July 2009

Somewhere deep in the forest . . .
July was a magical month. I left around the ninth for Northern New York to accomplish two things.
1. Attend My 25th high school reunion (I know, can you believe I graduated from highschool in 1984? [now you don't have to do the math yourself, 2009-25 is 1984, by the way, I was a child genius and finished with my class at age 7]

2. Drag my tired and hung-over ass to Lake Bonaparte, to spend the remainer of my time at the Blue Muse Lodge with family, friends and exotic water fowl.


First, let's discuss the Reunion
My 20th reuion i dreaded, though I shouldn't have. This will give you an idea of how long I have been doing this blog, I talked about the reunion in July, 2004 (Scroll way down) The 25th I was really looking forward to beauxe of(guess who) that's right FACEBOOK®~

All of my classmates have spent the year finding each other, and now we're all conected through the amazing FACEBOOK® network, so of course we had a LOT to look forward to when it came to this years reunion.
One fun part of course was all the attention I got form the girls, now that it was confirmed I was gay(In Straight girl-talk, that means harmless, fun, intetresting and full of great advice) What made this cool for me was the guys, who all still identify with me as one of them, asking in bewilderment "hey Tom, how come the girls are all over you?". "Dude!" I said, in straight -talk, "Just tell them your gay, they can't get enough of you!" By the end of the evening (And several bottles of Smirnoff) all the girls were dancing with girls, the guys were dancing with the guys, and I was lavishing in the the total holocaust I had poured upon the sexual identity of the class of '84. It was glorious. I had such a great time.

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Welcome to the Lake

I house-sat for Jan Phillips in June as a trade for the opportunity to spend some time at the Lodge. I arrived the first week of July and stayed until after the Family Reunion. One of the things I like about "Camp Life" is the fact that nothing at camp is supposed to be perfect, so you can really let your hair down. The camp furniture is typically furniture from the house that got moved when you got new stuff, same goes for the silverware, the bedding, clothes, coffee mugs, apliances, and even the old car.

{E.G. I sent my '94 Ford Ranger Pickup to camp, to be the "Camp Truck" because, quite frankly, every camp needs one.}

We also have a camp refrigerator, that holds all the beer, wine and Lasagna left over from parties you've had, that you know you're going to have again soon. The "Beer Fridge" is so common in Northern N.Y that no one even questions it. If someone asks you where the Molson is, and you say "In the Beer Fridge" they just will instinctively walk out onto your back porch, garage or cellar to fetch one, even if they have NEVER been to your house before. The real hard-core beer lovers will have all the shelves removed, a full keg inserted into the fridge, and a tap installed through a hole drilled in the beer-fridge door. Those are usually the ones who also have a separate "Lasagna" fridge.

Here in California, if someone asked me where the Molson was (And let's face it, no one here is going to ask me where the Molson is, though they might ask "What" a Molson is?) let alone have a special place to keep them. This is just one of the wonderful and zany differences between camp life, and life in Southern California

During Week One at the lake, Brian Nelson (A dear old friend from College) arrived in Syracuse and stayed a week or so. He hadn't seen my Family since the 1900's, but they knew exactly who he was the minute he stepped into town, and treated him as if he was just here yesterday(They either asked him about the money he owed them, or ignored him completely)

Wally came out as well, you remember him from my previous posts about the Bathroom and Kitchen remodels. He rode out on his BMW Motorcycle from a rally in Kentucky. He spent a few days and was a great help getting rid of all that beer that Jan left behind in the beer fridge. Arduous task truly, but Wally has always been a good friend when it comes to hard work.

In the third week, Family started showing up at the lake for the Annual Thesier Family Reunion, and the week previous to the actual event, we held "Music Camp" for all of us who wanted to get together to learn new things, share some new things, and generally spend time with each other in a more sober environment in the daylight. It was by and Large a great week with tons of fun activities and a lot of great music. One of my favortite memories was when we decided to do a good, old-fashined "floatilla" and tied all the family party-barges together and floated around the lake until well after sunset. We sang all the old family favorite songs, drank a lot of beer, and took turns peeing off the end of the boat because none of the barges had a potty. It was a riot, and we all had a great time. It was that night that I realized that home in the summer time smells like a mix of gasoline, bug-repellant, and beer. Those three smells are home to me. That and a hangover in church on Sunday Morning.

By the end of July it was time to say goodbye, and head back to Los Angeles. I had almost finished the kitchen remodel, and had just a few weeks to wrap up the finish work before the official Kitchen launch party, Labor Day weekend. I had a lot to do, and not a lot of time to do it!

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Back on the Beach
My return to Los Angeles was not met without incident. I had a lot of unfinished business and a bit of catching up to do, specifically with the Pacific Ocean itself.

Tommy at the beach, moments before "The Incident"

I had barely done any kitesurfing this year because I blew out my 14 meter kite in early June, so I dragged my butt over to Captain Kirk's Kiteboarding Emporium and boutique and got myelf a 2009 Ocean Rodeo for the same cost as a healthy Romanian Baby.

This new kite was quite the keeper, but I undestimated her power. Where my other kites were sluggish and week, she was fast and strong. I took my eyes from her for a moment and she picked me up off the beach and dropped me hard on the sand, wrenching my shoulder, and doing serious damage to my left knee. I was so banged up, I woke at 4 a.m. that night thinking I had broken my knee. No swelling, but the pain was so sever it was making me dizzy, I was seeing statrs. It healed quickly, but I learned a very serious lesson.

I woudn't see the beach again until October, which made me think about taking her money-back guarantee to captain kirk and refilling the bank accounts. Instead I garaged her, and had a great run later on, but seriously, I will NOT take my eyes off of her again.

Now, about that Kitchen

So many of my friends wanted to play a role int he kitchen remodel. I had posted so much of it on FACEBOOK® that it apparently seemed fun and easy. I took advantage of the apparent lack of self interest in a few friends weekends, and got the job done a little bit fast than usual. There were walls to patch, molding to install, and lights to hang, all in the interest of getting the job done in time for the big party on labor day weekend.

After a lot of sweat, blood and tears (More blood and Tears I think) I put the final coat of paint around the new window, and got all the junk on the deck cleaned off before the first guests arrived. Despite the fact that most people spent the entire evening camped out on the deck, the "Kitchen launch" party was a smash, with all guests ranting and raving about how the kitchen turned out BEAUTIFULLY~ and it's true, it did, and I'm quite proud. Thanks go out to Vince, Bang, Alan, and espcially Pedro- who worked his BUTT off for several months to halp make this happen, way to go kids!

To see pictuers of the entire remodel process, visit the remodel 3.0 gallery at my .MAC site :)
just click HERE

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More to come, specifically September, October and The end of an era . . stay tuned!