It's So Flipping Cold Out.

It's always around this time of year that I begin to hate winter. It's not entirely that I'm out of things to do. No, there's plenty to do. In fact, I've comprised a list of things that I could do:

-Cross country skiing.

-Snultimate

-Ice skating

-Walking around aimlessly and see how much feeling I can lose in my extremities

-Hibernating with cocoa

-Studying

-Leveling up in the Frostbite game.

Clearly, most of these, with the exception of four, five, six and seven, are extremely limited when it gets to, say, below ten degrees.

There are all of those great public service people who come onto the morning news to talk about children's health and how easy it is to find great outdoor exercise for your kids, even in the winter. They lie. Unless you want your kids leveling up in the Frostbite Game. With the windchill today, it is thirty below. Owie. My hands felt crystallized after less than a one-minute walk from the door of the car to the door of the school.

When I was in eighth grade, I walked to and from school. In the spring and fall, I would even rollerblade the few winding blocks between my house and the school. In the winter, I would trek through the snowbanks, but only when I couldn't beg a ride from my parents (who, according to legend, were forced to walk to school with bare feet, uphill both ways with all of the neighborhood children on their backs). One day, unexpectedly, I was without a ride home, and so resorted to walking. Unfortunately, by some stroke of a universal loathing, this also happened to be the coldest day of the year. Twenty five degrees below zero, with the blistering windchill. And unfortunately for me, I not only was without mittens or a hat, but I also had to carry one of those big, bulky, tri-fold posters home. The idiot in me refused the offers of mittens from concerned teachers, and I trotted off in the direction of home. Well, halfway down the first street, the skin on my fingers clutching the posterboard were aching and pinching with the awful frigidness of the day. For another street or so, I transferred my hands, one holding onto the poster while the other balled up to try and regain warmth. This stopped working after awhile, and halfway between the school and home, I began to get frantic. Remembering that the air from my mouth is obviously heated more than the air outside, I began alternately stuffing as many of my fingers in my mouth as I could while trooping on, every step surging with a pinch of pain, because, of course, I also had no boots. To make matters worse, I didn't realize that as I was sticking my fingers in my mouth, I was also getting them wet, causing the cells in my finger tips to freeze more quickly. And so, as I embarked onto my home street, the home stretch, the final leg, I began to cry, certain that I wouldn't make it. My legs were tired and tingled with the cold, my feet numb, my fingers on that painful verge of numb that haunts nightmares- except for my thumbs, which sent me over that crying edge, because I couldn't feel them at all. I considered more than once just throwing my posterboard into a snowbank and fleeing home, but it was a very important project, and I wasn't about to let it go to waste.

And so, I cannot imagine what my mother might have thought when I finally arrived home. Unable to move my fingers enough to manage the doorknob, and too frozen to knock without pain, I pounded my forehead against the pane of the door.

What I must have looked like to her, a little fourteen year-old girl in a skirted uniform, nose and ears bright red, snot and tears running in tracks down my face that made hair stick to my skin, and fingers immobile, clutching a posterboard with the title, "Forensic Entomology".

So now you see, unless I find some remarkable change in personality that causes me to crave another level-up in the Frostbite Game, I have no other option but to hibernate inside.

Forgive me Play 60. But there's no way in Hell that I'm going outside...to Hell.

The Rat and Boot adventure.

Yesterday, my most wonderful parents drove me down to Amesbury, Massachussetts to pick up my rats from their foster home. We left around eight, supplied with enough Harry Potter for eleven hours, and a kennel full of fleece. I still can't believe my parents are crazy enough to do this for me.
Yes, Amesbury is just over the border from New Hampshire. But it's still a good three hour drive. Three hours!
After much consideration, I had decided to go with the two rats that had initially caught my eye, Madeline and Pimento.
The foster mother was a tiny middle aged woman named Ruth. Madeline and Pimento had only been there for one night, transported from a town just south of Boston. As we walked to the door, cat kennel in hand, I could hear what sounded like a full pack of wolves barking. It was terrifying to find out that this woman not only had several rats, plus the fosters, but perhaps four dogs, a new cat, and Heaven only knows what else. I didn't doubt her ability to take care of them, and indeed, she seemed very able, and very caring. But I couldn't imagine the time she must have had to put into these animals. After we came inside, past the door for the designated "rat room", Ruth opened up the door to the top cage, where I could see a recognizable dumbo-eared head poking out from inside the hammock. I had looked at the pictures of Maddy and Pimento so often that I could tell them apart with ease. They were much fatter in person- the pictures must have been taken when they were quite a bit younger. Ruth picked up Pimento, who isn't as shy as Madeline, and she handed her over to me. Pimento sniffed curiously, and then scampered up to my shoulder, where she burrowed through my hair and then sat, balanced. Rats like shoulder rides, and they'll stay there for awhile. Soon Ruth handed Maddy over to me, too, who was a little slimmer than the plump Pimento. She also sniffed, and ran up to my other shoulder. Soon they were both sitting together on my shoulders, while my parents signed a form. We pried them from their perch and put them into the fleece- filled kennel. The ride home seemed significantly longer than the ride down. It's always that way with road trips. As soon as they were outside of the foster home, Maddy and Pimento both got shy. I kept their kennel door open, assured that if they decided to roam out, there was no place for them to really go. For the most part, they stayed sleeping in the fleece at the back of the kennel. They did seem to like the oranges I gave them, but they didn't care for me too much.
On the way back, we stopped in Freeport at the L.L. Bean factory outlet for some hiking boots, my intended birthday gift from my parents. I've been having some serious ankle problems on and off for a few years, and they've gotten worse since the Acadia Challenge. And as I've been planning on doing a significant amount of hiking this year, my parents thought some mid-height boots were in order. I settled on these, eventually. They're lightweight, have super ankle support (wearing them feels so nice. I don't even need my brace), and are waterproof. Bad. Ass.
Back in the car, the rats were friendlier. I fell asleep at one point, and was startled awake when they both crawled out tentatively onto my lap.
They settled in pretty quickly at home- they've found the litter box, and love the hammock. I think I made it a little bit too comfortable, actually, because now they won't come out. They'll both need a couple of days to warm up, as they're quite shy around me or any other people.
All in all, it was a very successful rat and boot trip.

More OBE, or, Rosie the Riveter, or, You are Sixteen, Going on Seventeen.

I'm still filled with a good bout of OBE.

But it's not entirely detrimental to my state of being- in fact, it can be put to relatively good use. Which is why, on a Tuesday morning, I'm sitting with a list of eighteen places to apply for jobs. I'll be a big kid soon, it's time to enter the work force.

Yeah, Rosie, sure we can. But only after many hours of rigorous application filing and looking clean and professional and practicing firm handshakes (which, by the way, is something I've never gotten the hang of. It doesn't mean I'm a flimsy person- it just means that my fingers hurt). Yesterday at Petco (looking for a few rat supplies. More on that later), I went up, attempting my, "I am professional. Can't you read the words 'hire ME!' stamped across my forehead?" ploy for the first time, and asked, I thought very maturely, if they had applications available. The cashier looked at me for a second, and then informed me that it's all online, and, "You have to be eighteen to work here."

Oh. 'Kay then. Is it really that easy to tell that I'm not eighteen? It's not like as soon as I turn eighteen I'll magically be an adult, and capable of the rigors of working at Petco. Yeah, yeah, I know all of the legal stuff. There's probably some liability there just in case you get your head pecked to a nub by some parakeet (one of which, by the way, was loose at the time of my visit. They were running around with a net trying to catch it). But seriously. One year? When he said "eighteen", I almost threw myself on the ground and stomped my feet and almost shouted, "It's not fair!". Maybe that's the difference between sixteen and eighteen. Or sixteen and seventeen, take your pick. Oh well. So far, Tim Hortons looks like a good option. Also, Dunkin' Donuts and Charlotte Russe. I don't think I'm prissy enough for a job at Charlotte Russe, but it's worth a shot anyways.

Here goes nothing. Dive, dive, dive!

**On another very exciting note, it looks like my rattie adoption has been approved! Yaaay! I'm waiting for the official e-mail, but all signs say go. Hooray, for Madeline and Pimento!

LBC 2011: Day 1

Goal: Start out easy. Spit out of a second story window.

Check.
Not arrested.

Felt daring, and so decided to climb the stairs and spit out of the third floor window.
Still not arrested, but I'm pretty sure I heard it freeze and shatter in the air.

The Law Breaking Challenge of 2011

It's kind of a funny story...
In ten days, I will be seventeen. It turns out that you don't actually really get anything awesome when you turn seventeen. Y'know, like, when you're fourteen, it's the legal age of consent. When you're fifteen, you can have a permit, when you're sixteen, a license. When you're eighteen you can vote and actually be a citizen and buy cigarettes and porn. But seventeen? Nothing. Nonetheless, it seems so much cooler than sixteen that I'm bursting with Obnoxious Birthday Excitement (hereby referred to as OBE).
Last night at debate, we were discussing the new resolution (In the United States, juveniles charged with violent felonies ought to be treated as adults in the Criminal Justice system), and it came up that in the United States, most seventeen-year-olds are treated as adults already. In response to this fact, I burst out with OBE, saying "HEY! I'm seventeen in ELEVEN DAYS. Or, ten days and five hours..." And then, after a minute of thought, I made up my mind.
It went something like this...
"Guys! Let's go do illegal stuff! I have ten days and five hours before I'm treated as an adult LET'S GO!"
A: "Or we could just work on our cases."
B: "What kind of illegal stuff did you have in mind?"
I immediately blurted out, "Drugs!"
But not actually, because somehow, I don't think I would fit well into the role of heroin addict.

But all of this led to some interesting mind bubbling and brewing. I decided to fuel my OBE with a challenge. A good challenge, because I like them.

Welcome to the Law Breaking Challenge of 2011.
Haven't heard of it? That's because I made it up. In the next ten days, I will try to break as many laws as possible.
These may include, but won't be limited to:
-Not bringing a shotgun to church (in case of Native American attack)
- Driving (no license!)
- Walking outside naked at four in the morning
- Walking a dog on a leash more than eight feet long.
-Spitting out of a second story window

What's Happening? Well, I'll Tell Ya What's Happening...

I honestly have never been a fan of Thanksgiving. It makes me feel gluttonous, and means we have to clean.

But this year, it's not so bad. Especially since the break from school was well needed (yeah, that whole thing about Junior year being from hell was preeetty much true). Tuesday night, my friends and I partook in what will surely become a great tradition. We settled in together with cocoa and blankets, a wholesome scene, to be sure...and watched Thankskilling. Great choice guys. Really, it was classy. I recommend it to all who don't mind awful acting, bestiality, and profanity.

This was followed up by an extremely chilly game of Turkey Disc. Everyone who showed up gets an intensity medal, just for being there. It was snowing slightly, and the mud was freezing beneath our feet, but we trooped on, if only to preserve our dignity.

Tuesday, my creative writing teacher told us about the Turkey Trek happening in the City Forest. Four miles, at your own pace. Bring food for the food cupboard. Eight AM. I tentatively raised my hand to say I might show up. And for some disgustingly strange reason, I got up this morning at seven, and did it. The only reason I went was because I convinced my friend to do it with me, meaning that I couldn't back out without being a wuss. Speaking of dignity...

So I hopped on my bike, and rode to his house (coldest ride of my entire life, by the way), from where we drove out to the forest. Four miles doesnt seem like much, but I am nothing of a runner. Zilch. No running. Not since I quit track my freshman year. Once or twice a year, I'll convince my gullible self that I can run, and that it will make me a better person, but it ends with me going for a few (slow and taxing) runs, hurting my lungs or my achilles, and then calling it good. Beyond that, I disc. The. End.

So, God only knows what I was doing in the middle of the woods on Thanksgiving day at eight in the morning with running shoes on. We jogged and walked alternately, because my asthma didn't respond well to the weather, but I did it, and that's all that counts, right? [I almost have myself convinced that I'm a runner now. Becca, you champ!]

On a mostly unrelated topic, I have a cat.

Sort of.

One of my friends has a cat, who has downsyndrome. Or, at least that's what they presume, because she's really really really stupid and has crossed eyes [thanks very much, siamese inbreeding]. Her name is Squeaky [actually, it's Miko, but she only responds to Squeaky], and we were meant to be.

So, she's on loan. We've taken to calling her Squawky, because that's more what her little "MAOW MAOW"s sound like. Little Squawky thought that five thirty was an excellent time to come into my room and squawk at me for a half an hour. This means war.

The Acadia Challenge, or, We'll Just Butt-Slide Down This One

This past Sunday, I went with a few friends to Acadia. Acadia national park is probably the best known park in Maine, besides Baxter (but that's only because of Katahdin). In the summer months, Mount Desert Island (where the park is housed) is swamped with nature-going tourists. It's a really lovely park, mostly wild, with trails and bike paths and natural wonders scattered throughout.

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend about how we ought to go hiking more, as we both want to someday thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. But it's getting late in the season for hiking. The air has turned cold and harsh, and mountains will be crusted over with ice. So we took this as our last opportunity for hiking before we'll have to switch to winter gear.

Mission: The Acadia Challenge

-Hike as many mountains in Acadia as we can in one day.

So, the three of us set out wicked wicked early to get to Acadia in time for the daylight. We could see our breath as we began, and I hadn't bothered to take off my pajamas- I just put the fleece pants on over my hiking shorts. We started out on Bald mountain, then, over the course of five hours, peaked at Parkman, Sargent, Penobscot, North and South Bubbles, Pemetic, and the Triad. There was another peak somewhere around Bald, Parkman and Sargent, but it wasn't expected and isn't on the map. Nine mountains, in just under five hours. We only covered about (with finger guesstimation and a map) ten miles total, but a lot of those miles were steep uphill or leaf-covered, cliff-side downhill. Around Sargent and Penobscot, we had to choose between a steep, watery trail, and another one that featured iron rungs down a cliff face ( we opted for the steep one. Iron rungs in cold weather could be disasterous). On another ( Pemetic, maybe?), the choice was between the ravine trail and the ledge, a series of near vertical, smooth granite patches that we had to scramble up. The scariest part though, was going down steep boulder-ridden mountain sides covered in leaves. They've been left, since pretty much no one is going to be out hiking by now, and they'll disintegrate over the winter. But they make it very difficult to know where to put your feet, and it's tricky walking over them, because it's easy to lose your footing.

After our ninth mountain, we went down a side trail towards Jordan Pond House, where we were meeting our ride, and ignoring the signs about wading and swimming and no body contact, we hopped out to a large boulder off the shore of Jordan Pond on smaller rocks, and sat, drinking in the sight of all of the mountains we had just cruised over. It was a good feeling, despite the aches in my ankles and knees, knowing that I had just climbed all that, and been able to keep up with my significantly taller friends.

Next Mission: Winter Hiking in Virginia

Confidence level: Non-existent.

Our path, but on the trails, of course.

Growing Intolerance

My family used to go strawberry picking every spring or summer. There are several different farms around that produce whole fields of the bright red berries, and depending on the prices, we'd go to a different one every year. My parents always warned me about pesticides, but I would sneak a few of the juicy red fruits into my mouth when they weren't looking. After we finished picking, the old man at the gate who ran the strawberry field would jokingly tell me that he was going to do a tongue check to make sure I didn't eat any. He must have known by my bright red tongue, but he always laughed and then just let my parents pay for the ones we picked.
We'd return home with arms full of the little green cartons filled to the brim with big, triangular, deeply rouged berries, and I would hurry for them, enjoying every ripe bite with sugar or without. We never cooked with them, really. We just ate them, plain and simple, sometimes with whipped cream and other times with cereal.
They were my favorite food, but I never really realized. One year, we brought home even more than usual, a bumper crop of strawberries in our hands. And I ate them. Probably more than my little body could hold. I don't think I realized I was eating so many strawberries, but since they were going fast, I must have been. Strawberries with breakfast, strawberries for lunch and after dinner. If I was going out into the yard, I brought a handful, just in case I was out there for a long time and got hungry. I rode my bicycle with a handful of them, I'd sneak out of bed to grab a few, I'd bring them to my room when I was playing with my dolls. They must have disappeared in just a few days. And then, one morning, I woke up, and I scratched.
My stomach. My arms. My neck. All bright pink with spots and scratches. My mom took a glance at them, and concluded that I must be allergic to strawberries. When I shouted my dismay, she admitted that it could also be the pesticides. She returned to her reading, and sulking, I walked away.
It wasn't the pesticides, unfortunately for me. Since then, I have lusted after strawberries. For awhile after my diagnosis, I would still eat everything strawberry. Since I grew into the allergy, and it wasn't severe at first, my parents still kept the fruit in the house. I distinctly remember a night when my father had bought a container of strawberry ice cream, and thinking that just a little bit wouldn't hurt me, I helped myself to a few scoops. But after that helping, I still wasn't satisfied, and I thought, " Just one more scoop." And before I knew it, just a small serving must have turned into half of the box. And I was just fine, pleased with myself for having defeated my allergy. Little did I know that the fruit residing in my stomach was plotting its revenge for when I least expected it. I threw up the contents of my stomach that night, and woke in a puddle of pink, melted, half digested strawberry ice cream. I never tried that again.
As the allergy has grown worse, I've become almost afraid of strawberries. I can't even touch them anymore, and I obsessively check ingredients lists on the backs of cartons and wrappers, just in case. Just the sweet, tart smell makes me cringe.
We discovered, a few years back, that my allergy was caused by a chemical in the strawberry, called Salicylic Acid. Apparently, Salicylic acid is in everything- acne medications, lotions, oranges, kiwis, tomatoes, asprin.
So I live my life in paranoid fear, and find my allergies one by one.

I Go Where It Smells Interesting and On One Way Streets

Yesterday, I biked out for about an hour.Usually when I venture out, I bike around the same familiar streets, but I decided to change things up yesterday. I was curious about where Garland Street ended, so I biked there first, and then out Essex, which is a very long street which turns rural after awhile. An hour isn't very long to bike, I know, but I'm working on building my endurance for my first day-long bike trip in a few weeks.
Today, I went farther out onto Essex, and then onto a road I'd never seen, called Church Road.
It was very cute, and there was hardly any traffic, which was relaxing, since Essex street can sometimes be a scary ride. There was a small church on the end with a little graveyard attached, which I explored before heading back along Essex.

Pictures:
Where Garland Street Ends
It gets rural pretty fast
Little unattended veggie stands restore my faith in humanity.
The view from Church Road

The cemetery.

Adventures at Four AM

Summer's been flying by, and I'm not sure I'm okay with that.
Slow down, I was just getting to know you!

A couple of my friends and I took a trip to Stockton Springs to see the sunrise a few weeks back.
This involved leaving around four a.m., which we handled surprisingly well.
The way down was extremely foggy. But it was very strange, because at some points it would be so foggy you could hardly see through the windsheild, and then in a few yards, the line of vision would be almost completely clear. It's a very nice drive, though. I forget how cute rural Maine can be.
We arrived just in time to see the sun rise through the heavy fog, which made a nice effect, and we went for a dawn swim.
All-in-all, a very good time.
We also headed over to Sears Island. Half of the island is cold water, like Sandy Point, but then the other half of the island, used often for clamming, is all warm water, because it's where the Penobscot River meets the ocean. There were a few old men out clamming when we got there, but we picked our way over farther on the beach and waded into the ankle deep waters. Much to our surprise, there's a large population of hermit crabs living there! They may have been two different varieties, but I can't be sure. Some of them were large, orange and fuzzy, and then others were smaller and brown. I think though, that the orange ones may have been the males, and the brown the females, because of the way the orange ones were dragging the others around. I'm curious if this is a part of the mating process.I had also never actually seen clamming flats before, or not for a very long time. I was surprised every time I saw a spurt of water. One of them even spurted right underneath my foot! Despite my persistent attempts, I wasn't able to dig any up.
At the end of our trip, we made a pitstop into a curious attraction. We kept seeing signs for the Book Barn Used Bookstore, so we decided to detour and check it out. It's literally a barn in the back of this guy's house. When we walked in, I almost fell over. The inside of the barn resembled a labyrinth. There were shelves of books up to the ceiling, and piles of books on the floor up to my waist. The entire barn was full of it. The owner sat at his desk and made small chat with customers- but I never actually saw anything except for the smoke from his pipe, because he was obscured by the many mountains of books surrounding the desk. I encourage everyone to go to this place if they ever get the chance. I could have stayed in there forever.