Side Note:

Side Note:
For those who haven't figured it out, or haven't been here: The titles of most of the blogs here are song lyrics. If you google them, it should take you to the song and the song is good to listen to before, during, or after reading to help set the tone of the blog. I find music to be very cohesive with reading and writing.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Pardon The Interruption...

This weekend was the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and as such I took time off from you, my little blog.
Erik's company was let off from work early on Wednesday so that the holiday break could start for everyone. When he got home, I was in the middle of baking a couple of peach streusel pies and trying to get out mini-grill to stay lit. We decided we'd try to finish up dinner and the pies, eat, then get packed and head to Cloyse's house Wednesday evening instead of waiting until Thursday. Three hours later, we finally left the house.
Now, I am the first to admit the following: Not only am I terrified of driving after dark, but I'm also not very good at it. For some reason my brain reads directions, signs, etc all differently in the dark because I am panicked that I will miss a turn, make a wrong one or some other catastrophic world-ending mistake. However, I wanted to let Erik rest so I offered to drive.  Never. Again. A trip that took me two hours and fifteen minutes the first time I drove there somehow took me almost four hours. On our way home I realized I had missed literally every turn except the one off the interstate. Regardless, we did reach Cloyse's house and were there and awake long enough to visit and be prepared for the events of the next morning: Hunting.
Erik and I, being new to the area of Fort Drum, have thus figured out a few things. For one thing, it is cold here from about October until April or May. That's a hefty chunk of the year to be in outerwear. Secondly, because of the cold there's not a whole lot to do, but what there is to do is typically outdoors and adventurous type activities. There are a ton of ski lodges in the area, archery, arts and crafts and of course, hunting. Erik and I, both within the last year or so learning to shoot guns, had decided to try our hand at hunting, and Cloyse, being an avid hunter, offered to help us learn when we showed interest.  I'm not sure he knew what he was in for. You see, I am cold in summer when others are wearing tank tops. I've always got a hoodie or a sweater with me. My hands and feet are like ice 90% of the time. I explained all this and was told to pack layers.
Thursday morning came around. Erik and Cloyse were up and dressed and chatting when I emerged from the bathroom. My emergence was probably more akin to a waddle, as I closely resembled a round black marshmallow with blue jeans and a blast of orange blindingly glaring out from my safety vest. The guys held back laughter. Which was good for them, or I may have tested my hand at sumo wrestling at the time. As I squished myself up and into the back of Cloyse's truck, I got another treat: Cloyse's truck has those tiny laptop backseats. You know, the ones that shouldn't even legally be able to be called seats? Yeah. After squishing my Michelin-man ass down into those seats I began to wonder if I'd ever get out. Luckily for me, I managed to get out (with a little of Erik's help) when we arrived at out hunting area. Here, I was given something they referred to as a "neck gator" that covered my nose, ears, neck, etc. I sort of looked like a ninja, only puffy and cold and definitely not agile. It provided immense relief from the cold for my face, however it caused another dilemma. Apparently wearing a neck gator makes your glasses fog. Yeah, who'd have thunk it, right? No one clarified that hunting was a sport wherein contacts are preferential to glasses.
I waddled up the hill through the mud and yuck and grass to the area Cloyse had picked for us to hunt. I settled in and stood and watched for...well, anything really. We were primarily looking for deer, but had already decided anything that looked shoot-able was going down.
The first fifteen to twenty minutes I was good. I was the ideal huntress on the prowl. I was scoping out the land, being quiet, watching the others diligently to take note if they spotted anything. And then it happened. White flakes started falling all around us and suddenly my mental processes looked something like this:

Lots of tiny white flakes are falling on me. Ew. Is it getting colder? And wetter? Wow. My face hurts. My hands hurt. My legs hurt. Everything is getting colder.  And hurtier. YAWN. Cough. COUGH. Sneeze. Rustle leaves. Stand on the log, step off the log, stand on the log, off the log, balance on the log, WHOOPS FELL OFF THE LOG. Hey, is Erik's hat on the ground? Yep. That's his hat. I bet he forget's his hat. Wow it's cold. I wonder if it's going to keep snowing. How long has it been? Ugh. Should we move? I don't see any deer.

Two things occurred to me as I swished back into the backseat of the truck: I might not like hunting after all and hunting would be better if it were warmer.
After getting back to Cloyse's house, we changed clothes and headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Hoad's house. (Cloyse's parents.) Erik and I had been invited to have Thanksgiving dinner with them. We got there about noon and were the last to leave that evening. It was a really good time. There were some big differences between it and the Thanksgivings I had grown used to in my family. Growing up our Thanksgivings were always enormous with friends, family and everyone you could think of popping in. I remember one year we counted 70+ people at one Thanksgiving. Cloyse's family's Thanksgiving consisted of about 20 with us there. After we'd eaten we headed back to the house, spend some time up with everyone and then slept off our turkey. Black friday I headed out with Stacy but didn't find anything worth spending on for myself, but she cleaned up pretty well. The rest of the day was pretty lax, and then Saturday we unfortunately had to leave early due to lake effect snow storms hitting home. We were afraid if we didn't head here early we might not make it. Good thing, because past Syracuse the storm was so bad we could barely see to get home.
We're here now though, and after finishing up our weekend with Naked Saturday and Do Nothing Sunday, here we are at Monday evening and everything is back into our routine. Life is good.

<3s
Fae

3 comments:

  1. I would have paid some serious dough to see you in your hunting outfit. Why were no pictures taken?

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  2. Because I forgot the camera. lol Thank GOD.

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  3. Absolutely hilarious! Wish I could have been there to experience the laughter first hand :)

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