You know you're a homebody when...

Mmmmmmmtea
(Courtesy of Natalie Dee)

I am a homebody. I love being here. I love the trees and the sounds of the crickets and birds. I love the cozy little travel trailer I live in and I love to snuggle up with a cup of tea and a book or my laptop and just spend some time with me.

All my friends - my good friends, anyways - know I'm a super homebody. So does my mom.

I was on the phone with her a few minutes ago and she asked me what I was doing tonight, it being Friday night and all. I told her I didn't know. I have an invite to go to music trivia with some buds, but I also offered my company to a friend who recently started traveling a path separate from that of her long-term boyfriend. "But, you know, I'd be just as happy to stay home," I told her.

[And this is where the 'You know you're a homebody when...' comes in.]

You know you're a homebody when...your own mother is trying to persuade you to go drinking at the pub.

She says the winter is going to suck because I'll be all cooped up here so I should take advantage. Thanks mom. Maybe I will. *Taps finger on chin* Maaaaybe Iiii will...but you get blamed for the motorboats.

Motorboat victim. Or was I the victim? I don't know...me and my counsellor haven't decided yet...

On second thought, maybe I'll just put on the kettle and call it a night.

More about the torn apart Stugar leg (or) The fly and other insects that want to eat my flesh.

[For backstory, see Stugar]

Let's go back to that all-so-traumatizing camping trip during which, at one point, I was sure a cougar was going to pounce on my back and bite my neck and drag me off into the woods and feed me to her cubs (kittens?).


Day 2 of camping:

My leg was gushing pretty bad, especially the knee. And especially over night all over my blanket. Gross... Anyways, I think I was a good sport about things; went for a swim in the morning (fish bait, I know...), hiked around, and pretty much did everything that everyone else did.

Now. Picture me, in shorts and a tee, sitting by the lake, feet dangling in water. Tranquility...*sigh*...but then! I looked down and there was a big fat black fly sitting in knee gush EATING IT!!! *shivers* Uck! And so I freaked out and had to talk myself off the ledge.


A couple days later...

Open Scene: Linda has just closed the bedroom door and is laying in bed watching a fly on the ceiling rub his icky little back legs together.

Me: (Too lazy to go on fly swatting mission) I’m just going to open the door again so the fly can buzz his way outta here. *opens door*

BF: *Tauntingly* But if he stays in here he can snack on your knee while you sleep.

Me: *Crazy arms/legs, smacks BF* Ewe! That’s fucking si-

BF: *Singing* It’s the circle of liiife…

Me: *Continuing to thrash* Eaaaah! Stop…

BF: *Convincingly* Hey. Calm down. *Smiles* Hakuna Matata.

Me: Hakuna Matata?

BF: Yeah. *Shrugs shoulders matter-of-fact-ly* Hakuna Matata.

Me: *Shakes head. Eye roll.*

BF: *Grabs boobs and shakes vigorously. Crazy eyes* Hakuna Ma-tah-tahs!!!

They're really singing about boobs.

And then the next day: 

I was just standing around outside minding my own business and I felt something on my leg and looked down and WASP EATING KNEE!! WASP EATING KNEE!!! Ahh...Shake it off. Shake it off. Deep breaths...it's ok...it's all over now...you're ok...

But seriously! *Stamps foot* Gawd...

Can't they eat someone else's wound? 

Bike sense

I'm all for biking as a mode of transportation - when I lived in Vancouver, I rode to and from work and school every day for a year. However, sometimes it's a bad idea. Like when you're a 50 year old man and choose to ride with no hands (cigarette in one hand, other hand on hip), in the rain, beside a busy highway, with no helmet.

Another bad idea: letting your handle bars wear your helmet for you, "You have scalp lacerations and a concussion and I can't let you fall asleep cause you might not wake up. But don't worry, your handle bars are O.K."

Good idea: common sense. Unfortunately, as the saying says, common sense isn't all that common.

Stugar

My older brother Stu is the type of guy who you cannot feel at ease around. He is always out to get someone. And if you manage to get him, he'll only get you worse. Countless times he has instigated water fights (I even ended up wearing a bucket of water on my last birthday); he woke up his buddy by shooting him with a paint-ball gun; he ripped marshmallows in half and stuck them to a coworker's tires; he lit firecrackers in the room his friend and his friend's girlfriend were sleeping in; and, worst of all (I think,) he took the chain off a chainsaw, put on a mask, and woke up his buddy by revving the saw and 'sawing' him. 

On my second day at my new 'professional' job, he left this note on my car:

It reads: "Just thought I'd stop by to give you some words of encouragement the day. 1) Bananas (the way you drive) 2) Arsome (some butt) 3) Linder (really good chocolate u should buy with your first paycheque) 4) Sitka (the type of tree I loaded today) 5) Lugnuts (you should probably check them. I was here) 6) Job (something we have in common.)
By the way, I'm watching u.     Stu.

Seemed nice at first, but then I got to the part about the lugnuts...

Anyways, the list goes on, but I think I've made my point: my brother cannot be trusted. However, I still somehow give him the benefit of the doubt.

Last week he called and invited me and the bf camping with him and his wife. I told him we'd make it. Got there. Swam in lake. Ate food. Drank beer. Sun set. Sat by fire and talked/told stories (one of the topics covered was the recent bear and cougar sightings and I distinctly remember saying I would shit myself if I ever crossed a cougar.) Had to pee. 

Being that I live in the forest and use an outhouse at home, I had no problem walking to the outhouse by myself in the dark with no flashlight. 

At this point, considering the setting and the aforementioned topic of conversation re: cougars, you're probably thinking, "You've totally just set yourself up," or "Haven't you learnt your lesson yet?" or "Ooo, this should be good." My reply to you: good god can't I just relax and not expect to be traumatized at least one night that I hang out in the general vicinity of him?!

So, guard down, I finished in the bathroom and was walking back to the site when I head growling from the bush behind me and sudden, fast sounds of whipping branches (as if something - or someone - was running through them.)

And I booked it. As fast as I could. In the dark. Yelling. Ran down hill to site and bailed. Hard. 

And my brother took up the rear with a shit-eating grin on his face. 

So I threw rocks in his face and punched and kicked him while yelling vulgarities and profanity. 

The result of his 'getting' me: 

I look like a 12 year old who can't ride her bike. And I have been taking the flashlight with me to the outhouse. 

Any ideas of how I can retaliate? 

ps - shout out to Dani, at bumponablog24.wordpress.com, who coined 'Stugar'. :)

Bell be gone.

If I was the least bit photoshop savvy, I would have put Kit's head on the man's.
But I'm not, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Kit the Warrior Cat lost her damn bell, unleashing the Rambo of the cat world and leaving a path of destruction in her wake. Thus far, she has stuck to the small, slow, low-carb animals, like mice and shrews. But the morning after she lost her bell, she had a robin and a squirrel waiting for us.

This pissed me off because (a) robins are cute and have silly blue eggs

[aside: Blue? What kind of camo is that? Don't you think evolution would have figured out that other animals see that pretty blue egg and start wondering if they'll have it poached or over easy this morning and change the colour to something a little less stand-outty like, oh, I dunno, brown?]

and (b) she evidently killed Squirrel Buddy.

There were two squirrels (or, at least, two classes of squirrel) sharing our property with us: Squirrel Buddy and Squirrel Bastard. Squirrel Buddy was cute and non-disease ridden and hung out with me and the bf in our little sitting area eating nuts with us. Squirrel Bastard is a loud-mouthed little asshole who chirps at anything - inanimate or otherwise - that moves. Since I still get yelled at by a squirrel when I water my plants or walk to my car or open a window, I'm pretty sure Squirrel Bastard lives on.

RIP Squirrel Buddy.

Dear Kit

I brought her inside to remind her that I'm still around and she ignored me and watched for live things to make dead.

 Dear Kit, 

You are a ruthless killer. The immediate two meters of bush surrounding the trailer (ie: the throwing distance of a shrew) is a graveyard. I thought the ol' bell on collar trick might give the local wildlife a fighting chance, but I'm now afraid I have created a stealth ninja cat. 

And don't can't claim that you do it because you are hungry - you don't eat shrews. Other than being dead, they are left totally unscathed. Not even a foot missing. And the few mice that you find and eat end up like this:

Kit puke.

And look. Cat food chunks amongst the carcass. What's wrong? Cat food ain't cutting it? You need to wash it down with an entire mouse?! 

Dear Shrew,

Thoroughly dead shrew.

You didn't even try, did you? I've seen it before, and you're all the same: as soon as you see or hear wildecat, you accept death. Remember the shrew I tried to save? As soon as it could, it ran straight back to her. Stupid. I suppose this is the circle of life. Natural selection. You didn't make the cut. 

Today, it is raining.

I live in the boonies. If I am home alone and want to do something, my options are:

a) talk to cat
b) slowly nuke brain with cellphone
c) read
d) bushscape
e) garden
f) drink beer
g) watch TV online
h) have bonfire
i) go somewhere

In the summer, this was enough to keep me happy and occupied. However, in the fall, I predict that the rain will prevent me from doing items d, e, h, and sometimes a.

[aside: said cat has transformed from city cat to wildecat and comes inside only when I make her. And then she just sits on the couch watching longingly out the window for animals to play with and ultimately kill (and sometimes eat.) She is an unreliable companion.]

This will leave me with b, c, f, g, and i. Doable, I guess.

BUT! Then comes winter. Considering my attention span, when that snow starts falling and I can't leave this place, I think I'm probably doomed for cabin fever.

Hence the blog (j). Prophylaxis against cabin fever OR archive documenting progressive shift to insanity?

I suppose we will see.

And in the beginning, there were sticks.

When I was little - around 3 or 4 - I carried a stick around with me. I told my mom it was to "poke bad guys' eyes out." I don't have the stick anymore, but I like to think I still have the same sort of philosophy. It's hard for me to put my finger on exactly what that philosophy is, but I think it falls somewhere between "Don't fuck with me" and "Gotchaaa. Just kidding...(But really. I have a stick.)"

I grew up in a small town in a family of six. As soon as I graduated high school, I abandoned ship and moved to Vancouver. The anonymity was refreshing; however, living in the concrete jungle with millions of people who seemingly aimed to wreck my car on a daily basis got old. Seven years later, with some street smarts, some cultural exposure, and a piece of paper announcing I am a professional under my belt, I find myself back on the island living in the sticks.

I live with my boyfriend on his wooded acreage in a travel trailer with our cat and the birds fold our laundry just like on Cinderella. I have my very own garden, a moss gully, and a sweet, tiered fire pit. I shit and shower outside, and our only neighbour apparently likes his privacy just as much as we do (which is good considering that between the outhouse and the shower, we are lacking about four walls.)

Life is good. It doesn't look like I'll be needing that stick again anytime soon. But, just in case, I am surrounded by them. So don't try anything.

Blank Page

I have a hard time writing on the first page. Notebooks and the few journals that I have had all have blank first pages. If I could, I would start writing this blog two pages in. But I can't. So, for the sake of tackling this block and totally giving in to habit: