The Chronicles of Kalichman

A scant few people I have met along the Road have truly understood and shared my spirit of adventure. I can best describe the attitude with a line from a Jimmy Buffet song: There’s just too much to see waiting in front of me and I know that I just can’t go wrong. The K-Man is one of those people who, like me, are often agenda-less and spontaneous to the point of being a pushover. So, when you put two people like us together, anything can happen. And no matter what we do, there are two results: 1) we never go wrong; 2) it’s never quite enough.


Delayed Reunion

Due to an unforeseen booboo on Josh’s part, he wasn’t able to leave BG until after lunch. Thus, he arrived at my apartment at 1:00 AM. Fortunately, my supervisor didn’t mind me missing Wednesday morning. Apparently, he thinks our deadline is a joke. At the time, we had 72 boxes of files remaining, and we’re finishing 15 a week at best. August 1st, eh? Do the math.

So the K-Man and I talked it up for a brief while, catching up and throwing around some ideas for what we wanted to do for the rest of the week, then we went to sleep.


There’s Treasure Everywhere

Wednesday morning, at 10:30, we realized we had a whole hour before we would need to start cooking spaghetti if I was supposed to have enough time to get to work by 1:00. We spent that hour driving around until spontaneously deciding to go to Minor Park, where we played Frisbee.

After a while, we became continually distracted by strange discoveries. Shingles were discovered in the grass, which sparked our week-long jokes about a secret subterranean culture in Kansas City (also exhibited later by roofs protruding from various bodies of water for some reason).

We found a shady trail that led to some tennis courts at the next park along Blue River. We referred to them as the Secret Tennis Courts. You had to be there.

We discovered another trail entrance into the woods along Blue River, and I wondered if it was the trail I was trying to find one weekend in April. We didn’t have time to investigate, though. We vowed to return to the trail another time.

I’m not sure which one of us was Calvin and which one was Hobbes, but we definitely had short attention spans. It was a very compact hour of adventures, a taste of things to come.


Chuckin’ a Disk

Wednesday, after work, I picked up the K-Man and headed to Loose Park (the real park). That place is frickin sweet. On the way, I gave him the token Brookside tour I give all my visitors.

After chuckin’ a disk for about our standard hour and a half, we headed to the Country Club Plaza. We were very underdressed. We walked around, looked at stuff, had smoothies at Latte Land. At the end of the night, we were so tired that we almost didn’t even realize that we had only been awake for a mere twelve hours. I had no idea that a weeknight could be so full.


Bosco

In the course of the week, we found time to watch Seinfeld season 7 all the way up to The Cadillac. And yes, I realize I am alternating between using numerals and spelling them out. I don’t care. Dr. Hess doesn’t read my blog.


Double Trouble

Two pair—jacks and queens. Starbuck and her friend CD stopped by for dinner Thursday evening. The four of us went out for Chinese buffet. Worlds collide!!

We eventually got tired of talking over a table of empty plates and headed back to the car. Josh and I postponed our plans to work on music for the rest of the night in favor of instigating more Frisbee, this time at Longview Lake until sundown. The first song I put in my car stereo for the activity was the Kenny Loggins classic, Playing with the Boys. At dusk, we decided to go to Borders and look for the Beck CD that came out before Christmas.

The combined antics of the two pair of us adventurers proved too much for the universe to handle, so we parted company soon after.


Silver Leaves

Friday was my supervisor Chris’ last day of work. The people at the office were to meet at Charlie Hooper’s afterward. By the time I went back to the apartment to pick up the Kalichman, scarf down a sandwich (not eating at Hooper’s saved money), and drive all the way back to 63rd street, only three people were there. Even Chris had already left.

That’s right, Chris was only at his own sendoff party for about 15 minutes. His wife apparently came to pick him up. Yeah, after all that talk about being able to stay out as long as he wanted, regardless of what his wife says. Heh. Classic. How do you spell the sound of a whip cracking?


Breaking the Laws of Physics

Between Charlie Hooper’s and returning to the Plaza, we stopped at a grassy area along State Line Road. We threw a Frisbee across the state line.

“Hey Josh!”
“Yeah?”
“Throw the Frisbee over to Missouri!”
“Okay!”
“Hey Tim!”
“Yeah?”
“Throw the Frisbee over to Kansas!”
“Okay!”

And similar banter. We’re geniuses for doing that.


Fisherman’s Horizon

Saturday morning, we headed over to Lake Lotawana for Frisbee and a picnic lunch. We didn’t realize, however, that Lake Lotawana is actually a neighborhood, not a park. We drove around the hilly perimeter, looking at eclectic houses and listening to the new Beck CD. We ate our food in the parking lot at the edge of the dam. And then Selphie recruited us into her band. No. No, that wasn’t real. That was… something else.


Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec

The K-man gets it. He gets it. The essence of adventure. The core of it. Journeying with or without a goal, having a mutual attitude is key. A lot of people can suck the fun out of anything, but we know how to never be disappointed. Camaraderie abounds, particularly enhanced when you have the right soundtrack for it.

We made a few wrong turns trying to go from Lake Lotawana to the Overland Park Arboretum. It was fun.

This is a bit too abstract for me to try to explain any further. Wavelengths, man. What if… the game… was playing YOU? Whoa.


The Sight of Spira

We arrived at the Overland Park Arboretum at about 2:30 on Saturday afternoon. On our way in, we saw this cat sitting by a tree, watching us. It ran away as we approached, however; I guess it was a wild housecat.

Wildcat… wiiiiildcat… pow pow-pow!

I had previously journeyed the forest trails of the arboretum with Starbuck, but we were unable to take the yellow and brown trails on the map. We had taken the green trail. The K-Man and I, therefore, took the yellow and brown trails this time. It was 92 degrees outside. Needless to say, we didn’t stop for many things. The heat and the mosquitoes made it perilous, but not as perilous as that darn Malboro. He gets me every time!!

The second half of the arboretum, the garden-y stuff, was just the same as I blogged before, so there’s nothing to say there. At the exit, the same cat from before was sitting there, as if in wait. He looked rather smug, even for a housecat. As we came closer, the cat smiled at us. He said, “Enjoy the trails, did we?” Then he disappeared into thin air, his wide grin lingering behind for a moment before vanishing as well. It was kind of disconcerting.


The Return of the King

We listened to the entire album in my car, taking Red Bridge into College Drive, then doubling back and taking State Line north, to the Plaza, stopping to meander through the fancy houses along the way. The timing was perfect for every track to be accompanied by appropriate road visuals.

It was a composer-bonding experience. If you don’t understand, then you’re not going to.


Baja 600

We ate dinner Saturday night at Baja 600, the Mexican restaurant on the Plaza. We sat outside on the patio, enjoying ourselves even as a massive storm loomed to the west. Dean and his girlfriend were supposed to meet us, but they were farther north and were too busy fleeing for their lives to come south for dinner.

The view from our table was freakin’ sweet. You got those cool torches along the restaurant fence, the massive storm coming in, and the big Intercontinental Hotel obscuring the view to the south. With the music, the storm, and the high-budget CGI environment, it really felt like we were in the Bahamas or something. The Margaritas help that illusion along, too. Wink.

After a few sporadic gusts of wind starting knocking stuff around, it started to rain. Josh and I had four empty chairs at our table, so two people joined us to mooch off of our umbrella. Tom and Cindy, a married couple my parents’ age, from Fort Worth, TX. I guess they used to live in KC and had just moved back here. It was kind of surreal to share a table with a couple of total strangers in the rain on the patio of a restaurant.

Julio saw lightning.


Rescue from Cloud City

After our third visit to the Plaza, we decided to stop by Price Chopper on the way back to my apartment, picking up a bottle of Sailor Jerry so as to hang out and allow me to continue drinking for a lot less money. So Josh was driving my car back at night, a storm right behind us, with the windows down, blaring The Empire Strikes Back as we were both being melodramatic about the dangers we were narrowly escaping.

I think half the fun was taunting Josh by not giving him adequate directions back to my apartment, allowing wrong turns. You gotta make our own fun.


Night Skies

Much in the vein of Herr Vogler, the K-man and I were lounging on my balcony both Friday and Saturday night, observing the passing storms and talking about music and philosophy. It happens.

We also managed to catch a few people and put them on speaker phone. Having a three-way conversation with other people from BG was great. Sarah Farmer (now Ashcraft), Scott Blanchard, and Tammy Griffin. No offense to anyone we didn’t call; we figured you would be asleep.

And Jordan sucks for not answering his phone. We could have watched Seinfeld with him on speakerphone!


The Forest of No Return

On the way back from church, we stopped off to investigate that forest trail entrance we found Wednesday morning. It turned out to be the very trail I had been looking for in April. Spending hours looking for it myself, I couldn’t find it; with the K-man, I found it by accident. Huh.

I think the Blue River trails were even better than the arboretum, but that depends on what you want in a trail. This trail had more turns and forks, and was generally rugged and hard to walk through. Sometimes the trail would get so narrow it would simply disappear and leave you romping through No Man’s Land. It also followed the river, too. There were plenty more hazards and strange things to discover. It was more like home to me. The arboretum is more for birdwatching. This was more for exploring, including the occasional Indiana Jones spider web encounter.

There was a really cool tree hanging over the river. It had ladder steps nailed into the trunk. Josh climbed it and had me take a picture. I leaned back against another tree to take the picture when the vines came alive and held me down. By the time Josh climbed down to rescue me, I had already been swallowed by the roots.

I found myself in a strange, underground cave. There was some creature there who insisted on riddling with me. Eventually, I figured out his game and outsmarted him. I found this gold ring, too. I put it in my pocket for later. It could be worth something, but… something about it… I just wanted to keep it for myself!

I made my way back to the surface, where the K-Man was looking rather exhausted. He said he had been looking all over for me for almost four hours, which was weird, because I had only been gone for half an hour. Weird. That’s like… Star Trek weird.

Anyway, we weren’t exactly dressed for this adventure, and we hadn’t eaten yet, so we had to abort before exploring the whole thing. I’ll have to go back there, now that I know where it is.


The Medulla Oblongata Sound Experiment

We worked on a couple of songs. The Medulla Oblongata Sound Experiment is the name of our “band,” whose purpose is to just make pop-based experimentalist music for our own amusement. Our album will be called The S Album for two reasons: 1) I thought that if Weezer can name their album after a color, we should name it after a letter or something random like that; 2) Adding the letter S to the acronym for the band title would spell M.O.S.E.S., which we find extraordinarily funny for some reason.

Music should be allowed to be fun.


The Grey Havens

After taking Josh to Life Group Sunday night, we talked a lot about those elusive elements that define a fellowship. We ended up describing the essence of adventure instead. Coincidence? I think not. Comrades.

Looking back, we were amazingly time-efficient. We should write a book on the subject. In fact, we’re so time-efficient that the book is probably already written, published, and put on the shelves for sale.

Although I worked a 36 hour week, we did enough that it was like a vacation for me, too; unrealistic, unfeasible amount of activities, comparable to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

He departed Monday morning.

You can be my wingman anytime.

Until our next meeting…