text messages from my mom
Water new plants and spread bark dust
Look into international phone card options so I can call Heather on her cell phone in Namibia (more time on hold to call for the details...)
Check Facebook a few times. Wish my niece Ashley a Happy Birthday. Check to see if Heather has a new blog post. Several times. (HINT HINT HEATHER!!!!! YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY BEAT THIS BLOG FOR "NOTHING EXCITING" SO THERE! JUST DO IT!)
Pay a couple bills (Wheaton's bookstore, PGE)
Chase off a guy at the front door very determined to sell us steaks
Return a pile of Claire's junk mail
Clean off the mailbox 'cause a bird pooped on it. A big bird.
Play phone tag with Natalie throughout the day (we're supposed to go for a walk, but it's now 2:30...)
Check Colleen's Blog to see if there's a new entry (no, but she just posted on Sunday.)
Notice that AAAAAACK! I have another follower on my blog! Oh! Hi Naida! :-)
Load and run dishwasher (including redoing the "clean" party dishes that Sophie wallowed on this morning...)
Take the party dishes out to the shed and pack in the bin they belong in
Talk to my mom on the phone
Do a couple loads of laundry
Walk up Mt Tabor with Natalie. (We finally connected)
Make dinner for Stan
Shower, change clothes, etc.
Go to meeting at church for upcoming Los Embajadores mission trip I'm chaperoning. THAT took up 3 hours...
Stop at Fred Meyer to buy birthday card for Nora Nordmark (a belated one by now... Can't just send her an internet greeting while she's off becoming a nun!)

Highlights of Tomorrow's List:
Water Aerobics class
Read with the 2nd graders at Holy Family School
Drive down to Eugene to move Maria back from U of O for the summer
Dragonboat Practice! (last one before Rose Fest this weekend!)

Darn! No lounging about watching tv and eating bonbons...

What a Fabulous Summer it Was.... *contented sigh...*

It actually hit 80 degrees on Saturday!!! AND it was sunny!!! Started off the morning with Therese, having COCONUT LATTES at Starbucks! While I was lounging around gabbing and sipping coffee, Stan was at home digging out turf from the yard where we planned to put in a walkway.

Then I headed home and Stan & I went off to dragonboat practice. In warm sunshine!! It was glorious, but also the biggest challenge I've had yet as tiller. The wind was also blowing pretty hard, lots of speed boats were out, and the river is still really high with the current running really fast. I was actually sore the next day from hauling on the till so hard! Anyway, the funniest thing was... Well, it seems every time we run a practice race there is some slow-moving vehicle that decides to park right in the middle of the race lane. We've had fishing boats, stand-up paddle boards, rafted speed boats, a sailboat, a paddle boat, kayaks, etc all decide to hover there when it's race time!! Well this time beats all, though...

A PLANE ended up sitting in our way!!! (This picture was taken before we went out on the boats...)

Then we went home and mostly finished the path project. I'd forgotten quite how warm 80 degrees is! (I'm NOT complaining!!) I say "we", but really Stan did most of the work. I mostly piled sod, went to the store for supplies and cooked dinner.

Sunday we got up and went to church. Then we did much work preparing the yard and cleaning house in order to host Patrick's birthday party at 5pm. I made some food, too, though Patrick's mom brought a lot of the food. It was actually quite nice! Let's see... it was Stan & I & Nick, Alex & Alix, Patrick & Alisha, and their friends Dylan & Nicki and their 2 little ones Devin and Elizabeth (they are 4 and 2), and Trey. Val and Teresa & Leo, Mary & Ladd and Edna. I'm so glad it didn't rain!! About 8 o'clock as the party was winding down it started sprinkling, then a distant thunderstorm!We sat in the gazebo for a long time watching the lightning. It never really did rain much here, but it was a good show.

Today I finished planting flowers in the newly constructed pathways. I also met with the faculty advisor for the Travel & Tourism certificate program at Mt. Hood Community College. HOPEFULLY I have everything filled out that I need from him now, as it took months (literally) to manage to set up a meeting with him. Then he was 35 minutes late to this one. But I'm excited to do this next year. Stan's off getting a haircut, Nick's taking his Physics final and I'm about to heat up some leftovers for dinner before we head off to dragonboat practice. (Rose Festival is this weekend!!!)

Now it's back to being drizzly and about 58 degrees out. Summer was great while it lasted...

I Can't Figure Out How to Post a Comment on My Own Blog!

I give up. Ok, so I will make a new post to answer Heather's comment on the Birthday BBQ post. :-(

You reminded me--you must get me a fridge magnet! At CCF's museum store if they have them or wherever the opportunity should arise.

I love the bird photos, and as a matter of fact I have been "birding" all afternoon! I just posted some names and info about the ones I could identify on your Facebook album.

I can't believe I didn't post about the Indy 500 winner! No, Helio Castroneves didn't win this year. But it was wild! Here's the story basics courtesy of the LA Times:

Dan Wheldon won his second Indianapolis 500 in a wild finish in which California rookie J.R. Hildebrand had the victory in his grasp but crashed on the final turn.

Hildebrand, conserving fuel when others were forced to pit, passed defending winner Dario Franchitti with only a few laps remaining and was leading Wheldon when the white flag came out to signal the final lap at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

But as the 23-year-old Hildebrand entered Turn 4, he slammed into the wall. He kept his car moving forward but not fast enough to prevent Wheldon from passing him to reach the checkered flag first.

"I just kept pushing," Wheldon told a television audience after he took a gulp from the celebratory bottle of milk in Victory Lane. Choking back tears, he said, "I never gave up. It's just an incredible day."

Hildebrand settled for second, Graham Rahal was third and Tony Kanaan fourth.

Wheldon, a British driver, won the Indy 500 in 2005, but after winless seasons in 2009-10, he failed to get a full-time ride this season. But a group led by veteran driver Bryan Herta hired Wheldon to at least drive in this year's Indy 500.

So basically, Hildebrand's crashed car at least kept moving forward and it slid across the finish line in 2nd place!

In other news, it's still raining. (Not really news by now.) I survived going to the gym this morning for the first time in about a month. We're planning to work this weekend on making the path in the backyard from the deck to the gazebo and shed, so I went shopping for some of the supplies. Lindsay is supposed to come over for dinner tonight and not sure yet what we're having. (It was going to be chicken salad, which would ordinarily be ok minus the chicken part, but I already put bacon and eggs in it. Lindsay is a vegetarian if you'll recall, and I don't really want to make her pick bacon bits out.) BTW, did I mention before that Lindsay and Sawyer have handed their honeymoon planning off to...Nick and Jordan???!?!? Scary!!

I also think I managed to change the settings on this blog to notify Heather by email when I post. Let me know if it works! I just can't figure out how to make it let me post a comment on my own blog!!

I Don't Love Dragonboats as Much When It's 40-Some Degrees and Raining and the Team is Whining

*Sigh* I probably don't need to go on much more about that. It was so... whiney... we actually went back into the docks 15 minutes early. *Sigh*

In other exciting news, it's actually NOT raining at the moment but is expected to again momentarily. HOWEVER... If the weather report is correct, we should actually see 2 days of 80 degrees and sunshine this weekend!!!! Then it's supposed to go back to cool and rainy though. The rivers are higher than at any time since the Flood of 1996. Plants (including wine grapes, oh no!) are growing almost 2 months behind what's normal. We've also had a number of black bears wander into Portland and Vancouver in the past week or so. Tualitin Elementary School was closed yesterday as they tried to remove a bear hanging out on the playground! He was safely relocated back to the coast range, and another one hanging out in Vancouver was taken to the Mt. St. Helens area last night. Apparently the plants they usually eat are extremely slow to come out this year due to the weather, so bears are wandering into town looking for food. It's still snowing in Government Camp, too. Pretty much the weather here is still about the same as it was spring break.

Nice weather over the weekend would be particularly nice as we're supposed to be hosting Patrick's birthday party on Sunday, including some of Alisha's family (Patrick's soon-to-be inlaws that we have not even met yet). Patrick and Alisha have planned a wedding date in August 2012, but they're now talking of moving it up sooner. I don't think we're expected to come up with any cows, though. ;-)

The K103 radio DJ's are at Disneyland today! WANT!!! One more month and I will start planning my birthday trip next year. Gotta wait 'til we're in the 11 month window in order to do the plane tickets. We should have enough Alaska miles to get 3 free tickets I hope.

Yesterday I read with the 2nd graders, and now I want to know how that Goosebumps book ends, aaargh! Then I went to Ross to try and find some pants. Despite spending a couple hours trying on an entire cartload of stuff I came home empty-handed. Today.... hoping my Photographic Guide to the Birds of Namibia arrives today as scheduled. Before then I'm going to try to get myself to the gym, which I kinda haven't done in about a month. Between all the travelling (Hawaii and Massachusetts) and Grandma visiting, I've really gotten off track. Though Nick will also want to drive to school shortly. (Still trying to get enough practice in to get his license.) If I'm going to make it to yoga class I better run get ready now BYE!

I LOVE DRAGONBOATS!!

So just a quick update between printing boarding passes for my mom's flight home tomorrow and Stan wanting the computer to look at rack systems for the KIA. We bought a kayak today! Yellow for me... matches the rest of my fleet, lol! Stan ordered a red one for himself which will hopefully arrive at REI in a week to 10 days from now. (He really wanted the "stan blue" one, but they were all out even for special order.)In the absence of a car rack we kind of just stuffed it in the trunk and bungeed it everywhere. (Stan was concerned that we didn't have a red flag to dangle on it, but I am certain NO ONE would be able to claim they didn't see 4 feet of BRIGHT YELLOW kayak poking out the back of the car like a lemon colored land shark.)

We also got much of the shed cleaned out. Shed cleaning usually occurs every time my mom visits. The cars all get extraordinarily clean as well. Anyway, the shed went from can't-get-in-the-doors to can-actually-stash-2-kayaks-and-still-walk-through!

Oh, yeah, dragonboats! It actually got over 60 degrees out this afternoon and THE SUN came out just in time for dragonboat practice! Jeffrey the Blue Heron greeted us at the boat, there were piles of Canada Geese with herds of fluffy, adorable babies, and swallows feeding babies in nests under the Ross Island bridge! Beautiful evening. The river is really high--the walkway to the docks, which is usually at about a 45 degree angle, is nearly horizontal now. The water is up almost to the walkway around Waterfront Park. It's not flooding like in 1996 by any means, but higher than at any time since then I hear.

Stan is hovering...I must go!

Birthday Barbeque Success

Sooooo.... It actually stopped raining for a little while yesterday, and we actually were able to have an outside barbeque for my birthday! At least we managed 1 hour & 18 minutes before the rain started and we retreated to the house. (It was only about 55 degrees out so too cold to hang out under the gazebo once the rain started...) Attending were Natalie, Therese & John, Nick and Stan and Grandma, Patrick and Alex & Alix. Alex & Alix came by on their way back into town from Bend. They went to Bend to see a Death Cab for Cutie concert and had camped at Tumulo State Park--where it snowed! Natalie gave me a very silly pair of wine glasses in a leopard print. I think I will ask her where she got them--those would be great to donate to the cheetah auction in October, along with a bottle of wine perhaps. I think there's one from South Africa that has a cheetah on the label even. Oh yeah! The CCF Gala in Windhoek is on July 15th so Heather will still be in Namibia for it! That according to the event calendar on the CCF website.

Spent this morning watching the Indianapolis 500 which was pretty great this year. I put out my race flag, which is bigger and lighter than most of my decorative flags. So it was fluttering in the wind a lot and Sophie kept growling at it!!

Otherwise have had a pretty lazy day. Took grandma to JoAnn and Value Village and have seen way too much television. Was enjoying America's Funniest Home Videos until she got annoyed that I was laughing. *sigh* Ordered a guide to the Birds of Namibia so I can try to identify the bird photos that Heather sent me. :-) Went to REI with Stan to return a couple items and looked at kayaks.

Nick's out having tea with Lindsay at Townsend's. Stan went to church tonight since we were watching the Indy 500 this morning.

Damien called me from England for my birthday! And Natalie also gave me a pile of refrigerator magnets from England, including a ROYAL WEDDING FRIDGE MAGNET!!!!!