A Dull Excitement

Yes, I know that my title is an oxymoron. But what else do you call it when something has the potential to be exciting but in reality is quite dull?

Yesterday, we heard a helicopter fly over the house. At this time of year we always run out to see if it's carrying a bucket and we ran out yesterday. First, I saw the helicopter. It was carrying a bucket. Then I looked around and saw a plume of smoke rising from the mountain northwest of us about three miles as the crow flies. If you look at the picture at the top of my page, imagine you can see a low ridge to the right of the tall cedar. That's where the smoke was. Pictures? You expect me to remember to grab the camera?

There had been so many lightening strikes the last 36 hours that I didn't know if the chopper had been on that fire or another one so I called and they said they knew about it. Okay, so I'm not all that worried about it because they're on top of it, right? I kept checking the smoke all afternoon and evening and it didn't seem as if it was getting a whole lot larger or thicker so I went to bed. Okay, okay. I sacked out on the couch fully clothed until Mike got home.

I checked the smoke when I got up and it was a little bigger and a whole lot thicker. Shortly after that, we heard the chopper and a spotter plane. We watched the chopper drop at least six loads of water and by noon the fire was pretty much out. I don't think they had men on that fire. I think they used only the chopper and plane because the terrain is so steep there. In fact, they have to log that area with choppers.

If I'd sat down and thought about it, I wouldn't have worried at all because:
#1. The ridge runs east-west.
#2. Fire runs faster uphill - in this case, north.
#3. We are south of that ridge.
#4. There's another ridge between us and it.


No. No need to worry. So it ended up being a dull sort of excitement. It was very cool watching the chopper dump the water bucket, though. I think they carry about 300 gallons of water and when they open the flap at the bottom it looks like a waterfall.

A Special Supper

My birthday came on Wednesday this year. Mike and Cameron are on opposite shifts from Nick so to do anything as a family, we have to do it on the weekend. Besides, Richelle and I left for convention Wednesday afternoon. So the boys took Mike, Richelle, and I out to supper Sunday. The last two years we've gone to the Mexican place here in town where the food is good and the service is...well...fun.

I assured the boys that they didn't need to tell the waiter it was in honor of my birthday but of course they didn't listen. They only get to see their mother wear a sombrero and be sung to in both Spanish and English once a year. Of course they're going to tell the waiter.

The waiter called everyone amigo/amiga/compadre when taking their order until he got to Richelle who he called Princess. Threw her off so badly that she started giggling and almost couldn't get out 'quesadilla'.

He brought Mike's order first and then came with Richelle's and Cameron's. He set Cameron's down and said, "Beef for you and chicken for you, amigo," he looked at Nick, "is coming."
"Uh," Nick stammered, "we both ordered beef."
"Too bad for you," the waiter replied nonchalantly. "It's already cooked."
Mike laughed so hard he nearly choked.

By the time my plate came, we realized we were a tableware setting short so Nick asked the waiter for a fork.
"A fork? You need a fork." Turning to the table across the aisle from us, he asked them, "You're finished with this? You finished eating?"

The highlight of the evening for everyone else was when they brought me the sombrero. Mike plopped it on my head, and the waiters sang in Spanish and then got everyone in that part of the restaurant to join in in "Happy Birthday". A part of the whole birthday thing there is that they bring the person a shot of some kind of drink. They told me it was tequila and Dr. Pepper. A slammer? I don't know except they slammed the little cup on the table and it fizzed. Last year, I only took took a sip and was heavily teased so this year I decided to try to down the whole thing. I mean, you only do this once a year, right? It was three nasty swallows. I do believe I'll pass from now on. I had to eat three chips to get feeling back in my throat and I can do without the small but potent burps I had for the next two hours.

Drinking certainly isn't something I'll be doing in the near future. Or the far future. Or ever.

Nick received the beef enchilada that he'd ordered, we got a new table setting, and the waiter got a fairly large tip.

A new addition

No, it's not a baby.

Well, not a human baby, anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, Nick was given a puppy that was being neglected. Evidently, a brother of a friend bought this puppy and then after a few weeks, left it at his parents' house. His mother didn't want it and wasn't inclined to make sure it was being fed properly, so Nick's friend asked him if he wanted it.

Yes, for those of you who know dogs, she's a pit bull. He named her "Kalohi" which, I guess, is Hawaiian for "trouble". Not sure why he gave a pit bull a Hawaiian name.

Here are some pictures of Kalohi staying cool under a patio chair.

That's about as cute as you can get.


Tired little pup. Nick had taken her and Emo for a long walk before they came out here.


Richelle finally woke her up. Evidently, the wide-set eyes would be a deduction if she were to be shown. Nick's friend called it a "deformity" which Nick didn't particularly care for.

I was and still am a little apprehensive about pit bulls given all the news about them but Kalohi is so little that she's far more cute than frightening. We're making sure she knows who we are so we become one of her "pack" and Nick's very good at following through on training. He says she's a good little pup and is fully house-trained to the point of waking him up in the middle of the night to go out.

He brought her over yesterday and had a full-grown pit in the back of his truck named Emo that he wouldn't let out. Not that it's aggressive, but because he'd take off for the wild blue yonder and be a pain to get back. Emo isn't his. He belongs to a friend of Nick's that's doing military training right now and Nick's taking care of him. He doesn't respond as well to Nick's voice as he'd like so Nick made him stay in the pick-up bed. He's trained to the point that Nick left the tailgate down and Emo never made a move to jump out. Instead, he laid his head on the edge of the bed with his tongue hanging out and drooping across the bed-liner. He was the most un-fierce looking pit bull I've ever seen. He straightened up when Richelle tried to get a picture so I can't share the goofy look.

You know....of all the pit bulls in the world, very few get in the news. I'm thinking that they're just like any other dogs in that their training and owners contribute a lot to their disposition. I know of two rotweilers that played with young children of the family and allowed the kids to ride them like horses but they were dangerous to anyone trying to come in through the (high and solid) fence.

If it sounds as if I'm trying to reassure myself, you're right. I'm trying to reassure myself. Kalohi is a cute little pup and I'm trusting Nick to make sure she grows up into a well-behaved dog.

Camp Low Echo

Girl Scouts don't usually attend resident camps as a troop like Boy Scouts do. They usually sign up and attend as individual girls or two or three together and are sent off by themselves for the week but this little camp in the Cascades offers a weekend troop camp at the end of their season. Isn't it beautiful? There's a Boy Scout camp across the lake but they were smart enough to keep the length of the lake between the two camps.

So our troop attended with fourteen girls and four adults and had a great time in spite of the latrines. You know, there has to be something bad at a camp in order for it to be remembered. Last time it was the mosquitoes and the lightning storm. This time it was the latrines.

How can I describe the magnificent odor of our latrine? Perhaps I can quote Pat McManus; "It would give an otherwise indiscriminate hyena a fit of the dry-heaves." They said they'd limed it a number of times but one dad suggested in a phone consultation that they needed to add yeast and sugar. The lime will work on the smell, but yeast was needed to break the stuff down.

The adults' tent was quite nearby but, thankfully, the odor didn't penetrate the canvas much as long as the door was kept zipped and body spray was liberally released into the air. We overheard one girl whisper to her buddy late the first night, "I'm going in....wish me luck!"

The swim area with the tip of Mt. McGloughlin in the background. They had the usual swim area divided into three sections and the obligatory canoes but they also had some leg-powered paddle-boats that the girls enjoyed immensely.

One of the crafts they did was learn to weave some gimp into a lanyard. Some of the girls already knew how and were able to help those who didn't. Here's Richelle working on hers while wearing her brand-new camp hoody that she'd bought earlier at the trading post. Another girl also bought a hoody and didn't take it off until sometime after her mom picked her up when we got back Sunday afternoon.


Hauling the luggage up to the parking lot. Neat little carts and we had no trouble getting the girls to pull them.

It was a three-hour drive each way plus time to let the restless natives out to run off energy but it's an experience I'm game to do again. As long as the latrines smell better. And the girls fall asleep before 1am, preferably before 11pm. And our little Vesuvius goes dormant - that's the fourth time and her mom's coming next time; we can't find a common denominator and are wondering if it's a mental thing. She's perfectly fine the next day, eats a hearty breakfast and participates fully in all the activities but the evening or night before she has a migraine and then throws up.

Yup. You never know what's in store when you take fourteen assorted girls camping for two nights.