Pickles & Dimes

Hey, you know those last two posts? Yeah, I wrote them ahead of time and set them to post in the future. Anyway, remember when I said camping was simplistic? Well, I take it back. While you guys were responding to my posted-from-the-future entries, Jason, Shorty & I were camping in the wilderness, where Mother Nature was being told by yours truly to suck it, as it started raining the precise moment we started to set up our tent, and it stopped for only one day before capping off our much-looked-forward-to-for-MONTHS camping trip by pouring as we took down everything.

There’s nothing like damp sleeping bags, jeans soaked so thoroughly you have to use one hand to hold them up while you stuff sopping heaps of canvas into bags, sitting on a towel on the drive home (while suffering from an out-of-nowhere sinus infection), and having to set up your tent again at home to dry that makes you want to kill everyone in the universe.

But, in trying to see the silver lining (in the miserable, constant rain clouds), we took total advantage of the 24 hours of sunshine to go on plenty of hikes, enjoy a walk into town for ice cream (while Shorty hovered behind us as people walked by, ever the scaredy-dog), and even eat dinner at our favorite outdoor eatery. (They didn’t allow pets, but we ordered our food to go and ate our burgers around the corner on a park bench, while Shorty sniffed our cheese curds cautiously but behaved marvelously well by not begging or mauling us as we half-expected.)

In fact, the highlight of the weekend was Shorty. He is the quintessential camping dog. He hardly barked, only whined if we were out of his sight, and generally experienced doggie heaven for 3 days. (Sunshine! Squirrels to chase! Outdoors! Walks! Sleeping with the humans!) We brought along a portable crate for him to sleep in, but he was being so cute we let him up on our air mattress with us, where he promptly curled up at our feet in a tight ball and resumed snoring. He didn’t move at all during the night and so, the next evening as soon as we got into the tent, we let him clamber up to the head of the mattress, where he tucked himself into another impossibly teeny ball of toasted-just-right-like-a-marshmallow-colored-fur between our two pillows and was asleep, instantly.

Some pictures:

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I was tagged by Shelly to list five addictions of mine.

1. Right now I am inexplicably addicted to FrostTop root beer and circus peanuts. I drink root beer maybe three times a year and apparently, fall is prime Root Beer Drinking Weather for me. I can’t get enough of it. And the circus peanuts? I don’t know; they’re simultaneously horrifying and delicious.

2. Fantasy football. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I get all crazy and track statistical trends (best vs. pass, worst vs. rush, most takeaways, etc.) in an Excel spreadsheet to help with my team picks every week. I KNOW.

3. Chapstick. I honestly have to have a tube within 2 feet of me at all times, preferably of the Burt’s Bees variety. Last summer at our local city’s street parade, a dentist’s office gave out free samples of chapstick. It was the best parade throwaway EVER.

4. The soup at a little shop near work. I don’t know why or how (since they’re mainly a bike-repair business), but this place has the BEST sandwiches and homemade chicken dumpling soup I’ve ever tasted.

5. Cribbage. Jason & I play anywhere from 200-400 games a year, and yet every time we start a new game, I get excited. (Even though I am still losing by 37 games – ridiculous.)

How about you guys?

He’s a little too big (32 lbs.) but that doesn’t stop him from crawling into my lap for a good-night hug right before he goes to his kennel for the evening. He does this every night, for as long as we let him. I’d let him do it all night, but there’s that whole requirement I have of “getting 7+ hours of sleep so I can still greet myself in the morning with black under-eye circles.”

He really is a good dog. He’s being better and better about sticking downstairs on his blanket, rawhide bone hanging out of his mouth like Groucho’s cigar to watch TV with us. We’re looking forward to the time that he can be totally trusted with the cats and one of us doesn’t have to sprint after him every time he wanders out of the room.

And my heart melts every time Jason talks to him and Shorty listens respectfully, thumping his tail in agreement the whole time because yes, he IS a good boy.

P.S. In case you were wondering what kind of weirdo household we live in, I am wearing shorts.

Fall is here, as evidenced by my 42% dead rose bush bursting forth with seven new blooms, all, “No, no, it’s still summer. Look! NRRRRRRGH. See? New roses!” I can see my breath in the mornings when I let Shorty out, as I send countless puffs toward the pinkish-purple striated skyline. The cats are acting like insane torpedoes, launching themselves repeatedly onto our headboard to sniff at the cracked-open windows before sprinting clumsily and painfully over our sleeping bodies to thunder across the hardwood floors. (Shorty snoring in the next room is no longer a deterrent.)

The summer here has been fantastic in every way, filled with fun trips and great weather. But with the chill in the air, I feel a need to purge and clean, to clear my house and my mind. I want to donate all the clothing I didn’t wear this summer; low-cut tops inappropriate for work and never worn elsewhere; redundant pairs of flip flops; shorts that are too big but look terrible when worn with a belt. I want to clean out my files; folders that are bursting with useless forms and things I thought I should keep but really didn’t need to. I want to revise our house to-do list; we still haven’t gotten around to painting our window trim or the downstairs bedroom.

Our end-of-the-season camping trip has me practically bursting at the seams. I’ve been looking forward to it SO much, mainly for the mental benefits. The weather appears it will behave, and the evenings promise the lure of a giant campfire crackling in the hopefully-free-of-bugs darkness. I love how camping is so simplistic, just the bare materials you need to survive: food, shelter, water, nature, entertainment. I love that I can talk with Jason, play cards or cribbage, listen to the radio, read, or just sit and watch the stars or the campfire without ever once being bored. My head feels clearest when I’m camping. Somehow, I think I’ve missed my calling as a nature hermit.

I’ve also started scrapbooking again, an activity I’ve somehow always associated with cozy winter nights, and my latest knitting project, the half-finished Practice Sweater™ looks more and more inviting, rather than a summer-time anachronism.

I’m looking forward to crisp apples, pumpkins, TV shows starting up again, celebrating our one-year wedding anniversary, buying tiny gourds to use as decorations, wearing a new sweater for the first time, making vats of chili, pocketing acorns and perfectly formed leaves, and smelling a bonfire in the breeze. And football.

I’m not however, looking forward to raking leaves. That sucks. (And that whole winter business, too.)

What’s your favorite thing about fall?