Break A Sweat

You know it's a good run when you have to turn around because there's a moose in the trail.

Run count:

Pheasant - check.
Angry Squirrels - check.
She-Moose - check.
Traffic Light - not yet.

And For Their Final Act

I'm sure you're tired of the exclamations that I start these posts with, but... I'm not.

Holy Toledo.

Last Thursday, C and I (with some very valuable help) loaded our every belonging into a 26-foot U-Haul truck, went out for sushi with the best mopper/sister, and returned home to fall asleep on an air mattress in our house.

For the very     last     time.

And what's remarkable is that it felt ok.  It wasn't like I was leaping for joy or popping some bubbly or having any kind of warm, fuzzy feelings, but all the same, I wasn't weeping and clawing at my hair, which really must be some kind of small victory, don't you think?  Maybe more than small...

What's also remarkable is that the very mattress that we slept on has been continuously inflated for... wait for it... FOUR YEARS.  And it hasn't leaked, period.  If that doesn't totally shock you, I don't know what to say, other than to say  lay off the meds, for both our sakes.  This is my shameless and enthusiastic plug for the Simmons Beautyrest air mattress.  Go.  Buy one.  Mine's flawless, but if yours pops, don't come crying to me.  I'm sure it will be your fault.

So Friday morning, we deflated the mattress (for the first time), threw it in it's bag and closed the garage door behind us on our way out.  C hopped into our pickup truck and I clamored into the U-Haul.  There must be a height requirement for truckers, because I had a seriously hard time getting into and out of the cab of this thing.  It was a strange turn of fate when we first laid eyes on our 26-footer.  You know how U-Haul's have those fairly tacky cartoonish pictures of random world destinations?  Like a sumo wrestler and a giant Macy's float in the shape of a Spicy Tuna Roll painted on the side of a trailer with the words, "Visit Japan!" written above the picture in Indiana Jones font?  Well, I'm pretty sure that this particular U-Haul was manufactured especially for us.

Along with a picture of our favorite neighborly woodland creature, our U-Haul was showcasing the up and coming Canadian hotspot - Saskatchewan!  It was like someone just knew where we were headed. I cackled up a storm driving that thing north toward the border - driving increasingly slow, mind you, because if a moose ran in from of that gas hog, there was going to be a very small chance that I'd manage to avoid it.

We arrived at camp around 11:00 PM and unloaded one important passenger - a gigantic jade plant that has been in my family since I was a little girl.  A certain jade plant that was now (sorry mom) frozen solid.  The leaves snapped like sheets of ice, and were scattered on the floor of the truck.  Jades are members of the succulent family, intended to inhabit an arid climate, which is distressingly far from the  -10 degree temperature that night.  I still haven't given up on her, though.  We brought her drooping body in from the chill and I gave her some water and whispered some nice, I'msosorry kind of words.  The next day I pruned off the limbs that felt like water balloons, because there is just no way that a texture like that could be healthy.  So now she's a little ragged, and probably still dying, but we're not letting her go without a fight.

On a related note, this summer I kept a Bonsai on my desk at the rafting office.  This plant, too, got sick and dried up, but I had recently read about the ever-important "cut off the gangrenous limbs or you'll lose the patient" policy and quickly got to work.  A month later, the plant was sailing into the woods where it became part of the earth again, and not simply a prickly naked single stalk of what used to be a thriving maze of branches.  I have a tendency to get carried away with scissors.

So Mama Jade, Kiwi the cat, our air mattress and cookware I haven't seen in a year are finally in one place.  And even though the process was tedious, maddening and sometimes ugly, it's made for a good life story.  And as one of my dear friends, Amy, put it:


Soon it will be all over (for now, for a while) and you'll be settled in to a cozy log-ish home with far fewer moose than you're accustomed to, that is not a small kitchen-less apartment above a restaurant, and that does not come with its own wheels. 


Thanks, Amy.  You always know how to make a girl feel good.

Ooh - Is That A Reindeer?!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… there’s freezing rain coming down, a sheer layer of ice on the driveway, and moderately-large forest animals walking around on our roads. 

The moose are out, and when I say “out”, I mean absolutely everywhere.   

Do you ever have those late night drives when you know that you're going to need a serious jolt to stay alert?  You know, when twilight has faded and your heavy eyelids begin to droop?  When the car feels warm and cozy, and somehow your otherwise uncomfortable driver’s seat has miraculously converted into a plush recliner with proper lumbar support?  When you cover 10 miles of sharp S-turns only to notice that you can’t recall driving through them, much less how you avoided crashing through the side rail and careening off of a cliff into the river?  Well, I’ve got just the thing to wake you up, and it’s totally natural – no pills, no super high-test coffee, no drugs - just pure, old-fashioned, run-of-the-mill adrenaline. 

 source

You see, moose don’t really appear as concrete objects when they go strolling across the pavement at 8 o’clock on a moonless night.   They seem to be more the absence of something, like a large dark hole in the fabric of the world.  On rare occasions, you might be fortunate enough to glimpse your reflected headlights in a pair of big eyes, or spot a patch of lighter-colored fur on the back of a 6-foot calf, but the vast majority of sightings begin as a strange and blurry sci-fi wormhole hovering in the distance.  It goes like this: you think you might see something in the hazy blob ahead and take a second to squint and clear up the image, then - WHAM - it’s a moose.  The animal is unmistakable, and it's not because squinting enables you to see it more clearly (though it does seem to help when I forget my glasses at home), but is rather because in the three seconds it’s taken you to crane your neck forward like a kid in Driver’s Ed and scrunch up your face, you’ve traveled 200 feet and you’re suddenly a car’s length from what you now really wish was actually a hallucinogenic portal to 2nd century Egypt.  And you’re adrenal glands are buzzing like sugar-laden elves on December 24^th, because past experience tells you that these giant beasts don’t do the old "stare-and-run" act like other animals.  Wiser animals.

Instead, they stare, and then they chew on a little of what they’ve been keeping in their 4^th stomach.  And then they stare some more.  

No movement, whatsoever. That is, until you’ve sufficiently freaked out and are [probably] sideways in a ditch.

There is nothing going on in there.  Look at those eyes.

I don’t know if this news is coming across as fun and intriguing, or if it’s making you too nervous to ever leave your house in southern California.  Heck, those of you close enough might not even want to come visit after what you’ve read, but trust me - should conditions stay as they currently are – when you do come see us, you won’t need a third double espresso to stay awake, nor will you need to dump water on your face and roll the windows down.  The anticipation of a close encounter is almost as good as the jolt of energy you get after you slam on the brakes for a family of half-ton pedestrians. 

It’s really better than it sounds.  We’ll see you soon, I’m sure of it.

Into The Wild

Yesterday as I was driving downriver to run errands, a huge bird swooped out of the ditch on my side of the road and flew into a leafless tree at the edge of the forest.  It was a bald eagle.  Cool, right?  I turned the car around to go take his picture, which was primarily intended to share here with you rather than bolster my photo library, because to be honest, seeing bald eagles is not totally out of the norm now.  We even had one perched at camp's waterfront a couple of weeks ago, drying off after a plunge in the lake.  

Life is full of surprises.  I don’t think I had ever spotted a bald eagle in the wild until a year ago.  It’s just one of many unexpected things that have come to be normal.

Some others:

• Noticing that a new “custom meat cutting” sign has popped up in town.
• Our outdoor moose thermometer.  I don’t even see the moose anymore.  

What moose?

• The Chevy Suburban in town that Maaco painted in Mossy Oak camouflage.
• That our grocery store is a Quonset hut.            
• Canadians.  Seriously.  
• This view:

Ok, you’re right.  Something this breathtaking can’t feel normal.

• This view:

Ditto.

I guess some things are still pretty special.  

Oh, you’ll like this.  Remember the mice that Kiwi has been catching lately?  Well, we found their trap door.  

Hidden behind one of these moose flags was a perfect hole the size of a nickel that our little field mouse was popping out of at two in the morning.  Remember our moose flags?  We found the escape hatch because Kiwi heard the little guy scrambling his way out of the hole and ran to grab him, but quickly she realized that she can’t climb walls.  We were both a little disappointed.  I’ll let you know how long the strip of duct tape keeps the vermin out.

Also, I added a survey gadget on the upper right-hand side of the blog, so check it out.  I'll get more creative with the questions in the future... you'll be begging for an easy one like this.

I'm Dreaming Of A White Halloween

The forecast for tomorrow night calls for evening snow showers.  Now, if I lived in Salt Lake City or Breckenridge or Tahoe or somewhere wonderfully ski-hill laden, this might be good news.  Unfortunately for all of us, I don’t, and the hint of impending white stuff is no lottery prize.  Halloween is next Monday, and I really like Halloween, but how can I celebrate in Bog boots and insulated Carhartts? 

Some college friends and I once made the rounds in 40 degree weather (suburban Chicagoland is prime candy-begging real estate, even when you’re a college junior), and let me tell you, my roommate Noel, who took the evening by storm as Lady Liberty, was quite literally shaking in her boots.  This was mostly because her costume was a thin grey sheet and [the coolest] aluminum foil crown [you’ve ever seen], and also she didn’t have any silver Carhartt overalls that would match her torch.  The group of us spent the night slowly shuffling through neighborhoods in the cold, receiving all kinds of suspicious expressions from moms and dads, but still getting their mini Snickers bars.  I don’t want to relive a cold Halloween.  And what about the children?!

Snow and cold aside however, I love costumes, and love to conjure up ideas for the old two-person dynamo.  Here is a sampling from my collection.

Our pet cat, Kiwi and box turtle, Lois - I’d wear black (already filling my closet) with face paint whiskers and a tail, while C could strap on our friends’ turtle sandbox cover. 

Vermont and New Hampshire – constructed out of cardboard, this is always on the list.  Even when you’re dancing in two separate rooms, everyone will know that you’re together.

Thing One and Thing Two – I  saw this done once in college, and it will live on in my mind for-e-ver.

A chicken and an egg – I like the idea of wearing a round suit.

A hunter and a moose – the only hazard being that one of us might actually get shot walking to the party.

source 

Moby Dick and Captain Ahab

We have some friends who are pregnant, and I’d personally really like to see them go as a bun and the oven.

Of course, I don’t actually have a party to get dressed up for, and I don’t imagine that we’ll really have any trick-or-treaters stop at our cabin, but hey – who needs a reason, right?  So if Monday night comes around and you happen to be a dromedary camel or bunch of grapes with nowhere to go, stop on over.  You can come watch the Chargers and Chiefs hammer it out with Captain Ahab and the white whale. 

Bring some chips.

Someone Get Me A Paper Bag to Breathe Into

Our cabin has a moose theme.  There are so many eyes on our furnishings that sometimes I feel like I'm being watched.

We have moose lamps, both electric

 and oil.

We have moose in our drapes.

and on our walls.

We have moose that tell us how warm (or terrifyingly cold) it is, both inside 

and outside.

We have moose things sitting on other moose things.

We have moose holding our keys

and ready to hold our drinks.

These moose are walking all over our walls.  I counted 12, but I'm sure there are more hidden in drawers and behind cupboards.  

We can consult an old moose calendar if we need to.

We even have some real moose.  These do not live in the house.

I think that with all of this moose-mania, the obvious next step is to get this.

source

I'm thinking a full-back portrait, with the antlers creeping up my neck. 

Also, I'd like the moose tattoo to have its own tiny moose tattoo. 

Layer upon layer of awesome. 

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Another thing - and this is totally off topic - what are some good ideas for an adult Easter basket?  

Workin' On Our Night Moves

Originally, I was going to take today to instruct you on how to survive a moose attack.  Up north, where these lumbering creatures outnumber us, there is a realistic fear of being found alone in the woods staring at the ugly mug of a half-ton car wreck.  But also on my list was “how to survive a night terror ”, which instantly overtook the moose thing as today’s subject, because a certain someone in my family woke me up last night by launching himself out of bed, screaming fanatically, and pointing at the ceiling with a look of mental chaos in his eyes.  This immediately became the frontrunner. 

When C and I were in college together, I heard stories about how he’d wake up in bed screaming, and how his roommate would run for his phone to call 911.  I should have known that this wasn't normal, but I managed to overlook it.   What can I say - love is blind.  If you’ve never experienced night terrors yourself, or have never slept in the same bed with someone who does, consider yourself lucky.  I really mean it. 

There are a variety of things beyond genetics that can contribute to the likelihood of a person having night terrors.  For example, how sleep deprived are you?  Are you stressed out?  Do you take any medications? 

Have you eaten a heart-stopping plate of chili nachos right before bed? 

Sigh.

These factors trigger a chemical reaction that causes a misfire in the brain and can bring on episodes like ours last night.  These occur during stage 4, or non rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, which is defined as your first 60 minutes after drifting off.  Night terrors are not nightmares, and can last from five to twenty minutes, during which the sleeper’s eyes may (and in our case do) remain OPEN.  Think on this for a second.   

The longer someone’s body is in non-REM sleep, the more intense the night terror will become.  (Not that I’m going to stay up clocking C’s episodes, but my money’s on them being about as far out as you can possibly get before hitting REM.)   Your partner may surge up in bed crying, moaning or screaming.  I’ve only experienced the screaming wake-up, so those of you out there who’ve done the crying/moaning thing, leave a comment and let me know how that is.  Personally, I’d give up the fear of man-eating alien soldiers crashing through my windows in exchange for a few crocodile tears any day.  But please, educate me.  

www.tvtropes.com

Maybe a little whimper is worse than I think.

Resources say that a good way to calm someone down from night terror riggor mortis is to gently ease them back into the bed using a soothing voice.  I don’t know who they have to wrangle at night, but there has never been a time that C has melted into my arms and drifted sweetly back to Neverland.  I practically have to go into the kitchen and come back sprinting, arms raised and belly out, like an defensive lineman tackling the quarterback.  My goal during these episodes is not to comfort his dream-induced lunacy, but to slam him back into bed hard enough that he'll let me fall asleep again.  Thankfully, it’s never happened twice in one night, or he'd be in the ER and I'd be explaining some questionable bruising.

My advice for those couples out there who haven’t acquired this life experience yet: buy a pair of brass knuckles and some earplugs and keep them in the bedside table.  Or better yet, go with twin beds.