Things of note, Take 3

Wellwell. I have, since I last posted, gone on holiday, started work, stayed up til four in the morning at a sleepover, and taken [am taking] a week-long film class. Epic times all round :)

First a quick catch-up on those things, then to the Serious Topic of today's post, heh heh. Camping was awesome....mountains in Eastern Oregon. Swimming in the lake, a day-trip south to Crack in the Ground, talking about dealing with bears, relaxing around the campfire, smoking oneself over the campfire in attempts to keep the mosquitoes off, smoking one's tortillas in the campfire in attempts to melt the cheese, smoking the cheese drippings in the fire in attempts to Baffle the Bears, and other merriments passed the time. On the last day, we were waffling to and fro about whether the incoming thunderstorm actually posed a threat of raining on us. The first big drops convinced us...they also convinced me that I needed to swim in the lake one more time. After packing up the tent, a massive and enthused undertaking. I could not be bothered to change into my swimming stuff, but just sorta RAN for the water.....and LEPPED....I came out just as the lightning started...fun times :)

Two days later we headed off to the Oregon Coast for more adventures. My dad and I were not keen on the trip from the get-go. This was enhanced by the cold foggy weather with which the Oregon Coast loves to welcome visitors in summer. We headed up to southern Washington as well, narrowly avoiding driving up to Redmond to check out DigiPen's open house.  The second night we spent in a vastly over-crowded, over-priced, under-resourced campground which was also infested with rabbits [near the quaint town of Cannon Beach, for all y'all Oregonians out there].  My parents said that it had been infested with said rabbits for years....we later discovered one in the town as well, they were INCROACHING.....well. That night, instead of being merely damp, we were rained upon. We were awakened at 3 by what I immediately took to be 'the creek rising', a harkening-back to the innate human [specifically pioneer] fear of things that go swish in the night. [We were, it is helpful to note, encamped on a gravelly patch in the middle of a swamp.]  The noise proved not to be the creek rising to sweep us all into oblivion [one might almost wish it had] but instead the noise of rain hitting the tree leaves above us. Then, of rain hitting the tent.

This would have been all very well had the rain-fly been working properly. As it was, the rain fly had 'popped off down the street for a sandwich half-way through its term of duty' [Muskeg Novel, B.Carlson, 2009].  My feet, bunched against the bottom of the tent, could feel the impact of some of the rain drops on the lower part of the tent....they'd hit the tent and the impact would go through my sleeping bag to my non-sleeping toes...

THEN we heard the ghost. My dad suggested that it might in fact have been a ghost, because it certainly wasn't a person and sounded too big for an animal [at 4 in the morning, at least]. It sounded for all the world as if someone was crunching gravel.....although we had put the tent on the only gravelly spot, in hopes of finding a flat spot. I am convinced it was, in fact, the rain making noise on the tent. Dad joked that it must have been the ghost of Sacagawea [tales of Lewis and Clark infest this part of the North-west...a marker on every stump and overlook. 'Dismal Nitch' was the most memorable name we saw on this trip.]

Come morning, we decided to abandon the tent, which, with its rain-fly sagging because the poles had broken, was sodden and also sandy. In the early hours, rain still misting determinedly, my dad and I rolled up the tent and bundled it down to the trash dumpster. We did not actually put it inside, just sort of left it in a discreet bundle behind said dumpster, should anyone down-on-their-luck find it before the rabbits did.

Once thankfully ensconced in our own house again, I proceeded to the County Fair [where I snarled a lot, and came home remarkably at peace with my world, people and choices].
Other merriments included starting work [a week and a half now, 5 hours every day, delivering surveys via the telephone. Good pay and the best part is, I can READ whilst waiting.].

This week, in addition to working 4-9 PM, I have a filmmaking camp for teens, 9-2. Advanced camera stuff and editing and so on. Very good times [I am the only girl, four geeky guys, but I prefer to think of it more as 'a geek among geeks'. Amusingly, they are all homeschooled and were involved or know of Road to Freedom in some way. Good times.] Yesterday at lunch break we pottered round the dumpster back of the school, had some merriment involving a large branch, then wandered off to Fred Meyer's in search of comestibles. We musta looked like gangstas :)  I adore hanging out with geeky homeschoolers, I haven't actually done that for MONTHS.


Okays on to the forementioned Serious Topic. First let me link to this post on Darcy's excellent blog.  Actually I am just going to link to it and leave ye to draw your own conclusions. A lot of what she mentions, I also went through, to a much lesser extent.