a lovely glow on the cheeks

I've just torn myself away from reading an endless stream of "was I ever embarrassed" stories posted as comments on someone else's blog. I've of course been reminded of a few of my own.

One happened a few years ago. My boss' boss' boyfriend owned a kayak store on the North Shore, so a bunch of us went to their very picturesque town one evening for a little harbor adventure. We got outfitted. I seem to remember I was pressed into wearing a smelly damp rain jacket for warmth (it was fairly cool on the water). Then we went down to the water and got into our individual kayaks.

I seem to remember that once you were in, you were pretty much sealed up. There I was sitting in my kayak on the shore. I had on a "skirt" over the rain jacket. The edge of the skirt was tucked around the opening in the kayak. I was one with my little boat, holding onto my paddle, and waiting for someone to push me from the sand into the water.

For some reason, I tried to turn around to look over my shoulder, but instead, I lost my balance and went over on my side, taking my kayak with me. It kind of reminded me of that guy on Laugh-in who would fall over when he was riding his tricycle. I couldn't move. And neither could my coworkers because they were laughing so hard.

Finally someone came over, righted me, and shoved me and my boat into the water. When I finally figured out how to paddle effectively, I was able to move fairly quickly. When we got back to shore, one of my coworkers told me that he was pretty worried about my ability to survive the evening, given my earlier performance!