Elementary, My Dear Reader.

I ran a week of day camp again this summer. This year, we did a mystery theme.

I thought about dressing up and then decided to just go as me. With my regular pipe and hat and all.
And then I found Waldo. He was lurking in the woods waiting to hand out lollipops to the lucky children who find him. Fun... or creepy? You decide.
Again, on secret identity day, I thought about wearing a disguise but decided to just do me. I think it was a wise decision. PS, no, I do not know what those marks are on my chin and cheek. Possibly lunch. It was probably very good.

Swim, Swim, Fishy, Fishy!

I went fishing today. For the first time ever. FFW (see yesterday's blog), who I shall call Fisher today, because I still don't have a permanent blog name for her, attempted to teach me. It was a valiant effort. My favorite part was when the shiny thing on the end (jig? it is through no fault of Fisher's I do not know this)would emerge from the water. I don't really care that there was probably no fish dumb enough to be fooled by my awkward attempts. It was good times. And I am now licensed, so yeah. I will be a pro. In my head.

I wanted to post the fishy song that came into my head when I titled this post, but I can't find it anywhere on the innernets. At my last job, we had a craft that we did with some kids at an info night at a school where they made fish puppets. My boss was doing the craft with the kids while I chatted up the parents. She wanted to teach them a song about fishes so they could put on a little show for the parents at the end. The song we found on the Internet was adorable, and got stuck in all our heads. Of course, by the time that night came, my boss could not remember the tune, so it became more of a chant. So, sorry, it won't be in YOUR head. Unless you want to call me, because I will totally sing it for you.

I couldn't find THAT fishy song, but I DID find this. Luckies.

Ten Essentials for the Elite Hiker

1. Bottle of Evian to parch your thirst.
2. stylish windbreaker to, you know, break the wind and make your butt look good.
3. A Swiss army knife with doodads and whatnots because I hear those are handy in the wilderness and such.
4. A walking stick. Because serious hikers have a walking stick. Specifically one that they bought at a store with varnish and carvings and stuff.
5. A backpack to carry your trail mix, camera, and backup windbreaker for when the first one gets old.
6. Tennis shoes to carry in your backpack for when you get tired of wearing your flip flops.
7. I-phone for the map app.
8. hand-held fan mister.
9. Sunglasses to prevent wrinkles around the eyes.
10. Handy beacon for when you get lonely or bored.

If you don't get why this is the silliest hiking essentials list ever, do NOT plan a hike that requires said beacon. You don't want to win the kind of award they give out for that.

That One Weekend I Went Outside

In this season of TV drought, it's difficult for a TV junkie like me with no job to fill the time. Yeah, there's the job search thing but sometimes I like to do fun things too.

This week is an especially sucky TV week. I'm not pointing any fingers, but I will say, PEOPLE, they would not cover certain events and people so much if you would stop watching it, clicking on it, and buying it. Make the madness stop! This is ridiculous. But I refuse to give it any blog time. Instead, I have been:

1. Hiking up a mountain, nearly fainting, and then stumbling back down. To the left, you see the beginnings of the path that inclined upwards and which I nearly tumbled down (K would have been the airbag in that crash). Turns out you are supposed to eat a breakfast with protein or something before you go on hikes on an 80-ish degree day with humidity. Who knew? At least at the top while I ate my almonds and chugged my water, I could enjoy the wonderful view of Mt. Rainier. For you Washingtonians, did you know there were hiking paths at Green River Community College? Like real ones, with switchbacks and mile posts and dirt and hills that make out-of-shape girls pass out? Totally does. I was very impressed.

Moving on, the next thing I did with my weekend was NOT spend time with Alice, the Mad Hatter, and their Tea Party crew. I sat around and felt sad because they weren't coming. Luckily, I didn't do that all weekend. I went on a wee road trip to visit one of my oldest friends Reeses and company (get it, Reeses, that was a subtle dig about your age).

We watched the fireworks Saturday night from the inner coast of the Peninsula of Washington. We could kinda see Tacoma, Seattle, and Edmonds all at one time. How cool is that? Couldn't really tell where all the Islands were, but they were there. It all looked like one land mass to me. Also, I could see a teeeeny tiny space needle. It was right next to Mt. Rainier, and so teeny I didn't notice it when I took my ten millionth Mt. Rainier picture, because apparently I love Mt. Rainier almost as much as Youtube. See it? No? Your inattention to detail is killing me. It's right....

There on the left... Duh. We saw lots of dead crabs when we walked the beach right by the house that day. Also a dead fish head. So of course Reeses had to sing the Fish Heads song. I know, you wish you were there, huh? We watched the veeeeery far away fireworks over Lake Union. They were teeny and cute and we could hear the booms from the distance, and we were the only ones on the beach.

Hunks of Junk Sunk My Spunk

I have found a new hobby. Stopping junk mail. I have always had a deep and abiding hatred for junk mail. Or at least junk mail that does not come in the form of catalogs selling cute clothes or other fun things I can buy. Especially junk mail with forms asking for you to apply for things. Because everyone knows you are supposed to shred that kind of junk mail. Going to the lengths of shredding my junk mail takes way too much effort. It's exasperating. My momma taught me to shred anything that could get pulled out of my recycling and used to create a fraudulent account in my name. I am very diligent about not disposing of things with my personal information on them. And by dispose I mean pile up in my room until I have a ridiculous amount of paper piling up. Apparently I should have asked for a shredder for my birthday.

The parts that don't have your personal info on them could come in very handy, though. This idea would have come in handy a few months ago when K and I purchased our new salt and pepper shakers, and realized they had very small openings through which to deposit the salt and pepper. Even with this newfound knowledge, I have determined that I must renew my efforts to rid myself of junk mail. Why?

1. It creates clutter, in the form of large piles of things that I should shred, but can't because I don't own a shredder, so I have to take it to work or my parents in order to shred it real good.
2. It wastes my time. I don't want to open it, I don't want to shuffle through it to decide what to recycle and what to shred, and I don't want to reshuffle through it when I realize that I'm not sure if the pile I set aside is a shred pile or a recycle pile, or if I at some point mistakenly put shred stuff in with the recycle stuff.
3. All the trees are dying. I love me a good tree. They make things all naturey.

Elephant Smartness

If you have about 5 minutes to kill you should watch this. It's cool.

My Weekend in Pictures

I'm back from camp! While I was on the island, I learned some history:

Here's a view from my window. You know I took it from inside because you can see the reflection of the light fixture.

I saw a boat.

It was rainy most of the weekend, but quite scenic.

It was a beautiful weekend. It was like a vacation, but with stress.