Skydiving, portrait drawing, arson: a typical Sunday

I almost went skydiving yesterday. That’s not quite true; I almost watched Bryan go skydiving. Bryan hadn’t been for over nine months, and the pressure was apparently starting to overwhelm his faculties – not that they needed any help in getting overwhelmed, what with his completing high-level math classes in half the allotted time, flying halfway around the world for several weeks at a time, and teaching himself to draw figures, all just for laughs. Few people lead a busier life than I do. Kelly’s one. Bryan’s another.

Fawning digressions aside, Bryan picked me up to drive to Skydive Snohomish (“Survive your jump or your money back!”) at around 4:30, only two hours after when he had originally planned to. For Bryan, as for myself, this represented an admirable effort. Our plans were complicated by the directions his little sister Kerry had drawn up for him, which, while completely comprehensible, turned out to be simply false. After driving around Boeing Airfield for about the fifth time, we wisely called the jump point and had them steer us in the right direction. Exit 186 indeed. If you’re reading this, Kerry, what made you think that Bryan and I needed any help getting lost? Don’t you remember us driving around Lake Union three times trying to find a Kitchen ‘n’ Things last summer, or our taking two hours to walk to the Oceanography building across campus? Fraudulent instructions are strictly unnecessary. We worried about being too late to jump, as all activity on the airfield ceases at the very minute the sun sets, but that turned out not to matter, either.

Sadly, Bryan’s skydiving license – yes, it’s a real thing – expired on Saturday, and his hopes that the crew on the ground would let the oversight slide were misguided. After some impassioned pleas with the very no-nonsense girl behind the counter – she was perhaps seventeen – we had to admit defeat. We returned, crestfallen, to Bryan’s truck, the six-pack we’d picked up to share with the other jumpers unopened.

Determined to make the best of a bad situation, we made dinner at my house and Bryan sketched my portrait as I read Breakfast of Champions while sitting perfectly still. On the first trip from his house to my own, Bryan forgot both the chicken and the paintbrushes, but we soon set that right and were off. The likeness he got is a good one, although not as good as the one Kelly drew. He still needs to turn it into a painting, so I’ll withhold final judgment.

One other piece of alarming news: Naomi’s boyfriend Jeff’s house burned down Saturday night while he and Naomi were in it. They escaped alright, but all his earthly possessions, as well as the house itself, were completely incinerated. His house was one of five that burned to the ground that night, and the next – Sunday, last night – police cornered an arsonist in Sarah’s house after he’d set fire to a garage in the area. Actually, the police just thought he was in the house, and Sarah didn’t have the full story besides a search with lots of cops and their dogs. I have a hard time believing these two events are unrelated; I hope that scum goes to jail for a long, long time.