(photos courtesy Tom’s cell phone camera)

Just got home from The Doors concert at our lake. I didn’t get the music; it was just noise to me except for the encore song, which was “Light My Fire,” #1 song on the charts in 1967. It was pretty cool that Robby Krieger (who mainly wrote the song) was performing it live in front of us. Maggie, her hubby Tom, and Mr. W had a great time. I’m glad, because I was mostly distracted and very violently annoyed by three morons standing up in the front nearly the entire time blocking people’s view with their gyrating, despite Lake rules that people stay seated and despite my and other people’s requests to them to sit down or move aside. I had never wanted a slingshot so badly in my entire life. Tom kindly told me after the concert that he’d considered throwing a fork at one of the guys. Judging by the way these idiots ignored angry tugging on the back of one of the guys’ shirt and the crowd’s shouting demands for “down in front” to sit down, they wouldn’t have felt the fork, but it was the thought that counts. According to the people in the know (apparently everyone except for me), the current lead singer sounds like Jim Morrison, looks like Jim Morrison, and has the exact mannerisms and movements as Jim Morrison. Mr. W said he felt like he was watching and living 60s history. At one point, someone even lit up and we smelled the skunky stink of pot. I think the sheriffs were on that pretty quickly because the smell was gone within a minute. But let me back up.

Before the concert, Dwaine came over and hung out, then Maggie and Tom arrived, and we all went to the lake early to get in some kayaking. Dwaine asked as we left the house whether we were gonna take pictures of our adventure. I thought it was a great idea, and asked Mr. W if he had his waterproof camera ready. He answered that it was too much trouble to put the camera in the waterproof casing, so I ran upstairs and got my (significantly more expensive) DSLR camera and met everyone outside. We got to the lake, I grabbed a towel and my camera and we headed to the watercraft rental station. Since we had to wait for Tom and Mr. W who were changing in the restroom, I decided to start a new folder in the camera for this trip. I turned it on, the battery indicator flashed, and the display shut off. That’s weird, I had enough juice in the battery the last time I used it, or I would’ve changed the battery already. But I walked back to the restrooms where Mr. W was walking out, handed him my camera, and asked him to put it with his stuff in the locker because it was out of battery. He looked at me like I was stupid and troublesome, which okay, I was at the moment. I ran back to my beach bag, retrieved my fairly new Android cell phone so that I could at least take photos with that, and returned to the kayak area. Soon we were on our kayaks in the water. I took some photos, and Tom pulled out his cell phone and took some photos, including this one of me:

This is the conversation that followed the photo.
Everyone: Be careful! Don’t fall!
Me: It’s fine, the kayak’s actually pretty steady. I can probably even do this on one foot. *lifting one leg*
Everyone: Be careful! Don’t fall!
Me: It’s fine! *lifting the other leg in another direction* *the kayak rocks toward the weight*
Everyone: *random gasps and yells*
Me: *lowering my foot quickly and restabilizing the kayak*
Everyone else: *sighs of relief*
Dwaine: Nice save! I thought it was gonna tip over!
Me: No, the kayak’s stable. I can actually get it to rock pretty far and it stays upright. *rocking left and right* See, I can rock it back and forth and it doesn’t –”
*flip*
*sploosh!*

When I came back up, my kayak was upside down. Which wasn’t a big deal in the very comfortable water temperature in the hot sun, until I understood what Mr. W was yelling. “Your cell phone! Your cell phone’s in there!” Oh, CRAP. My phone was in a zippered pouch attached to the back of my kayak seat. I pushed on the kayak. It just floated a little away from me.
“How do I flip this back over?”
“You have to get under it,” said Mr. W, paddling toward me. I took a breath and went under and pushed. Again, the kayak just moved away from me across the water. I had no leverage. Soon Mr. W got the kayak from one end and someone else, I think Tom, got it from the other end, and they pulled it up and flipped it. I pulled myself in and checked on the pouch right away. There was about 3 inches of water inside and my phone was submerged. Tom immediately took my phone and examined it, and took it apart to dry. *sigh* I wasn’t worried about it because what I was supposed to do? Besides, it’d gotten wet once before (rather mysteriously cuz I didn’t do it, I just found wetness and steam inside the display) and that time, after it dried and I recharged the phone, it stopped acting weird. So I wasn’t too concerned, altho it did suck that I was unable to entertain myself with it during the concert.

When we got home awhile ago and we walked to the front door, I mentioned to Mr. W that I need to remember to say a prayer of thanks to God (and really, to everyone helping me up there — spirit guides, angels, friends, etc.) for killing the battery of my DSLR camera. “Why?” Mr. W looked at me oddly.
“Because if that camera weren’t dead, it would’ve been in the kayak.” And I definitely would’ve been upset about THAT, because not only is it an expensive camera, it would’ve been resting on the bottom of the lake.
“Oooh,” he said, understanding.
A negative’s not always a negative, that’s why I’m not usually upset when little “disasters” strike, such as when I’m stuck hitting every red light on a drive. In that situation, I’m probably being deliberately delayed for a reason. In this case, it was weird that I didn’t check my DSLR battery before leaving the house, weird that the battery was so dead the camera wouldn’t even stay on which renders the camera completely useless, weird that my kayak was the only one with a seatback that had a zippered pouch cuz otherwise my cell would’ve been sitting in the open on the back of the kayak (where my stuff usually goes). Lastly, it was weird and unusual that Mr. W insisted, before we set out, that I remove everything (my tank top, flip flops, beach towel) from the back of the kayak where I usually keep things, and leave them instead on shore next to the launching area. All those things ended up being VERY lucky things.

Still, it was a stupid, careless move on my part. I should’ve just sat back down, but I wanted to demonstrate just how stable a kayak wasn’t, I guess.