Halloween. Most adults take advantage of this holiday to act silly. Drink. Be merry. All while wearing some form of a costume...however scantily clad or fully covered they may be. I have done this for years. Attend parties or go out on the town (usually in my full body dinosaur costume, which my mom made for me when I was 22yrs old. Yep. My mommy rocks). Not this year. 2015 would be different. I attended my costumed party the week before. Now this time, I get to wear my costume and lug around heavy shit and be a billy badass with fellow sadistic people in the cold wet Seattle weather.
I went to Seattle with a fellow RWB/GORUCK friend. We arrived ~0400h. Driving through Snoqualmie pass sucks donkey dick. And that's not a good thing. Hydroplaning and driving through flooded interstate in a small economy-sized Mazda is not something I would ever put on the "fun" list. Fuck that shit. Effing sucked hard. My friend and I decided to do the GORUCK Light on Halloween with a fellow GORUCKer that lives in the Seattle area. I was dressed as Rainbow Dash. Friend was dressed as a cabana girl. Seattle friend wore a giant Franzia box with a pink wig and ranger panties underneath. Brave man indeed. For the sake of this story, we will call him "Budders".
Our event started. Everyone was in costume. It was great. There was a OCR Spartan, a father/son zombie team, Luke Skywalker, Lara Croft, a prisoner, a hula girl, Caitlin Jenner, Batman, Superman, a transformer, etc. At least everyone came in costume. The Welcome party was interesting since, well, I had a tail. And trying to crabwalk with a tail is no easy task. Watching Budders do the crab walk with one hand in the air opening and closing certainly made it more amusing. As the event went on, our friend Budders proceeded to drink more and more. I was quite impressed with his ability to pee and walk at the same time. Although there were a few close calls with him peeing on people's shoes. I advised him to improve his aim.
We carried pumpkins through UW campus, where people were tailgating for the day's game. I got to explain GORUCK to a UW police officer as he watched us bunny hop up a fuck ton of stairs. I got to carry a shovel for much of the event. I was elected TL (Team Leader) for about 3/4 of the event. I felt terrible that I did not get to carry the really heavy shit. Instead, I delegated to people when to switch and take rests and where to go. Budders found a few college students to chat up. He had one of them take his place to carry the log. He then decided that the thing he wanted most in the world were peanut butter cups. He asked everyone. And I mean EVERYONE if they had Reese's available.
We did a pumpkin carving contest. Luckily my group had Luke Skywalker. Unfortunately, we had the pumpkin that had be dropped and thus was partially smashed and a huge gash through it. We made use of this by making it appear to eat Yoda. We won! Wooooo! In the end, we all finished together. And there was a nice bonfire at the end waiting for us. I had a great time. Shit man, Lights are great. We managed to do it in 7h and went 11-14mi. I was pretty pleased with us. Budders was beyond drunk, but he didn't pee directly on anyone, so I'd say it was a win. Someone get that man a Reese's!!!
And now, back to regular life. My life. Right now. This moment. Effing rocks. I am happy. Life is going well. It has been hard to not be allowed to ruck. My ankle/foot is feeling much better, so I think that I shall give it a go this week to try weights in my ruck. Granted for the past 2 weeks I have gone on hikes with a backpack. Just not my 20lb plate. I do not consider the hikes cheating per se...
Now that I spend time with people, I realise that my lifestyle is, well, active. I am rarely at home. Like ever. I use my abode as a place to sleep and that is about it. Which I am perfectly fine with. Life is too short to be at home doing jack shit on a regular basis. I want to go out. Have fun. See the world. Play in nature. Socialise with people I like. Even better if I can combine all those things together as one. I have also come to realise, after this past weekend, that my friends are my family. I have always known this, but it was recently honed in to me. When I call my friend in tears for some unfortunate event in the evening and that friend drops everything, replans their evening, stops at the grocery store, makes me food, buys me a coloring book, writes me a check to help me get by when I know they are barely scraping by, too, and lets me sleep over, I know I have a friend for life. I know I can ask almost any of my close friends and they would all do the same. I love my friends. They help make my life a happier place. They are there for me. They are my family. Now this is not to say that my blood relatives mean any less to me. But they are 1000s of miles away. I see and interact with them rarely. I love them. From afar.
My collective of close friends mean the world to me. When I ask the adventure ones to do some crazy outdoor adventure, I can count on at least one to agree to come with me. When I need help shopping for bras that make my boobs look good, I can count on one to help me be and look girly. When I do some monumental blonde fuck up, we can laugh together and pick up the pieces giggling...and probably drinking wine. When I break my Jeep or need mechanical help, they show me how to do it and let me use their tools, shop and time.
Example: I got a text from Cabana girl friend telling me there is a woman out there, Erin Spineto (http://erinspineto.blogspot.com/), that is a type 1 diabetic (T1D) who does adventurous active things. And that I should look into her website. Hells yes! Someone I can try to connect with and achieve me goal of starting a support group in my local area for T1D athletes. :-) I even connected with a T1D that has done a GORUCK Heavy and is training for a HCL (Heavy-Challenge-Light). Fuck. Man. So far, I'm just trying to survive the training for a Heavy. This ankle injury has me worried I may not be able to finish a Heavy. So very worried. :-(
In other news, I got rock climbing shoes (http://www.fiveten.com/us/climbing/moccasym-red), a harness (Black Diamond Primrose: http://blackdiamondequipment.com/en/climbing-harnesses/primrose-harness-BD651069SMOKSM_1.html) and now a chalk bag/ball. Yes! I have watched some vidoes of people like Tommy Caldwell (http://www.patagonia.com/us/ambassadors/rock-climbing/tommy-caldwell/71506) who are world renown for their climbing skills. Whoa. My forearms hella hurt from last night's climbing jaunt at the gym. I did not make it to the top. But I made it higher on 5.7s and 5.8s that have stumped me before. I take far too long to make a decision and then I psyche myself out when I'm there. Most of my challenges with climbing stem from my mental blocks I create and my fear of....the unknown? Heights? Falling? Meh. Something. I now try to climb higher and longer and push past my fears. But it takes work. I know there are times it frustrates my climbing partner. But he does a good job hiding it and cheering me on.
I finally succession climbed last week! Made it to the top of a route that I'd been trying for weeks to conquer. After I made it to the top and back down, my partner said I should do it again. So I did! Fuck yes! It was only a 5.6. But still. Progress!!!
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