As it turns out, watching Lake Placid two days before you leave for a lakeside vacation in Maine is a really terrible idea.
I always think I will be able to keep the zebras under control. And I am always wrong.
And I know I shouldn't do such things, but when Husband is on overnight call and you're looking at a few hours' worth of lonesome packing for Maine, it is truly a blessing when you catch Lake Placid a mere 8 minutes into it's run on some pay cable network.
Easily what anyone would call an overlooked classic, Lake Placid is about an oversized crocodile - that's not a misnomer; she's referred to as a crocodile throughout the movie - in a Maine lake - yes, lake - that has grown to an inflated size thanks to Betty White's surreptitious feedings of live, full-sized cattle. I mean, move over Citizen Kane, am I right?
Have I ever steered you wrong on what to watch?
Best of all, the film reunites Singles costars Bridget Fonda and Bill Pullman - because we all know that, in the end, Bridget would have been much better off with Bill than with Matt Dillon. No matter how fascinatingly sexual Matt's long-haired grunge rocker may have been. That dude never would have survived Y2K.
Anyway, for - checking IMDB - one hour, 22 minutes - I packed, transfixed by the metaphorical plot of Lake Placid. Is there anything older than the theme of man vs. nature in great storytelling? From Beowulf to Noah's ark to Bear Grylls, man has always struggled with his role in the natural world. Watching Bridget and her team study and capture the great croc only reinforced to me that I am perfectly content to let nature have her way. I will sit inside, perfectly climate-controlled, and watch through a securely locked window.
The problem is, I married an outdoorsman. And since Husband has allowed me to indoctrinate our children in nerdom - Star Trek, comics, anything within the Marvel Universe - I have consented to Husband raising our children to be outdoorsman as well. Which means I am odd man out on family vacations.
| Those animals being fake and indoors is only marginally better than the alternative. And how I wish my hair was still that color! |
So while my friends post Facebook pics from Disney, Paris, or the Jersey Shore, I am perfecting treatments for the discomfort caused by the multitude of bug bites collected on our vacations like so many souvenirs. No fruity drinks with umbrellas served poolside for us. We hike miles through mountains and gorges. We apply for regional fishing licenses. We conduct internet searches for the best - ugh - local purveyor of nightcrawlers.
| That's a container of live nightcrawlers for fishing. Until it is used, this container is kept in the refrigerator. You know. With the FOOD! |
So when we arrived in Maine, it was with great trepidation that I eyed the lake upon which our house sat. At least as big as the lake in Lake Placid, it was easy to imagine it, too, harbored a massive crocodile. Or a mosasaur, because Jurassic World isn't exactly a great pre-vacation cinematic choice, either, but I was really unable to stop myself.
Huffing silently to myself, I sat down at the glorious, indoor kitchen table with the Philadelphia Inquirer Husband had kindly packed for me to read over my morning tea. The Inquirer, too, proved to be an unsafe perusal. Concealed it it's seemingly gargantuan marine life-free pages was the story of the 1916 Beach Haven, NJ shark attacks that inspired Jaws.
| Sure, it looks pretty... |
"Do you think the lake is safe to swim in?" I speculated to Husband.
He knows me well enough to have responded thusly: "Sharks?"
"And crocodiles. And mosasaurs."
"Don't you mean alligators? And what's a mosasaur?"
"No. I mean crocodiles. Like Lake Placid. And a mosasaur is Nessie. Champ. We're awfully close to Lake Champlain."
Husband assured me that the only thing in the lake was perch, which is still not OK but at least won't "get" me.
"Well, what about brain eating amoeba?"
"Too cold," says the guy who wisely brings his skin cancer-prone wife north to go on vacation.
| Surely there's something nasty in that water. |
So I swam in the lake, steadfastly pretending that Husband wasn't fishing for actual fish in my swimming hole. And you know what? There was no Nessie. No Betty White. Sadly, not even Chris Pratt.
No Chris Pratt, that is, until we took a seaplane tour over Rangeley Lakes.
While waiting for our pilot to arrive, I ran into the office of Acadian Seaplanes to pee because, well, after twenty years of nursing and two pregnancies, I have no bladder to speak of. And I'm sure all the caffeine I consume each day doesn't help. Nor did the beer I had with my lobster roll before our flight.
A series of framed photos on the wall caught my attention. Clearly from a magazine, the shots depicted a super-hot pilot standing next to a seaplane, along with a quote indicating landing on sunset beaches is perfect second date fodder.
Super-hot pilot standing next to a seaplane. The same seaplane docked outside of Acadian's offices.
Heading back out to my family, I speculated that our pilot was maybe a model or something on the side.
Or something.
Super Hot Pilot arrived and introduced himself as, in fact, our pilot. As he headed off to check the seaplane, Mom2 and I ogled the goods strutting toward the seaplane, because, well, I have the best mother-in-law on the planet.
And now I had a whole new problem in the fine state of Maine. I have massive issues with motion sickness. Massive. And while I ardently I try to keep from vomiting aboard any moving vehicle I am not helming, I steadily become a horrid and very unattractive shade of gray.
I really didn't want to be Gray Faced Vomiting Girl in front of Super Hot Pilot.
Listen, I'm not looking for side action. Husband is, himself, Super Hot Husband, from the tips of his salt-and-pepper-Rob-Lowe-circa-The-West-Wing hair to his size thirteen feet to his, um, well, let's just stop at size thirteen. But like the saying goes, just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you can't look at the menu. Especially when that menu boasts a pilot so photogenic he modeled for a magazine.
While we soared over the lakes of Maine, Husband, Son, and Daughter looked eagerly out of the seaplane's windows for moose, or the top of Mount Washington, or the top of Bald Mountain. I, however, set about making a plan for when my lobster roll and Allagash White decided to make a repeat appearance. Spotting nothing in the tiny plane to capture my lunch, I nominated the sweater in my lap to be my airsickness bag.
Mercifuly, the plane returned before my lunch did. As we disembarked, I looked Super Hot Pilot dead in the eye. I told him I couldn't lie to him, that I'd seen the pictures in the office. I told him I needed to know the story because I was having dinner with Friends 1-3 in a few days. I told him they were going to want to know the scoop.
So yes, Super Hot Pilot occasionally participates in stories for men's magazines about rugged Maine outdoorsmen. His plane is used in catalogues. He even was part of a movie with Bill Murray, who had autographed the dashboard of his seaplane.
Later, Husband reassured me that my quick ingestion of a Coke had encouraged my normal pallor to replace my motion sickness gray. He told me that if I had sat in the cockpit with Super Hot Pilot, he may have let me navigate the plane to mitigate my motion sickness. I made an ill-advised joke about Super Hot Pilot, the cockpit, and the plane's control stick.
The reality is, I don't need a rugged Maine outdoorsman. I have a rugged Pennsylvania outdoorsman, who easily transitions to rugged Maine/New Hampshire/ Vermont/ Canada outdoorsman. He's the reason I find outdoorsman attractive in the first place. And as long as he's there to shoo away the imaginary Nessies in my world, I'll follow him anywhere.
Even if I have to hike a mountain to do it.
The Binge
As a carry-over from last week's reference to Anne Boleyn, below are the best, mostly true, stories about royals.
The Tudors. A Showtime original series that liberally told the story of Henry VIII's reign, it features Natalie Dormer, aka Margery Tyrell from GoT, as Anne Boleyn. And if you think she's naked a lot on GoT, you're in for a real treat with The Tudors. Henry VIII was married six times, and executed two of his wives. Probably because they were digging on Super Hot Pilots.
The Other Boleyn Girl. Skip the awful movie and head right for the book by Phillippa Gregory. Told from the perspective of Anne Boleyn's sister Mary, this fictional story builds on real-life rumors from Henry's reign and notorious amorous encounters.
The Lady in the Tower by Alison Weir is a nonfiction accounting of Anne Boleyn. It's not an easy read, but the legends of Anne's ghost in the Afterword make the whole book worth your effort.
Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie is a nonfiction account of the last tsar of Russia, who, along with his wife, daughters, and hemophiliac son, were brutally murdered in the early days of Russia's communist rule.
The Tsars of Russia. This History Channel documentary covers the hundreds of years Russia was under monarchical rule, including the 300 year rule of the Romanov family, and the influence of the eerie Rasputin over the last tsar and his wife.
