Meet my alter ego… "Near Miss"

Have you ever had one of those days where you should probably have just stayed home? But you didn’t and weird, possibly bad, things happened and now you have a kick-ass story and an even more kick-ass nickname? I have!

When you hike the Appalachian Trail along the east coast, or any long trail for that matter, you are given a trail name. You can make one up, or earn one by doing something (read: something really stupid). Or you can do what I did and give yourself one for doing something stupid. My trail name is Near Miss, for all those times I nearly missed dying while enjoying the great outdoors.

Maybe I gained the nickname after I accidently scared a bear that was sleeping up in a tall pine tree, causing it to come sliding down the tree, fireman-style, land a few feet from me and run off into the woods.

Scared a bear outta a tree!

Or was it from all those times where I was too busy sight-seeing while driving, only to have my best friend R calmly say “Um…. road?” as we were veering off towards a rock wall, or worse, NO WALL between us and the valley far far below.

Maybe it was the time the ginormous Yellowstone bison decided to bluff charge my tiny Honda Civic. The bison would have won, making my little zoom-zoom car its bitch in the process.

Wyoming-sized bison vs. college-sized car

Actually, the crowning Near Miss moment came on a day when my friend C and I went hiking. A day that we should have probably just stayed home, but then we wouldn’t have this awesome story!…

It all began when C and I picked the 3rd highest peak in the park to hike that day. We’d found a nice 7-mile loop that would knock off another 4 miles of Appalachian Trail in my book. The day was sunny and clear, no rain predicted, and we were ready to hike!

The first 3 miles were great! Hiked through the woods, played in the river, then to some old cabins and hunting for berries. As we were hiking out of the valley, we noticed it was getting darker. Clouds were coming and it looked like rain. I’d hiked in the rain before and its not always a bad thing, in fact, it can be quite pleasant if you are prepared for it. We hiked a mile up out of the valley, discussing the weather and what we should do. By then, we had already made it to the Appalachian Trail, which would take us 3 miles back to the car. So this being the shortest route and still no rain, we continued on.

The 3 miles of AT that we were about to hike down were along the ridge of the 3rd highest peak in the park, surrounded by valleys on all sides. As we looked out the eastern edge towards Washington DC, we saw some storm clouds off in the distance. We heard some thunder far off.  No biggie… plenty of time to make it 3 miles and 1500 feet down to the car. We continued walking.

I didn’t really start worrying about the thunder until one clap stopped both C and I dead in our tracks. I’m a huge worrier… thanks to my dad. (see this blog and blame him!) This clap came from the west and it was close! Suddenly we were surrounded by thundering clouds! I began to walk a bit faster, although my asthma had flared up due to the steep climb out of the valley and the horrible air quality in the Appalachians. I asked C, a veteran outdoorswoman, what we do if we are caught in a storm. “Duck and cover” didn’t quite seem appropriate and not hiding under the tallest tree wasn’t a concern… in fact, there were NO tall trees up here. Just short stubby bushes with us standing tall amongst them.

C, Me, Bushes, Clouds and Lightning.  No bueno…

C suggested when the time came, we should crouch down, yoga-commando style, on one foot, the other balanced on the shoe of the first, hands over head, in a ball. But, she said, it wasn’t time yet. We needed to get further down the mountain. We began walking very fast as the winds picked up, fat drops of rain began to fall, and the warring thundering clouds moved overhead and combined into one massive angry storm!

About the time we saw the first lightning bolt hit the ground not far away, C and I took off into a run. Now if you know me, you know I DON’T run! Asthma, remember? Well, adrenaline will allow your body to do amazing things. We ran down the entrenched trail that had quickly become a river. We hopped out of the Appalachian Trail River to run beside it, dodging tree limbs and leaping over boulders in our hurry to get the hell off the mountain. I kept yelling behind me “Now? Time to crouch now?!” C kept yelling “No, Keep Running!” and so I kept running in the now pouring rain as lightning crashed around us.

At some point, a bear joined us on the trail. I don’t know if it was the storm or us yelling every time the lightning crashed that scared him but he bounded out of the bushes just in front of me. Normally I would have stopped and let him get away from us but there was no way I was stopping now. We ran behind that bear for 10 minutes or so before he turned into the bushes and away from the trail. That poor bear probably thought we were chasing him!

Eventually we made it all the way down the mountain. Still pouring rain, still raining electricity, still thundering angry clouds. We came to a stop just short of a clearing. Beyond the clearing, 80 yards or so, was my car. Salvation was so close! However, remember how they say you shouldn’t stand in a meadow in a lightning storm? So there C and I are, dripping wet, panting and scared, debating over whether to stay in the cover of forest and wait it out or make a run for it. I was all for making a run for it. C was sticking with me. I readied myself with my car keys in my hand and we took off.

Visualize, if you will, all those Vietnam war movies where the men come charging out of the jungle, screaming, the look of war and terror in their eyes. That’s what we looked like… soaking wet, seen some action, screaming as we broke free of the sheltering trees! We hauled ass across the field and the street, wrestled with the lock and safely made it into the car. We sat there for many minutes, watching the storm rage around us, trying to catch our breath and piece together these last 4 miles.

This story isn’t over yet…
As we sat there, I noticed a strange pounding feeling on my toes. I pulled my soaking boots and socks off to relieve the pressure. After driving 10 miles back to the cabin, my toes were really sore and my toenails were upraised and blue. Weird right? Well, I had on blue nail polish but after removing the polish, the bluish color remained! Within days both of my big toe nails had fallen off, sacrificed to either the hiking or lightning gods. The sacrifice must have worked, I haven’t been chased off a mountain by lightning bolts since!

P.S. my toenails grew back great, in spite of what the doctor and C predicted.

Take My Advice…. NEVER Get Into A Canoe With Your Parents

As a continuation of last month’s boating hijinks, I thought I’d tell ya’ll about canoing with my parents. Sounds like a good idea right? Wrong!

So first off, I don’t have a ton of canoing experience.  A few weeks each year at scout camp, a few days canoing the “target” boat while my brother shot, no, LAUNCHED water balloons at me, and then my summer working on the Canadian border in Minnesota. Several years later I’d go urban canoing.

Canoing the northern lakes is usually peaceful. Lots of pine trees and bald eagles, water lillies and loons.

Typical peaceful lake, complete with water lily

mother and baby loon… they let me get pretty close!

Canoing with others is also usually peaceful.

So when my parents came to visit, I thought it’d be a great idea to go canoing! The plan was to head a short distance into a small enclosed area with calm waters. I forgot that canoing with others means teamwork and a clearly defined leader, as well as understanding your center of gravity.

We loaded up, my dad in the back, mom in the middle and me in the front. As we made our way out into open waters, it quickly became apparent that we were not a well-functioning team. I was giving directions up front and paddling; dad was in the back, paddling to his own beat and leaning from side to side to rock the boat and piss off the rest of us; mom was in the middle trying not to fall out. The canoe meandered like it was being paddled by a crew of drunken toddlers; side to side, this way and that, even stopping on occassion. The 5 minute paddle across the channel turned into a 20-minute fight. We were dodging houseboats (probably actually driven by drunken toddlers) and speedboats, both creating awesome wakes that threatened to tip us over.

I guess now is a good time to mention my intense fear of deep open water. This fear developed at a young age as I’d tube (inner tube floating on water) under a bridge on the Comal River. I was convinced that people would jump off the bridge, plunge to their deaths in the river and their bodies never recovered… until I floated along and then they would surface and pop up around me.  Like this….

This fear of the deep never went away, so its safe to say that if the canoe overturned, I’d most likely have a massive anxiety attack and drown. This was less than desirable! We FINALLY made it across the channel, drowning-free, and into the quiet of Lost Lake.

Survived the crossing and into the quiet!

Lost Lake was glorious!  We saw bald eagles, I think we saw some loons, and we were able to maneuver around in our own drunken style. I think my parents were happy we went. Of course, all of this gloriousness was a bit lost on me because I was anticipating the crossing back to the cabin. The horror!!

Soon enough it was time to make the crossing back across the channel.  There was more traffic this time, big boats, bigger wakes.  Oh and to make the crossing all the more pleasant, a storm was approaching. I turned around to face the parents and gave them the talk… we needed to work as a team and get across quickly!

Off we went, trying to avoid the big boats and the bigger wakes. The current and wind had picked up due to the storm, making it unbelievably hard for 3 people, working independently, to paddle across. Somehow we drifted away from our goal and my idea (as lead, I’m allowed to have the ideas!) was to aim for the nearest small island, use it for shelter and work our way around to calmer waters where we could then hug the shoreline all the way home.

This wonderful idea only kind of worked. The canoe was listing to one side, meaning that somebody in the canoe was leaning! This made fighting the wakes that much harder and tipping over that much easier. Mom was beginning to yell, (I guess panicking?) mostly at my father who thought it was funny to tease the ladies in the boat. It wasn’t. We made it, frazzled and worn out, to the small island, where I then decided to cut the trip short and head for the nearest dock. I’m pretty sure I had complete support from mom, and nothing but sarcasm from dad. (and you wonder where I get it from?)

So I leave my parents at the canoe landing, and walk up the hill to the closest visitor center.  One of my canoing partners, E, was working and I was hoping she’d help me get the canoe back to the cabin. After bringing my sopping wet and muddy parents up to the visitor center (i knew the pity-factor would get them a ride back!), E and I loaded up and headed for the cabin.  It pretty much instantly began to rain on us, but better us than my parents.  As we approached the dock, there was my dad, waving and laughing and taking pictures and video of our “canoe rescue”.

Canoe Rescue!

I guess overall we had a good time, even though mom declared her canoing days were over and I learned that we were NOT a very good team! In the future, I’ll stick with canoing with friends and capable strangers.

Another canoe trip where I was able to drink and relax! Any drunken weavings were from actual drinking.

me and J, proving that the right crew is sometimes also the craziest

I learned that I prefer to kayak over canoe, others may join but not in my craft!

I found a better way for my parents to enjoy all the lake had to offer…

In a motorized boat with a real captain!

Um…. Is That Our Boat?!

It’s been a wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year so let’s get back to this city-girl’s hysterical history working in nature….

It all started when I began listening to my mother….  she wanted me to work in a “green park with trees”.  I guess this was her way of saying she was sick of driving across West Texas. (ahem… 12 hours of straight road through brown desert before hitting the New Mexico line, which then has MORE straight roads and brown desert!)  So I headed up north to a forested park with 1000s of lakes and millions of islands.

From a plane, these islands look about as tiny as they really are!

One day mid-summer, I go out for a day-long patrol in a small boat with another ranger.  B was a young guy who had worked here for a few years and “knew what he was doing and would take full responsibility”. Famous last words…

We had been island hopping all day, checking campsites and talking to boaters on the water.  These islands don’t have docks; you just pull on the shore and tie up.  Like this…

Boating in the north woods is rough business!

After tying and untying all day as we moved from island to island, we were psyched to get to some sandy shores where we could just beach the damn boat.  We beached our boat and headed over to the campsite to clean up some leftover trash.  Dropping the trash, my backpack and our radio back into the boat, we noticed some blueberries up a small hill so off we went.  We were gorging ourselves on luscious sun-warmed blueberries and enjoying a glorious afternoon of blue skies and bluer waters when I happened to look past the bushes and down to the water, seeing something that made my heart skip a beat…

“Um… is that our boat?!” I ask B.

B stood up out of a bush, covered in blueberry juice, and cast an incredulous eye down to the lake where a boat with my backpack and our radio was floating unmanned out to Canada.

B – “Shit!!!” as he ran down the hill to the beach.

Me – “Fuck!  You go get it! You’re responsible for the boat, remember?” as I ran after him.

B – “WTF ever! You go get it.  You saw it first!” still running.

Me – “Hell no! I’m a 7 and you’re a 5, you go get it!” still following.

B began to strip off his shoes as he ran onto the now empty beach.  Socks, pants and shirt soon followed; tossed onto the sand as he prepared to dive headlong into the lake and chase after our damn runaway boat! Just before he hit the water, I yelled for his glasses.  (can’t have him losing those or even if we get our boat back, we’ll never make it home!) His glasses came flying at me as he disappeared into the water in a flurry of splashing.

I helplessly watched from shore, pacing nervously and wondering how I was going to explain losing a boat and having to hitch a ride home to my boss.  B raced across the water and finally made it to our boat just moments before it hit the international channel and was taken away by the current.  Luckily he was strong and young enough to haul himself into the boat.  However, before he did, he took a quick look around to make sure nobody was looking!  My heart soared as he roared the boat to life and hauled ass towards shore.

He beached the boat on shore again, making sure to TIE UP.  I turned my head just in time as he stripped out of his underwear and laid on a rock to dry off.  So there I was, holding B’s clothes, in full uniform, desperately trying to hide my badge, while standing next to a naked sunbathing coworker.  One more thing to try and explain to my boss… and to B’s girlfriend.

After a few minutes, B decided he was dry enough to get back in the boat, still naked but for his wet and now see-through undies.  We loaded up into the boat and floated back to the open water.  Breaking the silence, B turns to me and says “Nobody hears about this! Right?”.  I agree and we both burst into laughter.

As we turn the boat and head back towards home, a boat approaches us.  Keep in mind we are in a bright red boat with “Park Ranger” emblazoned cross the sides and B is in transparent underwear.  I plaster a big smile on my blushing face and greet our visitors, a family with small children. (I died….).

All I remember of our conversation with the family was how B kept trying to turn the boat’s nose towards theirs to hide his nakedness.  This is exactly what you don’t normally want to do and the dad driving his boat kept trying to correct and pull up next to us.  His eyes widened when he achieved parallel status only to see naked B in the drivers seat!  Hah!  He smiled, and giving us side eye, turned his boat away a bit. B muttered something about an unexpected swim and we departed.

By the time we made it home, he’d told several friends we met along the way so the secret was out.  Everyone had a good laugh.. but I don’t remember ever telling my boss.

Sorry for not having any pictures of the event.  That would have been PRICELESS!

Christmas; Green-style!

I road-tripped back to Houston to see my family, and to meet some new people who’ll be entering my friend-family soon.  Four days, lots of home-cooked vegetarian food, dinner at my favorite Indian place, and tons of love later…

Merry Christmas from the H household!

This year my family really stepped up to my Green Christmas dream!  I’m so happy they did.  It was fun and everyone got a little crafty, even my bro (who knew!)

PSA: My mother would like everyone to know that she reuses her fake tree every year and all of her ornaments are reused.  She takes pride, well-deserved pride, in the fact that many of the ornaments on her tree are 30 years old and hand-picked for their sentimental value.

The following is a montage of awesome wrapping craftiness courtesy of the family!

Guess which presents are mine…

mom made bows from leftover yarn

My bro accidently made a bow from a Nazi article.  This immediately sparked a political debate!

Kuddos for reusing newspaper but try to pay attention to the articles.  Mom accidently used the Obituaries.  Hah!

Dad, the original crafter, used a horrible pic of me and turned me into an angel with cottonballs. i’m keeping this one.

What to do with all those address labels…

I took some packaging paper that World Market shipped to me with my order and repurposed it into wrapping paper.

This one got the paper grocery bag treatment as well as a hand-made paper flower.  I teach kids to make these flowers at work.

We also used a lot of reusable bags…. 

This bag has been mine since I was born. Mom doesn’t even change the nametag. I see it every year. It is as much a holiday tradition in this house as anything else we do.

This bag just appeared but my grandmother made it for me when I was little.  Good things come in small packages.

I got reusable bags on sale at OFFICE DEPOT. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find any.  Luckily, mom knew where to go.  They were $2 or so each. Go forth and stock up for next year!

Some of my gifts were even green Christmas gifts.  My cousin got me a calendar made from recycled products with beautiful tree images all over it.  The parents got me bamboo shades to lower my electric bills  🙂  My bro got me the gift of gardening….

Ah yes… one more hand-made Chrismas decoration to show you…

Handmade by grandma K 30+ years ago. Everyone has one but this one is mine.

And last but not least, how to make your fake reused tree smell fresh and natural?

dad added his own “decoration” to our tree

Happy Holidays and have a safe reflective New Years Eve.  See you guys after my lovely cuddle-filled 3-day weekend I have coming up.

Kristi

I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas; part 2

In my last post I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas; part 1, we learned about ways to decorate your home for the holidays without spending tons of money on decorations and contributing to over-consumption.  Instead you can make your own decorations with things you already have around the house or can find on the cheap.  I find that DIY decorations make the item mean that much more to me.  Anyone can go out and purchase cookie-cutter crap that looks like everyone else’s cookie-cutter crap.  (How many houses on a block can have that damn blow-up snowman!  My father used to make ALL our yard decorations from his own blood, sweat and imagination.  That’s probably where I get my DIY-ness.)

Homemade and more fun!

Thanks for the DIY genes Dad! ps, I don’t want to talk about that dress!  It was my mother’s doing.

Anyway, I digress… on to today’s post – green gifts and gift wrapping.  The best ways to have an environmentally-friendly holiday season is to make your own gifts or buy them locally, and I don’t mean at your local Walmart!  First off, if you need inspiration for why you should buy local, check my chica’s blog poco sobre mi vida.

Now I’m not perfect, some of my gifts did in fact come from chain stores but in my town, chain stores are almost all that exist.  So even though I had to shop at those big stores, I tried to choose gifts that would promote greener lifestyles or at least not hurt the environment (read: no gift certificates to drive thru coffee shops that dispense disposable paper and plastic constantly).  I just realized how hard this post will be to write without spoiling the giftees!  I will persevere!  For the kiddos, I got items that don’t require electricity and aren’t going to generate trash.  In fact, I’m the aunt that gives thrift-store clothing and educational toys.  (They’re gonna hate me when they’re adolescents and only want commercial goods.)  For the adults in my life, some are getting items that would replace disposable items that they use on a regular basis and some are getting vegan baked goods from my very own kitchen!

If I had at all planned ahead this holiday season, I would be gifting personally crocheted blankets and hats…  Maybe next year?  Maybe even some DIY decorations as gifts?  That would be doubly awesome!  Green gift-giving doesn’t mean that the gifts need to be necessity items that they’d buy themselves.  You can be creative and get them something green that they never knew they wanted…  like the year I got my dad bat guano for his garden from a local cave who gave all proceeds of guano sales back to Bat Conservation International.  Yes internet, I gave my dad shit for Christmas!  And he loved it!  Got my mother earrings made from Scrabble tiles with her initials on them.  She loves Scrabble and earrings, and I guess her initials so that was a cute gift too.  See what I’m saying, think outside the box!

I myself have gotten lots of homemade gifts.  See how stoked I am with my new homemade knit hat in this video!?

So now on to green wrapping.  This is where the creativity and fun really come together!  The first thing to do when getting ready to wrap presents, no matter how you choose to wrap them, is to turn on Pandora and chill out to jazzy Christmas music.  See that?  You just did something green – NOT buying those holiday cds and wasting all that paper and plastic.  Plus, um did I mention Pandora is FREE?  Freakin’ sweet!

Now I frequently wrap presents in newspaper.  I don’t subscribe to a paper (too much paper!) but I do get those damn sales circulars so I save those around gift time and start wrapping.  I chose not to buy wrapping paper because its so unbelievably frivolous.  To buy paper that will just be pulled off in a few short days?  Ridiculous, even if you recycle that paper, ridiculous! There is enough paper in your home, use that and leave your pocket and the environment better for it.

In complete honesty, this is not my photo.  I got it from the blog C.R.A.F.T.

I also frequently use recycled cardboard boxes, cereal boxes are a favorite of mine.  I use recycled boxes for everything from wrapping gifts, mailing items, and for organizational stuff around the house….

Canned goods container made from soda can box. Now I have more room in my pantry!

This Christmas I plan to use recycled boxes and home made gift decorations, or better yet, wrap gifts inside little reusable bags, like Chico bags or Baggu or something similar.  That way the wrapping is green and its the gift that keeps giving.  (One of my biggest pet peeves is plastic grocery bags.)

For more wrapping ideas, check these blogs and sites…

C.R.A.F.T for lots of ideas
DIY Gift Wrap for alternatives to paper
Apartment Therapy always has great ideas!
So do their partners, Re-Nest!

To make this recycled bag wrapping, click here for instructions.  This is the best way I’ve seen to fix your environmental karma after shopping at a big box store.

Happy wrapping, ya’ll, and Happy Holidays!  See ya next year!

I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas; part 1

Ok, yeah its been a month since my last post.  Sorry, I’ve been sick, busy, and sick again!  No, my sickness is not due to Black Friday madness and the nausea caused by witnessing those extreme levels of consumerism.  My sickness was bacterial, then viral, and now both. 😦

Today’s post is all about my efforts this year for a greener Christmas and holiday season.  This year I’m trying to make my own decorations, give greener gifts and use greener packaging.

So first, lets start with the self-made decorations…  Now I’m not Martha Stewart (evil!) so my DIY decorations most definitely look DIY.  Whatever…  its the thought that counts, right?

Cork Tree found on Etsy

I’d love to have made this one and have a Christmas tree but alas, I haven’t drank enough wine yet!  This gives me something to aspire to for next year!

from Emma Lamb

Crocheted garland instead of that tin foil metal stuff that kills vacuum cleaners and probably the environment.  (sorry mom!)  I haven’t made this yet but I’m thinking it’d make a great present for someone.
Here’s the link if you wanna try making these yourself…

The last time I made DIY ornaments I was 7 and was making a gingerbread man that my mother hides on the back of the tree every Christmas.

from Twig and Thistle

Then there is this super-simple pine cone garland.  I got my idea from Twig and Thistle and set out to make my own.  The best part of this DIY is the hiking to procure best pine cones!  I started this last winter, picking up pine cones around my apt complex while walking my dog.  I even got my niece and nephew in on the search.  Then while hiking up in Cloudcroft, my nephew and I found larger pine cones.  Many cones were discarded because I’m picky and only want pretty, unsmooshed ones.

I don’t have a hole punch so I used a hot burned match to melt holes in my ribbons.  This was done on Thanksgiving Day and if you know me you know I’m drinking wine on that day.  (Not that I don’t normally drink wine, but that day its practically mandatory!)  So I’m drinking my wine and realize that I really shouldn’t be playing with fire and melting things while buzzed.  So I sacrificed; I quit drinking and sobered right up.  That’s dedication!

Here’s what I did with the cones, hot matches, superglue and sparkly ribbon I found on sale.

Not perfect but festive!

Made my own bows with superglue

from Kojo Designs

I also made a tea wreath, like this one.  For mine I used a pizza box lid, my stash of tea, clothespins.  I covered the pizza box with leftover shelf liner paper and painted the clothespins with sparkly nail polish.  It now hangs year-round in my pantry, tempting me with lots of great tea.

Sorry, no photo because I’m lazy and sick….

from New England Design and Construction

For next year I’m thinking a tree made out of a tomato cage and lights!  So festive and I can reuse the cage in the spring.

And who needs the real tree for the real tree smell?  At Bath and Body Works, I found candles to do that job.  Evergreen, Balsam and Fireplace!  They are strongly scented so I don’t even have to burn them, just leave them out.  My whole house smells like Christmas without dragging a poor helpless tree from its roots.  Although, who doesn’t just love the opening scene from National Lampoons Christmas Vacation where they go out to cut down their own tree, carry it home on the roof of the car only to let a squirrel loose in their living room.  My favorite holiday movie!

Alright, happy holiday decorating!  Next time I’ll discuss green gifts and green packaging.  It’ll be epic!

Autumn, Why I Love Thee

It’s officially fall – that time after summer when its not blistering hot out.  It’s also autumn, which in Kristi-speak is the time when the leaves turn brilliant shades of colors that I wish I could turn into sweaters.

So, here is a list of why I love autumn!

Skyline Drive, Shenandoah NP

1.  That brilliant reddish hue in the afternoon light as it streams down through red, yellow and orange leaves.  It must be similar to the rose-colored glasses that illuminate the cobbled streets of Paris, only more organic.

2.  Fuzzy socks!

3.  Crisp fall air brings with it clear blue skies

4.  Cuddling keeps you warm and happy (Like I really need an excuse to cuddle!)

5.  I can finally indulge my love of fuzzy sweaters and scarves.  I’m totally happy when I get to unpack all my winter stuff, & totally happy in the spring to pack it all away again!

Yummiest Book Ever!

6.  My inexplicable urge to bake everything in my Bread Bible.  I give most of what I bake away, otherwise I’d look like those creepy people on tv who are too big to get out of their house!

7.  Sleeping with my windows open is all the air conditioning that I need

8.  Did I mention cuddling?  It is important enough to repeat.

9.  Hiking is much more enjoyable for everyone living in the desert.

10.  Choosing the perfect beautiful leaf to bring home to loved ones

Hiking in Lincoln NF with CT

11.  Christmas lights are just around the corner

12.  The ability to listen to Vince Guaraldi for a whole month is one step closer!

13.  The knowledge that millions of bears are busy making new fuzzy baby bears right now as you read this!

14.  All those emails about Christmas wish lists and “what do you want for Christmas” texts.  Also searching for the exact right gift for loved ones.

15.  The fact that my dog blends in with fall colors better than any other season  =)

Lennox, the perfect fall accessory!

What’s your favorite thing about autumn?
Happy Fall, Ya’ll!

Creepy Crawlies for this Halloween Night

Hello all and welcome to another creepy crawly post…. so far we’ve discussed my hatred of roaches (story to come later), the evil scorpions and interesting spiders that have invaded my house and even my very person.  Now its time for another creepy crawly – well, two more…  mice and centipedes.

If someone had told me that living in parks would allow me to be so up close and personal with the wildlife, I would have hoped they meant bears, deer and bunnies.  I have seen those cuddly guys but I wasn’t expecting the vermin that I shared homes with!

My roommate D and I lived in a very large house in an oasis in the Utah desert.  The house was so freakin’ huge!  It had 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and 2 living rooms… all for 2 roommates.  The basement had been converted into living space and was always nice and cool.  Apparently all the vermin on the block were also enjoying our basement!

Everything was going smoothly the first 2 months we were living there.  We thought we were alone.  Then one fateful evening I put out a bowl of organic dark chocolate-covered espresso beans.  YUM!  That night things went from calm to calamity!  There were bumps in the night, boogieman in the corners, squeaking in hall.  Yes, the mice had found my stash and we discovered we had mice.

So we had unwittingly invited all the mice over for gourmet caffeine-filled chocolate!  Every day after that for the next month there were mouse sightings!  God love D for tirelessly setting mouse traps, and emptying them.  We kept a tally – 3 or 4 mice a day for a month met their end in our house.

During that mousy month, I spent my evenings hunting down entry points into the house.  We had all entries sealed so where were they coming from!?  One night while watching tv, D met a mouse on the couch.  It literally crawled out of the cushions and across her chest!  I’ve never seen her move quite as fast as she did that night, leaping to her feet and shouting.  We immediately shifted into intense search mode.

Being environmentally-friendly rangers, we borrowed our neighbors cat for a few days.  He was sent to us as a “great mouser” so we set him loose in the basement.  I don’t know how many mice he ate but he wasn’t hungry for days!

Another evening while watching tv in the dark (to lure the mice out), I noticed a shadow on the carpet by my feet.  I thought it looked odd and pulled my feet up onto the couch as I reached for the light.  Thank god I moved because that shadow ended up being a centipede.  (Like their evil scorpion cousins, these guys are minions of the devil!).  I’ve never seen anything quite as creepy as a centipede on my carpet, crawling towards me, searching for my toes!  I tried to keep my cool as I leapt onto the couch, screaming and pointing for D to kill it.  (This blow to my outdoorsy-cool-girl ego was outdone a few minutes later when a mouse crawled across the room, causing me to leap yet again onto the couch, doing a very girly dance screaming “Kill it, Kill it!”)!

While searching for clues in the basement I discovered a door I hadn’t opened before.  You know how you yell at the dumb girl in the scary movie when she goes to open the door?  Yeah, you could and should have been yelling at me.  I could hear the Pyscho soundtrack screeching in my head as I trepidatiously reached my hand out to the door knob.  Upon opening, my flashlight illuminated a small room, or large closet, completely full of mattresses!  The only way I can think of to get that many mattresses into this room would be to peel the ceiling off and dump them in! They were stacked on their sides smashed into the room.  Then, as that wasn’t enough, more had been stacked on top, to the ceiling!  WTF?!  In the dim light, I could see fluffy nests bulging out of holes in the mattresses.  Apparently we were operating the best Mouse Inn in the county, complete with organic exotic breakfasts!

We eventually trapped and got rid of all the mice.  After lots of bleach cleaning, we got rid of the possible threat of hanta virus.  I even got rid of the f**king mouse nest in my car’s AC system (after several hundred dollars of repair by the mechanic).  We never did get rid of the horror that was the mattress closet… they are probably still there so many years later.

Happy Halloween!

For the Last Time, Vegetarian Means NO FISH!

Whew!  It’s been a busy month for me, and a quiet month for my readers!  Well, this will be a quick post full of cussing, so get ready.

I’ve been full-on vegetarian for almost a year now, and before that I was a “becoming vegetarian” for several years, and I’d like to share one small word of advice to everyone out there in the world…  Vegetarians DON’T EAT FISH!  We don’t eat any meat and fish is a meat.  Religious-types can go F*** themselves if they don’t believe that fish is a meat.  Any self-proclaimed vegetarians out there that say they “still eat fish” can also go F*** themselves.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word meat as “the flesh of an animal (especially a mammal) as food”.  ( I just love that qualifier especially a mammal!)

Yahoo Answers – when asked why fish isn’t considered a meat gave the best answer I’ve seen “Because people are idiots”  HAH!  I totally agree.

So now, even if you happen to believe that fish is a vegetable or some other shit than meat, understand me when I say: Restaurants that say something is vegetarian and it has fish in it are bullshit.  Who are they to impose some ridiculous ideology on their customers?!  What’s next?  Will they only serve diet items to fat people?!

I was at El Charro in Tucson the other night, having a lovely evening with friends when I spotted this on the menu…

Completely Unacceptable!

After questioning the waitress, I ordered some truly vegetarian tamales and what was hopefully some veggie refried beans (my trust is shot with this chain).  The food at El Charro is great however I’ve given chef Carlotta Flores a piece of my mind.  Maybe she should hang a banner outside her stores proclaiming only religious-types should eat there? Or that vegetarians/vegans aren’t welcome?

Shame on you El Charro!  Shame on you chef Flores!

Go ahead meaties vs. veggies, discuss!

Holy Shit, That Spider Just Exploded!

A few of you have asked about my other infamous spider story so here it is!

The Exploding Spider of Carlsbad

Now, I grew up in Houston, Texas, home of the flying cockroach.  (and yes, typing that did just make me break out into the itchies)  Growing up with such an evil creature around, I have developed a liking for EVERY OTHER INSECT THAT ISN’T A ROACH!  Spiders included.  So I’m no stranger to creepy crawlies and they don’t bug me too much.  (However, I knew I’d entered adulthood the day that watching that horrid insect-filled corridor scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom made me freak out.  Before that I watched in awe and excitement as a child)

Back to the story.  It was my very first season at the cave, in fact it was my first season as a seasonal ranger.  I moved into my seasonal quarters and quickly learned that insects would be my roommates.  The girls already living there informed me that the hall light was to be kept on every night to lure the insects away from the bedrooms.  I’ll pause for all of you to go throw up or freak out from that thought.  While I’m pausing, I’ll list the insects found on the wall around the light each morning.

• gnats
• moths
• roaches (hurl!)
• millipedes
• centipedes
• beetles
• bugs with no names, unless you are an entomologist
• scorpions (!!!!!!!!!!!!)
• small spiders
• medium spiders
• really big spiders eating all the insects mentioned above

Everyone back?  Ok, moving on.  So I moved into this house full of insects.  The designers had lovingly carpeted the floors with dark brown speckled carpeting so you were never really sure what you were about to step on.  Needless to say, I wore shoes constantly and never sat on the floor.  The worst was when you’d walk across the living room and feel something crunch beneath your foot.  EW!

In retrospect, I’m glad for the insect-induced shoe wearing.  After living there for a year, the carpets were scheduled for a shampooing.  I came home to wet beige carpet.  Not dark brown, but beige!  I can only imagine the countless bug carcasses that must have littered the floor, turning the carpet brown with their essence.  Gettysburg in my living room.

There were 3 of us living in the house and, due to the terror-inducing carpet, we all crammed on the 3-seater sofa every evening.  Only a few nights of lights-off movie watching and we learned that the sofa was also insect-afflicted.  Imagine sitting on the couch with your new best friends, lights off, scary scary Japanese movie on tv where people die from cell phone use (oh wait, didn’t science prove that could happen?  hello brain-cancer), and suddenly something crawls across your shoulder, onto your neck and disappears into your hair.  What would you do?  What would Jesus do?  Well, we did what became known as the “spider dance”.  The individual would jump of the couch a lightning speed, and screaming or whimpering, run in place while shaking their heads furiously to dislodge the offending creature.  Once it was gone and the heebie jeebies were over, they would sit back down and finish the movie.  We would pause it, cause after all, we were polite  It was a guest ritual.  Male, female, everyone on our couch would eventually do the spider dance.  It was a great ice-breaker for the new employees.

Roommates on Spider Couch, watching movie and suffering from cabin fever after a nasty snow storm.

Roommates vogue-ing….  cabin fever, I swear

Then there was the morning that my morning coffee was horribly ruined.  See I’d wake up very very early so that I could make my coffee and sit at the bar, reading in the peaceful quiet of my roommates slumber.  Eventually roomie S would come in and make her coffee, grunt a good morning and retire to her room.  So this one morning as I’m sitting at the bar, where I’ve been for an hour, S walks in.  After a few minutes I notice that she’s not moving.  I look up at her and she is standing in the kitchen doorway, mouth open, horrified expression on her face and pointing just above my head.  I look up (this happened in slow-motion, I swear!) and chilling out directly over my head on the ceiling is the biggest wolf spider I’ve ever seen.  Even though I’m dying inside, I very slowly get up, grab my coffee, and walk away.  Just in the nick of time because the spider fell from the ceiling, I assume from the sheer WEIGHT of its ginormous body, and landed in my seat.  S ran screaming, doing a variation of the spider dance while I stood there and watched it crawl up the drapes, swearing I wouldn’t lose eye contact until it was out of the house.  We finally managed to get it out of the house using a time-honored roommate tradition.  We called the guy next door.  Of course, this guy laughed at us on the phone cause we couldn’t take care of the little spider.  He showed up with a cup too small to hold the creature, freaked out by the size of it but managed to lure it outside.

But nothing compares with the exploding spider.  A week after I’d moved in and had learned the ways of the insect night light, I discovered a really large hairy spider in the middle of my bedroom floor.  I’d had a long day and just wanted to change and have dinner.  This spider wanted none of that.  It sat in my path in the middle of the floor and wouldn’t move.  I tried shooing it out but it would only chase me.  When I’d had enough of trying to be nice and follow Geneva Convention, I reached for the bug spray.  I took aim.  I fired.  The spider exploded!

Literally, little brown bits went shooting off of it!  In all directions, over all of my unpacked items that I now would never be able to touch again.

Little known fact to this young ranger, some spiders carry their young on their backs where they can “abandon ship” to save themselves.

I slept the next few nights on the couch and used the entire can of bug spray in the bedroom.  Even so, I spent the next 5 months constantly worried that a baby spider would take revenge by crawling into my ear and exploding its own offspring in my brain.

Sweet Dreams!
(and in case you were wondering, I’m still itching)