Bring on the fear!

"Do one thing every day that scares you." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Since one of my resolutions this year is to do at least two scary/crazy activities with my dad, I should really start thinking of what I want to do.
We did our annual ice dive into Lake Minnetonka on New Years Day. That's pretty crazy, I think. And it almost didn't even happen.
After a long and booze filled evening bringing in the New Year, I showed up at 7:15 am. My mom ended up crawling back into bed, so it was just me and my dad in the kitchen.
"I don't really wanna do it," I told him. "It's too cold and I'm extremely hungover."
"Oh c'mon," he admonished me. "You already paid your registration fee online last night."
I rested my head on my arms, on the counter. "I'll just write it off as a donation."
I tried to close my eyes, hoping Dad would take the hint and go back to bed with Mom. Oh no...he brought out the big guns instead.
While my eyes were still closed, he rattled a prescription bottle. "There's a Vicodin in here for you. C'mon, girl, you can do it...yes you can...good girl."
I sat up and smiled. "Gimme 5 minutes."
Not too much longer we were on the road. He was driving, because I wasn't even sure I should be behind the wheel. At one point I let out a huge belch.
"Good god, Vanessa," Dad said, waving the air in front of his face. "What were you drinking last night?"
I thought for a moment. "I think a more appropriate question would be, what didn't I drink last night? There were shots, and champagne..."
A few more times that morning I would breathe in his face and I think his eyes almost watered. "Seriously," he told me. "I could probably light a match in front of your mouth."
Fast forward about 45 minutes and there we were, standing on a makeshift stage on Lake Minnetonka, getting ready to dive into the water. As I do every year, I started to panic. And get angry.
"I'm not doing this ever again!" I told my dad. "I mean it. Don't even ask me because I will say no. This is bullshit. I hate this!" I was ready to start crying. Then the announcer did the countdown and in the water we went. I give him the same speech every year.
After we warmed up and were heading back to the car, I said, "Hey, Dad... where's that Vicodin? I wasn't messin' around when I said I wanted one."
As we were driving back to River Falls, I mentioned that I had done one scary thing with him, and that meant I only had one more to do to fulfill my resolution. "Yeah, but that doesn't count what we just did," he told me. "We already had it planned."
"Oh yes it does!" I turned to him and said, not caring if the booze on my breath would make him drive into the ditch. "You can't make up rules for my resolutions!"
He was quiet for a minute. "What about skydiving?"
I shuddered. "No way. I don't want to do anything that causes a fear of death. Or could result in my teeth breaking."
He said, "Well if you want to do something scary we could take a math class together."
I laughed. "I would rather jump out of a plane than take a math class."
So now I have 11 1/2 more months to plan another scary thing. I suppose I could count the Polar Plunge in White Bear Lake next month as another one, but I've done that and it's not nearly as freaky as the Ice Dive in Lake Minnetonka. I have no idea what my scary thing will be, but it will be a good adrenaline boost, that's for sure.
One of my friends has a wall of photos that she's called: "Crazy Shit Vanessa Makes Me Do." There are pictures of her doing the Ice Dive and of us participating in the Breast Cancer 3 Day walk (where we walk 60 miles in 3 days to raise money for breast cancer research). Talk about a love affair with Vicodin on that walk...
So now I need to think about what I can do that's crazy. And coming from my family, that's a high bar to reach. My family is the example of extreme athletes. Not me. It's like that song from Sesame Street: "One of these things is not like the other...."
But this year, I'll show them.
2012 is going to be a year of adrenaline producing events.
I just don't want to end up like this poor little egg...