I'm still majorly behind on trip reporting... I could tell you all the other things I am majorly behind on as well, couldn't I? It would sound like a laundry list (laundry is also an item *on* the list). Instead, I'll just tell you that my desk is piled full of crap, sorry, files, my kitchen counter is currently covered in crap, 
aka things that need to be sorted through and evaluated for potential to feed me for a week of hot weather tripping, the deck is covered in crap that mainly consists of drybags and wet gear, my bed is currently unmade, and my garden is weedy.
As for me, I just moved one step closer to snapping today. I'm at my desk at work. My office is in one of those fabulous old brick buildings with enormous multi-paned sash-style windows, high ceilings, and virginia creeper on the outside. And the windows have big windowsills, wood and then a concrete ledge. And a rat-with-tail squirrel has (had!) taken over *my* window sill, which is (was!) very overgrown with tangled vines. The vines, incidentally, had made their way through the miniscule crack of where my multi-paned window meets the windowsill and were growing on the *inside* windowsill and sometimes ants crawled onto my desk. I was aware the squirrel was building its nest, and had been feeling mild disgust at the used napkins and the like visible from my desk if I turned in the direction of the phone. But today, I declared war. The rodent had started gnawing on the wooden sill in a fully demented fashion. Gnaw gnaw gnaw BANG (that's me throwing something at the window to get it to go away because I am trying to *concentrate*) silence silence gnaw gnaw GNAW BANG repeat.
Well then. I can't even get the window open on my own (humidity, the weight of a 5'x4' panel, and last summer's paint job make it very sticky indeed). I finally stalked next door to my boss' office, asked him how strong he is, and thus guaranteed that he'd do most things short of throwing his back out to open my window. And then I pulled out my pocket knife and declared war. Five minutes of very satisfiying slashing later, my office is brighter since my window has far fewer vines covering it, my windowsill is clear, and there is no more ant highway into my office. I feel better. And then, energy spent, I got the bossman again to *close* the window.
And now, I am on paragraph four of a blog entry, and still have not mentioned my kayak. Time to amend: I am excited, because the wonderful kayak and I will be on the alluded-to-above hot trip on the Bay next week, as well as yet-to-be-confirmed other adventures in the not-too-distant future.
In other news, I am going to return to the airport-based lifestyle soon, with Norway, Germany and Banff on the horizon in the next six months. It's happening a bit sooner than I expected, since I had intended not to set foot into airports for several months, but some opportunities are too exciting to pass up and thus it looks like August and November are the only months of 2005 that have the potential of being airport free. And I can't believe I just used the word "exciting" in reference to work-related matters without rolling my eyes even. But yes. And now I stop even alluding to the job thing. I will admit, though, that for the two weeks after my last plane-related work trip (to Montreal, in May), I was a bit at a loss: now what? Sleeping in my own bed every single night turned out to be a lot less exciting than I had imagined.
And then I declared paddling season started with the Victoria Day long weekend. Furthermore, I declared there would be no wasted weekends this summer. And so far, there haven't been. I haven't even caught myself drifting off to daydream about the recurring cabin in the woods fantasy. (What? *everybody* has that fantasy. We all know it's over-romanticized, but there is a definite appeal to it, isn't there?) It's hard to daydream about a remote cabin in the wilderness when you're snuggled in your sleeping bag *in* the wilderness, or scratching mosquito bites...
And the squirrel is back, looking very disoriented. If I were not made of stone, I would feel bad. But I don't. Hence I conclude I am made of stone. And before this regresses to relative weights of duck and I conclude that I am a witch or similar logic, I shall now attend to crap pile #1 (the desk), to be followed later by laundry list item #3 (the epynomyous laundry), and devote myself to crap piles #2 and #3 (trip food and disorganized gear) tonight.
Posted by Johanna at July 27, 2005 04:20 PM