She's baaaaaack...

Okay, let's continue with the island gig. I'm only 1 week behind and for me that's not so bad.

7/28
Saturday at Put-In-Bay

After hiking from our deluxe accommodations and rounding the corner to the main drag to grab some breakfast at Pasquale's, which was reported to have the best breakfast on the island, we were shocked and amazed (I was anyway, don't know about everyone else) at the amount of people who were already cruising the strip, some of them cruising with a nice buzz. I was a wee bit envious about the morning buzz thing, but not envious enough to have a bloody mary to kick start my day. Having had a nap in place of a full night's sleep, I needed coffee and lots of it. However, there was no one selling coffee to the people waiting in line out the door and down the sidewalk.

At that point, I didn't really care if Pasquale's had the best breakfast or not and I was about to suggest that we keep moving when I realized that I could just cross the street to get my much needed jolt of caffeine at the coffee bar that pretended to be a real bar by offering a choice of margarita or bloody mary, both of which I declined. So, Chloe and I took every one's coffee order (everyone in our group, not everyone in the line) and while we were waiting for our 6 cups of LARGE coffee, the line at Pasquale's started moving. We bailed on the coffee bar chick.

After breakfast and lots of coffee, we said our goodbyes to Gene and Denny and then Rattler, Chloe and I went to the peace monument and then went to check out the winery and the crystal cave. We got chips (poker type chips, not potato type chips) for free glasses of wine. But, by then it was starting to get close to the time that Rattler had to catch the ferry back so we didn't get to use our chips. Of course I kept them to cash in later.

Chloe and I sent Rattler on his way and then hiked back to the Ritz to settle in for a long summer's nap. Napping is good.

After the second round of gigging and standing in the same spot with the same view (which was incredible, because we got to look out at the lake to see all the boats and sunsets), I noticed that the middle of the tree in the middle of the patio looked like an elongated heart. I thought it was kinda neat. Yeah, I said neat.

In between the view of the tree and the view of the boats and sunsets was the view of the sidewalk and the street. Not too much of interest on the sidewalk, just the standard view of people passing by. The street was a different story.

There was some rent-a-bride thing that kept passing by. We're not really sure if it was a chapel on wheels or a van load of desperate girls looking to have their version of a Vegas wedding.

There seemed to be a continous stream of police cars and firetrucks. No, it wasn't a parade. It might have been the same 1 police car and 1 firetruck making tons of trips. Don't know. But the point is that Saturday night was so different from Friday. Much more activity and great people watching!

After the gig, we went to the Beer Barrel to listen to a band that I missed out on hearing the night before for reasons that fall into the selective senility area of my brain. The lead singer wears all kinds of different outfits which he changes every couple of songs. The outfits are all women's clothes. I think it was just his "shtick". It certainly made us remember him!

The Beer Barrel has the longest bar EVER. It winds around kind of like a maze, but it's one continuous bar that's about a bazillion feet long. That's long. The place was packed, but we managed to get through the sea of people to find a place to sit.

Some guy wanted to get from one side of the room to the other, so he took the shortest distance between two points approach and walked across the tables to get there. It was way more fun to watch the reactions from the people who were sitting at the tables he was walking across than it was to watch him.

And let's not forget the couple at the table next to us who decided to do their version of dirty dancing. Because they were standing and we were sitting, we got to be right up close and personal. I'm thinkin' the sharp stick in the eye might have been better.

From there we made our way down to the Round House to listen to the 15 year old we met the night before at the dorm. When we got there the people were packed in like sardines, the line was out the door and WAY down the sidewalk so we chose to just stand on the other side of the street where we could see them and almost, but not quite hear them.

There were a few bachelorette parties going on that night too. One of the brides-to-be was sitting on the porch at the Round House wearing a cowboy hat complete with a veil and a penis No, not a real one. Well, the veil was real. We assumed that she was a bride-to-be and not someone with a really weird sense of fashion.

C-Man ended up splitting off from us and going back to crash, because he'd been fighting off a cold for a couple of days. He was a trooper, though.

Chloe, Mud, and I decided to continue people watching and we found a park bench where we could sit and enjoy the show. It didn't take long until the show came to us.

Some girl meanders over to us, carrying her CFM yellow pumps (yes, yellow). She told us that we looked harmless and asked if she could sit with us. Sure. She was on the island for her sister's bachelorette party and oh guess what, her sister was the one with the penis hat.

The park bench was right across from the pay phones and some guy was using the phone while he was listening to his MP3. This girl thought that he was using the pay phone while he was on his cell phone. That was most disturbing to her.

She was telling us that 2 years ago was the last time she was at Put-In-Bay and that time she ended up passing out in the park next to some animal sculpture. Her friends took pictures and posted them on My Space. Okay, you've totally stopped reading this and are searching My Space for chicks passed out in the park at Put-In-Bay in 2005 aren't you? Of course you are. I almost did the search my own self.

Oh, but guess what else we learned about her - she never drinks and is in bed by 9:00 every night. Come on, you haven't forgotten the rule already have you? Let's review: do not mess with other people's fantasies.



7/29
Sunday at Put-In-Bay

C-Man was already out and about, so the 3 Musketeers (okay, Three Stooges) headed out for breakfast. We took a long-cut and ended up getting to see a pirate ship. Not a real one though.

This time we went to a breakfast buffet which was way more exciting to think about than it was to actually see it in person. Remember the dirty dancing couple from the night before? Yeah, they were there. Thankfully, this time our tables were not right next to each other.

After a sufficient amount of grazing, we took the ferry over to Middle Bass where we rented a golf cart and did the self guided tour. We got a map and stopped at all the "hot spots".
Middle Bass was so quiet and peaceful. I could definitely see the attraction for living there.

The place that we rented the golf cart from was also an ice cream parlor AND a bar. Ya gotta love that. Of course we got ice cream when we dropped off the cart.

The bar was pretty interesting. It had playing cards that had people's names written on them randomly stuck to the ceiling. But, the whole cards thing didn't match any theme that they did or did not have going on in there so Mud asked the nice man behind the bar what the deal was with the cards. HA! I crack my self up. Get it - deal...cards. Okay whatever.

Anyway, the story is that some magician was in there and gave a deck of cards to someone to write their name on one of the cards and to put it back in the deck. Then the magician flipped the deck up and the card that had the person's name on it stuck to the ceiling. It was a pretty impressive story, because they did not have a drop ceiling in that joint. I think it would have been way fun to see in person.

We noticed that there was a priest on the ferry with us on the way back and we didn't know whether to be nervous or comforted. We figured that if the boat went down, at least we'd get last rights. It didn't sink. And we didn't get last rights.

After we got back to PIB, Chloe decided to do the nap thing again so Mud and I cruised around for a while.

We went to The Boathouse to see Alex Bevin. He's not such a skinny little boy (from Cleveland, OH) any more. Stayed there for a couple of songs and then it dawned on me that I still had the chips for the wine. Guess where we went next. That would be correct.

However, we decided to walk. It's a really long walk from the Boathouse to the winery. But hey, it was free wine. Remember the "I'd walk a mile for a Camel" slogan? I guess our slogan was "I'd walk a ways for free wine".

On the way back from the winery, we hit the chocolate factory/museum. The museum portion of it was a small room with tins from long ago and some reproductions that had any thing at all to do with chocolate and a big poster on the wall that gave us all the information we needed about the evolution of chocolate.

I became a Lolaloompa (like an Oompaloompa, but different), complete with a picture. I also got to be in the chocolate factory episode of I Love Lucy. Well, not the actual episode. Just a picture.
We each consumed about 5 lbs of chocolate and downed a huge coffee before we left, so we were not the least bit hyped up when we left there. Not at all.

After that, we wondered around a bit in a caffeine stupor and then finally decided to split off until the gig that night.

We never saw C-Man in our travels. Turns out that he was the smart one in the group, because he rented a bike to cruise around on all day.

Chloe helped us set up and then she headed back to the ferry.

The gig that night was pretty layed back. We did have some dancers, though. There was a couple who danced to a few songs and there was the cutest little girl who was dancing the cat's eye dance and shimmying her shoulders with a very mischievous look on her face during a couple of the songs. It was like having a mini-Chloe there!

Mary's sister was there and I talked with her for a little bit at the bar. She was very nice.

The boys sang happy birthday to me for my 1 year anniversary. As it turns out, next to Anno I'm the longest lasting mojo-ette they've had.

Mud drove me to the ferry after the gig and I stuck my head out the window to howl at the moon again. Forgot about howling at it on Friday night with Gene. He was way too cute.

The ferry ride was most interesting. Hope you're up for it.

There was a girl and a guy, but from different parties who were both on the verge of hurling. I stayed far away from them. The other girl who was taking care of puke girl had to be her best friend, because when puke girl started doing the neck craning thing with the worried look, the other girl held her hand in front of her pre-puking mouth and kept telling her that she was alright, to just keep breathing. It became kind of like a mantra. When we boarded, the "stewardess" gave puke chick a plastic bag. Not sure what became of the guy.

I talked with some chick who works at the Park Hotel, at least I think that's what she said. I know it was one of the hotels. Anyway, she commutes to work. It's about a 20 minute ride from home to the ferry and then another 20 minute ferry ride to go to and from work. That's not so bad, since my ride is that long too. I would love to have half of it be broken up with great scenery and fun people watching. She stays at home with her daughter during the winter months.

Then, there was this older couple that I didn't notice while I was waiting, but couldn't stop watching during the ride back. They were sitting at one of the tables, facing toward me. Both of them were on the same side and he was sitting sideways with his arms around her while she was sitting up straight as a board, smashed against the wall looking straight ahead with her hands in her lap not touching him at all. They never talked the entire time. At first she looked like it was a first date gone bad and she couldn't wait to get the hell away from him and then after about 5 minutes, she scootched around to a slouching position, leaned up against him and brought her arm up to circle around his head and was caressing the back of his neck and she got this porno look on her face. Ewwwww. The thing that really grossed me out was that he looked so much like a guy who works with me. I swear it was like a bad car accident, I just couldn't look away. So I didn't. When they got up to leave, she reverted back to the "don't touch me you freak who I just wasted my entire day with and I'll never get it back" mode. Very interesting.

Oh yeah, then there was the boat bouncer who was standing at one set of doors that closed off the inside seating part from the outside standing part trying to look like a bad ass in him Capt. Stubing outfit. There were some rowdy guys on the outside deck, so young Capt. Stubing closed the doors and stood there with his hand holding the rails of the doors to keep them from coming inside. What the poor dumb thing didn't realize is that those party boys had no intentions of coming inside to cause a ruckus. They were quite content to be out there and that about 6 feet to his left, there was another set of doors all big old wide open with no bouncer. So, then I couldn't stop watching him to see how long it would take him to notice. Apparently, he already knew because after a couple minutes of bad ass door holding, he left his post and went to the other set of doors. I thought he was going to close those too, but nooooooooooo...he ended up walking through them and going to the upper deck leaving us to fend for ourselves. He probably realized what a dumbass he was and couldn't bear to face us any longer, so he went upstairs to hide from us.

When we're coming up to the end of our journey, one of the other Capt. Stubing wanna bees who looked like he was about 12, came up to the front where I was sitting (oh yeah, I rode backwards the whole way with out getting sick! I was going to turn around, but then I knew I'd miss everything.) and he picks up a life jacket and puts it on. I wasn't sure if that was a signal that we should all do the same, but then he went through the front hatch to the outside and started getting the ropes all ready. Whew, I was a little concerned.

That was pretty much it. Quite an adventure!