Sliding in the Rain

Today it rained. All. Day. Long.
It pretty much sucked to be stuck inside, but my cousin came over and we shot some scenes for the Spanish movie. We didn’t get much done, though. My mom was on a housecleaning jag and the roar of the vacuum sent us flying out of the house and over to the school, where we shot hallway scenes. Then we came back home, ate spaghetti for lunch, and she left.
So I made a card for my grandma. Her birthday is tomorrow, in case you were planning to send a card. I took a shower. I watched March of The Penguins until it got too boring to bear. I worked on my story. It has a title now, Double Crossed. Then my sister came up with a strange idea to kill the overwhelming sense of boredom that had settled over the house.
“Hey Jenny, wanna go over to -name of high school that she attends- and slide on the AstroTurf?” was her excited suggestion.
I looked outside at the kilo-gallons of rain pouring down and washing everything with a layer of wetness. Um, no. I think I’d rather stay inside the nice dry house with my warm robe, fuzzy socks, furry kitty, and cup of steaming cocoa, but thanks for offering.
But somehow, after a great deal of whining, persuading, and bribery, my sister had me changed into dumpy clothes and headed to the high school with her bouncing along by my side. The rain did not cease for one fraction of a second during our little excursion into the wet wilderness. And as if wet pavement weren’t unpleasant enough, she insisted upon accessing the turf through the creek. I was praying as we walked along the fence that the door would be closed, shut, barricaded, padlocked, but of course it was swung wide open, inviting us into the muddy slush that lay on the other side. I stepped gingerly through the threshold, avoiding the muckiest parts. My sister was already bounding along, not seeming to notice that she could very easily lose her footing, slide down the hill, and land with a spectacular splash in the river. I would laugh as she was swept downstream. Then of course I would run home, get a cup of hot tea and a change of dry clothes, and dash along the riverbank until I found her. I would rescue her and present her with these thoughtful items and remind her to be more careful next time.
Anyway, I wasn’t the one who was going to fall into the murky depths of the creek. I was very grateful I had worn dirty old sneakers as the mud gushed up around my feet. I slogged my way along the the riverbank, clinging onto the fence and whispering prayers as I inched towards my sister’s sopping wet form. I had thought to bring an umbrella. She did not, but she didn’t care. Crazy woman. Once we reached the fence that led into the soccer fields of Leland, I was relieved to see it was locked up tight and secure. The phony “Too bad, I guess we go home now, dibs on the shower” was halfway out of my mouth, until I saw that Laura had other plans. The chain that wrapped around the two doors had a padlock on the two end links and was shut, but there was excess chain. This allowed the door to be opened about a foot, barely enough room for a skinny ninth grader to squeeze through. And that skinny ninth grader was doing just that. I sighed, reluctantly closed up my umbrella, shoved it through the gap, and then wriggled through the opening. My sister was already ripping off her jacket and charging towards the fields. Once she reached a sizable puddle, she pushed off the ground with her feet, fell to the ground, and landed on her side, propelling herself forward with the momentum from her dash. The water sprayed up on both sides of her, sheets of freezing freeziness that leapt from the ground and folded around her body. When she stood, she wasn’t shivering. She was laughing. Her teeth weren’t chattering. They were grinning. She ran around for five solid minutes, sliding through increasingly huge puddles. I huddled under my trusty umbrella and thought about the equator, the sun, and chicken noodle soup. Finally I’d had enough.
“You almost done here?” I called through chattering teeth.
“No way!” was her reply. “You should try it!” She might have said something else, but it was incoherent because she was being swallowed by another puddle. My first reflex to this was, of course, No freakin’ way are you out of your mind I’m already cold enough and you know I hate being wet besides I just got over being sick do you really think I want to go mucking around in rain puddles, etc. My second reflex was, hmmm. My sister really looked like she was having fun. Something about sliding on AstroTurf in the pouring rain had broken through the big-sister-I’m-too-cool-for-all-that-kid-stuff attitude that my sister usually had. So I stood up, and I closed the umbrella, and I uttered one word. “Sure.”
At first I couldn’t do it. When I started to angle down towards the ground, I would right myself and stagger away. My natural instinct when I start to fall is to catch myself. I cannot simply throw myself to the ground like a piece of rubbish. (sniffery-snobbery) Sometimes I would simply lose nerve. I would run forward, accordingly, but when I approached the area in which I was supposed to push myself down and forward, I would look at all the freezing water and my footsteps would stutter to a halt. On my first try, I kept running and running and running until I was almost to the end of the field. My excuses? “I forgot about the sliding part.” “Oh, you meant to slide there?” “I was just trying to get a good momentum, but then I ran out of room.” Her irritated eye-roll insulted but also motivated me. I would slide through puddles in the AstroTurf, and I would slide through puddles in the AstroTurf well!
So I went to the back corner of the field to give myself plenty of room (see excuse number three) and took off. A puddle lay near the center of the field. Come and get me, it said sassily, smirking. I glared at it. I’m gonna do it this time, I countered. The puddle laughed at me. It laughed at me. And the laughter hurt! Gritting my teeth, I sent myself flying down towards the ground. My eyes were squelched closed and my face twisted into a cringe. Eventually, though, I realized I wasn’t sliding. I had moved two inches before coming to a grinding halt. The water bit through my sweatpants and froze my legs to solid ice. Water seeped through my sneakers to soak my socks. Told’ja so, the puddle sneered. Shut up, I mutter.
I never did get the hang of it. My slides slid about three inches, on average. And I was wet. I was wetter than I had ever been in my life. I was wetter than I ever wanted to be. I hate swimming, the wettest activity in the history of wetness, but this was even worse. I was, in fact, wet. Eventually I gave up (both the staying-dry factor and the whole sliding thing) and plopped down in the middle of the largest, deepest puddle I could find. I pulled out my sister’s cameraphone from her bag and took some candid shots for her to discover later. I rolled in the puddle just to prove I wasn’t afraid of it, and pretended I was dead. I found a Gatorade cap, which I fiddled with for a while. Finally, I demanded that we go home. She had been sliding around for a good twenty minutes, and my socks were wet.
Anyway, that was an interesting experience. I also would like to make known my shock of this tidbit of news. Fred, from YouTube, is going to be on national television. He is making a cameo on iCarly. I remember when he posted his first-ever Fred video. I remember when he was still with his cousins Jon and Katie on their “JKL Productions” channel. I knew this guy before he was famous, and now he will be viewed by kids across America. He is getting paid to make videos. He has to wear makeup for his videos now. Fred shirts are being sold at Hot Topic. It’s not fair. I’ve been a fan since his first video, before Fred was even a series. Now his videos aren’t really that funny. I hope that never happens to my Australian buddy Nat. I just hope he doesn’t become a Nickelodeon star. That would suck.
Also, last item: I’m going to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield! It’s FREE, you heard me folks, FREE. I get to see how those tasty little beans are made, along with some of the other candies the Jelly Belly company produces, and indulge in a variety of free samples. My dad and I are going next weekend.
And that is all I have to say, I’ll blog again another day. (That rhymed, by the way.)

(Song: One that I made up. It goes kinda like: duh-duh-doo-doo-DOO-DOO-duh-duh-doo-doo-DUH-DUH-doo...)