I want to share a little story with you-- a story that is not for the faint of heart.
Last Thursday, I was getting ready for work-- curling my hair and eye lashes, putting on blush and mascara-- the usual, when I noticed that my cat, Macy, was acting a little bizarre.
She was hyper-alert; her eyes were wild, and her gaze was darting around the room.
I figured she must have spotted a fly or something.
So I continued on with my usual routine.
The last part of my routine each day is making sure that all the doors are locked and appliances turned off before I head out for work. As I walked through the living room, my OCD kicked in. I couldn't walk by all of our dog Gryff's toys without putting them in his toy box. So I walk over, grab the bones and the chew toy and toss them in.
Irritated, I notice that in Gryff's pile is yet another one of Macy's toys that he has destroyed. He has an affinity for her "skitter mice"-- felt mice with yarn tails that she knocks around the hardwood floors in the most adorable way. Once Gryff has gotten a hold of the mice, Macy won't deign to play with a dog-slobbered toy. So I pick up the toy mouse trying to assess the damage.
I pass the mouse from hand to hand, looking for holes, checking to see if the eyes have been popped off...
You see where this is going, don't you?
Oh no, the eyes hadn't popped off. Hard to pop off eyes that are connected to a MOUSE BRAIN. No there were no holes in the "toy mouse"-- but there were TEETH.
I want you to recall that at this point I have carefully inspected said mouse-- WITH MY HANDS.
I drop the mouse. The REAL mouse. But then realize that I must-- I MUST-- pick up the mouse and dispose of it. So, I pick it up by what's left of it's tail... and I swiftly walk it to the trash can and dispose of it.
And then I scrub. I scrub and I scrub and I just near tear my skin off trying to rid myself of mouse essence. But all day I could just FEEL it. Like walking through a spider web, I just had the heeby jeebies all. day. long.
Now, there's another important factor in this story. Our Gryff, though lovable and playful, is a destroyer. He doesn't just gnaw on his prey-- he DESTROYS them. Shreds them. Eats them.
Sweet May May-- she's a lover, not a fighter. And it doesn't help that she doesn't have claws.
So I know exactly who killed our little visitor. Precious Macy. With her clawless paws... nubbed the poor mouse to death. I want you to picture that-- she probably thinks they're playing, tossing him into the air-- wheeeeeee! And then I imagine she was perplexed when her little playmate went stiff and quit playing "tag" with her...
Time of death: wee hours of Thursday morning. Cause of death: heart attack, brought on by excessive pawing.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Into the Woods, Part II
And back into the frozen abyss we go...
Where were we?
Ah, yes. About 6 weeks ago. I had just barely survived a night in a cabin hovering right at freezing temperatures.
On Saturday morning, we headed up to breakfast, where we were all greeted by sympathetic looks and pats on the back. Between my dragging Clay out in the middle of the night to fix our dying fire alarm and my tweeting desperate pleas into the universe, our story had spread through camp.
When I sauntered back into the cabin after breakfast, too sleepy to even cry, there was a man in our cabin fixing the heater.
My jubilation was what I imagine Mary felt when she found the angel in Jesus' empty tomb.
I wish I could say I was a really good sport-- that even though I was beyond exhausted, I pushed through in order to enjoy the beautiful camp and fellowship; that I zip-lined and bouldered in the 20 degree wind chill and hiked through the trails that sprawled all over camp.
I'd like to-- but I can't. Oh no-- I slept. I slept and slept and slept. So hard and beautifully that it was almost athletic. I slept so hard that I needed a Gatorade when I woke up. It was incredible. Save the thirteen year old girls that periodically came in to lay in their bunks and whisper back and forth-- and when I say whisper, it should be noted that thirteen year olds are not particularly accomplished whisperers.
So I maybe slipped up on the whole "Counselor Lindsey" attitude-- it's very possible that I forcibly kicked out the whisperers. Look, at this point, I was nestled into a cuddly wonderland, and my survival instinct demanded that these invaders be removed.
It is worth noting that the beds were awful. They're camp beds. My sheets were nothing special, and I had a quilt that hasn't been quite worn into quilty goodness. But it didn't matter-- I was so exhausted and wiped, that even now as I sit and write this, I think back longingly to that little cocoon I built for myself.
That night, we went to worship and played some games. I had been warned about the game-- it's called Man Hunt. Basically, the adults dressed up like pop culture icons-- I was Katniss; then we had Gandalf the Grey, Psy, Mayhem (from the commercials), and some others-- and hid in the woods. The kids were each given a sheet of paper to get signatures on; each adults was worth a different amount of points, and the first group that found each adult got a special token for extra points.
In a perfect situation, it would have been a really great time.
In THIS situation, it was below thirty degrees and I was out in the woods... again. This time hiding, in the dark, a mile from the camp, by myself.
Now, Clay had told me that if it was too cold, we wouldn't play outdoor game.
My idea of what is too cold and Clay's idea of what is too cold are clearly two very different temperatures. Evidently, Clay doesn't consider 25 degrees too cold.
So there I sat-- about twenty minutes before the students were released to search for us, another 30 minutes as they searched. The fifty minutes felt like a lifetime. A long, frostbit lifetime.
On the way back to the cabin, I called Alex to relay my suffering. By the time I got back to my cabin, I literally couldn't feel the hand that I had held my phone to my ear with. You see, I was told that if it was TOO COLD, we wouldn't be outside. So Yours Truly didn't bring gloves, toboggan, etc... Because when you need that kind of winter gear, it's TOO COLD to be outside for any length of time. I put my hands up to our miraculous heater-- still working!!-- and it was a bizarre thing to see my fingers and not be able to feel them. As soon as I gained some feeling back, I was able to wrestle myself out of all my layers of clothing and get into a scalding shower. Glorious.
And-- you guessed it-- I skipped the camp fire and s'mores that night. Back into my cocoon I went-- and after a night of shivering, you better believe everyone else, in their smug weather-appropriate sleeping bags, had to sweat out the second night as I slept peacefully through the snores.
Would I skip off into the woods again with the youth group in the middle of winter?
Absolutely. But next time, I'll bring my own space heater. And Hot Hands. And a heating blanket. And gloves.
And next time, it'll probably be unseasonably warm and I'll sweat the whole time and wish I had a fan. Because that's just my life.
Where were we?
Ah, yes. About 6 weeks ago. I had just barely survived a night in a cabin hovering right at freezing temperatures.
On Saturday morning, we headed up to breakfast, where we were all greeted by sympathetic looks and pats on the back. Between my dragging Clay out in the middle of the night to fix our dying fire alarm and my tweeting desperate pleas into the universe, our story had spread through camp.
When I sauntered back into the cabin after breakfast, too sleepy to even cry, there was a man in our cabin fixing the heater.
My jubilation was what I imagine Mary felt when she found the angel in Jesus' empty tomb.
I wish I could say I was a really good sport-- that even though I was beyond exhausted, I pushed through in order to enjoy the beautiful camp and fellowship; that I zip-lined and bouldered in the 20 degree wind chill and hiked through the trails that sprawled all over camp.
I'd like to-- but I can't. Oh no-- I slept. I slept and slept and slept. So hard and beautifully that it was almost athletic. I slept so hard that I needed a Gatorade when I woke up. It was incredible. Save the thirteen year old girls that periodically came in to lay in their bunks and whisper back and forth-- and when I say whisper, it should be noted that thirteen year olds are not particularly accomplished whisperers.
So I maybe slipped up on the whole "Counselor Lindsey" attitude-- it's very possible that I forcibly kicked out the whisperers. Look, at this point, I was nestled into a cuddly wonderland, and my survival instinct demanded that these invaders be removed.
It is worth noting that the beds were awful. They're camp beds. My sheets were nothing special, and I had a quilt that hasn't been quite worn into quilty goodness. But it didn't matter-- I was so exhausted and wiped, that even now as I sit and write this, I think back longingly to that little cocoon I built for myself.
That night, we went to worship and played some games. I had been warned about the game-- it's called Man Hunt. Basically, the adults dressed up like pop culture icons-- I was Katniss; then we had Gandalf the Grey, Psy, Mayhem (from the commercials), and some others-- and hid in the woods. The kids were each given a sheet of paper to get signatures on; each adults was worth a different amount of points, and the first group that found each adult got a special token for extra points.
In a perfect situation, it would have been a really great time.
In THIS situation, it was below thirty degrees and I was out in the woods... again. This time hiding, in the dark, a mile from the camp, by myself.
Now, Clay had told me that if it was too cold, we wouldn't play outdoor game.
My idea of what is too cold and Clay's idea of what is too cold are clearly two very different temperatures. Evidently, Clay doesn't consider 25 degrees too cold.
So there I sat-- about twenty minutes before the students were released to search for us, another 30 minutes as they searched. The fifty minutes felt like a lifetime. A long, frostbit lifetime.
On the way back to the cabin, I called Alex to relay my suffering. By the time I got back to my cabin, I literally couldn't feel the hand that I had held my phone to my ear with. You see, I was told that if it was TOO COLD, we wouldn't be outside. So Yours Truly didn't bring gloves, toboggan, etc... Because when you need that kind of winter gear, it's TOO COLD to be outside for any length of time. I put my hands up to our miraculous heater-- still working!!-- and it was a bizarre thing to see my fingers and not be able to feel them. As soon as I gained some feeling back, I was able to wrestle myself out of all my layers of clothing and get into a scalding shower. Glorious.
And-- you guessed it-- I skipped the camp fire and s'mores that night. Back into my cocoon I went-- and after a night of shivering, you better believe everyone else, in their smug weather-appropriate sleeping bags, had to sweat out the second night as I slept peacefully through the snores.
Would I skip off into the woods again with the youth group in the middle of winter?
Absolutely. But next time, I'll bring my own space heater. And Hot Hands. And a heating blanket. And gloves.
And next time, it'll probably be unseasonably warm and I'll sweat the whole time and wish I had a fan. Because that's just my life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)