I'd prefer the mountain lion and rapists

Lots of folks give me a hard time for walking the river trail alone. It's dangerous, and there are wild animals they say.  I have lived here my whole life (apart from brief adventures away doing stupid things, like being married) and aside from 1 mountain lion attack and 1 murder that happened aaaaaaaaages ago, I never hear of anything scary or sinister happening on the trail. It's a lovely 6 mile walk in nature and I will continue to do it, alone even, and you can't stop me! So there. My odds of being eaten by a mountain lion or mugged and murdered are just as good while walking across a parking lot in town. At least if it happens on the trail I will have some lovely scenery to focus on while the life is draining out of me.

Ahhhhh, it's a lovely day for being eaten alive

A friend and I decided to walk the trail yesterday. It was not a very nice day, it even rained a little bit off and on all day. But we are troopers, and since we don't melt in the rain, decided to go anyway.

It was a lovely walk and we had lots of time for girl talk. It seemed like a pretty uneventful river trail trip. I prefer my river trail time to not be emotionally or physically scarring, which despite my best efforts for peace and solitude, has been hard to guarantee. There was the time the rattle snake tried to eat me... and then that time the crazy talked my ear off and made me feel like a failure at life.  So I was pleasantly surprised that we had made it about 4 miles without anything ridiculous happening.

And then she appeared. Inga. I will get to how I know her name in a second.

Candace and I came up slowly behind a girl on the trail who seemed..... strange. She was standing in the middle of the trail with her arms spread straight out in the air like she was waiting for aliens to beam her up. And then she was waving her phone around. Just acting a little looney. At one point she must have heard us comment on her antics because she turned around to announce (from pretty far ahead of us, she must have mutant hearing) that she was just taking pictures, "It's so beautiful out here!" Squuuuuueeeeeee!

At some point Inga must have taken a pit stop on one of the benches facing the river because a little while later she magically appeared behind us.

We continued to walk, very aware of her behind us, for quite a while. Our conversation at that point had turned to what I am currently reading. Well, to what I wanted to be currently reading. I was telling Candace about how I had chosen to read "50 Shades of Grey" based solely on the fact that I heard it was highly controversial and is all the rage at the moment. I love me some controversial reading so I picked it up without really knowing what it was about.  That was a bad idea. I am working on a whole separate post about my reaction to that book, but for the moment lets suffice it to say that it is..... a dirty kinky sex book.

It offended my delicate nature (I couldn't really type that with a straight face).

Anywho..... as I was telling Candace about the book, and I am certain I used the following words, fisting, anal sex, submission......, and I am sure she could hear us because she was only a few steps behind and I have already demonstrated that she has super human mutant hearing, Inga comes trotting up with "words" for us.

Irregardless is NOT a word and I want to stab people who say it!!

This is how the conversation went:

Inga: "I have a word for you guys"

Us: "Okaaaaaaaay" clearly skeptical

Inga: to me "God says that if you want to write a book, you should write a book"

Me: "A book about kinky sex?"

Inga: "Oh I just heard you talking about a book. Is it about kinky sex?"

Me: "Yes".

Inga: to Candace "And he just wants you to know that whatever decision you are trying to make, it is OK and he will be behind you all the way. I have a feeling of transition for you, like maybe you are moving away. But YES, it is all good".

Us: Shocked silence. Is she a psychic?

Me: to Candace "Well I wasn't going to write a book, but I was going to work on a blog post about reading that book".

Inga: "You have a blog?? I'll have to read it! What's it called?"

Me: "uuuuhhhhh, it's called Hot Mess Express" and I am secretly hoping she can't find it. I worry about her sweet simple soul being damaged by my very in your face, profanity laced blog. One of my latest posts was about vaginal bleaching for crying out loud. The poor thing has no idea what she is getting in to!

Inga: "I heard you say "50 Shades of Grey" and my friend just preached on that at Church. I go to Bethel, have you heard of it?

Candace and I both try really really REALLY hard not to roll our eyes.

Inga: "You know what is black to one person, may be white to another. And God is behind us in those feelings. Except of course murder, that is always black".

Me: "This book wasn't really about that".

Inga: "Oh right, kinky sex. Well you know that might be white to some people too. God accepts us".

Candace and I both feel very uncomfortable with a total looney tunes stranger telling us that God loves us even if we do like to be tied up and whipped. How did this conversation even get started? Oh right, she was stalking us and listening in on our conversation just waiting for the right time to jump in with her "Jesus loves you!!" speech.

Finally, Inga, who had  introduced herself and assured us that we will "probably see each other again" (lucky us!) decided to leave us in peace.

Candace and I discussed how the weird stuff always seems to happen to us and how this was definitely the weirdest thing to happen in awhile. We also discussed how those Bethel folk are just waaaaaaaaay too in your face with their touchy feely God loves you sermons.  Personally, if I want to know how you feel about it, I will go to your church and ask you. I don't need to be saved on the damned river trail!

Clearly my attitude about little miss sunshine and her unsolicited trail side Sunday school had offended God, because when we finally got back to our cars I found this stuck onto my drivers side window:

 Karma?

Ok fiiiiiiine, I am a jerk. I thought hard about what I had done while trying to pick maxi pad adhesive residue off my window.

Who does something like that?? Only in Redding. And it must have been a girl because I worry about a guy who carries maxi pads or tampons around with him.  I hope that whoever did it suddenly gets a surprise visit from her favorite Aunt Flow and needs a maxi pad and then realizes that she used her very last one on her quest to be the biggest douchebag on the planet. Take that you dirty cooter! (as my friend Mitch would say).

Hopefully we got all of this years crazy trail shenanigans out of the way on this one trip and the rest will be smooth, peaceful sailing.