Thursday, August 28, 2008

Greatest Love, Biggest Fear

It's been a while, but I finally got back out there.














I was ready for it. Mountains. Trees. Waterfalls. Wildflowers. Little scurrying friends. (Luring them with our best marmot impressions.) Views so wide you can breath deeper than you knew possible.

Except for the good old-fashioned panic attack in the middle of the first night when I woke up and freaked out that I was in the dark woods without walls to protect me from boogie-men. Vulnerable and exposed in the big dark unknown. But that's why you have best friends who you can show all the dark corners of your soul to. Who have seemingly limitless patience right when you need it, even in the middle of the freakin' night. Who tell you funny stories until the tranquilizers kick in.

So continues my battle to not be held prisoner by fear of the dark. Determined not to let my love for being outside be taken away my fear of being outside.

Even after living through a nightmarish visit from my own private demons, morning always feels fresh again. Thank god. We set out on what was supposed to be a relatively good, but super easy day hike (trying to be easy on my knee), but we slightly misinterpreted the hike description and serendipitously ended up in THE most beautiful picnic spot I've ever seen. We ended up with a 360 degree view of Baker, Shuksan, and other peaks all around us. Magical.

Later we tried to figure out how the Yellow Aster Butte trail head could have dared to actually lead us to a place called Yellow Aster Butte instead of the other place called Twin Lakes that we thought we wanted to see. Yes, we are that stupid sometimes. And that lucky.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Screaming Like a Girl

I've always thought of myself as the kind of girl who is made of sugar and spice but also keeps her cool in the face of snakes and snails and puppy-dog tails. A thoroughly modern, well-balanced, active, capable young lady, right? But apparently even being of a post-feminist generation with a naturally adventurous spirit only gets you so far when it comes to dead rodents.

Friday night, as I am trying to recover from being sick and prepare for a weekend trip, my friend calls me up in a panic (which immediately makes my heart jump because she is 5 months pregnant). "You have to come over! There is a mouse in a trap under the sink, and I can still hear it moving around..." Her husband, of course, is golfing and not answering his phone (thanks, Josh). The urgency in her voice and my desire to be the kind of friend who will drop everything in a time of need propelled me out the door before I could really think about what I was getting myself into.

I arrived to a frazzled friend, two agitated dogs, and a wooden spoon through the handles of the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Luckily, we had established that my role was mostly moral support. Or I may have turned around as soon as we peaked in, screamed a few times, and saw the huge dead mouse body. Aaaahhhh. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

What do you even do with that?! We don't want to deal with that! With great emotional intensity, we brainstormed possible solutions and searched the house for carcass extraction implements... I was very clear on the fact that there needed to be something rigid and opaque for transporting the body from the house (there would be no dead rodent floppiness on my watch). We decided BBQ tongs could be effective, then thrown out. Maybe the gardening hand rake? And maybe hazmat suits.

Finally, using a combination of tongs, broom, and brown paper bag, my friend coaxed the mouse corpse from the back of the cupboard as I screamed at the top of my lungs over her shoulder (aren't I helpful?!). Then tiptoed the bag across the alley to the industrial dumpster (shh).

Didn't retain much dignity, but got the job done.