All posts by ihatehardware.

Monster Camping

It’s official.  I am a sucker for a kid who begs me to do something, especially if I’m feeling guilty for working too much, skipping the bed-time story to go to Zumba, or any of the many other sources of guilt I experience.  When Aliya’s Girl Scout troop announced that they were going “Monster Camping,” which involved 2 nights in the wilds of New Hampshire, she BEGGED me to go.  I’m not sure why, but I figure I don’t have too many years left of having her ask me to accompany her somewhere.  Now that my fingers have finally thawed and I’m able to type again, I can describe my camping experience in case any of you are considering volunteering as a chaperone.  My advice is 1) check the weather before you go, 2) pack extra stuff because someone will arrive severely under-dressed, and 3) bring a flask.

The camp was a little over an hour’s drive away and the ride was uneventful.  I only had 2 girls in my car so I didn’t have to resort to singing “99 Bottles of a Politically Correct Beverage on the Wall.”  We were met by an almost-full-grown Girl Scout and shown to our accommodations – 3 tentaloos about 5 miles from the parking lot.  Ok – it was probably a quarter of a mile but it felt a lot longer since we were hauling 3 days worth of food, and necessities like extra pillows, magazines, 2 souvenir pencil sharpeners, an entire bag devoted to first aid remedies, and a recorder.  Yes, the kind you charm snakes with.

A tentaloo has a wood plank floor, a roof, and canvas sides.  The canvas cuts down on some of the wind but it doesn’t do much to help keep the body heat contained.  We got everything settled on our cots and worked on dinner – hot dogs and mac and cheese.  After 22 trips to the car I would have eaten just about anything, so dinner was delicious.  After dinner we headed down to the dining hall for s’mores and Girl Scout songs.  I was never a Girl Scout so I had to move my mouth and pretend to participate, but Elizabeth pulled  a couple out of the memory vault for a private concert in our tentaloo.

What followed the s’mores was a quick walk back to the tentaloo with a stop at the bathroom, where there were 82 girls brushing their teeth and changing in the privacy of the stalls.  Seriously people, you’re all approximately 10 years old.  Nobody is looking at your private area.  Well, they probably are but I have to pee so GET OUT!

Back at the tentaloo I got into my sleeping bag fully dressed (yes, I know, I could have gotten a tick), cinched the mummy bag around my face, and pulled another sleeping bag over me.  At some point during everyone else’s bedtime ritual, my second sleeping bag fell out of the side of the tentaloo and down into the ravine full of brush, which was when we recognized one of the dangers of sleeping in a tentaloo.

I don’t think I have been that cold since I was a little kid waiting at the bus stop in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.  The first night it got down to 31 degrees and it was pretty windy.  The second night seemed positively balmy at 33 degrees with less wind.  I fell asleep obsessing about what I would do if I woke up during the night and had to pee, and dreamed about bedpans, tubes, and space-shuttle diapers all night.

The next day the girls had scheduled activities including canoeing, candle-making, scrapbooking, games, and archery.  The archery was quite popular and I’m pretty sure they were all fancying themselves the next Katniss Everdeen.  (Aliya and Hannah immediately started saving for an archery set.  Their plan was to entertain Chloe so she would pay them with gift cards which they would then sell for cash.)  While the girls were busy I ran out for a Box-O-Joe and then the moms sat around all day doing nothing but shooting the sh*t.  We did walk around to each of the activities to take some photos, the troop had a picnic in a meadow, and the moms took quick showers after it warmed up a bit, but that’s about it.  I can’t remember the last time I sat around all day.  It was really nice!

We had tacos and quesadillas for dinner, with more s’mores for dessert.  There were evening activities for the girls and then we all bundled up for another night of trying to avoid frostbite.  The next morning we made breakfast and headed home – our troop was the last to leave, after we tore the girls away from the fairy village they had created.  I think the weekend was a success – nobody got hurt (thank goodness because I was the first aid/CPR person), we battled through a couple of homesickness flare-ups, we didn’t get attacked by any rabid skunks, and we didn’t lose anybody.

Norah already has me lined up to go to GS camp with her someday, but at least I know what to expect and how to prepare.  I’ve just got to work on the camper songs and get one of those cool multi-tools with a spork on it.

Regaining Control – Step 42

I’ve been working hard this year to try to regain control of the chaos that has become my life.  Things are still way out of hand but today I decided to tackle my photos.  I gathered up all of the SD cards that I use for my cameras, moved all of the photos and movies onto my external hard drive, backed them up on my other external hard drive, and they are in the process of being copied to “the cloud.”

Big deal, right?  Yeah, kinda.  There were 4,539 files on the SD cards.  4,539 files!  No wonder I feel overwhelmed!  I do organize my photos at the end of each year and some of the photos I copied today have probably already been copied as part of the year-end process, but who knows?  Although I haven’t been able to keep up with my blog lately (I swear, I’m going to get back to it!), I have created our annual photo book each year since 2007.  While I’m continuing to get my act together, here is the 2011 photo book, which will fill in some of the blanks.

The photos I took today were of soccer, soccer, and more soccer.  Aliya’s team won 2-0, with an awesome penalty kick by Aliya, right over the wall of Franklin players in the goal.  Norah has really gotten into playing this season…much better than crying last season because nobody was giving her the ball.  Adlani wasn’t sure if he wanted to play this season, but he decided to go for it.  He told me yesterday that goalie might be his favorite position (“you don’t have to run around a lot”) but I think he may have changed his mind after today’s game.    

 

February Vacation

It’s back to the rat race.  Today I spent the day at the office, followed by a 3-hour class that I hope will help me successfully redecorate the family room.  When I arrived home at 9:40 p.m., I realized that tomorrow is school picture day for Norah, and she had chosen the fairy princess background and needed a fairy princess dress.  That’s one good thing about living where we do…I was in and out of Kohls literally 15 minutes later, with 2 dresses, a little white sweater, and 2 pairs of white tights.  I hope the fairy princess is happy.

On my way home from Kohls I was thinking about this blog post, and how I would write about the fact that we survived February school vacation.  But the truth is…it was actually enjoyable.  There were years when school vacations were tough, but this year was different.

I started out with a Moms’ Night Out for Elizabeth’s 40th birthday.  Anyone who makes it to 40 without going to see a bunch of drag queens strut their stuff MUST go to Jacques Cabaret, especially if they’re from Kansas.  The…um…ladies were hilarious, if a little scary at times, and were surprisingly good dancers and lip-syncers.  I knew I shouldn’t have let the kids see the photos when Norah told our tour guides later in the week that, “Mommy and her friends went to see boys dressed as ladies, but they still had man-voices.”  (She saw a G-rated video too.)

I can’t decide which is my favorite photo of the birthday girl, so here are two.

The next day Aliya had a soccer game at 7 a.m., and after that we headed to West Yarmouth, on Cape Cod.  I was a little disappointed with the hotel, but it was fine, and there was plenty to keep the kids occupied.  We went on a great tour of the Cape with Des and Terry of Cape Cod Scenic Tours, which I highly recommend.

The next day we met our friends, the Pearlmans, and went to Provincetown and North Truro after stopping at the Chocolate Sparrow.  Race Point Beach was beautiful and the kids used teamwork to roll a giant log back into the water from the top of the beach.  We saw a bunch of crazy young adults(?) swimming in their underwear, went to the library to see the giant ship, went to lunch at the Squealing Pig, and then to Highland Light where we almost froze our butts off.  Here are a bunch of pictures from the gorgeous day.

On the way home we stopped at Battleship Cove in Fall River, another highly recommended activity.  We got to explore every nook and cranny of a destroyer, a submarine, and several other boats.

I spent the rest of the week trying to catch up on some work, and then Aliya’s team won the championship, followed by my favorite Moroccan dish with Ben’s family and the Pearces, then a sleepover for Aliya, and finally a little housecleaning and a trip to the movies.  Hugo was AMAZING.  We packed quite a lot in, but we had a lot of fun.  I wonder what April vacation will bring!

I don’t have oral cancer. Yay.

Aside from an unexpected professional house-cleaning which I am still rejoicing over, the other stand-out event of last week was a trip to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned.  Normally, I wouldn’t expect a teeth-cleaning to be very exciting, but I spent almost 3 hours in the chair followed by a separate appointment with the oral surgeon a couple of days later.

One of my crowns had fallen off a couple of days before the cleaning, and luckily I recovered it right away rather than losing it down the chute.  I had the crown with me at the dentist, but the hygienist had to clean the exposed tooth before re-cementing it.  She needed to give me Novocain before the cleaning, so she gave me 2 shots and then as she prepared to give me a 3rd, she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh my God!  It’s huge back here!!  Are you in pain???” and on and on.  She felt around for a few minutes and peered in several times, and then decided that she didn’t dare give me another shot because she didn’t want to stick the needle in the “problem area.”

The hygienist’s reaction made it very obvious that she thought there was something wrong with me, and that it was serious.  I literally trembled through the whole cleaning.  When the hygienist left the room I started Googling for possibilities, and none of them were good.  When my dentist (who I have known and loved for many years) came in after the cleaning, she was white as a ghost and had a very fearful expression.  I told her that she should never play Poker…it was obvious that she was worried.  She said, “You know why I’m concerned, right?”

Well, I had no idea other than the Google results, but she started talking about oral cancer.  ORAL CANCER??  What are the chances?  I’ve smoked 17 cigarettes in my life (I remember this because I bought 1 pack at the age of 16ish, and I managed to smoke all but 3 of them before the pack was discovered in my secret hiding place – a can of tennis balls with the pack on the bottom).  I’m not a big drinker, and I even tested negative for HPV.  I guess anything’s possible, but when I obsess about what I’m going to die from, oral cancer isn’t in the Top 20.

The dentist FINALLY looked into my mouth and within 2 seconds she said, “Oh.  That’s not what that is.”  O-M-G.  W-T-F?  Couldn’t we have squared this away before the cleaning??

What the hygienist saw was bruising and swelling caused when the missing crown allowed my cheek tissue to expand into the void, and then I bit it a few times.  I’m sure it looked scary when she saw it, but she should have either a) kept it to herself rather than exclaiming about it, or b) brought the dentist in right away rather than making me fear the worst through the whole cleaning.  I still love my dentist and hygienist, but I think a change in procedure is in order.

I had to go see the oral surgeon because it’s their protocol in that situation, and at that point he couldn’t even see what had been visible two days before.  He said my cheek was “within normal limits,” so I guess I can go back to obsessing about the other possibilities for my demise.