My Dog is Chelsea

I almost started crying in the airport on the way home. It seemed cruel that an airline would hold me hostage in layover limbo for three hours when I could have spent that valuable time hanging out with my friends just a little bit longer. It has been about 15 months since we all lived within a three block radius of each other; now that we’re spread all over the country, the chances of getting back together are becoming slimmer and slimmer. As we grow up, settle down in one place and in a career and—the horror!—start forming families of our own, this type of thing will be only harder to orchestrate. But I think—no, I know—that regardless of distance and obligation and complication, too many of us need to be around each other. We will not let friendships like these ones fade into the hecticness of life. We’ll manage a way to make another one of these weekends happen again soon, and hopefully even more people will make it out for it. And I don’t think I’m speaking just for myself when I say that I can’t go another 15 months without another one.

So here’s a few pictures from the first of many reunions:

Ellie teaching Natatlie the pee-of-the-dock maneuver entitled “crooked ape,” or something to that effect.

Natalie chickened out and opted to pee with more privacy off the back of the boat. She got pee on her leg.

Jessica with Haley. Note that you can kind of see Natalie peeing in the background.

Robin and Trish drinking sangria.

Becca bringing more sangria down to the dock, because, duh, you can never have enough.

The first and drunkenest person of the night becomes known as the President Baby (the etymology of the term is unknown to me). Here, you can see Suzy as President Baby. Note that it is still light out.

Miriam was President Baby the next day.

How to create President Babies: you get Kristen and Rebecca to lug a cooler full of beer down to the dock.

Caitlin as Vice President Baby?

I was well on my way.

Suzy sporting a “tough guy” look.

Rebecca and Puppet discussing what the hell chard is.

Proof that Ellie did, in fact, try to help with the dinner. She didn’t know what chard is either.

Skinny dipping and trying to overturn Trish in the kayak. They might kill me for posting this—well, Ellie might, anyway. From left to right: Suzy, Miriam, Ellie, Trish, me, Becca, Caitlin. Robin, Ben (Rebecca’s brother’s friend) and Bill (Rebecca’s brother). Not pictured: the bottle of whiskey we were passing around.

The Feast: (from left to right) Robin, Rebecca, Caitlin, Mydogischelsea and Jessica

The Herd: (clockwise from top left) Rebecca’s mom, Asa, me, Miriam, Suzy, Ben, Bill, Natalie, Becca, Robin, Caitlin, Rebecca, Kristen, Jessica, Ellie and Trish.

Isn’t Oregon effing beautiful???

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I left the reunion on Sunday. Being the moron I am sometimes, I arrived at the airport to discover that my flight was actually on Monday. All flights from here on in were overbooked, said the woman at the evil United counter. “If I were you, I would just stay here, because otherwise you’ll end up sleeping in an airport somewhere.” Well, gee, twist my arm, why don’t ya?

Maybe it was karma for losing a day at the beginning, but got to stay an extra day. However, Asa had dropped me off at the airport, and since he lacks cell phone technology I couldn’t call him to tell him to turn around. It would be hard to convince someone else to come out and get me, but as it turned out, the crowd was planning to head into Portland in a few hours anyway.

“Hey, why don’t you take the Max into downtown and hang out at Powell’s Books?” Rebecca suggested. “We’ll meet you there later.” It sounded like a great idea. Asa wants me to move to Portland with him, and if I’m really going to do it, I better freaking like the city. So I went out to explore.

Under other circumstances, it may have been a fabulous adventure into a really cool urban area. But I was sore from head to toe from my slaloming excursion the day before—so sore that I couldn’t even turn my head to the left, and lugging my heavy bag through the hot and sunny streets of the city turned out to be rather painful. I found the bookstore and took a seat in the café to get attempt to get some of my work done. Instead, I stared blankly at the wall for half an hour.

I went outside, sat on a curb and called back to the homestead. “Are you guys coming or what?” I asked anxiously.

Robin sounded like she had just woken up. “I have no idea what the plan is. I think some people just headed down to the river to swim,” she said.

At that, I started crying. I don’t really know why; nothing particularly bad had happened. I was in my natural environment: a coffee shop within a bookstore in a town that is as progressive as I could possibly ask for. It was a beautiful day. The people around me were great. The place was wonderful. I could even see myself living there.

But I still wasn’t at the reunion. And so I cried and cried and cried. Robin told me she’d try to round up the troops and call me back. I got off the phone and continued to sob. A man sitting on the curb across the street asked me if I was okay. I couldn’t speak, so I just nodded. Reunions can be sort of emotional sometimes, I guess.

Asa rescued me 45 minutes later. “They were all just hanging around doing their own things. I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving, I just came to get you.” He handed me a sandwich he had made for me.

I took a bite, dried my eyes and smiled. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see him as I was just then. And so we headed back down to Reunion.