Socks, my Airfoil 5 from ITW, saw it's second and final flight this weekend.
She was a good one that tried hard to fly far. She suffered a setback, that one time, it's true, and was dismissively referred to as a "windsock", but yesterday, with the stronger breeze, she showed her true colors, pulling a 60 ft. tail of multi-colored flags all over the park.
Then some stupid little 4 year old crap head stepped on the line and in the process of freeing her foot, the father tied it in a knot. Not her foot, or her leg, which I would've preferred, but the line. I saw the knot go up as I was spooling out and knowing that an improperly tied knot weakens a line, I tried to bring her back; then I heard it coming from behind through the cruel branches of the trees at my back, a gust. Seconds later Socks was gone.
I tracked her all the way to the picnic field and there found her in the top of a 40 foot tree. I searched, in vain, for a way to get her down, but couldn't. All I could think was: If I was a Marine and that kite was a Marine, I wouldn't leave him up in that tree to die. But, for many reasons that are to varied and personal, neither me nor my kite are Marines, nor affiliated with any other military program. So I left Socks up there.
For now! Oh, Socks... you poor poor kite.
Next weekend I am going to go kite fishing. This is a new sport which involves using a fishing rod and a hook to pull a kite out of a tree, in a million pieces if necessary. I would just chainsaw the god damn tree if it weren't on park property and it weren't illegal to do so. (
Stupid Laws, Arbocide?! ARBOCIDE?!)
In other news, Lady, my 6' Delta on her second flight, was fantastic in the wind and when it got real high, the string started to scream with, as Jeremy put it, the souls of a 1000 dead kites. Or was it 1000 dead children? I prefer to think of screaming dead kites, twisting in the vile branches of those innumerable green monsters by which we are inevitably surrounded.
The first rule of Kite Club is...you tell everyone you know about Kite Club. Jeremy's roomate Lawrence became the newest member of the Brooklyn Flyers when he launched the Robot War Gayla yesterday. Congratulations to all of us.
We also began honing our kite-fighting skills. Jeremy definitely dominated in this arena, and my brand new Gayla Trendsetter left the park with more than one strip of packing tape holding it together. Karl and Kyle came by after their respective days of work and we had a serious kite-fight followed by some serious knots. We decided to (literally) cut our losses.
If we learned anything during this past month, and I'm not saying we did, but if we did learn something, it was probably that April is a good month for flying kites. At least this past one was. We were at the Long Meadow in Prospect Park every Saturday, and every Saturday our Gaylas were flying high. Whether it was the Sky Raider, the Baby Bat, the Sky Spy, Night Stalker, Terror Saurus, Dragon Wizard, Taz, Rainbow Unicorn or the Trend Setter, they were all up there being admired by the little ones with grabby hands. It totally ruled.
As per usual, we ended our day in the sun in the cool retreat known as Ye Olde Carriage Inn, with the Guiness and the Erotic Photo Hunt. It took a team of six, but we finally achieved the high score on the machine. Unfortunately, the excitement was too much, and instead of entering our name as "BK FLYERS" our place in history is held by the name "BKK FL." I think they'll get the idea.
