dramatic re-enactment
 I wanted to do a photo shoot of me and Jersey Girl running down a hill with bags of cash and bootles of booze and an AK-47, but two of those props were kind of hard to come by.
So Sunday morning (mother's day) I woke up and said, fuck-it--I'll just re-enact the adventure where I tried to break into the Dali Museum a couple of years ago.
So Jersey and I drove down to the burg and got this Dali reproduction in the gift shop. Then we got my camera, got in our bathing suits and jumped in the bay behind the museum (with several onlookers scratching their heads).
Actually, it was a little trickier getting started. I jumped in the water first, but once I was in I realized it was too deep for Jersey to do the same without dunking the camera, and destroying it. So I told her to walk along the sea wall and then go through the marina and its board walk until she was on a dock 75 yards directly behind me. As Jersey took this little hike, I treaded water for about 8 minutes behind the museum.
Unfortunately, Jersey left both her purse and the Dali painting on the sea wall near me. There was no way I could grab them because the water line was a good seven feet below the sea wall, and the wall itself is encrusted with those razor shapr barnacle/oyster things.
Once I saw Rachel on the dock behind me I asked this big black guy to help me out.
"Excuse me!" I said, calling him from below while treading murkey green water. "Could you please hand me that purse and that painting?"
The black guy came up to the edge of the wall and looked down at me.
"You want the purse and the painting?" he said.
"Yes, please!"
The black guy handed them to me one at a time, and I managed to hold them both with one hand while treading water with my legs and stroking with one arm. (I imagine it must have been a pretty appropriately surreal moment after a visit to the Dali museum).
From there I had to swim the 75 yards (with the painting and purse) to where Jersey Girl was waiting with the camera. (The reason she was snapping from over there was because the dock was closer to the water, and we wanted to get the museum in the background for authenticity sake).
At first the one handed swim didn't seem so bad. It was definitely a challenge, but I felt like I had the strength for it. But after about 30 or forty yards, things started to get really difficult. I rapidly lost my energy and my strokes and kicks got more thrashy and desperate. Pretty soon I could feel myself definitely sinking. I didn't know whether I was going to make the last ten strokes. I was wheezing, and I yelled out to Jersey Girl,
"Come...get this from me!"
When I finally grabbed onto the dock I sat there and heaved and panted and wheezed for a good five minutes. The rich boat owner people were washing and prepping their yachts around us and looking at us like we were nuts.
Anyway, after that little adventure we began our photo shoot in earnest. There still was no safe way for Jersey Girl to take pictures in the water, so instead she lied stomach down on the concrete deck, which must have been 125 degrees.
The first round of pictures were so-so, but I was sure that we could take better ones if Jersey Girl was at water level. So we got back out and drove to the nearest CVS and bought a pink inflatable raft. I inflated the raft, sitting in the front of my truck while Jersey Girl gave me a blow job.
Then we went back out into the marina and shot some more pictures. Rachel was able to shoot just above the water line, but I still had to struggle and strain to hold up the painting while I was treading water. After a while I could only tread with the painting for 45 seconds or so before I had to go back and grab onto the sea wall (this caused me to have very strained expressions on my face).
Meanwhile, we were expected at my mom's Mother's Day thing by five-thirty. Jersey Girl agreed to go only if I gave my mom a copy of one of the "swimming with Dali" photos in her mother's day card. (My mom--and dad--were mortified after my arrest for trying to break into the museum. Oh, and if you hadn't figured it out, when the police came after me, I jumped in the water and tried to swim for it. The police caught me on the very marina dock that me and Rachel were shooting from. When I came up for air, they pepper sprayed me and hauled me in.)
So anyway, after we got ourselves another round of photos, we went and printed the better ones out at CVS, and got a card and some choclates for my mom. We also ate a bunch more mushrooms before going over.
When we arrived I presented my mom with the somewhat moistened painting and the card with the photo inside.
(Today we shot some more pictures, but we did it in shallow beach water, so there was no razor sharp barnacles or near drowning.)
5:11:30 PM 
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