And When He Arrives, He'd Better Bring Queso

I'm back, I'm pregnant, and I'm hungry.

It's been almost seven months since I clicked out a single word here, which has probably been either a tropical island of coconut-scented bliss for you or an ocean of nothingness, which is mostly what it's been for me.  It isn't that these many months have been empty, only that the feeling of floundry nothingness is how I've felt toward the Blog bookmark on my Safari toolbar.

Not floundering, but floundry, like the fish: clammy and undesirable.  Don't touch it. 

In fact, quite a bit has happened.

C and I tap danced through another fabulous summer of camp,

made an amazing escape to the desert of southwest America,

got ourselves pregnant,

Wait, wait, wait.  

(no source link folks, but this beaut' belongs to the interweb -  I only wish it were mine)

That's better.

took a dinner cruise,

and I rode a camel named Luke.

It was a full season.  And now, with snow and sub-zero temps alternating punches, we venture into the icy boxing ring of winter, bobbing and weaving, whilst I awkwardly balance a belly that is gradually causing me to not only look like the letter p, but to also, well, have to.

Some people have children because it makes them happy.  Ideally, all people have kids because it gives them joy, which despite my general snarkiness, I genuinely believe to be a significantly different thing.  What I mean by the first statement is that some people have childhood dreams and aspirations of parenthood, of someday bringing life into the world: a tiny swaddled person wafting of that sweet smell of babydom (not the liquid poop, the other one).  Having kids can satisfy these feelings, hence happiness.

Most of you already know this, but I wasn't that kid. We weren't that couple.  I didn't grow up dreaming of motherhood, and in fact, the idea kind of made me squeamish, and at least half-terrified (still does).  It's not that I dislike infants or children or families or am some kind of angry grinch, but I've just never felt that... maternal.  Along with that, C and I as a couple had become pretty set in the idea that we'd invest in the human race in other ways.  For example, I love getting to work with college students and post-grads.  It gives me joy.  It's my jam.  So I think it surprised us both a bit when we came to the decision that, despite the fact that our emotional makeup toward the idea felt quite like a dry, lifeless paper cup, we would set ourselves to embark on this one-way trip to the Other Side.

It's been a strange process, mentally switching gears from being genuinely really satisfied as a twosome, to being genuinely really satisfied as a twosome, only we're about to become three.  We are trying to create room for the emotions that we can't yet understand for this person that is making himself increasingly known with every roll and roundhouse.  It feels a shade like treason to my former self to admit it, but I've truly enjoyed being pregnant.  So far things haven't been bad:  not too much back pain, no excessive gas ( I think - you tell me), or insane cravings.  It helps that we're 90 miles from the nearest crab rangoon, which, if you felt like bringing me sometime, would be totally ok, and might earn you a middle name or fairy godmother status via our son.  It's been a fascinating process,  to mentally know, then physically feel that life is getting ready to burst (don't remind me) forth from life.  Crazy, really.

So as I adjust to our Olympic vaulter catapulting himself off of my bladder, I think I'm also adjusting to the idea that in a few short months, there will be something other than the cat flailing around on the living room floor.  All in all, I suppose I'm actually looking forward to it.

Kiwi the Cat is not, unless he will be accompanied by snacks.  Which really, would be ok with me, too.

When Things Come Full-Circle

It's a cheeky example of divine humor, really, that I ended up in working in the camp industry.  When I was a little girl, my parents took time out of their summer and volunteered for week-long chunks at a youth camp a few hours from our home.  They'd take my sister and I along with them, enrolling a very happy Renee in the current session and attempting to enroll me.  What I mean is that I would start my week in a cabin on the hill by drudgingly taking a bottom bunk somewhere in a hut full of other 9-year old inmates, er, campers.

Then I would

MELT

DOWN.

I was that kid.  I'd last maybe a day or two, and only that long because my two teenage counselors had the patience and willpower of a couple of hearing-impaired elementary school bus drivers.  But even they could only hold it together for so long, and after day two of my desperate, home-sick blubbering, they'd escort me down to whatever farmhouse room my folks were inhabiting and I'd resume my week, having not only ruined the first two days of my counselors' session, but now ruining the whole experience for my parents, because at that point they were no longer alone.

And I in my current state, would be the worst kind of company.

My memories of my time as a camp drifter are few and fading, but I haven't lost them altogether yet.  There was this set of metal pipes that was hammered into the ground in an upside-down U shape, and I remember swinging my body around like I was a competitor at the Olympics, showcasing some brilliant, high-scoring (and almost certainly unsafe) moves on the uneven bars.  This was also my first memory of having the wind knocked out of me.

When it happened, I knew I was going to die, which made me so mad, because dead people don't make it to the podium, ever.

Another good memory was our camp pool.  You see, it wasn't actually a pool in the way of your local YMCA, but was rather a concrete mold (in the shape of a pool), filled with water running from a nearby brook.

The brook was also the residence of a moderately-sized family of beavers.  

Or were they moderately-sized beavers?  

Both, probably. 

Our open-swim was held in an opaque brown rectangle that was full of frogs and snakes and salamanders.   We kept a big salt shaker on the lifeguard stand to use in the case that any leaches became stuck to the legs and arms of campers.  There was usually a line to use it.  

You didn't touch the bottom of this pool.  Ever.

Other pages in my mental scrapbook: huge bonfires, camp songs with more verses than 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, chicken patty lunch, a plastic tree with gumdrops on it that you won for "cleanest cabin" (along with getting to keep a stuffed owl for a day - this only works with the under-12 crowd, trust me), feeding our leftover meal bits to the pigs down the road, and wandering semi-aimlessly, playing with kittens and making the next space shuttle out of pom-poms and googley-eyes.

So even though I was a nightmare as an actual camper, I still have some pretty good memories when it comes to our weeks away.  Between morning calisthenics and my post-cookout watermelon binge, I was like a free-range chicken, checking in here, exploring over there... running to the sound of the bell when it was time to eat and giving too much attention to the resident animals.

And now when our campers want to play in a vat of Jell-O pudding or paddle across the pond on their mattress, I'll be flashing back to my own childhood and remembering that, like the time I threw some dish detergent in with my juice, natural consequences are the best kind.

I learned mine at camp - why shouldn't they?

Change Is Like Quarters And Dimes

It's been a little over a year now since C and I moved north.  As I look back, I can see that some of my personal behaviors have changed - a number of them significantly so.  Still, there are parts of life that have remained the same, which is a surprising fact on its own.  This whole experience has seemed a little like being born over again and having to figure things out from scratch.

In a good way.

Non-shockers:

• I drive less... much less, but I haven't actually found that I walk more.  I just... don't... go... anywhere.
• I've stopped shaving my legs so frequently.  When it's -20* and God has given you natural long underwear, you don't go around just lopping it off in the name of being en vogue.  We are so past vogue.  

We're so far past it that we're behind it again.

• I drink (if it's possible) more coffee than before, but I don't pay $4.25 for it.  I fill up at the grocery store, right next to the Chester Fried Chicken case, for like, one whole dollar.
• I have no idea if skinny jeans and Ray Bans are still trendy.  Are they?  Or can we finally move on to suspenders and Muck boots?
• I cook more.  That is, unless it's summer, in which case I don't cook at all, which is glorious.
• I am less driven into madness by Wal-Mart (less is still some, mind you).  One-stop shopping is kind of a big deal up here, even for newbies.
• I can still buy local eggs.
• I don't miss pop radio.   Would you?
• I am still learning the difference between Sunday Lunch and Sunday Dinner... or is it Supper?

Shockers:

• I've started wearing eye shadow.  This is a little ironic, considering 1) I work in my basement and mostly go out only to get the mail, and 2) I'll have to drive an hour and a half to buy more when I run out.  

Or, more likely, i'll just quit wearing eye shadow.

• I don't lock my door.  I used to do that, back when there was a reason to lock your door... or someone to lock outside of it.  Now, I mostly want to lock people in.  Visitor-people.  This could be you.
• Is that a squirrel in the freezer?  Oh, yes - yes it is.  

Yes. 

It.

Is.

• I have a bird feeder.  It's the middle of nowhere, in 0* weather, and I can't get any birds to eat at my bird feeder.  What are they thinking?
• Instead of getting a real hair cut, this morning I just had C snip off "the mullet part" before I got in the shower.
• I have cable [and a hipster somewhere falls down dead every time I turn it on].
• I can purchase marrow bones, chicken livers and Snow Cap lard at the same place I buy my shoes.
• I find myself racing out of the house, at 11PM, in only my pajamas, to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights.

I know what you're wondering and no, I haven't seen them.  

Cold for nothing.

• I have driven a front-end loader, albeit only for a minute or two, and I was mostly just holding the brake.  They can't take that away from me.
• My friends enter raffles for MACHINE GUNS.  You know who you are.  

I still struggle to be on time for anything, and I continue to impress hosts of people with my uncanny ability to strangle the life out of stories, but of all the things that have changed or stayed the same over this year, I'm most grateful for my friends.  

The good.  The bad.  The ugly.  Especially the ugly; nothing makes you feel good like an ugly friend.

Just kidding.  You got me.

It's the special friends that make you feel good.

  

And Then Suddenly, All In A Moment, We Realized How Good It Was

It's a wise practice, I think, to every so often remind one's self of the incredible nature of things.

So many things.  

Life.

Breath.  

Breathing.  

Gasping.

Whispering.  

Speaking.  

Hollering. 

Screaming.

Smiling.

Chuckling.

Laughing.  

Witch-Cackling.

Toe-Wiggling.

Walking.

Running.

Escaping.

Last night someone took a pastry cutter to the sky.  After pressing it to the darkness, twisting once or twice (for good measure and a clean cut) and peeling away the scraps, there was left a large, round, luminescent cookie.  A moon cookie.  Because we live miles and miles [and miles] from anything resembling a shopping mall, this very stunning moon cookie found no competition for its brilliance.  Here there is no streetlight to overpower (not a single one), no neon sign diminishing our view from the ground, and finally, up a three mile driveway surrounded by thousands (thousands) of acres of wilderness, there are rarely even any headlights.  So last night, ironically, in a world where too much is never enough, this powerful pastry moon bathed the entire forest in light.

This, this was enough.  

Enough to cast shadows.  Enough to see your footing on the dry, packed snow.  Enough to plainly observe with your eyes the incredible nature of things.  And - without the noise of cars, trains, sirens, or even logging trucks - enough to hear life with vivid clarity.

The fog of hot breath in 7-degree air.

A quick gasp before mounting a snow tube at the hill crest.

The whispers of children to their parents: Yes, it's SO fun.

Screams that ring like a bell choir through the naked birch trees.

A dozen gleaming smiles.  

A cascade of giggles.

The cackling of friends rough-housing in a soft, forgiving world.

Toes that wiggle in their boots, rousing one another... stay... warm....

Walking through a gap in the trees (how are the stars this bright?).

Running to catch a ride to the top of the hill.

Escaping all mind-clutter as we whoosh
          - downward, faster, spinning -
                 through the forest.

But no, this is not escaping. 

This is finding.  We are finding out that

things

are 

incredible.

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.

Order Up!

Oh you saints of the food service world… you are the gladiators of innumerable, daunting culinary battles.  Meatloaf for seventy?  That’s all?  18 enormous pizzas?  With one oven?   No problem!  Home-made bread for 150 screaming kids? Honey, you look terrified - did someone start a fire? 

This weekend, I cooked for 50 people, spanning 6 meals, Friday night to Sunday afternoon.  To any camp chef or kitchen staffer, this probably wouldn’t be so alarming (or to one exceptional young woman who usually helps out on weekends like this).  I’m not sure why my name was anywhere near the hat they chose from to fill the void this time around, other than, well... the fact that I’m not doing much else these days.  But seriously, someone should have “accidentally” slipped and dropped my name out of the running.

 

The source of my culinary inspiration.

Here are a few lessons I learned this weekend while I was messing around with sharp knives and hotel pans:

1. Always cook more bacon than seems appropriate.  What you don't realize is that people have a special, very-expandable pit in their bodies, solely for stashing fried pork.  As C said on Sunday morning, “If you serve bacon at breakfast, there won’t be leftovers, and if you serve more bacon, there still won’t be leftovers”.  He was right.

2. When making pizza dough in the huge Hobart mixer, be sure to pause the machine when you are pouring flour into the bowl.  I know what you’re thinking and no, the dusty powder didn’t fly everywhere.  Instead, the curlicue dough attachment crushed the aluminum pitcher I was using to dump the flour, which is no longer a cylinder – it’s now just a long oval made out of metal.  It squashed like a tube of toothpaste under a car tire. 

3. Keep your hands out of the Hobart mixer.

source

This guy knows what I'm talking about.

4. How to make bear crack.  It’s candy, and I guess bears really do like sweets.  This is just one more trick I’ve learned in our neck of the woods.  If you live in a suburban area, don't use this recipe.  I will not be responsible for bears snacking on your children because you like to take their pictures when they eat out of your bird feeder.  Common sense could save the world.

5. Wear good shoes and sleeveless shirts.  I could’ve done hot yoga in that kitchen had I brought a mat, and it’s almost winter here. so I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to work in a Miami restaurant.  If you don’t have any sleeveless shirts, I suppose a bathing suit would work, but I’m not sure how that floral tankini or those Hawaiian board shorts would fly with the state inspector.  Bottom line: it’s hot, and after 12 hours on your feet, you’ll feel like you are waddling around in shoes three sizes too small with a pair of newly acquired cankles.

6. When the crowd has left and the day has ended, you’ll get enough of a happy, tired endorphin rush to help overcome the swelling as well as the bacon aroma that has imbedded itself in your scalp and fingernails.  Above all, you’ll be thankful for those crucial other hands that helped put you food on the table.  At least I was.

So to every line cook, sous chef, dishwasher and baker out there – you are underappreciated champions of the greater public.  You perform miracles daily, converting old bread, eggs, milk and sugar into a bread pudding that I could never rival, and yours feeds 85, while I generally eat my 9"x12" alone on the couch, unless C gets to it first.  You order vast amounts of food with precision and can compose menus quicker than I can write a status update.  You are astonishing individuals, and on behalf of all of us who eat with vigor and abandon, thank you.  Don’t ever stop.  

Unstructions

I am currently sitting in a cushy black office chair on the sidewalk outside of a small auto dealership in South Portland, Maine.  I can hear what is probably a Boeing 757 making its final descent into Portland Jetport, and can smell the tantalizing aroma of french fries and fresh pizza from the shop next door.  Why am I here?  I'm buying a van.  Well, I'm hoping to buy a van.  I think.  Am I?

Remember what I said Wednesday about being a camp spouse?

I get nervous when I'm asked to do adult-ish sorts of things, such as my present task.  I'm a terrible negotiator, respond poorly to confrontation, have trouble changing my wiper blades, and know next to nothing about automotive standards.  As a child, I probably didn't even like to haggle for a later bedtime.  I am clearly the least qualified person who could have been sent on a quest to purchase a used 15-passenger van for our organization.  But in this business, if you have an upturned beach umbrella and a paddle, you might find yourself suddenly sailing around the world for a camper flying into Cape Town.  It's spontaneous at best and unpredictable at worst.  And a whole lot of fun.

So as I sit here and awkwardly survey the sales lot, I am mentally considering purchasing a black 2003 Lincoln Town Car limousine.  You see, I'm also currently in possession of a camp credit card (Dollar Tree shopping spree!!), and there are some vehicles that are starting to look a lot more appealing to me than the white 15-passenger shuttle van that is staring me down from the handicapped spot.  Actually, it's an 11-passenger van.  The reason I'm sunbathing on the pavement is because an employee is running down the back seat that someone thought was irrelevant.  So it's an 11-passenger van disguised as a 15-passenger van.

But no, Mr. Used Car Salesman, you can't pull that trick on me; you'll have to work a little harder.  However, this does make me wonder at how gullible I appear at first glance.  I can just see them in the back room... "Maybe she'll never notice.  Let's take the gas cap, too."

I can't blame them.  Without clear guidance, I'd probably ride an elephant off the lot.

And be happy about it.  I like to call myself a good "life spectator".  Calling it "observing" would imply that I pay attention, and we all know that would be just too much.