2.11.2013

I got my flippy floppies (No. 3)

After our official introduction, co-op life continued.  There were weekly 1hr lunches scheduled that we would stretch into 2hrs simply by showing up early to reserve the table and ending late.  We would talk about how awesome our work groups were, this one really cool operator that has terrible humor, a project that was exciting until 4 weeks in when progress had stopped because your boss was going out of town or those silly people you emailed hadn't emailed you back yet (the horror!).  We also talked about weekend trips. Going to Loon's Games (baseball), car trips to Cedar Point (I ended up never going), and camping at Lake Michigan.  We also talked about BOATING.


It appeared Mr W was accustomed to boating in the summer.  Specifically, hours spent in the sun shine on a ski boat wake boarding and tubing until your arms fell off.

Growing up in Ohio, there was limited access to pretty blue water for boating.  Sure the Ohio river is there but no one actually goes in it.  Actually, I know of 2 boys who swam across from Ohio to Kentucky in it for a school project.  They both contracted pneumonia.  I had water skied and gone tubing before but that was only for a few summers at a close friends lake house in Tennessee.

Anyway, our first boating trip happened in April. On the first day that broke 60, a small group of us [stupid enough] who wanted to try wake boarding took off work at 2pm.  We met at The W's home and drove out to the lake.  I remember I didn't actually get in the water on this trip because the water temperature was roughly 50 and I was sick with a cold. Mr W. let me off easy that time [he later told me].

We went boating again in May and the water was still too cold. But in Mr W.'s mind that just meant less people would be on the lake.  He was right and the water was as freeze your swimsuit off as before.  Mr W. taught me how to wake board on this trip and I loved it.  Even though I had a hard time crossing the wake and would always end up face down in the water (one thing at a time!).  Another high light from this trip was Mr W's mad tubing skills.  Anyone who's tubed with him knows, he's cray cray.  At one point, he was being torn across the water, skimming the thin ripples from the edge of the wake and he was being really loud.  An eruption of noise and then nothing, he had let go of the tube and was bobbing in the water.  As we approached him with the boat, he started screaming "Jon! Jon! Dude, my pants are gone!".  Yes he rhymed. Once he got back into the boat with some one's spare pair of soccer shorts he told us this dramatic (is anyone surprised?) story of how his swim trucks had peaced out while he was tubing.  He eventually realized losing his trunks weren't worth tubing longer so he let go and tried to hold onto them.  But apparently the lake swallowed them up.

A lot more boating happened in May and June as Michigan was still thawing itself. Eventually, Mr W taught me how to drive the boat.
Need for speed.
He told me later his reasoning was two fold. (the following are his words).  1.) You  are [I am] really hot so teaching you [me] how to drive the boat would only make you [me] hotter and 2.) I [he] was tired of always taking everyone else tubing and wake boarding.  So if you [me] learned, I [he] could have more fun.

Wow! You still with me?

Also, I can't leave this out. The more I hung out on the boat with Mr W, the more comfortable I became.  Until one trip I decided Mr W. shouldn't be the only one pushing everyone else in the water for fun. Mr W was teaching Leslie how to get up wake boarding and I thought he looked too dry. The following series I shot with Papa W's camera while David did my dirty work.




I miss boating. I miss Michigan... Wait. Northern California is breaking 65 today. I just miss boating :)
Mrs. W


The title of this post references a song that was pretty popular that summer. I won't link the song here cause it's not clean and makes my ears cringe. But these two lines sum up boating while everyone else is at work.  "I got my swim trunks and my flippy floppies. I'm flipping burgers you at Kinkos straight flipping copies." 

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