Mini-Adventure

Me to answering machine: "Jenny, I need a mini-adventure! If I don't take care of my needs now I'll end up in ... El Salvador! Help!"

Jenny: "I got your ... message."
Pathetic? Oh yes.


But I knew I could spin gold from the wheat chaff here. It took a little while - all she really wanted to do was curl up and watch Netflix and eat salad. But now we're headed off to Fry's, with a mission. I need a card for my digital camera; she needs computer speakers. Yes, we could get those things at the Target only a mile from her house, but where would the adventure be there? I need to cross city limits - going to Anaheim can only be a good thing (unless it involves those fascists of Disneyland, which is never a good thing), and I've felt strong desire to go to Frye's ever since I saw it on the freeway. Is it worth the 80-mile round trip? Ah, for the adventure of it!

Now, if this adventure were to take place with Sabine, we would only eat and forget where we were headed. We've done that more than once - planned an outing around something, stopped for lunch or dinner, and completely forgotten about the planned outing until back home hours later. We generally don't go places just us anymore for that very reason.

When people ask me why I love southern California, I say:
1. Ethnic diversity - interesting people from all over the world
2. Climate - 9 months out of the year, this place cannot be beat
3. Shopping adventures galore!

Now mind you, I hate to shop. Hate it. Passionately. Hate to spend money, hate to own things, all that. But for an adventure, I will do anything. Something new, someplace I haven't been - it's a joy, a pleasure. Most of my life, that has not been an option. In Elim (another nice picture here), for example, there was no shopping to be done. If I wanted to see something new, I had to hoof it out of town and hope not to be mangled by moose or beaten by bears; and after two years of those regular jaunts, there wasn't too much more new to see (unless I was on the back of a snowmachine, but those damn buggers are so effing loud, and I cannot be trusted to drive one myself - students had to rescue me more than once, and we all decided it just wasn't a good idea). We would spend $120 RT plane fare to Nome (the only way to get there) and be so excited about grocery store shelves. I realize now that Nome only has 4,000 people, no movie theatre - but in contrast to Elim's 300, it's a thriving metropolis. There were strangers there and places I hadn't seen.

Now I can't get enough of that novelty. Which makes adventure-seeking with Jenny a little difficult, because as a Pisces she's much more about the comfortable and known than I am. We spend a lot of time at Ikea, for no really good reason besides their macaroni and cheese and interesting paraphenalia which tell a good sex story if you know how to listen. There is an Ikea cult, and we are fairly regular worshippers.

It's blowing off steam, to take these mini-adventures to new lands and department stores. It's not so much fun anymore to get really drunk, to hook up with hot strangers, to break the law. I want to feel good tomorrow - ready to to do calculus, without a hangover, a stranger to contend with, or a "permanent record" - but I want to do something DIFFERENT now, something that creates new synaptic pathways. But, I'm old. I'm boring. I'm like a little old lady all excited and wearing her new hat to the grand opening of a bus station, pointing out the neighbor's choice of a different color tulip this year. "Why Gertrude! Those bulbs you added in this year are spectacular!"

It's those little things that get me going now. The big adventures, I still have them - isn't that the title of this blog? But the mini-adventures, they are pleasing.