What do bad 80s haircuts and belly flopping fish have in common? Post-Badass Adventures

Adventures don't stop just because the Badass project is over.

I realize something significant.

I love adventuring.

Of course, I do.

But it turns out I like writing almost as much.

I find myself thinking about the stories happening during the adventure while it's going on. I look for interesting things that pique my curiosity. And I realize that preparing to write about an adventure is just as engaging to me as the adventure itself.

I'd like to have my kids be able to read about my adventures to their future kids, just the same way that I loved hearing adventure stories from my dad. If I put them into writing, even if I go down the yellow brick road of dementia later on in my life, I'll have the records to remind them (and myself) of all the wonderful things I have had the opportunity to explore in this world.

Yes, I put the Badass Adventures Project to rest a few weeks ago. But oh! How much it warmed my heart to hear you guys say that you wanted me to continue writing. And I realized that I truly don't want to stop writing.

So I'll keep going, but with no particular project in mind this time.

I don't want to stop looking for adventure.

I don't want to stop being curious.

And I don't want to stop writing.

For those of you who enjoy coming along for the ride, thank you for being interested and encouraging, and I want to keep hearing from you. Ok? Ok!

THE PERFECT DAY™

Last Saturday I woke up to this message.

"First ACHA win as a head coach!"

Did I tell you guys that Oliver has moved from player to assistant coach for Illinois State Hockey D2? Yeah!!! And the head coach was away so Ollie was in charge. Sounds like he is enjoying coaching even more than he enjoyed playing! This is a proud mama – and happy that he is still able to be part of the sport he loves so much.

That just launched an incredible day full of amazing experiences and very lucky circumstances.

My newest favorite thing to do is to go to the ocean in the morning early – and just hang out in the water for a long, long time – snorkeling, looking for sea life, meditating, and just being happy in my own world. I know, I know…this doesn’t sound new. But it is because the new part is me giving myself unlimited time to be there instead of rushing to the next thing. And for some reason, that self-permission has been life changing.

I don't know what it is about ocean water but I can have the most stressful week and I put my toe in the ocean and it started feeling the stress pouring out my toe. By the time I come out of the water all is well with the world.

And you never, ever know what you are going to see.

A couple of weeks back, I was walking down the beach and found this baby hammerhead shark lying on the shoreline. I was hesitant to poke it in case it's super pissed for being beached and he decides to latch onto my ankle with his razer sharp teeth.

But no. He was super dead and I picked it up to examine it super closely. I realized that it choked on a shell that was lodged in his throat – poor sweetie. But what an experience for me -- but being able to see his tiny little rows of razor sharp teeth and being able to see his gills and to see his underbelly where they're still mysteries under they're not quite sure about and t and this little eyes on the end of his head.

I talked for a few minutes to a very pleasant couple who came over to check out baby shark (doo doo doo doo) and it turns out hail from St. Charles, Illinois, which is next to where I used to live in Downers Grove. (Now when I see them, they shout over to me, “Hey DG!”). They weren’t brave enough to want to hold the shark as I offered it to them like the baby lion king was offered to the animal tribes. But they shared with me that the last time they went in the water and were standing hip deep, they saw a murky dark shadow pass by them and they realized it was a full-grown hammerhead. Needless to say, they hightailed it to land “with minimal splashing because we didn’t want the shark to think we were an ailing fish”.

So……my full-on denial that there are big boys swimming where I love to play is now being challenged. However, it doesn't take me away from doing what I love to do and I will still go out swimming. Does it give me a little bit more pause when I go? Yes. But does that make it a little bit more thrilling? Also yes.

Now back to The Perfect Day™ story.

As I took to the beach with my favorite Addicted to the Bean caffeinated liquid joy, I felt that immediate surge of peace and joy that I always seem to feel when setting foot onto De Soto beach but this time, a little more aware of scanning the water for dark shadows moving by.

I decided to take a slow, peaceful walk listening a BA Paris thriller and started scanning the sand for shells and wildlife. But not much was percolating there so I scanned the water, drinking in the calm waves and shimmering light.

Suddenly, I noticed a dolphin. Neat-o! While not unusual, I love seeing them.

But then there was another.

And another.

And more and more.

And they were acting kind of wonky – thrashing around in the water rather than their undulating dive in and out of the waves. And they were not far offshore at all. So of course, I thought about how cool it would be to go out there and see what all their fuss was about. And then I remembered that

A. I am not that strong a swimmer and

B. Do I really want to be that close and

C. My mama didn’t raise no dummy.

But it was tempting, and I still want to know what was going on.

I followed them down the beach since luckily they were going my way, and ended up at the far end of the beach at the place where the signs warn you not to continue – Bird Sanctuary! Alligator Area! No Humans Allowed!

Not long after I parked my stuff, a guy hauled himself out of the restricted area and started talking to me.

Unfortunately.

In our three-minute conversation he managed to:

1: Brag about the cost of his camera -- $4000, in case you were wondering. I was not.

2. Insult his girlfriend by calling her a lazy piece of sh*t because she wanted to lie on the beach rather than walking with him. (Orrr……maybe she just wanted to get away from you? Wait a minute. Did I just say that out loud?)

3. Mansplain what a sand dollar is. Thanks dude.

4. Make excuses why he was in the forbidden areas saying, “Those signs doesn’t really apply to me since I’m here so much”.

5. Brag about the fact that he wears shorts to the beach every time he goes, even when it is cold outside. Honestly, my life is complete now knowing this. Isn’t yours?

During this conversation, I had the clear realization that oftentimes nature and animals are better company than real humans.

After ditching that dude, I grabbed my snorkeling gear and headed in. I took off my glasses and secured them underneath my rash guard, around by bathing suit strap and tucked inside my bosom area for safe keeping. Remember this.

It was one of those days when the water was absolutely crystal clear and sparkling. You could see right to the ocean floor, even when hip deep.

But here’s the amazing thing. Ducking underwater with my mask on revealed that swimming in a circle around me was a whole school of a hundred or so clear, iridescent fish! Above the water – invisible. Below the water – there they are!

And they were curious. They weren’t scared of me, but rather I felt like I was in a Human Aquarium and the fish were paying admission to watch me. Even when I reached my hand out to them, they moved out of the way but didn’t take off.

I popped out of the water and walked out further into the deep. At this point, I was up to my shoulders but still able to see the floor clearly from above. Then I noticed pockets of sand being stirred up. It looked like a mini-Saharan sandstorm.

Throwing on my mask again, wanting to check out what it was, I assumed it was a sting ray. But no! It was another circle of fish swimming around me, but these guys were big! Well, I think they were big. They were bigger than the other ones, but the mask makes scale hard to determine.

Some of them were hanging out on the sea floor throwing the sand around, which is how I noticed them from above. The others were just circling around me – transparent and hard to see at first glance until your eyes focused in a way that allowed you to see them – and there were so many of them!

Suddenly, all around me, there was a frantic fish frenzy of flopping fish flying out of the water belly first. My first thought was that the hammerheads were coming to get them – and me. But no murky dark shadows were around me, so I realized it had to be something else.

I’ve seen them do this before and I have always wondered why a fish would think that it's a good idea to flail themselves out of the water when there are birds that are circling overhead trying to eat them.

(Back on land, I looked it up. These guys were Striped Mullets, AKA Jumping Mullets named for their skyward belly flopping. Nobody seems to know why they do this – maybe to free up parasites that have lodged on them, or maybe to dislodge their eggs to prepare them for fertilization or maybe to hyper oxygenate their bladders.)

I guess mullets – whether in human hair form or in fish form – show a terrible lack of common sense.

About that time is when I realized my glasses were missing. Remember how I securely lodged them within my bosom? Apparently, that wasn’t secure enough. I took a few minutes to scope out “the girls” because there is a lot of space for spectacles to hide in their hidden depths. But no go.

I spent the next 20 minutes or so snorkeling around for them. Even though the water was so clear and easy to see, I didn’t have a lot of hope due to the currents and sand-playing fish that probably buried my glasses just to piss me off.

I did see other things while I was looking for my glasses: I saw a little starfish that wanted to play with me and a little crab that very much didn’t.

Finally, I saw them lying folded up on the bottom of the ocean. Yeah!

With my glasses back in place, I packed up my bag and started walking to my car. When I saw a site that made me dreadfully wish that my glasses were still in the bottom of the ocean floor.

What should my wondering eyes should appear, but a hairy nude man waving his hairy nude rear.

So apparently the sign on the beach that says specifically “No Nudity” does not apply to him.

I figured the best way to handle that situation was when I walked by him, I looked him in the eye, looked down below regions, looked him back in his eye, and gave him an empathetic shrug of pity mouthing the words, “Oh honey…so cute and little”.

He sat down real quick.

So one beach adventure brought me two male encounters, both disregarded posted signs, both were obnoxious and off-putting, both were excessively hairy.

And y’all wonder why I am not interested in dating.

On the way home, my car’s dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree right as I was passing my repair shop, which happened to be open. So while I wasn’t lucky that my car was hurting, it came at a perfect time. The fella in the service area said that it was “un-driveable and the gears would have failed and that would have been bad”. And the fact that I wouldn’t need it all week made it easy to get by without it temporarily. And it only cost $2000 rather than the $19000 they first quoted. Transmissions are pricy.

You guys want to hear some more mini-adventures from the past month?

LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY CHALLENGE

I spent the week at Des Moines at a community life conference and got challenged so a few Badass Adventures while I was there.

The basis behind Badass was to do things that either challenged me out of my comfort zone, or gave me answers to things I have always wanted to know.

I grew up during the Happy Days – Mork & Mindy – Laverne & Shirley tv generation, and I was always fascinated by the fact that Laverne drank Pepsi and Milk. We got talking about that during the conference and suddenly a Badass Challenge was on the table.

We asked the server for shot glasses sized milk & Pepsis and she brought us big glasses instead. After a “cheers”, it went down the hatch. But not before I managed to blow Pepsi & Milk out of my nose in laughter after one of the gang whispered “Schlameal, Schlamazel” before throwing hers back.

Was Milk & Pepsi the choice of a new generation?

No.

It was awful.

Don’t do it.

KEY LARGO GIRLS’ WEEKEND

Ang, Ellen, and I headed to Key Largo for a snorkeling trip to celebrate my birthday a few weeks ago. Ironically, the snorkeling trip, while cool, was not the highlight of the trip.

The reef off Key Largo is hurting and has definitely changed from when I went as a child. Gone are the bright colored coral and instead it is now white and depressed. The snorkel captain said that white coral is the equivalent of our ICU patients, so let’s say that the ocean’s ICU beds are full.

We did get to see the Christ of the Abyss sculpture and saw some neat fish.

One badass thing that happened is that the captain warned us that it’s jellyfish season, but not to worry because if we brush up against them, it likely won’t hurt or if it does, the sting will go away quickly.

We did see a bunch in the water and did get stung – but it didn’t hurt badly at all and made me feel like a tough mother-boinker.

Aside from the snorkeling, there were some other memorable events from that weekend:

1. Sitting by the water for dinner one night, I noticed giant bubbles rising from the surface of the water, followed by the most incredibly putrid smell you can imagine. What was it? Manatee farts. Apparently, this restaurant has a manatee who likes to hang around and drink from a hose of water (???!!!) and then in order to dive down, he has to fart the air out of his bladder to allow himself to sink. Gross. But isn’t he a cutie pie?

2. There was a sign in our condo’s elevator warning us not to feed the racoons. Oddly specific. But we found out soon why – during the daytime, a heard of raccoons appeared from the forest whenever they heard us coming to the balcony hoping we would throw them some vittles. It is mighty odd seeing raccoons by daylight, and even more odd when the posse of cats came out to challenge them. It was like the Jets and Sharks dance battle on West Side Story.

3. We spent most of our weekend laughing hysterically at stupid inside jokes. I love these girls. That was the very best part.

ESCAPE ROOM

The rest of the Badass Gang all got together to do an escape room that was Alice in Wonderland themed. This one had some neat surprised and creative puzzles. I’m the one with the most Escape Room experience. And I’m the one that contributed the least to solving the puzzles. My friends are way smarter than me!

NASHVILLE

My first trip to Nashville was part of a board meeting I was attending, which was an adventure in itself. Such a cool company and such cool conversation about future innovations.

They took the group out on a food and drink tour of Nashville where we made stops at four different restaurants with different experiences at each. Each one had stories to tell about the restaurant itself as well as the specialty drink that was offered. Cool way to explore the city.

The hotel was unique too. I love hotels in general, but this one was quirky and whimsical, and I loved exploring the details of the room. One problem I had though was finding the switch to turn off the light-up-bed. It took me a good half hour, but I refused to call the front desk to ask.