They Only Have to Hit You Once

To fully appreciate this story, you need to know a little about my dad. He's five foot three, Texan, and out of his damn mind. His nickname is Yosemite Sam, based on his penchant for muttering under his breath then breaking into loud cursing, and for his unfortunate facial hair choices. Plus, there's the gun thing (I did say Texan). He actually shot himself in the foot. Recently.
One of my dad's...hobbies, I guess you could say, is hunting rattlesnakes. He likes to catch them and make belts and hat bands and wallets made out of the skin. Like you do.
When I was around nine or ten...actually I may have been older. Sometime between age ten and fifteen. My dad took me, my brother Brian, my stepmom Toni, my aunt Linda and my cousin Danny on a camping trip somewhere in Kern County. We'd been there a few days, long enough that Dad had already caught a rattlesnake. Brian, Danny and I woke up early and wanted to go exploring. Linda was still sleeping off the night before, so my dad gave us the go ahead (Linda never would have let Danny go, she was way over protective).
The three of us set out up the nearby creek that ran down a pass between two mountains, strolling through the cold water and hopping from rock to rock. We hiked for a few hours, stopping to explore deep pools and catch salamanders. Once we got hungry, we unpacked our snacks and picnicked on some boulders, looking up at the mountains around us. As we were finishing up, one of us (I forget who) declared that they had seen a mountain lion on the top of the hill to our left. You don't take chances with that kind of thing, so up the hill to the right we went. We hiked about halfway up the hill and then started to make our way back to the campsite. We were up away from the cool water of the creek and quickly became hot and miserable, so we picked up our pace and in about an hour we were up on the hill behind our campsite, looking down on Dad, Toni and Linda, all of whom appeared to be freaking the fuck out. Dad was cursing and throwing things around while Linda and Toni were packing things into the trucks.
The three of us looked at each other and as one started running down the hill even though it was precariously steep. Once we reached the bottom, we all went into emergency mode. We'd had plenty of practice with the dad we grew up with. I managed to sync my packing up with Toni's and asked her, "What did he do?"
"Your idiot father got himself bit by that rattlesnake. Dumbass!" That last was directed at Dad.
"Hey, it's not my fault!" he responded.
"What the hell did you think would happen? You were playing with the damn thing and you're drunk."
"I was not playing with it, woman! I was boxing with it!"

That's right. My dad had decided that it would be fun to take a rattlesnake, set it on the ground in front of him, and whap it on the head with his fist. To see who was faster. He lost.

Sunshine (Come On Ladies)

Last weekend most of the girls I've lived with came to Santa Barbara for our semi-annual Roommate Reunion. It was a blast. After people arrived, we headed down to our favorite Italian place for lunch and stuffed ourselves on garlic rolls. Mmmm, garlic...Then we headed back to Pamala's at a very leisurely pace, stopping at the store for provisions. The evening was spent drinking Mai Tais and scheduling cooking around the power outages, thanks to the raging forest fire about fifteen miles away. We managed to grill it up though, and had a feast. We tried to play a board game (how exciting are we?), we even set it up, but no one could focus long enough to understand the rules. We ate and spent many hours talking. More on that later.
Saturday we breakfasted and then went wine tasting for a few hours. We saw an amazing white trash couple while we were drinking too. They both had long super-frizzy hair, the guy even had bangs! He wore the requisite faded, torn-up and stained jeans, while she wore short short jean shorts that had been rolled up so as to be even shorter than they were intended to be. But the best part was her "shirt". She was actually wearing a bandanna tied around her chest! I had never seen that in real life before, and I grew up in a town where people lived in tents in trailer parks! They were made for each other, I tell you. After wine tasting we had a quick lunch and went and lounged at the beach. Two of the ladies took the Longest Walk on the Beach EVER, and when they finally came back to the rest of us, who were huddled together and shivering, we went back home to change and head out to dinner.
Dinner was at a new restaurant for us, which has subsequently been removed from the list of acceptable places to eat. Our waitress may have been legitimately retarded, and later that night three or four of us didn't feel well at all. After dinner, we ended up at Tonic, per usual. Pamala's boyfriend (she actually called him that yesterday!) Chris and his pals showed up, and Ricardo joined us later. When we first arrived, we quickly noticed one lady in particular, as she was rather difficult to miss. She was a somewhat larger person, wearing an unfortunate white tube top dress that came to just past right there. She was even more unfortunately attempting to pole dance and give a lap dance to a couch. We shook our heads at the rampant lack of self awareness and went about our business. There was dancing and laughing and drinking and going outside because it was too hot. One of the times I went back inside was a shocker though. I wandered a bit until I saw one of my girls, who then ran over to me and said, "Oh my God, the crazy girl hit Emily in the head!" Apparently the erstwhile amateur pole dancer had taken offense at Emily for no discernible reason. Tube Top was shuffling through the crowd when she spotted Emily and suddenly changed her trajectory. Tube Top gained momentum and launched herself up and punched Emily in the side of the head, which is amazing in and of itself, since Tube Top was about five three and Emily is about five nine or ten. There was much restraining on both sides, Tube Top was kicked out, and Emily was taken outside to cool down. She was totally fine, if a bit confused and shaken up. The rest of the night was uneventful, and the next day we said our goodbyes until our next event.
I love those girls.

Gearing Up

My favorite holiday is coming up this month, and I am in a bit of a quandary. St. Patrick's Day, that holiest day of drunken dogma, will require more than just the typical beer consuming endeavor. In general, I have a hard time consuming enough beer to get me seriously tanked, so I need to get my wee little hands on something with a nice high alcohol content. But, I still have quality and taste standards that must be met. So, let's break it down:

The obvious first choice of Guinness does have a lot going for it. Somehow, Guinness only contains 198 calories per imperial pint (20 fl oz UK), fewer than an equal-sized serving of skimmed milk or orange juice and most other non-light beers. However, imported Guinness tastes nothing like Guinness in Ireland, which makes me very sad when I drink it. Plus, there is the matter of being able to consume enough of it. In spite of not containing that many calories, it is a very filling drink, but it does have a slightly higher than average abv, at 7%. I am on the fence about Guinness.

In general, I am not a fan of lager. On a warm summer day, a nice cold Harp can be refreshing, but there are other summertime beers that I enjoy much more, mostly of the Mexican variety (hello Modelo...). Also, when I drink lager, I end up going to the restroom about every five minutes, which pretty much negates the meager 5% abv that Harp has to offer. Harp is officially out.

I tried Smithwick's a few times in Ireland and England, and largely I found it to be more on the bitter side than I prefer for an ale, but that could be only in comparison to the smooth and delicious Guinness that was available at the time. However, I haven't tried it as an import yet. It only clocks in at 4.5% abv, which makes it officially out. Sorry Smithwick's, maybe another time.

This is a cream ale that is brewed by Smithwick's, and it is reportedly even more bitter. And the abv is 4.3%, the lowest abv on the list, making this one right out.

God, do I love a good red ale. I am drooling over this photo right now. It doesn't help that I am also starving. I would kill for a glass or Murphy's and a giant pile of mashed potatoes, with a side of soda bread right now.

I just made the horrifying discovery that there is no Wikipedia entry for Murphy's. I don't know what to dooooooo... It does only have an abv of 5%. This site I found rated Irish red ales, and the following was the highest rated beer:

It's got a higher abv than Murphy's, at 5.9%, which certainly makes it more appealing. I am very curious to try this one, but it may be very difficult to acquire. We shall see.

Of course, there is always the alternative: