Alcohol

Last night, Sarah and I ventured forth from the apartment in a quest for good Tex-Mex – the kind that was so prevalent in San Antonio. We found ourselves at a little hole-in-the-wall in Point Loma at 6:45 and by 7:10 we were quite full of quesadillas and burritos and 500mL of Mexican Coca-Cola. We were not ready to return to the apartment (and school work), so we headed over to Sunset Cliffs to watch the sunset over the Pacific.

Sarah and the sunset over the Pacific.

Since we had not initially planned on watching the sunset, neither of us was dressed appropriately; I did not bring a sweatshirt and Sarah’s flip-flops did not offer enough purchase for the short, sandy walk to the cliffs edge. A few steps into our descent down a gradual slope of maybe 30 feet, Sarah’s feet slid clean out from under her and she landed hard on her hands and butt. The ground did quite a number on her left hand, which soon began to bleed quite profusely. I offered for us to head home so we could treat her injury, but my wife, stubborn as ever, refused to leave before seeing the sunset. It was beautiful.

It really was a beautiful sunset.

By the time we left, Sarah’s hand was not looking so good.

Sarah's hand not looking too good.

The conversation during the drive home went a lot like this:

Sarah: “My hand hurts.”
Sean: “I know. I’m sorry you fell.”
Sarah: “It really hurts if I turn my wrist like this.”
Sean: “Don’t turn it like that.”
Sarah: “But it hurts.”
Sarah: “It’s getting all puss-y!”
Sean: “Eww. Don’t mess with it.”
Sarah: “I’m going to take a picture and send it to people!”
Sean: “Why?”
Sarah: “Cause it’s gross!”

By the time we got home, the dirt had had a good opportunity to get deep into Sarah’s still bleeding wound. To stave off infection, we needed to clean it with something more than just soap and water – all we had were alcohol swabs. Before we started, I asked Sarah if she had ever had a wound cleaned with alcohol, she said “maybe” but we soon found out the answer was “no.”

As long as I have known Sarah, she has never really felt the need to swear, but when that alcohol touched her wounded skin, it was as like the floodgates were opened. An absurd number of Damn’s and Damn-it-all-to-hell’s filled our bathroom. Sarah was in agony, and the worst part was, she made me clean the wound with alcohol two more times after that. Afterwards, we both felt bad: Sarah, because of her wound, and me, because I had to hurt my injured wife more to clean it.

If this experience has taught me one thing, it’s that we need to keep a first-aid kit in our car – that way the next time this happens, while my wife screams obscenities like an old-timey prospector, at least I’ll be able to watch the sunset.

My First Easter Away From Home

Every single Easter in my twenty-six years of life has been spent with my family celebrating the holiday Stachura-style.  The last four years, Sean has been a part of that tradition participating in Easter egg hunts, beach trips, and candy swapping.  This year, however, I was in California and my family was in Texas, making this the first Easter ever without being at home, and I've quickly learned that holidays away from home are the hardest.  


I strongly hinted to Sean for a couple of weeks now that it wouldn't feel like Easter without an Easter egg hunt.  (Sean does not feel the same way.  After four years of losing the Easter egg hunts with my family have left him scarred and bitter)  I woke up this morning by Sean jumping on top of me handing me a plastic bag and telling me that it was my Easter egg basket.  I had strict instructions to find twenty-eight plastic Easter eggs, a bag full of jelly beans, and four Milky Way eggs.  The jelly beans I found early on (Starbursts jelly beans, all red ones!), but the eggs took a little bit more work.  The hardest one to find was among the corn husk flowers in a flower vase.  The egg blended right in.  Camouflage at its finest!  Now, comparing this Easter egg hunt to those of my family, this one had several major differences.  1) There was no competition among me and my sisters to race and find the eggs as fast as possible, 2) My parents, after twenty something years of hiding eggs, have started putting eggs in hard to reach, difficult to see, obscure places that usually involve all of us at the end searching for the remaining 1-3 eggs; Sean, this being his first time, has not reached that point yet so they were much easier to find, and 3) I had no one to compare eggs and loot with (since Sean did not partake in an hunt himself).

Zorro and I searching for Easter eggs

After collecting my loot, I opened my eggs finding Dove chocolate and Legos!  Legos in a an Easter egg?  Who knew!

Legos?  In an Easter egg?  YES!

Of course, after eating some chocolate eggs and some red Starburst jelly beans, naturally pre-breakfast we needed to put together the Legos.  It turns out, after I dumped out all the Easter eggs with Legos into one giant messy pile, that there were TWO separate Lego kits with two separate sets of instructions.  Oops!  Luckily, the pieces were distinguishable enough to figure out which was which.  

Where does this piece go?

A Star Wars fighter and a fireman

Another Stachura tradition is going to the beach over Easter weekend.  I'm not sure when it started, but my family in Texas was beaching it up again this year, so naturally Sean and I needed to do so as well in California.  Not that we need much urging to go to the beach!  This tradition was especially easy to follow this year, now that we live in San Diego only a couple miles from the beach!  


Sean has been wanting us to go boogie boarding for quite awhile, and we had finally bought boards this weekend.  What better day to try boogie boarding than Easter day?  We looked up the weather before hand: 62 degrees in the ocean, 66 degrees in the air, cloudy but will disperse and be sunny.  A nice beach day!  

Boogie-ing

Boarding

Although I didn't really know what to expect, boogie boarding was absolutely fantastic!  I couldn't stop grinning and "eeeeing" every time we caught a wave.  How had I never done this before?  On the same level of excitement, a California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) popped his/ her little head up nearby right when we were in the middle of catching a wave!  I have this dream where one comes up near me, we have a special moment where he/she knows that I love him/her and he/she loves me too, then he/she lets me touch him/her while Sean (or someone else) captures this special moment on camera, and then we both go on our merry way.  Anywhoo, that did not happen today.  We boogied, we boarded, and we boogie boarded.  We boogied so hard that we barely noticed it had started to rain...until it started to pour.  Upon realizing the beach was emptying out, that the skies were dark grey, and that we had electronics that might not enjoy getting wet inside our beach bag, we rode one last wave into shore, packed up our stuff, and headed home.  


The rest of the day was spent in hot tubbing, lazy lounging, napping, grocery shopping, home-working, and more lazy lounging.  Overall, I would declare this Easter day a success!  Keeping traditions and beginning new ones is one of the great parts of being part of a new branch of a family: the San Diego Kienles.  

Cha-Cha-Cha Charmin!

[Note: This post contains links that will take you to Youtube. When you have finished the video, simply click "Back" on your browser to return to the post.]

I am willing to contend that making advertisements for toilet paper is a supremely challenging and often thankless job. Recently, there has a vast improvement in the quality of toilet paper commercial. I attribute this recent improvement to the fact that every possible mistake has already been made (mostly by Charmin).

The Tolerable:

Cottonelle: The major offense is that it doesn’t make any sense, but it is redeemed by the fact that there is a cute lab puppy.

Angel Soft: This is actually humorous, but has an absurdly long jingle at the end.

The Rest:

Quilted Northern: Let’s begin our tour of bad toilet paper commercials with Quilted Northern. I am sure you are familiar with the three women who sit around quilting and chatting about current toilet paper issues. Where did the creators go wrong? These women are quilting toilet paper! They are creating something that people are literally going smear with poo. This is not a quilting club; it is a toilet paper sweatshop.

Don't let the fact that it is a cartoon fool you, toilet paper sweatshops are no laughing matter

• Charmin: Business Section: I cannot speak for bears, but I have never had a problem with a bath tissue “that leaves lots pieces behind.” This seems to be a recurring theme in toilet paper ads (see Angel Soft and Quilted Northern above), but Charmin is the only one with the audacity to give the audience a close up of a bears butt. Also, why does a bear need glasses?

Yet another example of "lots of pieces"

• Charmin: Dinner Conversation: I am starting to think this bear family is far too open about what they do in the bathroom. You know how I know texting is not cool anymore? It is featured in a Charmin commercial.

• Charmin: Beach Trip: Nothing like good old fashioned bear segregation.

• Charmin: In the Mood for Love:
  Who is the target audience for this commercial? Men? Women? Bears? Is this some sort of strange bear mating ritual? Can the female bear (the one with the bow) see the male bear (the one on the toilet) or is she listening to him sing through the door? Is he singing to her or to the toilet paper? Why does he rub the toilet paper on his face? Since when does a bear use a toilet? Or a sofa? Or live in a house?

So there you have it, the worst toilet paper commercials of recent history. If you made it this far I am impressed.

God Bless Texas

A debate ensued about how to start this entry.  Sean, not being a true blooded Texan, suggested it start as follows:  There are so many great things about California, so instead of listing them all, we wrote what we miss about Texas. 


Now, I disagree.  As a native Texan, I feel like that would imply that California has more to offer than Texas, which is obviously incorrect.  Therefore, this list is things we miss about Texas but in no way implies that California is better than Texas.  (Although I do feel a little bit traitorous about how much I am loving San Diego) 

Things Sean and I Love About Texas

0) It's big!  Although California apparently is too.  Did you know that all the major cities in California are not close together and that San Diego is close to Mexico?  (Sean would like to note that he knew that already)


1) Wide open spaces (Isn't there a Dixie Chicks song about that?).  We love that in Texas it only takes twenty minutes (at most) to be in the country surrounded by nature.  While it is also possible to drive out to the country here in San Diego, it takes longer than that to leave civilization behind.


2) Texas BBQ...I refuse to try BBQ here because I already know it isn't going to be as good as Texas's.  I've seen signs for California BBQ, Hawaiian BBQ, etc.  I miss the sausage, potato salad, apple cobbler, brisket, baked beans...Now I'm making myself hungry!


3)  Cowboy hats and cowboy boots and the stores that sell cowboy hats and cowboy boots.  It's not like I need another hat nor boots at the moment, but it was nice that I knew where to go when I someday would.


4) Breakfast tacos.  No where else does breakfast tacos like Texas.  No one in Texas does breakfast tacos like Taco Taco in San Antonio.


5) Festivals, fairs, and rodeos.  Large plates of homemade potato chips, Frito pie, and margaritas.  Petting zoos, music acts, and lots of people watching (large people, small people, tall people, larger people, weird people...).


6) Dance halls, honky tonks, and saloons where people partner dance instead of doing lame line dances.  (Sean wanted it to read: "suck ass line dances").  We went to In Cahoots, the only honky tonk in San Diego, and while it was a nice reminder of home, we didn't get to dance very much because of the overwhelming line dancing.  When line dancing wasn't going on, rap music was played, and, on a couple occasions, there was line dancing to the rap music.  


7) The ocean...wait, that's actually better here in California!  It IS really nice that Texas has access to the ocean.


8) Texas twangs and idioms.  Example:  "You might better slow that train on down."


9) The full line of Shiner beers, not just Shiner Bock.  This is totally Sean's since I could care less about beer.  [We can get Shiner Bock and Shiner Blonde at Ralph's sometimes, but I want Shiner Hefeweizen--Sean]


10) Y'all.  I miss being surrounded by people using the word y'all instead of being the oddity who says it, drawing laughs from friends and students.  Y'all's is almost even better than y'all, although my iPhone doesn't recognize y'all's although it does y'all.  


11) The Czech Stop.  We tried not to mention another food since reading through our list a lot of entries are food-related, so we compromised by listing the Czech Stop which sells more than just food.  The reason it gets mentioned though is because it sells such amazing kolaches for a ridiculously cheap price.  It doesn't even matter than you have to sit outside on the cement to eat them.


12) Texas Country on the radio.  No Pat Green or "God Bless Texas".  Nothing!


13) H.E.B.  A grocery store named after someone with the last name of Butt!  Everything at one place for a cheap price including school supplies and reasonably priced medicines!  Every time we have to go to Trader Joe's, Ralphs, and Henry's to get all our groceries for the week, it makes us long for H.E.B.


14) Living in the largest state in continental United States.  Stupid Alaska.


15) And more.


"You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas."--Davy Crockett

Pitch-In!

Pitch-In!

 This image in stenciled on many, many trashcans across the United States (except in Texas) and is the second greatest anti-littering campaign of the modern era (the greatest anti-littering campaign of all time: “Don’t Mess With Texas!”). In case you are unfamiliar with the image above, I have labeled all the important parts below.

Pitch-In! Explained!

The unforeseen drawback of the Pitch-In campaign, is that wire-mesh trashcans only exist in two places: public parks in suburban Nebraska and on ABC’s family-friendly “TGIF” evening line up (and then only when the characters are in a public park in suburban Nebraska). Nowadays, when the average person sees the Pitch-In logo, they really have to rack their brain to figure out what that person might be doing. What follows are merely some suggestions.

Going Shopping

Dunking a Basketball

Feeding a Parrot

Playing Badminton with a ridiculously
over-sized shuttlecock 

Destroying a City

Punching a Clown

Getting a Major Ice Cream Headache

A Dime

I hate parallel parking.  I'm not good at it.  I dread doing it.  I have successfully parallel parked only a few times...generally when no one is watching, I'm alone in the car, and all I have to do is pull straight forward into the spot.  I think one of the reasons I'm so bad at parallel parking is that when I learned, my dad had me practice with imaginary cars.  I did really well then.  Unfortunately, it did not translate to real life.


Tonight I was driving to craft night with the girls, and to park in Hillcrest where my friend Juli lives, involves my archenemy, parallel parking.  On previous trips to her place, I have lucked out and found parallel parking spots that fit the description above (no one with me, no one watching, pulling straight forward).  This was not to be tonight.  After circling several times, hoping against hope every single time I circled that someone would pull out and leave their very large spot open for me.  No one did.  I finally found a spot on the street with metered parking.  I sighed and prepared myself to navigate into the spot.  Luckily I got into the spot with relative ease (all I had to do was back up into it).  So, that was good.  


Now, I very rarely have cash or change on my person.  I always put any spare change I have in my bear bank that I've had since I was very small.  My car does however accumulate forgotten change (generally in the form of pennies), so I hoped that I would have enough for the meter.  I pulled out all of my coins, put them into the meter, and it totaled to 27 minutes.  This was clearly not enough time for craft night.  It would barely get me through the first 30 minutes of Glee (which we watching during craft night, obviously).  I was wondering what to do and searching the bottom of my bag at the same time.


A homeless man came up and very politely asked me if I had any change or food.  I had to respond, "No, I'm sorry, I don't."  (And then for some reason I felt the need to add...), "If I did, I would be able to pay the meter for this spot!"  


The nice homeless man then said, "I have ten cents.  Would that help?"


That's right.  I got offered money by a homeless man.  

Gobstoppers

For two years following Sarah’s graduation from Trinity, she taught freshmen biology in Rio Grande City, TX, which is about 250 miles due south of San Antonio. Now, I know what you are thinking, “I thought driving 250 miles south of San Antonio would put you in Mexico” and you would be correct. Rio Grande City is pretty much in Mexico; it is as far south as you can be in the United States and not be in Mexico.

I am in Rio Grande City, Texas, USA... Sarah is not.

For two years Sarah and I made the trip. One weekend she would drive up to San Antonio after school on Friday, stay for the weekend, and then drive back down to Rio Grande City on Sunday afternoon. Two weeks later I would drive down to Rio Grande City on Friday afternoon and back to San Antonio on Sunday and so it went.

Four hours is a long time to drive alone in South Texas.

Between the two of us, we have many stories about The Road to Rio Grande City, but today I want to talk about passing the time. Sarah typically used this time to catch up on phone conversations or to memorize Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on CD, while I on the other hand found these drives to be an excellent opportunity to eat as much candy and junk food as I could under the pretense that I was on a mini road-trip. Before the drive, I would stock up on candy and caffeine at the gas station and then make the trip in a sugar-fueled haze. My drug of choice was Mike and Ike, Hot Tamales, Sour Patch Kids and Gobstoppers.

One time, before my drive back to San Antonio, the gas station in Rio Grande City was out of Gobstoppers. For four hours straight I thought of nothing but the Gobstoppers I was denied, and by the time I reached San Antonio, there was nothing I wanted more in the world. Instead of returning to my apartment, I went directly to HEB (which is the grocery store in Texas) and purchased a box of Wonka’s finest.

When I got back in the car, my desire to be home and my desire for sugar were both reaching boiling-point. Instead of either, opening the candy before driving or driving home (a full five minute trip), I decided to attempt to open the candy while driving. Unfortunately, Willy Wonka is delightfully quirky in a decidedly evil way, and there is nothing more “quirky-evil” than packaging colorful candy in a box made steel. It was immediately clear that I was not going to be able to open the box with one hand while driving, so I pulled into another parking space (five spaces away from the space I had just vacated) and set to opening the box with both hands.

Before I could open the candy, there was a knock on the passenger’s window and I had to explain to the HEB parking lot security guard that I was “not having a medical emergency, I just wanted some candy.”

It was then that I realized I had a candy problem.