S.O.L.

I have been accused of a lot of things in my life but a lack of character has never been one of them. I attribute my character to an unusual childhood.

You see, back when I was a kid I was diagnosed with a then-rare disorder called celiac that basically meant eating anything with gluten (wheat, oats, barley, rye) in it would destroy my immune system. I know, I know, as my old senior chief in the Navy would've said, "My heart pumps piss for ya babe, now get on with it..."

Of course, back in the '70's nothing was labeled and almost everything you eat has gluten in it so I was always sick and malnourished. This led to me being a scrawny little runt with a big, bloated Ethiopian-poster-child style belly. Add to that my abnormally long and protruding belly button, the flatulence that comes along with bloating due to malnutrition, and being the kid who could only eat carrot sticks and all beef hot dogs and you can imagine the daily razzing I endured. In fact, it was a sport in the nieghborhood - here's a photo of a photo of me being laughed at by all the kids in the trailer park circa 1976:

I'm the small one with the head hung in shame. See the belly? Protruding navel? Scrawny, pale arms? My siblings are the barefooted kids in highwaters laughing hardest. Note that all the kids are looking at me and laughing. That's because they just made fun of me. Even more disturbing? Some adult condoned this and took a picture. Today this would be child abuse. Back then it was character building and entertainment.

Fortunately I outgrew the problem at age 12, my giant belly deflated, and I was able to resume normal eating habits. I even had my belly button cosmetically enhanced during surgery already scheduled for that year. Oh yeah, the doctors decided I would make a nice lab rat back then and twice performed unnecessary exploratory surgeries on me to see what was going on in there. My innards are even in the New England Journal of Medicine. No, I didn't retain any rights. I always knew how bad a procedure was going to be by the size of the stuffed animal I got the morning of the hospital visit. The worst? The barium enema and large instestine scan at age 8. I knew it was going to be bad when I got one of those stuffed dogs that takes batteries and walks and barks. Then I saw that big tube with a camera on the end and knew it could only go a couple of places - none of them appealing.

All that excitement as a kid left me terrified of all things medical and ever since I've had extreme anxiety around any sort of doctor. I pass out in doctors' offices all the time. Two years ago I even passed out at the optometrist's office. No kidding. Needless to say, I don't visit the doctor unless I know there's something wrong and feel I am be on the brink of death (drove myself to doctor with burst appendix a few years ago - was sure it was food poisoning and would go away on its own - my final words to the anesthesiologist were "is this really necessary?").

So the past few months I've been having some health problems and consciously overlooking them. The human body is incredibly resilient and most ailments will subside on their own. But, even I know when something's not getting better and the symptoms I've been having seemed only to be getting worse lately. The kicker was during my Alaska trip when I ate a couple of handfuls of barley from the bin at the brewery...The next day I was doubled over in pain in Seattle airport, nearly passed out, barely able to make my connection. That's when it dawned on me that my symptoms were similar to the good old days of my childhood.

I immediately went online to research my old disease. Sure enough, they've done tons of reasearch in the last 20 years and there were lots of websites full of information. One thing I discovered was that the disease is actually a genetic autoimmune disorder that never goes away - it just goes into remission and then comes back when you're in your 30's or 40's. Here I thought I'd banked all that illness credit as a kid and would sail through my adulthood living longer than I wanted with no major problems.

After gathering a wealth of information, speaking with someone who organizes a support group for folks with the problem (sounds fun...), and learning about how to test for it, I made an appointment, had some blood drawn (passing out as usual), and had my doctor order the battery of tests associated with it last week.

So my doctor called Tuesday with preliminary results and informed me I have serious vitamin deficiencies that have thrown my red blood cell count all out of whack and that I should not be up and about and that I will be the lucky recipient of my own daily course of vitamin injections that I will have to administer myself. Figuring I knew more than her, I challenged her prescription only to be told that my system has just plain stopped absorbing certain nutrients on its own and the only way to get them is by shooting up every day.

Needless to say, I am not too pleased about the shots. I have since avoided picking up the prescription and going in for instruction on needle use and disposal and now the doctor has been calling every day. I'm pretty sure she'll be getting a court order for me soon.

In addition to the daily poke, I will likely be ordered to start the terrible gluten-free diet as soon as the other lab work is back in a couple of weeks. Tragically, this means NO MORE BEER. So now I get to give myself a shot a day, not drink beer, and eat carrot sticks and rice cakes for the rest of my life.

Alas, there is hope because there are others out there like me. I even found this link to a dating service specifically for folks like me. I did a search and there was one man in San Antonio, Texas in my age group. Imagine all the poo bags this dating pool will have. Actually, I had to laugh at the irony that would occur if I had to get a poo bag. You have to admit it would be funny. I asked about it and my doctor advised poo bags don't work for the small intestine so I guess I'm s*** outta luck on that one.

Really, it's not all that bad and I just wanted to show you all that nice picture of everyone making fun of me as a kid. I'm done wanking and I promise not to turn into this girl who has decided her life is over because of the disorder.

The Great Alaskan Glacier Experience - Part 2

As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted by the inadequacies of a free blog photo service...

After getting back from our glacier hike, we decided to settle in to the tent for the night, find some candles, crack a bottle of wine, and make what may very well be the best meal ever cooked on Mendenhall glacier:
A couple of hours, one bottle of wine, a bottle of champagne and a heated conversation about George Bush and Islamic folk invading the U.S. later, we passed out. (Note: Discussing world politics while sitting on a glacier drunk is fairly pointless and dangerous, especially if ice axes are present.) I fell asleep to the sound of a nearby waterfall interrupted by a passing storm, comforted by the fact that I was sleeping on a large ice cube. After a nice breakfast and some cocoa in the morning, we headed back out onto the glacier for some more exploring and ice climbing:

Yep, that's me. See boys, you finally get some pictures of infamous Glib Gal in all her harnessed glory. Actually, as this shot was taken I was advising the Outdoorspro that if he didn't hurry and take the picture I would surely soon fall to my death and drag him with me because he was on belay duty. He just laughed and told me to lick the ice so my tongue would freeze to it and I wouldn't fall. Well, not really, but that would've been a good thing to say.

What you can't see from this photo is that about an hour earlier, while traipsing around the glacier in our crampons, I decided to slide down a slope in an attempt to become one with the glacier. The problem with falling on a glacier is that there's nothing to grab onto because you're on ice and you just pick up speed as you descend. Thankfully, there was a ledge to stop me before heading into a deep crevass from which I surely would not have returned. Of course, I chose this moment to have my first ever panic attack and had to be coaxed across the glacier back to safer territory. I've never been scared like that in my life and suddenly I was realizing the heights, slopes and dangers that hadn't phased me until after the fall. I even had nightmares about being swallowed by the glacier for the next two nights. It's moments like those that remind me how little I am in the grander scheme of things.

We caught the last chopper out that night, went home and relaxed then spent the next day salmon fishing in inclement weather(to no avail - which I'm secretly happy about because I was not looking forward to cleaning fish...). When the weather got too powerful on the docks and even the Outdoorspro was tired of the weather, we headed to the Alaskan Brewing Company for their free tasting. Yes, you read that right, FREE BEER!!! And they were quite generous with it. I highly recommend their beer tasting tour if ever you are in Juneau - nice staff, warm tasting room, and FREE BEER!!! Some of it is even good.

Hit the bar scene that night and headed home on the earliest flight out Sunday morning. A big thanks to Outdoorspro for being such a great host, putting up with me, and hooking me up with free helicopter rides and some great adventures.

In the meantime...

While you're all waiting for the sordid details of my glacier experience, go check out my old roomate's new blog, From Cowpies to Sandflies. Not only can this ex-Navy corpsman actually write, he does it well and may very well be my new favorite blogger. It doesn't hurt that he was the best roommate ever and I introduced him to red wine - which really makes everyone seem better, doesn't it? Not sure why he's back to Coors Light, though. I guess you can take the man out of Michigan, but you can't take the pissy beer out of the Michigan man...

The Glacier Experience You've All Been Waiting For...

Wow! That's a tough title to live up to so I won't even try. At least it will get my readership up, though.

So Thursday the Outdoorspro and I packed up our cold weather gear and caught a helicopter ride up to the base on Mendenhall glacier. This is the camp where the guides hide when the weather gets bad on the glacier:
Upon arrival we decided to put the champagne on ice:
Once the booze was taken care of, we donned our gear and headed out to explore the glacier before sunset. Here's a pic I snapped of the Outdoorspro scouting for a path to the other side of the glacier, where some cool glacier peaks were waiting to be climbed:

On our way back from scouting we found a really awesome ice cave that had recently opened up and had a raging river underneath. According to the Outdoorspro, slipping down the cave would result in certain death. That's why I just went in a little bit to look down and get a pic: Notice how I color-coordinated my jacket to match the ice? I thought that was a nice touch too...

For some reason I am not being allowed to add more pictures to this post so I'm going to have to break off and start part 2 of the great Alaskan Glacier Adventure...

More from Alaska

Finally! It's Thursday and the boss is off to golf with his buddy for the afternoon so I can finally get down to blogging about the rest of my Alaskan adventure. You can read the Outdooorspro's impressions and see a photo of me in an icecave here.

Let me just say that Alaska is overwhelmingly beautiful. If you like nature or the outdoors, you must add it to your list of things to do before you die. If you don't have a list, make one with it on it just so you can cross it off someday. I know my list got shorter last week.

So when I last blogged I had just gotten off a day cruise up the Tracy Arm and seen some cool icebergs and scenery. I also saw a few humpbacks on that trip, here's one that came pretty close to our boat:
I got some nice tail shots too but had to use one of those old-fashioned film cameras for that. Digital cameras suck for whale tail shots because of the delay. If I ever take the film in for developing and bother to scan a picture, I'll post it. Don't hold your breath...

The day before the cruise I was on my own in town and decided to hike up Mount Roberts. Most people pay $30 and take a tram up. Not me. I prefer to hike 2,000 feet, have a beer at the top, and take the tram down for free, which is exactly what I did. Here's a shot of the beautiful trail to the top that no one but me seemed to use:
And this is a view from Alpine Loop Trail once you get to the tram station:

And because I was homesick for my own gay goats, this if the mountain goat I had a beer with at the bar at the top of the mountain:
I'm sure the other folks at the bar wondered why I took this picture but were afraid to ask, especially since everyone at the top was a bloated tourist from a cruise ship who couldn't believe I'd hiked to the top rather than paid $30 for a tram ride. I just wondered why someone would want to eat dinner under a goat head. Or stuff a goat head and put in on a wall. It's not like goats are extremely clever and/or evasive animals. So if you're a hunter and you kill a goat I don't think it rates as much as, say, a grizzly bear or moose. You wouldn't want to be the hunter with the goat head on his wall, would you? Still, I couldn't help but take the picture to bring home to my goats. Maybe this one will be their pin up?

This post has digressed. Any post that relates to gay goat pin-ups has hit a low. So I'm going to break off and post separately regarding the glacier experience...

On The Rocks

Spent all day yesterday aboard the Adventure Bound cruising up the Tracy Arm Fjord to the South Sawyer Glacier. Here's the dead end we hit at the end of the fjord:

It's pretty humbling to be on a 40 foot boat sitting in front of a glacier listening to nature in action as the glacier groans under its own pressure. If you sit there long enough you get to see it calve - or lose big chunks of itself into the water. I still don't know why it's called calving. Should be called chunking, or berging, but calving? Anyhow, these chunks then float out toward the channel as icebergs, like this cool one:


Spending 12 hours on a boat amidst this sort of beauty can make a girl think, which is rarely a good thing. You know what I thought about? How much it sucked being on that boat alone and without someone to turn to and point out the obvious. Instead, I spent the day as the token adventurous single gal on the boat with the great stories, who had been to every state of every passenger on board, spoke the languages of the foreigners, and took pictures of the couples as they stood side-by-side in front of a glacier or waterfall. Who wouldn't be reflective with sights like this?
After talking with the Outdoorspro last night, I realized that people have some wild idea of me and tend to build me into some glamorous and carefree ideal that will somehow save them from their own seemingly mudane existence. Let's face it, if I could do that, I'd be a zillionaire and wouldn't be blogging.

As for those of you awaiting the glacier report: you're better off going to your freezer, grabbing a couple of ice cubes, and finding a way to amuse yourself at the thought of what could be happening to a girl you've never met on a glacier you'll probably never visit, because I'm not talking...

Mush!

Arrived in Juneau at about 2:30 pm Sunday to be met by the Outdoorspro who had been waiting in the bar having a pint. We grabbed my bag and headed to a seedy local establishment with an ad for Jello wrestling Friday night on the door where I had my first Alaskan beer - a pint of Alaska IPA.

An hour later we were at TEMSCO Helicopters, where Mark works, putting on glacier boots and heading out onto the Mendenhall glacier for a dog sledding adventure. We flew in to find about 120 huskies waiting to pull us around a loop on the glacier as a place known as "dog camp":v
Dog camp is home to the dogs and a handful of eccentric mushers who spend their entire summer living in tents on the glacier, with a rare excursion into town. The mushers were nice but smelly. You'd be smelly too if you lived with 120 dogs. Apparantly, their smelliness doesn't dissuade the local girls who frequently and voluntarily travel to dog camp to entertain the mushers. I can only imagine their favorite position...Anyhow, my musher guide was Johnny and he has about 40 dogs of his own. This is Paco, one of his dogs that I caught sleeping on the job:
Cute. We eventually heading out for our sledding trip. Johnny led the team on a sled in front of me and pulled my sled. This was my view of Johnny and the team as we glided around the glacier:
Note that Johnny is wearing shorts. In Alaska. On a glacier. As you can see, it was a pretty nice day. I would highly recommend dog sledding if you go to Alaska. It's fun and a big part of the history and culture. But it's not cheap - the paying customers (our trip was comped by TEMSCO) said they paid $500 for the two hour extravaganza. No, it wasn't $500 of fun but I'm sure those folks went back to their cruise ships and now have something to talk about for a week or two.

Monday found Mark and I hiking up the Windfall Lake trail in the Tongass National Forest. It's a rainforest and pretty damn beautiful. This is a picture of the Herbert River with the Herbert glacier in the background:

Finally, this is a picture of a stand of trees in a marsh on the way to Windfall Lake that I thought was postcard worthy:

Glacier camping happens Thursday...

Going south

I've been trying not to post anything about the whole Katrina thing but all this news coverage has me remembering the time I spent as a young Seabee stationed in Gulfport, Mississippi, an area devastated by the hurricane. I don't have any contacts there anymore, but I do have one interesting memory that will never be washed away...

Let me preface by saying I can't think of many places worse than Gulfport to come of age. In 1990 it was a depressed coastal town without the casino boats it now has. Unfortunately for me, I was on the brink of 18, just out of boot camp, finally hitting puberty, and being influenced by a gaggle of tattooed and loose, tabacco chewing women. Add to that the fact that the ratio of men to women in Gulfport was about 20:1 and you have a recipe for youthful indiscretion.

Back then, all the lower-ranking women were berthed in one big quansent (sp?) hut on the east end of the base. The men, in turn, were housed a couple of miles away in their own row of huts. The rationale was that if they stuck the women out further, the men would be deterred from making the trek to visit. What they didn't count on was the old meet-in-the-middle game. So, the men would go to the store, pick up some booze, and meet the women in the woods that spanned the two miles between barracks. The MP's chose not to disturb this practice and sometimes joined the parties when off duty - or on...

Enter the then-innocent Glib Gal. I tagged along to the parties in the woods and quickly became enamoured with Bill Kinderknecht - a rough and tumble bad boy from Oregon with crystal blue eyes. I can't remember what I saw in him - he was short, smoked, and had fooled around with half the women on the base. I don't even think he was a very nice guy. Still, he was my first real makes-me-blush-crush and on my final night in Gulfport, before taking leave to go home and then be shipped overseas, I went to the party in the woods with a mission: I was going to make out with Bill that night. All the girls in the barracks were informed and a strategy was developed. I was given tons of advice from my hicky-marked bunkmates who were proud of me for going on such a noble mission.

We went to the party and I began drinking heavily, to build up the courage for my conquest. Of course, Bill had been informed that I was interested and as a result, had that cocksure confidence that allowed him to ignore me, but not enough for me to lose interest. Finally, as couples began to pair off, or singles stumbled home, Bill approached and invited me into the woods. Of course, I followed. He grabbed a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey, found a spot, laid his rain coat down, and pulled me to the ground. We made small talk, swilled more cheap bourbon, and finally kissed. I remember feeling quite dizzy and his hands everywhere. I started to panic, thinking I had gotten in over my head. Things were moving quickly and then I remembered what the girls had told me - if you don't want to do "it", just offer a blow job. They had even kindly given instruction on how to give a blow job. So I somehow informed Bill I was a virgin but would be more than happy to provide that service. His response was that of any red-blooded man - he dropped trou and presented.

Problem was that I had imbibed a bit too much and seen him urinate recently. All I could think was how disgusting it was and that he should at least wipe it off. I looked at it for a while, unsure what to do, then he complained, so, remembering my trusty shipmates' advice, I wiped the tip with my sleeve and reluctantly started bobbing. He had his hand on the back of my head and was guiding my movement. It hadn't been long but I was getting more and more nauseous and on the brink of vomiting. I tried to pull my head back but couldn't. Then, without warning, he came. The thing was that the girls had failed to tell me about ejcaulation and I was so naive I thought he was pissing in my mouth and promptly spat it out and vomited all over him. Needless to say, Bill was not happy. He was upset that I puked on him and his coat and uniform so he grabbed my raincoat and took off. Problem was that he was drunk, disoriented, and lost. I watched him stumble off in the wrong direction then I headed home. Upon arrival at the barracks I was grilled and then laughed at and we all decided it was quite funny and appropriate because he was a jerk. Thank god for down-to-earth women who can put things in perspective or I'd have been scarred for life and probably never attempted a blow job again. They informed me that this sort of thing is par for the course and, unfortunately, a rite of passage for young women.

As for Bill, he got lost in the woods and didn't make it home until daybreak - reportedly smelling of my puke and wearing a too-small raincoat. I left the next day and never heard from him, or got my raincoat back.

I Googled his name today and found this blurb from the August 6, 2005 court report of the Curry Coastal Pilot in Oregon:

William Daniel Kinderknecht, 35, of Portland, was found on Aug. 2 to be in violation of his probation. He was ordered to serve 28 days in jail.

Looks like he's still contributing to society...

The wheels on the bus...

Headed to Toronto early Thursday morning to attend the big InterAmericas Hash event. Most of the weekend is a blur of running, beer drinking, watching people make fools of themselves, and trying not to look like a fool myself. This picture of some folks at our ball says quite a bit:

Look again. Okay. Now remove your eyes from the mesmerizing bunnies and you'll notice a man peeking over the other man's shoulder for a look. Now look to the left of that and you'll see a man in a wedding dress and tiara. This picture was taken at the "Coming Out Ball" on Sunday night, at which many men voluntarily wore gowns and tiaras but only this woman had bunny pasties that I saw. Most women were just less modest and opted for traditional flashing.

Now imagine 1,000 of these types of people running through the streets of Toronto singing and blowing whistles. Multiply by four days and you see how I spent my holiday weekend.

Things started Thursday evening with about 250 early arrivals running through downtown Toronto. No costumes. Just whistles. And lots of underground tunnels with knee-high water containing lord-knows-what-that-smelled-like-you-know-what. Then food, song, and beer at a beautiful grotto right on the waterfront at Lake Ontario.

Friday was the official start to the festivities. As we boarded yellow school buses to the run start we were each given a red foam hat in the shape of a maple leaf. We were then taken to a park - about 1,000 of us in red maple leaf hats - and led around the city. Pedestrians out for Friday afternoon strolls love that sort of thing and always ask why we are running? Is it a marathon? Are you running to raise money? No people. We are running purely for the sake of running and finding beer at the end. Perhaps it would make more sense for each of us to donate $2 in exchange for a plastic yellow wristband? Nope, beer and making people laugh sounds more productive to me.

Anyhow, much of the weekend is a blur. I think I ran a total of about 30 miles and drank at least one beer per mile. I was bitten by mosquitoes, slid down hillsides, ran through rivers, and had a hefty bag ripped off me during a mock girlfight on stage in front of the crowd. I think the point of the skit was to see how many women they could get to don garbage bags and rip them off eachother to end up topless while fighting for a stale bagel that symbolized a hockey puck. Yes, I was one of the topless women fighting over a stale bagel. Yet another thing to tell the grandkids...

Perhaps the most memorable part of the weekend was the series of bus rides and the antics of the passengers. You see, hashers know many rather raunchy and offensive songs. With 50 people on each bus, and at least 40 of those 50 quite boisterous and drunk, the singing could get quite loud. Most of the bus drivers were quite amused, or easily quelled by a flashing woman, but there was one who was not happy with his assignment for the weekend: Glen. He was a man who had obviously miscalculated his needs for retirement funds and somehow found himself as a 68 year old, grumpy school bus driver chaufeurring around drunks. He would be the driver when you were a kid who would always stop the bus and head back down the aisle to admonish someone. A life of missed lessons in futility.

Problem was, Glen hadn't learned how futile it is to yell at a busload of people and he did the same thing with us except that we responded differently than an 8 year old would. The incident I remember most clearly was that a guy in the back of the bus had his elbow out the window. Old Glen was yelling at him to put his arm in the bus but the guy was singing so loudly he couldn't hear. All of a sudden, our singing stopped as we noticed the bus had pulled to the side of the highway and Glen was coming down the aisle. He was screaming about the arm out the window. All arms were promptly pulled in and windows locked up above elbow level. Then, as Glen headed back down the aisle, an unruly hasher started a song in Glen's honor. The song goes something like this:

He's the meanest
He sucks the horse's penis
He's the meanest
He's the horse's ass...

It goes on, but I think you get the point. Glen was not happy but faced a busload of drunken, out-of-tune adults and had no means of escape. He got us back to the hotel, told us we were worse than fourth graders, and was met with a serenade by a small group who chanted, "Glen, Glen, f*** him!" as they paraded off the bus. I almost felt sorry for Glen but he was so mean it was hard to sympathize. And you must admit that the songs were appropriate.

Another fun incident that was frequently repeated on the bus while traveling in downtown Toronto was that whenever we passed another bus, such as a nice double-decker tour bus or one of Toronto's famous Hippo buses (amphibious buses people pay $35 to ride on), everyone on our bus would start chanting "The other bus sucks! The other bus sucks!" Once we had their attention we would chant "Our bus sucks! Our bus sucks!" The looks from the tourists were priceless and varied from astonishment to laughter to giving of the finger to taking photos. Being hashers, we're used to that sort of thing.

Okay, go look at the bunnies again...