Shark innards, bloody flotsam and other great globs of greasy floating gopher guts

I thought I might as well write this while I have supper because I sure as heck can't look at the TV or I'll barf. Dave's watching a documentary called How Jaws Changed the World. Interspersed amongst clips of Jaws are lengthy shots of shark innards, bloody flotsam and other great globs of greasy floating gopher guts.

A few minutes ago he was watching Salvage Hunters, one of a plethora of shows featuring people rifling through other people's junk. I cannot watch these shows when I'm eating. Hoarders, Storage Wars, American Pickers, Canadian Pickers, Nose Pickers – basically anything that involves moldy, mildewy basements and all the absolute crap people put there.

See, I know all about moldy basements. My ex-husband's basement has a river running through it. Dave's old house had an abandoned well in it and, I'm pretty sure, body pieces of nosy neighbours. Both these places were like mildew factories. Putting anything in those sour holes in the ground ruined them. My ex once put our Christmas decorations down there. Omigawd, a year later everything had grown a coat of yellow fuzz and smelled so bad that I was retching, not rocking, 'round the Christmas tree. When we divorced he put our family photos down there and now all the kids' pictures smell like somebody's underwear. He put our wedding album down there, too, but our marriage already smelled like used grape smugglers so no harm done. By the way, tomorrow's our anniversary. Happy Bludgeoned Anniversary, honey! Oh, and just because we're not married anymore doesn't mean you shouldn't buy me presents. Out of your own insufferable guilt. Big presents. Valuable presents – like refrigerators that make ice, cars with heated seats and front loading washing machines. It's never too late to make up for that bimbo you were banging!

Thankfully the house I live in now has no basement. Not so handy during hurricanes, but at least the Christmas ornaments smell April fresh as they're whizzing out that role in the roof.

Oh gawd, I just accidentally glanced at the TV. Lookie, lookie – a ginormous Great White Shark hanging from a nightmare-sized fish hook, bleeding like a stuck pig. Or a stuck shark. Or the episode from Breaking Bad where Gus cuts that guy's throat with a box-cutter.

*puts down pork chop and shudders*

The only thing worse than watching gibbering grossness whilst eating is smelling gibbering grossness. The best story I have in that regard involves a former colleague – let's call him Emeril – in a former workplace.

Emeril fancied himself a foodie and even though his lunch usually consisted of no-name chicken weenies, he occasionally brought leftovers from previous night's dinner fare. One day he unpeeled the lid on a microwaveable food tomb and revealed some ghastly ghoulash of red snapper and sauerkraut.

"My wife says you guys must all be jealous of my gourmet lunches." He said this with a perfectly self-satisfied smile of smugness as he stuck that stinky shite in the microwave.

Well.

The moment the nukerwaves hit that crap, a smell of utter putridness wafted into the lunchroom in an omigawd strength that can only be compared to the dead moose that was rotting at the side of Highway 118 this summer. Somebody threw a couple of shovelfuls of dirt over it – the moose, not Emeril's lunch – it was about as effective as having a herd of cats defecate on a tablespoon of kitty litter.

The stenchius horribilus filled the entire office building. Everyone was retching while Emeril wolfed down his cabbaged-snapper. It was all fun and games until the Boss returned to work after his own lunch.

I will never forget his wise words, booming through the office: "What in the FECK is that SMELL?"

He marched into his office and fired a round of pointed dictation to one of his minions. Moments later a memo was posted on the Health & Safety board, banning the consumption of all smelly comestibles on company property.

Being the shit-disturber I am, the next day I brought egg salad sandwiches and accused Emeril of farting.

Tick, tick, tick

Holiday pancake with feet and sausage eyes.

It's 8:04 a.m., my bath water is run, my second cup of coffee is half downed and time is wickering closer to the moment when I must shut down this silly computer and dash off to work. I should be getting in that tub RIGHT NOW but I feel so LAZY that it seems like way too much energy to devote to a silly thing like cleanliness.

End of vacation is a tough pill to swallow. It's not that I'm not happy about getting back to a regular routine – it's just the orderly scheduling of everyday life that is hard to adjust to. From getting up when I wanted, to lazing in a camp chair with a second or third or fourth cup of joe, it was all about no schedules. And here I am and the clock is ticking and it's now 8:08 and I'm no closer to the tub than I was four minutes ago.

I also feel SO remiss about not checking in with everyone's blog. I made a half-hearted stab this morning but I really need some serious time to make my rounds. Last night we had shopping to do and tonight there's a very, VERY excited young girl named Bethalin who is coming around to pick up the old Neon she bought from Dave. It's her first car and she's absolutely thrilled. I kind of like that it's a fresh-faced, enthusiastic girl who is adopting "Jessie" – so named by Tracy, the original owner of the car, also an enthusiastic fresh-faced young girl who now is a savvy businesswoman with an incredibly successful career. Funny thing is, they're both pretty brunettes who look a great deal alike. I'll take a photo of Bethalin and Jessie tonight and post it for you. Do you remember the TV show Blossom? And a character named Six? That's who Bethalin reminds me of. Cute as a bug's ear and happy as heck. Gotta love her.

8:14 a.m. and the tub water is cooling off. Sigh. Better get in there, I guess.

Here's some more Grundy Lake photos while I'm getting ready for work. Have a great day, OK?

Clouds rolling in over Pakeshkag Lake island in Grundy Lake Provincial Park.

They say there are lots of pike and pickerel and bass in Grundy but all
we caught were sunfish. Cute little beggars, aren't they?
Yes, we released all of 'em!

"Liftover" portage on Pakeshkag Lake. I love the rock formation here.
So smooth.

The levels of the lake are very different because of this
rocky outcropping. It's a natural dam, carved by glaciers.

Meh. Me.

Pakeshkag Lake narrows at the railroad tracks, where it
flows under a bridge made in 1911. I thought this
was pretty.

Red is a colour rarely seen naturally in the summertime (although it's common
in fall, of course). That's why these Cardinal Flowers (Lobelia Cardinalis)
are so striking.

If you're looking for wetlands, you'll find them at Grundy Lake Provincial Park.
And what's a wetland without a frog? 

The railroad bridge I mentioned earlier. Grundy is next to a
main CPR rail line and we heard trains all the time – EXCEPT
when we waited to take a photo of one. Dave and I waited for more than
an hour to take a picture of the train before we finally gave up.
Now I'm humming a bastardized version of the Rolling Stones'
song "Just Waiting for a Friend" in my head all the time...
"I'm just waiting for a traaaaaaaaaainnnnnnn."

Watersnake! Just under Dave's paddle is a teeny tiny Northern Watersnake.
They're brown banded when they're young, like this little guy, but they
turn almost completely black when they're older. 

And look! This youngster had just shed his skin when we came across him!
You can see the skin that used to cover his head! Isn't this cool?
Isn't this gross? Yeah, sorry, I'm kinda icked out too.

Greetings from Normalcy

Extremely cute black bear poaching blackberries in the Henvie Inlet area near Grundy Lake Provincial Park.

Lordy, lordy it's a beautiful morning out there. First time I've seen sunshine in a week and it's pouring through the skies over the river, shedding glorious golden light through the branches of the trees in our front yard. Backlit by the sun, the newly rain-infused leaves glow and my shell pink cabbage roses are fragrant with dew. There's a tiny sparrow in the feeder, a blue jay in the pussywillow and a few weeks worth of stinky garbage at the curb.

Home again, home again, jiggitty-jig.

It was a quiet camping trip, that's for sure. With a week of crappy, cloudy, rainy weather and no kids to yell at, Dave and I fast-tracked into a routine of selfishness, eating what we wanted when we wanted, taking afternoon naps that lasted into the dinner hour and reading, reading, reading. Dave read the Hunger Games while I zipped through the entire trilogy. He clocked me when I wasn't paying attention and apparently I was reading three pages to his one. Yeah, I said, but you can change the brakes on a car in the time it takes me to pee. We're all good at some things... at least his talent puts bread on the table.

I thought I'd share a few pictures with you, give you a little taste of the extreme laziness that was our latest adventure. Don't you love the bear? We were out for a drive when we spotted him mooching blackberries in the ditch beside the road. He was shy but the berries were bountiful so he didn't take off when we stopped in front of him for a photo. It's been a bad year for berries because of the drought. With the bears having such a poor food supply we'll have to be extra careful around our house, taking the birdfeeders in at night and cleaning the barbecue – bears are nice to see when they're in the wild but not so nice when they're at your front door.

Just a few hundred feet from where we spotted this bear there was a townhouse with a fenced backyard. Not just a regular fence, this one was probably 10 feet high and made of chain link. There were a few kids playing on monkeybars inside the fence. I guess if I lived in bear country I'd want a fence for my kids, too. Yes, we have bears in this area but not to the degree they have them further north.

The chipmunks were crazy tame - but only if you had peanuts to share.

Dave's new buddy.

My lap buddy, Misty.

Did you know a chipmunk could ride a bicycle?

View from where we launched our canoe on Pakeshkag Lake.

Weird, huge caterpillar at the French River Provincial Park visitor's centre.
I did some Googling and the best guess I have is the Imperial Moth Caterpillar. A big fellah, about five inches long. Any ideas?

The French River area snowmobile club (I think they call themselves the Voyageurs)
 erected the biggest snowmobile bridge in the world! There are three bridges crossing
the French River in this area: one's a bridge for cars and trucks, one is for trains and one is for ski-doos.

The Highway 69 bridge crossing the French River.

The French River is absolutely stunning. So beautiful.
Carved by the glaciers, it runs from Lake Nipissing into
Georgian Bay and it was the route the Voyageurs took
during the fur trade, Canada's formative years. 

Another view of the French River. 

Snowmobile mileage sign at the French River – if you were on a sled here
in  the middle of winter, you'd have a long, cold trip to the next town!

Happy trails

Whoever coined the term "summertime and the living is easy" is full of shite, no?

I've been busier than a one-armed paper-hanger.

No, I've been busier than a two-headed rooster in a hen house, and I'm not saying which head the old boy has two of!

So please, take my apologies for not being around lately and in advance for not being around in the coming week. We're headed out for another week of internet-free camping – this time in Grundy Lake Provincial Park, which is between Parry Sound and Sudbury. My mom says I was there when I was young but I don't remember it, so this will be a bit of an adventure with all sorts of new places to explore. We've packed the canoe, our bicycles and running shoes to make sure all parts of adventures will be properly investigated. (Note to thieves - the house is being house-sat by large dogs with big teeth and small people with big guns so buzz off ... or was that large people with big teeth? ... another senior's moment)

A bit of sadness yesterday - Sam said he was homesick (for his father's house) and didn't want to come camping with us. Angus already said he didn't want to go. So it's just me and Dave. Deep down inside there's a little part of me that's jumping up and down and hollering "no kids! no kids! no responsibilities" but honestly I'm heartsick. Well, I was heartsick yesterday. Today the sky is blue and we have a whole new adventure to look forward to and I plan on enjoying every minute! Enough worrying about stuff I don't have any control over! Enjoy the moment, live in the moment, appreciate all the good things or they'll pass us by.

Speaking of good things, I had a quick moment to see that JoJo is ENGAGED!!! SQUEEEE! I am so happy for you, JoJo, I really am! I hope you're as happy as me and Dave are and that's pretty darned happy! By the way, love your ring – gorgeous!

Well, it's time to finish packing and hit the road. I hope you have a fabulous week and I'll see you on the flip side – sunburnt, bug-bit and happy as that two-headed rooster.

Oh, and yes, I shall be avoiding the hammock.

Summer haze

Sometimes it catches me off guard. I'll be driving along, minding my own business, and I'll see something, a glimpse, something ordinary, and a feeling lifts through the present day distractions and sets me in a place I only vaguely recall.

This morning it was a row of tent caterpillar webs hanging off the trees on a country road. The maple leaves inside their filmy nests were brown, the branches dead, the black baby pillars eating trees already hit by summer drought. I thought, maybe tonight I'll get out with our tree trimmer and cut down the webs, give the trees a fighting chance, but then that feeling came out of nowhere and I forgot about the trimmer and the caterpillars and tried to pin down where that feeling was coming from.

I get the same feeling when I see sandy shoulders on winding back roads, the sand rich with iron the colour of bricks and hardy sumac growing wild in the febrile soil just beyond the sand.

I get it when I'm traveling secondary highways on the hottest summer days, when glass-like mirages shimmer in the heat coming off paling asphalt.

The feeling is a memory of 50 summers come and gone, hazy recollections of road trips with my parents in their land yacht Chevys, of overheated radiators, of picnics starring Tupperware containers filled with egg salad sandwiches, and stops at long extinct gas stations to buy glass bottles of Orange Crush from refrigerated water coolers, the bottles dripping with water as the caps were snapped open. 

One day we stopped at a gas station where a black bear was held captive in a galvanized pen. My father in his vacation-only plaid short-sleeved dress shirt and white shorts held a bottle of Pepsi steady while the bear grasped it in his front paws and guzzled it down thirstily.

It was mid-summer. Mirages danced in the road ahead and tent caterpillar webs hung from trees.