Fickle Weather and Fearless Ferrets

Today dawned bright and cheery. The sky was white of course, it's ALWAYS white, but the birds were out and it didn't look like it was going to rain anytime soon. I made plans with a friend for the evening, and spent most of the day going through boxes and other boxes. I made good headway and roughly twenty minutes before me and my mother had to leave thunder started rumbling. I have mentioned before that storms scare the daylights out of me, so I pattered into the kitchen to check the weather and make sure it didn't say anything nasty was coming. Nothing very bad, a significant weather advisory, which, from my past experience means a bad storm without tornadoes or death. A severe thunderstorm warning is a cause for concern about death, and anything that combines the word tornado and watch or warning means I will start crying.
We drove first to a house where I am looking after a dog. The dog has my trouble with thunderstorms, and as soon as I opened the door he was there, pressing against my legs and whining pitifully. I fed and comforted him (I feel your pain buddy) and then I went to get the mail. As soon as I stepped outside there was a crack of thunder so loud it nearly split my eardrums and the immediate surroundings turned white. I stood still for a few seconds and ran through the signs of an approaching lightning strike in my head. There were no tingling sensations and no hair prickling so I decided that it hadn't got me yet and ran to the mailbox in a half fetal position. Anyone looking out their windows at that moment would have been greeted by the sight of a badly dressed loping fiend, curled in upon itself as if in agony and stealing from a nearby mailbox. After I deposited the mail I locked the door and sprinted for the car, waiting a precious few seconds outside in the death zone as my mother fumbled to unlock my door. I made it into the car (whew) and we began the drive to my friend's house. About halfway there the heavens opened and rain started pouring down like a waterfall. My Mom turned the windshield wipers on to their fullest extent, but it was really just a formality because we still couldn't see anything. We resorted to slow driving and guesswork. "Is that the turn?" "Dunno. I'm going to say no... oh! I think that's a car! Don't drive yet!" "No, that's a traffic light, calm down." After a few interesting minutes of driving, during which we were almost hit by a Black Van of Evil with no lights on, we got to my friend's house. I was feeling quite nervous about leaving my Mom to drive home alone. She has bad vision- only marginally helped by the cyborg implants that fixed her cataracts and gave her pupils an eerie flickering shine- and the horrible storm made me worried she would crash. I lightly suggested that she come inside to hang out with my friend's parents. No, she said, she didn't like disturbing families in the evening. But mother, I said, I am disturbing a family in the evening, and you were all right with that! Kids are allowed to do that, she said, and that was the end of it. As soon as we pulled into the driveway, hail started pouring down, little garbanzo bean sized balls of ice. I didn't want to be murdered by small ice balls, so this gave me a good excuse to stay in the car until the rain slowed and I felt my mother was safe again. We sat chatting loudly over the clattering of hailstones for five or ten minutes, and I left the car when the rain had slowed to pouring buckets rather then bathtubs. I huddled inside the house with my friend who suggested I needed coffee but never produced any (coffee hoarding dragon that she is) and happily mentioned that the weather was perfect for a horror movie. We curled up in her room and she showed me her various creepy crawlies (tarantula, eek) and angry Leopard Gecko, and we flipped through horror movie options, settling with a kind of family horror movie (my idea, not her, she likes full on liquefying eyeballs horror) called The Hole. I enjoyed it, though my friend and I both agreed that one of the monsters, a clown doll, would have been ridiculous if we weren't completely FREAKED OUT by clowns, and I was happy with the ending (I hate sad endings and 85% of horror movies have terrible endings as anyone can tell you). We were interrupted several times by my friend's mother on the subject of a rogue ferret, and we ended the evening with the deaf crazy albino beast running amuck in my friend's room and bothering the cat. Something I have noticed about ferrets, they have no sense of self preservation at all. I'm used to rats, with rats you can plop them on your shoulder and they will either stay there being cute or start climbing down if they don't find you interesting. I picked up this ferret and put her on my shoulder, she promptly walked off it and fell downwards until I caught her with a free hand. Then she preceded to hang limply from my hand like a pair of pants on a coat hanger before she gathered herself and vacated my hand too, her body cascading downwards like a furry strand of spaghetti. In other words, be careful with your ferrets boys and girls, because they are all about the Leap of Faith but there are no tiny hay carts! I'm sorry, I just put a poorly worded reference to Assassins Creed in my blog post. It wasn't even very good. I like people to know I'm geeky, I'm strangely proud of it, so I reference video games all the time in the hope someone will find it cool. I've never even played Assassins Creed! I'm a failure! I wish I had Revan's powers so I could force persuade you all you never read this! Oops, I did it again. Nathan Drake. Necromorphs. Okay, I'll stop now. We finally put the ferret on the bed (she walked off it) and kept her away from the cat until it was time for me to go. The rain had stopped, and my mother had survived the trip home, so all in all, a pretty good day. At least there weren't Myrkridia. Ooh obscure! Do I get points for that at least?

Death March

A few weeks ago one of my friends invited me on a one night camping trip to Cumberland Island in Georgia. We would be going with one of her friends and roughing it out in the wild for a whole day and a half. Of course I was assured it wouldn't be too dangerous, there was a security guard, rangers, a lot of fellow vacationers, and it was highly unlikely that murderers were to be found in bulk there.

I said yes, packed lightly (I thought, I am a girl after all, but I really tried), and we arrived early afternoon on Sunday. It was then that I learned that we were going to be camping at Stafford, not at the nearest campground, Sea Camp. Stafford was 3 and 1/2 miles away, but my friends assured me that it wouldn't be very bad, and the park ranger told us it would take us an hour and a half to walk.

We started off in high spirits, but we ran into trouble because we had packed too many bags. We had four backpacks, a cooler, a small purselike object, a bookbag, and the huge duffel bag containing the tent. We could only go five to ten minutes at a stretch before we had to stop, rest, and eat something to lighten the load. I fell behind at first, at least three or four minutes behind my friends. As the day wore on the friend carrying the tent grew more and more fatigued until she fell behind and when me and my other friend stopped to rest it could be ten to twenty minutes before she found us again. I took over the tent after a while, and we lost each other so often that my friends and I began to communicate through wolf howls (as close to accurate as we could manage) and whistles to make sure we hadn't gotten too separated. It wasn't all bad of course, once when I was separated I got to see an armadillo bumble about in front of me and rip up a log, and another time I terrified the living daylights out of a baby bird (a cardinal I think). The island itself was very beautiful, with strange crooked trees growing everywhere.

We arrived at our 3 and 1/2 mile away campsite five hours after we started, rigged up the tent and hung up the food before fleeing to the showers to tear off the ticks in a frenzied panic. How long does it take for lyme disease to set in again? Cumberland Island is legendary for its tick problem, and I can see why, I have never seen so many ticks in my life. I threw them every which way, because I don't like to kill stuff, and pulled them out of my socks and brushed them off the camping gear. I am still covered in tick bite bumps several days later.

After the showers we struck out for the beach, which was the part of this trip I was most looking forward to. We got lost for half an hour first by following what turned out to be a wild horse trail. The actual trail was flooded and murky, and we took our shoes off and waded through very gingerly, Cottonmouths are apparently found on the island (we didn't find any, I didn't find any snakes, something that disappointed my Dad to no end). The beach itself was wonderful, it went off in each direction as far as the eye could see, and it was simply littered with shells that you only find in shops.

 I was entranced by a whelk egg case dangly thing and carried it around with me until I decided to just take a picture of it.

 We found a large ghost crab, the first one I'd ever seen, and I terrified the poor fellow half to death.

We also found the holes to crab dens with adorable tiny crab tracks going in every direction.

 

The beach sky was stormy, and occasionally we would hear rumbles of thunder, so I avoided going into the water. We stayed out on the beach until the sun began to set, and the storm clouds moved inland, looking angrier all the while. Something you should know about me: I'm am terrified beyond belief by tornadoes. It barely has to rain, it can be just be cloudy, and I'm worried about them. This probably stems from an episode at a friend's house when I was small when we all THOUGHT a tornado was coming and we huddled in a bathtub crying. The clouds at the beach looked very much as though they could produce a few tornadoes if they wished, and I insisted that we fairly run back to our campsite. Running through woods and water is a very strange and somewhat cool sensation, and we made it back with no trouble.

A ranger had arrived to check on all of us, and we decided to ask her about getting home. All three of us were worried that we would be incapable of getting back to the ranger station. Was there anything she could do, because otherwise they would be collecting our bodies the next day. No, she said, that was really too bad, but we had been warned, besides, the animals needed a few hikers to eat (that last bit was implied). We limped back to our tent, cursing rangers in the dead of night like a bunch of witches, and started up a fire to eat stuff.

We ate as much as we could manage, if we could consume a lot of food we wouldn't have to carry it. Our peaceful nighttime dinner thing was interrupted a few minutes after it started by the presence of an enormous swaggering raccoon, who kept creeping close to the fire with his eyes on our hot dogs. This is obviously why you shouldn't eat at night. We waved things at him and snarled hindu grace and managed to keep him at bay long enough to eat. Then we fell asleep around 11, or tried to, and stayed in our tent till morning. The scary inland storm that had been so visible on the beach never came through, and the night was quite peaceful except for a few running deer that freaked me the heck out and a longhorned beetle that squeaked improbably like a mouse.

The next morning we were up early, packing up stuff, eating more food we didn't want to carry, and breaking down the tent. We made a stop at the shower to splash water about, and tied the tent duffel to makeshift harnesses. Then, laden with bags and backpacks, strapped to the duffel bag like Clydesdale horses with our faces set in grim lines, we began to make our way back. We got about a half mile before we stopped because one of my friends legitimately looked like she was going to die. We stopped and she began sobbing convulsively from the pain in her shoulders, and scared us badly. We tied more backpacks to the duffel bag harness and worked out a way she could carry things without rubbing her shoulders more, and she recovered extremely well.

 The way back took roughly as long as it did before. We took the main road because it was easier to drag the duffel bag along it, and we took breaks to lay full length along the road. We scared several people, either by pulling the husky harness or by resembling dead people. The ranger from the other night drove by and waved happily. While I was lying on the road I found several shark teeth which was nice. Finally, a car stopped and a lovely lady asked us if we were all right. One of my friends said yes, and I shot her a killing glare and said I didn't know if we were all right. She told us to wait there while she dropped people off at the beach, and she came back 20 minutes later and gave us a ride to the ranger station. She was beautiful. I told her that I would hug her if I wasn't so disgusting, and she immediately said oh that was alright please don't bother.

 Our last few hours at Cumberland Island were spent relaxing, drinking water, and making a final unburdened expedition to the ruined Dungeness mansion so my goth loving friend could take pictures. The mansion was cool, it looked like an attraction made by Disney, I wanted to wander inside, but it was blocked off. There was a whole herd of wild horses with babies, and I spent time watching them and dozing on a park bench. We all piled onto the boat when it was time, and Dad met us at the opposite dock. I really quite adore my family, and the dogs were happy to see me. No place like home right?

Healthy Vivaciousness Followed by Naps

It has been a VERY long time since I've posted anything. So much school! Troubling self-esteem issues! First Batman shirt! I have returned however, and we'll see if I can conquer the Laziness Problem and keep this thing going.
My family has recently begun to eat healthy. When I say healthy I mean hardcore stuff, I haven't eaten meat in three weeks, and everything is vegan except, ahem, for the creamer in the coffee and the butter that makes bread rolls enjoyable. We are eating like this for the noblest of reasons, the Trying to Get Healthy While Not Eating Anything Cute and Keeping Mom From Dying reason.
Now I am a very impatient person, and I generally think something isn't working if nothing's changed in one week. With that said, in my opinion this diet has yet to do anything amazing, but I am feeling better than I usually do, and I swear that my Mom has more energy.
The most important thing I'd like to fix has not changed yet unfortunately. I am tired all the time, I'm never ready to get up in the morning, and I basically spend the whole day thinking about how great it would be if I could nap. When I was little I HATED going to bed, and I'm not sure when this changed. If the diet eventually helps me with this sleepiness problem, I'll be very pleased.
My family is getting two bikes soon, and taking them out of paved roads and sidewalks. I'm nervous and excited at the same time. I fall off bikes with reckless abandon, and I can barely get on one without falling over and having a panic attack. In fact, the only thing I am worse at then riding a bike is using roller blades. I hope to eventually master both of these things, but I am concerned about the roller blades. I wouldn't be at all surprised if I was born a roller blade antiprodigy.