Today I'm going to go to Disney World, Matisse was astounded that I have lived this long and have never been to a theme park. Just not a very common part of growing up in rural Washington, I guess. So she is determined to correct this matter. I'm both thrilled and a little nervous about today's adventure.

In the meantime, I just got these shots from the AMAZING Michele Serchuck. Remember, Alex and I posed for her back in February? I love the way she can capture connection between people when they play and once again, she captures these perfect moments. Moments where when I look at them now I am drawn right back into the scene and into that impossible to properly describe link I feel with Alex when we play. An intoxicating mixture of adoration, pride and the feral want to draw blood.

Enjoy

I've been pretty quiet about this, in fear that I might jinx things after the whole Kinkfest debacle, but seeing as how the car to the airport is on its way...

I'm off to white sand beaches for the week.

After busting ass, spending way too many weekends that I care to cop to, and getting my crew up to speed I am taking a much deserved break and dashing off to Florida with Matisse to lounge on the beach, drink umbrella drinks and maybe even (finally) get in some surfing too.

While I we never seem to be "caught up" when it comes to all the orders for more rope, we are at a point where I feel good about the work load and confident that my crew has the stock, coffee and skills to keep those orders flowing out the door and into the hands of happy perverts the world over. So if you call the Abbey this week and an unfamilar voice answers the phone, introduce yourself. If you are waiting on an order, have no fear it is on its way, and as for the rest of you...

Stay tuned, there are some good things in the works this week as I update from a sunny local.

Now where did I put those flip flops?

Updates from an undisclosed beach location...

Right now I feel a bit like something out of a Hemingway story, save for the depression and firearms, see I’m writing this to you from the deck of an old southern manor house. A grand affair, blocks from the beach, it’s great brick pillars frame Matisse and I as we type away tonight. It’s once mighty edifice now worn a bit at the edges from the ravages of time and too many tourists, the place has a sort of comfortable worn feeling about it. Worn it may be, the food is decadent and the beer is always cold. From our second story vantage point were we can watch the world pass by, parents herd their sun burnt offspring back to civilization, optimistic college boys make one last play for that elusive island girl all the while the ever present ocean stirs in the distance.

No civilization for us just yet, a few more days of blessed vacation for us still.

Our days have been remarkably relaxing, I dare say frighteningly so. Sun, surf, good food and very cold beers. When not out, toes in the warm white sand, we escape the heat and crowds and retreat back to the manor’s grand balcony or better yet, to the air conditioned decadence of our room. Did I mention the four posted bed in said room?

Yesterday I got to watch my first tropical rainstorm up close and personal. Sitting upon this same porch, Matisse noted the coming dark clouds rolling off the water towards us. In minutes the once hazy blue sky turned an ominous black and then opened up with an explosion of light. Lighting so close that you felt the ruble of thunder mere moments after the blinding flash, loud enough to feel it shake your bones. Next came the rain. Living in Seattle I’m very used to rain but this, this was new. In a moment the air went from dense and charged to filled with water. Great sheets fell from the sky, flooding the hard packed streets and flooding the gutters. The tall palm trees in front of us swayed about madly as the sky unloaded upon us. Safe in upon our deck, we sat back and marveled at the sudden force of nature around us.

As rain as warm as bath water filled the sky Matisse leans over to me and purrs, “You know the local tradition here is that whenever one of these storms blow in you are supposed to head for cover and fuck.”

“Oh really now?” I respond with a grin, “a conscientious tourist must always respect the local customs and traditions…”

Surf’s up!

Matisse leaves today on vacation, I’ll be joining her in two days. We are about to embark on our first ever full-scale vacation together. Where? We are so not telling, save that there will be a beach. While this is already quite the adventure for us (a hell of a way to spend your third anniversary huh?), Matisse just informed me that there might be surfing available at said secret beach location ™

I have not been on a surfboard in years; I used to do it all the time however… yes Washington State has some great surf, if you are not afraid of dying of hypothermia, getting crushed on the rocks or food poisoning from a 24 hr taco bell.

Back in the glory days of the software boom I had this buddy, we all called him “Lemons”. Now Lemons was what you might call an adventure junkie, I think he climbed his first mountain before most of us figured out how to undo a woman’s bra strap and he was constantly twitching with the nervous energy of someone looking for their next adrenaline fix. Lemons got us into all sorts of trouble back then. See it would always be right around closing time at the bar, we would all have already spent more than I make now in a week on scotch and cigars when Lemons would start his pitch, “dudes, we SO need to go surfing tomorrow!”
“No, no we don’t. It is two am and we should really be tending to the massive hang overs that are now taking root in our frontal lobes”
“The first good wave to hit you in the morning will fix you right up”
“You mean the first wall of ice water to bitch slap our sorry asses?”
“that too”
See, the water off the Washington coast is cold, very cold. How cold you ask? Like swim in it unprotected for about 15 minutes and you are a human Popsicle. Dead, dead, city of dead. Did I happen to mention that the best surfing times were also in the middle of the winter storm season? Yep, a good day of surfing in Washington would be a gray February day when it was raining, sideways. Even better if it was snowing. Lets just say we wore some VERY thick wetsuits back then.

Lemons was the kind of guy who would not take no for an answer and the next thing we knew, there were plans for us all to regroup at the painful hour of 6 am to make the drive to the local surf spot. Now by “local” I mean the THREE HOUR DRIVE from Seattle to the shore. Three hours with a bunch of hung over engineers is not a pretty sight. Inevitably there would always be one, laying prone across the back seat, who would begin to moan “tacos….. I need tacos….”

See, along the way there also happened to be the ONLY taco bell in the world with a 24 hour drive through.

I assure you, tacos are never the answer. Once in the water, we always made a point to give the unfortunate taco consumer a wide berth. There is nothing worse than paddling into a wave, only to have the remains of a regurgitated southwest supreme wash past you. Remember that bit about us getting “bitch slapped by a wall of ice water”. Surfing in the cold Washington waters is nothing like the stuff you see on TV, with the cool blue wall of water cascading over the surfer as they cut a graceful arc through the white foam… nope, Massive rolling walls of angry gray water pound the rocks in their own strange rhythm. Swim over them, dive under them or get crushed by them as they break over your head and bring all their ice cold furry down upon your head. Just whatever you do, when you do finally break through the icy surface, gasping for air and frantically trying to recover your wayward long board. Never, ever turn your back on the incoming waves… or else the next one will pop you right in the back of the head and send you tumbling headlong into the beach face first.

Did I mention that the secret beach location ™ is located in WARM water? Yeah, I might be convinced to find a local board shop, chat up the locals and see if there are any waves to be found.

Just no tacos before hand, I promise.