Bumbles bounce

Boo! Miss me? I know, I know. It's been over nine months. I was starting to get threatening notes, dirty looks, and body checks from the only person who reads my blog....this one's for you Dad!

When we were last together, I think I was jumping out of a plane, correct? Ahhhhh...the rush of possible dismemberment....smells good. This summer we are going white water rafting. It's going to be amazing! But in the meantime, I get my fill by climbing mountains. Dad is usually my partner in crime on these adventures (and Shelley when she can make it). We do Icehouse Canyon with the Asians. No, seriously-it's full of Asians. I'm going to start looking for Icehouse Canyon fliers in Happy Wok, because I don't understand how they all know about it. It's very rare when you see another white person and when you do, it's really weird but you kind of make eye contact with them, smile knowingly, and silently say "at least there's you". Not that I have a problem with the Asians. They are very kind and always reply "Okay" to my "Hi, good morning!" Last time I was at Icehouse, Dad and I hiked up to where the scouts camp. I was sitting on a log snaking on a baggie of nuts and dried fruit like any other respectable hiker, when I heard a bird start to sing this song. It was perfect and beautiful and had purpose. I was really experiencing one of natures true miracles. I couldn't believe it. A bird! I looked at Dad with wide eyes full of amazement and asked "What is that bird?!" Dad replied "It's the guy right there with a flute". Fiddlesticks. I guess I didn't see him sneak in. But that aside, there really is something beautiful about being up there in the middle of nature. It's refreshing. Next, we tackled Etiwanda Falls in Rancho Cucamonga. This is a fun one to a little waterfall. Dad and Shelley and I went a few weeks ago. When you get to the falls, the rocks are a little slippery, so one must use caution. Dad loves talking pictures and he attaches his camera to anything that will hold it and sets the timer and runs into the picture. Please see below:



This is quite possibly my favorite picture ever, and it is exactly what you think it is. That is my Dad on the ground rolling away. On his run back to us he slipped on the rocks and ate it, but the best part is-Shelley and I don't even realize what's happened, and are smiling patiently for the picture. It wasn't for a few seconds later when we turned to see Dad on the ground that we realized what had happened. I laughed for about an hour-no joke. Maybe longer. Especially because about 5 seconds before I had yelled "Dad, be careful when you're running back-it's very slippery!" Did I jinx him? Possibly. Take another look at the picture. Notice how close we are to the edge of the fall? Yeah....3 feet to the left and he'd have been a gonner. But I have reason to believe that should he have actually gone over the edge, I might have been able to pull off some sort of rescue. I discovered that day, that I am a mountain climber. Someone had attached a rope over the edge. Here's me climbing it. I'm awesome.



I try to go on a hike every Saturday, so if you're ever
lonely, looking to get active, wanting to see a waterfall, or wanting to see masses of Asians-call me!

I believe I can Fly

I fly. Yesterday I decided to jump out of a plane. It's something I've wanted to do for a very long time. When I was little, my dad used to take us bungee jumping, and cliff diving, so this was the next step in the natural order. Naturally. I was a little nervous, but not as much as you'd expect a person would be considering they'd be throwing their body out of a plane at 12,500 feet off the ground. We arrived at Skydive Elsinore at 7:30. After checking in, paying a small fortune, and signing our lives away, we headed over to the "training zone". Training began at 8:30. Training consisted of some dude named Steve showing us we'd step to the edge of the open plane door, count to three, step out of the plane, arch our back, head up, and enjoy. It took 10 min. That's it. After 'training', we waited around for another 45 min. My tandem partner, Mike came over and introduced himself. He was hilarious. He told me things like this was his first jump ever and he was really nervous. Lol. Anything to relax me. At about 9:15 we went in to put our harnesses on. Mike checked and re-checked my straps 30 times. I counted. No, I didn't, but it was a lot of times. He apologized and said, "Sorry, I'm a check and re-check kinda guy." I said, "Mike, you have a free pass to my body right now. I you feel the need to check and re-checked the straps around my crotch and boobs, please do....as many times as you'd like." This was my life we were talking about here.



Here's the group of us who went. Brad, Kyle's friends Bryan, me, Kerri (Brad's wife), Kyle, and my Dad. Kerri joined us last min, and stole my "only girl" claim to fame. That's okay, I'm glad she did it. And so was she. So about 9:30 the plane pulls up, we were the 3rd group to jump of the day. We loaded up. The plane sat about 20 of us, but I think it was built for 7. We were all on top of each other. I didn't mind much because I was sitting next to Kerri's hot tandem partner. Wow. What a way to calm down a first time jumper. Place her in the lap of a hottie. I'm not sure if my wanting to go again has to do with the actual jump or him. Haha, just kidding. We had to climb to 12,500 feet to make our jump. But about 7,000 feet a group of like 5 guys jumped out. They were doing one of those synchronized jump things. After they left the plane, it was time to hook ourselves to our partners. We had to sit in their laps for this. Poor Mike. I hope the feeling has returned to his legs. Around this time, Mike was-surprise-checking and re-checking my straps. Then all the sudden we hit 12,500 feet. It all happened so quickly then. I remember looking to the door and seeing my dad, and then not seeing him. He was gone! Then bam, bam, bam. Everyone else was gone to and it was my turn. We were all out of the door within 60 seconds of the first person jumping. It was crazy. I didn't even have time to be scared. After Mike flung our bodies out the door, the magic happened.



I was free fallin'! We reached a speed of 120 mph. You can see the skin trying to peel it's self from my body. So attractive. Free fall was so different then I thought it was going to be. I thought the wind would be coming at me so fast that I wouldn't be able to catch my breath and breathe. Actually, I could breathe just fine. It was an amazing feeling. I WAS FLYING! You all know my obsession with Superman.....well, it's now 10 fold. I don't remember much of what I was screaming, but I think all I could muster was "I.....am.....flying....through....the....air." Congratulations Captain Obvious. After 50 seconds and 5,500 feet of free fall, Mike pulled the parachute cord. See the Orange golf ball on Mike's side? That's the parachute cord. I was SUPPOSED to pull it, but got distracted by all my sensory feelings exploding in overload. No wonder they don't let you jump alone your first time. I'd have been screwed without Mike.



The view was beautiful, and once the parachute was deployed it was so quiet and peaceful. It would be about 5 min before landing. Mike had asked me "Do you like roller coasters?" I answered "yes" without really thinking that through. He started taking us into some turns. If you've ever driven in a car with me, you know I get deathly carsick. Well it happened. I got so sick. I told Mike to stop turning, and that I was going to throw up. He told me, "Please don't do that." Sorry, Mike. I started dry heaving. Thankfully I had purposely not eaten for this very reason. I think Mike was thankful too. Even though I was sick, it was still so awesome to see the view and feel myself floating softly through the sky. It was time for the landing. We came in to touchdown earth with our legs up and skidded on our butts for about 15 feet. It didn't hurt at all, but I did get grass all over myself, including up my back and down my pants. How does that even happen? I don't know either. Freakin' earth.....I am of the sky.



This is Mike and I after touchdown. Look how cute we are. I'd jump with him every time if I had the choice. After this, I headed over to de-harness myself and get my jump certificate and free shirt! Wooowhooo! I love free shirts. I'm wearing it now. The entire experience was so amazing. I loved it, and I can't wait to go back again. We've decided to go again next summer, and get a big group to join us. I think you should do it. It is worth every penny, every nervous twitch, and even every dry heave. I fly.

I like Rap too.

So last night my mom and I went shopping. One of our destinations was Payless. We "Oooo'd" and "Awww'd" for quite some time and headed to the registers with our 5 pairs of awesomely adorable shoes (3 were mine-guilty!). We were in a goofy mood, and throwing out lame jokes. The cashier was nice and we joked with her, asking if she could give us the BOGO discount, even though it wasn't currently BOGO season. She said no, but agreed to give us the AAA discount because we were so awesome. I was rung up first, followed by my mama. We had each gotten the same pair of sandals, but I got blue and mom got black. When the cashier scanned the black pair and they came up $19.99, my mom said "Oh, but hers rang up $12.99...?" the woman said "Yes, but hers are the blue ones. The black ones are more expensive because they are more in demand" we were still giggly and goofy and so my mom blurts out "That's Racist!!" Mom, myself and the Hispanic cashier burst into laughter and I'm still laughing as I turn around and stare into..... the not so laughing faces of three African American ladies. They were standing there, hands on hips, lips pursed, and eyebrows raised. My smile disappeared and I searched their faces for any sign of building violence. I began to try to channel my 14 year old fighting, expelled from school, angry self- in case this was going to come to blows. I wished I had worn more protruding rings. I imagined myself pleading with them "But the black ones were MORE money! Everyone WANTS them!" I was slowly backing towards the door trying to pull mom with me. Then the freakin cashier asks for our mailing address to send coupons. Oh crap. Now they're gonna know where we live and come kill us. While mom prattles off our addy, I started dancing around trying to distract their attention. Trust me- me attempting any dance would distract even the most focused. The ladies seemed to not have moved at all. We finally left the store and I eyed the parking lot cautiously clutching my blackberry in case I needed to call 911. We were not followed and so far have not been murdered in our home. So I'm sure their reaction was probably all in my head. In fact, the women might actually have been mannequins....but you never know.

P.S. How do you know when you're in a recession? When you park next to a Jaguar in the Walmart Parking lot!

The Devil went down to Dodger Stadium

Last night I went to a Dodgers game. They were playing the San Francisco giants. The last two times these teams played each other, someone got stabbed and someone got killed. So I was on red alert as far as pissing people off. I cheered for both teams, smiled with glee as I did the wave (actually-the wave really does make me happy!), and I made sure I didn’t bump into anyone. If someone by their own fault happened to bumped into me-I apologized profusely and offered them $5 for their trouble. The game was going great and all was well……….. except for the two devil boys sitting behind me. These kids were about 10ish, and all night they were jumping around and screaming trying to catch the beach balls and whacked them around. They ended up getting them around 57 times-no joke. I wished I had a pair of scissors so I could turn around and stab it every time they got it. They were pissing everyone off. This guy one row in front of me turned around to them and said “You guys paid $85 a seat to play with a beach ball?” Ha-ha. The ushers weren’t allowed to take the balls away from people and pop them, but if a ball goes to them, they have to pop it. There was this sweet adorable boy about 9ish sitting two rows in front of me, who the whole game was turned around looking at them with envy and trying to catch the ball himself. He never got it and his poor little face was just heart-broken. I made it my mission to get that freakin ball away from the devils spawn and hand it off to my lil sweetheart. About this time, revenge came to the devils in the stupidity of two 10 year old brains. They decided when they caught the balls; they’d let the air out of them and re-blow them back up. Are you with me? These were balls that they themselves did not bring or originally blow up. We had no idea where these came from or whose mouths had been on them. DISGUSTING!!! So I smiled with pleasure (no-actually I gawked with shock) as these boys placed their mouths on the blow part. At one point one of them said “Dude, we’re gonna get Swine Flu!” I wanted to turn and “No ship Sherlock! And you’ll probably get Herpes too!” But they continued on. I should probably tell you one of their Dads was sitting two seats away from them, and could care less what was going on…..freakin LA parents….so anyways the end of the game was coming and I had yet to get a ball for my angel boy in front of me. Finally the devils left early, and lo and behold! A beach ball fell right next to me! I picked it up and heard my angel say “Oh, me, me, me!!” I turned with a smile and handed it off to him saying “Here you go Sweetie!” (I was ready to adopt him!) Everything happen so fast then… my boy set the ball down, took off his glowing halo and white robes reveling red horns and a red spandex jumpsuit!! What the?!?! He grabbed the ball, banged it on the rail in front of him yelling out “Hey over here!” to the nearest usher. The usher walked over towards the ball the boy held out to him. When the usher was 2 steps away from grabbing it, Satan turned and smacked the ball directly into the face of the woman sitting one rows and two seats to the left behind him. I mean SMACKED it DIRECTLY into her face. I. Could. Not. Believe. What. Had. Just. Happened. There were no words. All I was able to do was murmur “what…? what…?” How this hidden devil deceived me! The woman was PISSED and stared at Lucifer. She had no words either. In fact, no body anywhere was saying anything. The boy had turned back around, his dad turned red and within 5 minutes-they were gone. I sat there thinking how ironic it was that I had come to the game prepared to protect myself from the adult psycho fans and LA gangsters, when I should have been on the look-out for the tween delinquents! Thank goodness for the fireworks at the end of them game, to take my mind off how close I’d been to Beelzebub and probably death all night…....oh-giants won.

Five Kay

On Saturday, I did a very noble thing. I did a 5k for the Let It Be Foundation- a foundation that supports local families with children with life threatening illnesses. I went with three awesome and hilarious women: Camille Knecht, Katie Knecht, and Rachel Knecht. It’s fun already, right? I know. A bonus was the promised pancake breakfast at the end. We stumbled to Chino Hills High School around 7:15 am all smiles. After I cut in front of a couple guys to get my shirt, we lined up for the kick off, or send off….whatever-the start. But of course we had to have opening ceremonies where the children of the benefit stood in front of us. They played John Lennon’s “Let it Be” in remembrance of the children lost. Ummm…not a dry eye in the group. Next thing we knew, there’s a peppy blonde up on stage in full Jane Fonda gear (actually I couldn’t see her, but I’d bet she was) screaming into her headset that we should stretch. I kinda leaned to the side, raised my arms in the air, stomped the ground, and clapped my hands a few times. I imagine I rather looked like I was getting to sumo wrestle. Then- Bam!! The race was on! No it wasn’t. We weren’t even timed. So the Knechts and I kicked it into gear and off we went. The first 1k was easy peasy and I thought it was hilarious that we were actually crossing streets. Cars were lined up waiting for 400 people to frogger their way through intersections. It was a bad day to be driving in Chino Hills. My apologies if you were one of those cars. In between 1k and 2k was a decision. If you went left, it was an easier, less strenuous course. If you went right-you had a challenge. The Knechts and I, being raised to always CHOOSE THE RIGHT, went for the hardcore course. We meandered along a rocky path alongside beautiful golf course. How nice! I was still smiling at this point. All the sudden, the ground dropped out from under us and we found our “strenuous course”. We started baby-stepping/ sliding down a 40 foot drop straight down. When we got to the bottom of that, we had to climb a 40 foot hill straight back up. And this continued about 5 more times. What were we thinking? We should have gone left with the strollers! Of course they’d keep the babies safe, while we were trying not to Jack and Jill ourselves on loose gravel and dog poop. But we are totally awesome and made it out unscathed. Well, unscathed at the time-my calves have subsequently had 37 strokes since then. The next 2k’s were winding through the streets in Chino Hills, and we entertained ourselves by bursting into spontaneous song of “Let it be, let it be! Whisper words of wisdom, let it be!” Okay well actually just Camille did that. We hit a point where we curved along beside some houses and through a field of some sorts. As we entered the field, we passed a sign that said something along the lines of “Beware: there are wild animals in here that are not afraid to eat you”. Oh happy day! We did not encounter anything wild; however I did spy suspicious rustling in the bushes. I wasn’t afraid because I had Katie and Rachel with me, who I hear, have started using actual wooden nunchucks in their nunchucks class. I don’t know about you-but I’m not messin’ with that. And I dared that thing rustling in the bushes to. In our last 1k we all realized that our fingers had tripled in size. All the blood and water in our bodies found its way to our phalanges to shape them into tasty looking sausages. We found a solution and raised our hands in front of us surgeon style to drain the fluid. In order to not look so silly we’d occasionally raise them in the air alternately to make it look like some sort of exercise. I’m pretty sure we still looked silly. We finished the 5k and were delighted (pissed) to see we still had to walk another half mile to a crosswalk to get across the street and back. Then we hit the “last stretch”- the place where they had the music blasting and about 50 cheerleaders in full uniform with pom-poms and girl scouts cheering us on to the end. We ran that part (haha) and through the finish line. It felt amazing and we were ready to do it again! Just kidding-we wanted our pancake breakfast! We high tailed it to the breakfast, where we encountered this sign:

(that’s me standing under it with my medal! Woowhoo!). Anyways, it’s been a while since I attended high school, but I didn’t remember body size segregation. We wondered where the Skinny Student Entrance was. And how very apropos (thank you, Emily) we had to enter here to get to our pancakes, bacon, and butter. The breakfast was amazing, and disappeared from my plate in literally 3.5 minutes. I had a wicked fun morning with the girlies, and can’t wait to do another one. Who wants to come next time?

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

I knew from the moment I woke up this morning, that I was going to be bad. My alarm went off and the song “Boom Boom Pow” was playing. It always gets me fired up. While choosing my attire for the day, I had decided on my maroon skinny jeans. I have these heels that matched my jeans perfectly. The problem is, they are really sandal-y and 100% against company dress code. I sat there pouting that I was so three thousand and eight and my lame office is so two thousand and late. I decided I wasn’t going to let them ruin an awesome outfit, and put the heels on. Now all I had to do was avoid the Fashion Police lady in my department. She’s in charge of actually looking at what everyone wears everyday to make sure it’s code appropriate, and if it's not-you are sent home on unpaid time to change. Once at work, I was focused and working hard when I printed a letter and got up to retrieve it. At the printer I spotted The Fashion Policewoman. Crap! I sat back down and was planning on waiting her out. To kill some time, I checked my facebook, incase any one of my 3 friends who never message me, happened to do so. No messages. I looked back up at the printer. She was still there! I had things to do, and needed my freakin letter! Then I came up with a plan. I walked up to the printer and shouted “Hello!!” she startled and looked me right in the eyes. Perfect. Just where I wanted those eyes……keep. them. on. my. face…."Good morning,” she said…her eyes started drifting down…*CLAP! CLAP!* went my hands, as her eyes bounced back to my face. “It sure is!! Wow! What a great hair clip!!” I tried to be very animated by moving my eyebrows up and down and widen my eyes as big as I could, while at the same time quickly searching for my letter. The problem was, at that second I realized she wasn’t even wearing a hair clip, and her confused eyes started dropping down towards my misdemeanor shoes again. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I pointed behind her and screamed, “LOOK WHAT THE COLOR COPIER IS DOING!!” As soon as she turned, I grabbed my letter and click-clicked my heels outta there. Just in time too....my next exclamation would have been "Swine Fluuuuuuu!!" I’m pretty sure she thinks I have tourettes. Thankfully, I was able to avoid her for the rest of the day, and look amazing in my shoes. Wooowhoo!

I don't like your dog.

Brace yourself…..I. Do. Not. Like. Animals. I surely do not. Who cares? I don’t HATE them or curse their existence. I just don’t like them. I don’t want to own them. I don’t want to touch them. A few people have discovered this about me this past week and went into total shock. It was like I had told them I don’t shower or wear deodorant! I could definitely see I took a stumble down on the “good person” staircase in their eyes. In fact one lady actually said “Wow. You seemed so nice.” Ouch. What is the deal? Would you rather I own an animal and not take good care of it? I think I’m being a very caring, responsible person by NOT owning a pet. I watch Animal Cops all the time, and I do feel bad for those poor little guys. It’s HORRIBLE what some people do to them. (See! I have a soul!) And I think to myself, those people should never have got that dog, or cat, or whatever in the first place. Lo and Behold! I think I’d be a more horrible person if I got a dog and ignored it. I live at home and my parents DO have a dog. His name is Jake. I do not touch him or play with him. This is okay because the other people in my house do. I respect Jake, as a dog, and will occasionally address him if he is bugging me by licking the sliding glass door or something….but there are no “Hi Jakey Boy! That’s a good boy! Hi! Okay, snookums! Okay!” no……none of that. Our conversations go more like “Stop looking at me! Stop licking the glass, Jake! You retard!” or when I go outside, you can usually hear me saying “Do not come near me…don’t touch me, Jake!” So you’re probably wondering- WHY? Was I attacked by an animal? No. I think the thing is, growing up, I practically lived on a farm. At some point, we had chickens, pigs, peacocks, fish, dogs, cats, hamsters…shucks-I even had sea monkeys! In fact, I’m a little bit famous. Every single cat in Chino (and by now, it’s probably spread to surrounding Ontario, Upland, Chino Hills, and Pomona) is a direct descendant of my old cat, Pepper. NO JOKE. That cat had more babies then Octomom could ever dream of. The Rhoads kids could be seen standing in front of Target on any given Saturday trying to give away kittens for free. So I think as I grew, I felt I had done my time with animals. I’d had enough. Also, their fur is so dirty. Who goes up to a bum on the side of the freeway off ramp, rubs their head with their bare hand, calls it cute and wants to kiss it?!?! Because that’s what it’s like for me. I shudder. But I am a nice person. If I encounter someone who is unaware of this quirk of mine and they shove their little “Roxie” or “Mr. Snuggles” in my face, I will politely smile, assure them he/she is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen (Yeah, right) and I will pet it. Then if you watch closely, I will inconspicuously hold my hand away from my body and not touch one other thing until I excuse myself to the restroom where I will scrub my hands clean. I even carry hand sanitizer in my purse for such occasions.

So bottom line, get over it. It’s not a big deal that I don’t like animals. I’m still going to heaven…....maybe. ; )