Where the Wild Things Are.... Maine

After a weekend of foraging for berries and hunting for our dinners, I have returned, unscathed from the woods of Maine. Sure, the beasts are many... I mean, have you heard the rumors of Grandma Joan? But I packed enough tranquilizers that if that 85 year old tried to pick me apart... oh, let her try....

To entertain myself this weekend, and in distraction from the probing questions such as "why are you corrupting my grandson?" and "do you really find it appropriate to gargle your mashed potatoes at dinner?" I mean seriously people, can a girl get a break from the 3rd degree grilling I was getting. Well anyway, I kept track of all the critters I saw while up in Maine. I was disappointed in the lack of furry giant beasts (i.e. Deer, Moose, Zanes) but alas, what can you do?

1. Chickens (I even got to feed them!)
2. Horse
3. Kitty (That was their cat's name....)
4. Turkey Family
5. Skunk
6. Osprey
7. Bald Eagle (Hanging out in a tree across the water)
8. Robins and assorted songbirds
9. Goats
10. Sheep
11. Dog
12. Mosquitoes
13. Chipmunk
14. Dead Chipmunk (Thanks to Melissa.)
(I can feel her smacking my arm as I type)
15. Ducks
16. Dead Duck (No, Melissa didn't off that one.)
17. Seals
18. Goldfish
19. Cows
20. Bees

Well, after this fun-filled weekend there is nothing left to do but take a knife to the chicken in the freezer for dinner and reminisce of my new feathered friends I made... YUM!



P.S. Shout out to my parents! Happy 32nd Anniversary today!

The Simple Bare Necessities

This afternoon Julie and I were watching some Oprah, as usual, and she had an intriguing piece about living on just the necessities. She challenged two families to live a week with severe cut backs on spending, no use of cell phones or ipods allowed, and only having an hour of TV or computer use. The first family consisted of three teenagers, a materialistic mother, and a tool of a father. As you can imagine their achievements were superficial at best. The Gallant family, however, had a complete reformation. They went in being complete TV addicts and came out closer than ever.

As with every episode of Oprah, this got me thinking. How can Julie and I make better use of our resources? The game plan for moving up here was to return, if not be introduced to nature. Yet, so far our time here has been a reunion with cable television*. There have been strides though. This afternoon we jogged nearly three miles with only two pauses! But enough gloating, back to the subject at hand.

To conserve my alloted computer time this post was drafted on paper first, as to leave time for something like, but not entirely pop-cornography. For those of you who don't know what "paper" is, it is a thin leafy material made from wood. While it is debatable whether this method is really all that frugal, as long as it appeases Oprah it must be good for the world.

You may notice that this post doesn't contain as much humor (or as I refer to it as "silly bits"). That is only because being away from my computer I can't listen to my Bill Engvall CDs for inspiration.

Other ways we've cut back are by opting for baths in the pond as opposed to showers, instead of watching TV we use telescopes to watch the neighbors, and to save money on air conditioning and laundry we've done away with clothes altogether. All in all I think we're well suited to hop on this going green bandwagon. Technically it should go right along with one of my favorite recreational activities anyway. Though giving up fast food will be rough.

I must note however that even after an hour of Oprah preaching about putting away the cell phones and video games, to have a commercial about her grand summer giveaway where she'll be giving away hundreds of TV, iphones, and computers is more than a little hypocritical. For shame Oprah, for shame.

*see next installment "200 Channels and there's something to watch..." to find out more!

I need an adult!

Zane and I were brought up as good, behaving children who listened to our parents and didn't speak to strangers. But the one thing we were never taught was how to survive in small town America. Here, rules are made to be broken.

While strolling in the local grocery, Zane and I were casually discussing the benefits of ground meats, as often is our Wednesday night ritual. This gentleman nearby felt it necessary to join our dialogue. Zane told the gentleman "Sir, this is an A-B conversation, so please C your way out of it" but he was relentless. He first tried picking us up by telling us to get "real meat" not the turkey we were oggling and when we didn't tell him our social security numbers he continued.

I was mesmerized by the chip in the lense of his glasses while Zane kept petting his Ned Flanders moustache and giggling at its softness. Our new friend asked us if we knew about "The Barn" and literally was aghast when we said no. He wanted to know where we were from to which Zane hesitantly and generically answered "we just moved here." This did not appease Mr. X as a sufficient answer, so he grilled Zane further "Where's here?" he demanded. Zane, shaking, whispered "Athol." This was what our local stalker was looking for, and he went on to describe how to get to this mysterious "Barn" in Greenfield (a nearby town) "around the rotary, below the train tracks, round the corner, to the right." We nodded as if we knew what he was saying just to get him to stop talking.

What is "The Barn" you ask? It is the best place in the area to get discount groceries! We were told about the deals on things such as....

A 6 pound wheel of Brie for $7!
50 pounds of Barbeque chicken for $15!
3 for $1 6 month old frozen vegetables!
Expired meat of a wide variety for low low prices!
2 for $1 moldy sour cream pints!

I mean this stuff was amazing... and for this man to graciously tell us how to acquire our monthly alotment of excessively large quanities of moldy produce, I mean.... wow.

So as we slowly backed up from our friendly, and probably poisonous pal, plotting our nonverbal escape route, MRS. X comes from behind us! Seems like Mr. X must be quite insistent on his Barn promotions because Mrs. X had a neck brace on as well as Band-Aids strewn about her. We decided to nod some more.

The lovely, and scary, couple asked us some more about ourselves. It began to take on the feel of "why don't you two come to our house... why don't you two get more comfortable... have you seen how nice our bedding is...?" I think I've seen some YouTube videos about these type of people. After mentioning something about a swing set, or something, Zane started grabbing at my arm. They gave us their card and told us to call... what for, they never said. As we checked out, guess which friends found us in the SAME cashier line! I checked a few times before pulling out of the lot, but I think we lost them.

Oh, gotta go, someone's knocking on the door. Boy, people sure are friendly here!

There are plenty of fish in the sea, and now I know how to gut them!

Today was a big day for me. I officially quadrupled my record for most fishes caught in a day. My previous 1 was shattered today when I caught an astounding 4 Crappy! That's not even counting the ones I threw back. A Crappy is a fish indigenous to the lake, named for the dark gunk that they're often coated in. At least that's the only reason I could think of.

Over many years fishing in Maine I never had nearly as much success or enjoyment out of removing animals from their natural habitat. Often we would go out on the boat for hours scouring the waters for gullible sea-creatures. Often we would catch some slimy shrubbery but it never tasted very good, even with tartar sauce.

Today's fishing excursion got to the point that after 2 hours, with the sun going down, my envious fishing compatriots had to drag me away from the area now referred to as Zane's Cove. Thankfully I was wearing a life jacket so my head stayed above water.

Once we got back to the house it was time to do the inevitable. With a rope of 7 Crappy to clean we began our preparations for cooking dinner. Barrytone Sax laid the fish out and proceeded to show me the proper was to humiliate them. While I understand the necessity to cut the supple meat from the bone, dressing it up to look like Judy Garland before hand was a little uncalled for. Although I will admit that Barrystein Bear did do a lovely ventriloquist version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It felt empowering to imagine myself as the Wicked Witch exacting my revenge on the little water-loving tart.

At first I had some trouble finding my moral standing on doing the dirty work necessary in the eventual enjoyment of a filet of fish. In the end I swallowed my pride and entered the role of the carnivorous human and began chopping off heads left and right. Much like other forms of murder, what seems like an ugly disturbing task of taking a life isn't so tough once you get into a groove. I will admit that if my sister ever learned of this she probably would never speak to me again, but thankfully there's no possible way she would ever find out.

Shaniqwa LX you will be missed

While moving to the new place was a fun and exciting experience it is not without its tragedy. Leaving the Astoria apartment we caravanned up route 91, with Neil, Allie and S-Dub driving the truck, followed by Julie and myself cruising in my beloved Honda Accord wagon, and Crunch Barries bringing up the rear in his ruby red Jeep Grand Cherokee. In the week leading up to the big move I had been reunited with my long lost mom-car. She ran well, sputtering a few times but overall standing tall, teal, and proud. I was assured by my family's mechanic that she would be perfectly fine to make the long journey North. I was excited to have her up there. She got great gas mileage and never complained too much. I pictured loading up her big trunk with bikes and finding all the great trails that were in the vicinity.

On the day of the move everything was going smoothly. We packed up the entire apartment over the course of 2 1/2 hours. I put all my electronics in the Honda to keep them close to me, and before too long we were on our way. Getting out of the city was not without traffic, but it was all fairly seamless. Once the traffic broke it looked as though the rest of the day would be smooth sailing.

Julie thought the Honda should be named Shaniqwa for it's big back side and love of DMX, and even though the radio no longer worked, Julie was determined to have a music filled trip as she regaled me (somewhat reluctantly) with acapella versions of many of the songs that unfortunately make up today's pop music.

Just after exiting New York with about three hours left in our journey the Honda began coughing. The gas pedal sounded like it reacted to my touch yet the car was slowing down. Panicked I hit the blinker and pulled the car over two lanes just as the shoulder began to disappear. Crunch Barries, who had done a great job following the whole way, was able to pull over right behind us.

We sat there for a moment planning our next course of action. Fortunately it wasn't long before the highway police came to our aid. They called a tow truck for us then left to attend to a wreck somewhere down the road. Thankfully we were able to fit all that I had packed in the Honda into the Grand Cherokee and waited for the tow truck far off to the side of the road. An hour and a half, and 11 inspired semi tractor-trailer horn blows later the tow truck finally arrived. We followed the truck as it brought my beloved wagon to the shop. I handed over the keys and asked that they determine if it would be ok.

A few days passed and I received word that the timing belt had snapped and whipped nearby parts bending precious valves. Her injuries were too severe, and there was nothing more they could do for her. Upset as I was there was no use in pointing fingers. Perhaps this problem could have been foreseen, maybe Julie shouldn't have offended the car by singing Pokerface so many times, or perhaps I shouldn't have ghost ridden her so much, or taken her off so many jumps in High School, or used her to reenact my favorite scenes from the Bourne Identity. The silver lining to all this is that she did have many many good years, I just knew she could have had a few more.

Where da hood at?... RIP

You + Me = Us

Our move... the equation.

One week with my mother in NY
+ just enough free boxes from Starbucks
- alone time
+ 2 rolls of packing tape
+ Tom and Melissa's oasis amidst packing
+ my amazing medium reading
x 2 helpers driving down on Friday
+ a 16' truck
/ parallel parking the 16' truck 8 times
+ one special moving helper with fur!
x Dad's mad packing abilities
- 2 sets of keys turned into the building super
x 3 vehicles caravanning
- Zane's 1991 Honda Accord seizing on the highway once we hit CT
x 3 people standing on the side of the highway for 1.5 hours waiting for a tow truck
x Dad's mad re-packing abilities
- 3 hours lost of travel time
/ a great Chinese dinner
+ Mom and Neil unpacking a ton by the time we arrived 3 hours late (squared)
- spending the weekend with Mom and Dad
+ spending the weekend with Zane's Mom and Dad
/ unpacking
x internet!
x cable television for the first time in 2 years!
x 200 channels
+ beautiful nature
- a trip to the Springfield RMV (=s DMV in normal speak) to get my car on the road
x 2 when we had to return after incorrect paperwork
- one flat tire on MY 2003 Honda Accord on the way BACK up
+ Zane's proven manhood of changing a tire on the side of the road!
+ Julie singing "What a man" by Salt N Peppa while Zane changes the tire
x 2 new back tires
+ no parents for a couple days
= We made it.

Massholes in Athol

As you all should know by now, Julie and myself have taken the blog north to Athol Massachusetts, if not then... well... surprise! We are now living in her parents' lake house on the edge of White Pond. It's a beautiful wooded area complete with chipmunks, robins, and a Walmart.

Going rural takes some big adjustments. For one there are no homeless people anymore, here they're just called locals. When people wave to you on the street they don't typically want to sell you something or have you take a survey but rather they want something completely different. What that something is I don't know, I've been able to avoid them thus far. Instead of car horns, daily life is filled with the sounds of these feathered creatures flying around honking. Instead of rooting for talented pro football teams like the New York Giants, people seem to root for some small local team called the Patriots. It's actually pretty cute really. But the one thing that is truly a shock are all the vampiric insects buzzing around. In New York we didn't have to worry about happening upon a family of spiders, or suiting up with anti-mosquito scent every time we step outside.

It's really quite absurd, this place is just overrun with animals. I'm not talking the cute little fluffy ones that stick out of coach bags, but slippery, chirping, scurrying, confrontational ones. Just last night I awoke to a clutter of noises emanating from the ceiling directly above me. It could only be described as squirrels playing soccer with an lug nut. The real tip off were the high pitched chanting of "Olay olay olay" and the subsequent riot that proceeded a particularly wicked knock.

Above all this place is very friendly. Shop-keeps are actually pleased to help you, cars let pedestrians cross and traffic pass, and no one looks like they are absolutely miserable with their life for no reason. Moving up here has been more than a literal breath of fresh air. Now I just hope I can live here for a while before getting cabin fever. I saw a movie about it once Shawn from Boy Meets World and a bunch of college kids rent a cabin and then are attacked by a flesh eating virus, and there was that weird little blonde kid who flipped out and started doing gymnastics when he heard the word "pancakes". Terrible movie. They're making a sequel you know. I'll probably see it. F***ing Rider Strong.