 | Attention: This is PART II. Go back and read week 25 you lazy bastards.
For all of you that have stayed tuned, her is the rest blah, blah, blah…
Friday - Sunday, 6/29 - 7/1/07: Frackville. All kinds of stuff.
Saturday. My grandfather loves a many things and hunting and gathering are two of them. Pop-pop Teddy doesn't quite hunt "bang, bang" style anymore, I fear he is too much of a bleeding heart for that, but he does hunt huckleberries in the summer and mushrooms in the fall. Tre goes with him for mushrooms and I usually go with him for berries. (But Tre and I have gone together for berries alone. And sometimes/usually she will go with all of us. I'm not about to get yelled at by her in the comments).
So we made plans to go for strawberries on Saturday morning. He's never gone, I don't think, and was talking about it since February. There was a little kerfluffle over where exactly the farm was, and who knew how to get there, so we asked my Nana.
[ I want to give a primer here. My pop-pop I most regularly talk about is my Mom's dad Ted. My Nana is my Dad's mom Jeanette. I also have a pop-pop Tom (I call him pop-pop, not pop-pop Ted. That sounds creepy) and he is married to my Nana. ]
Nana has a baking problem. It's not actually a problem for us, but it is a problem for her cholesterol, so instead she makes us fat. She needed a strawberry stock-pile so she lead the charge.
One of the cutest things about them is that they call each other Nana and Pop-pop. Pop-pop will always say "You have a great Nana. She makes the best sticky buns." that is the beginning of a ten minute conversation about sticky buns, mini cheesecakes and maybe perogies. When they greeted each other on Saturday they did so by saying Nana and Pop-pop. There so weird and cute.
We found the farm and we picked for about 30 minutes. Nana kicked our asses and picked 5 pounds. Troy, Tyler and I together only picked 4. And I thought that my pop-pop was always full of shit, but he's right, local strawberries are better than california's.
Delicious
Here is a picture of all of us. Pop-pop was really excited about getting his picture taken with his bucket.
Saturday night. My dad, his friend Billy, Troy and I went to see Vanessa Carlton and Stevie Nicks at Montage. It was really great. They said "no cameras" so I didn't take mine, although there were plenty of bastards with them out.
Vanessa Carlton was surprisingly awesome. She sang by herself with just her piano. Very pretty voice. She grew up in Harvey's Lake and that song that she's famous for was written there.
Stevie Nicks was really fantastic and her voice has held strong through the years. She's much thinner in person as well. The womyn there loved it. When she would spin or do something patently Nicks, the crowd would loose there mind. But I really like going to shows where everybody is happy and this would be a prime example. There were barely any dudes there, and if there was they were there with their girlfriend or very gay. It was another white person diversity festival and it was fascinating.
I also at a Gyro for the first time. The woman in front of us was bragging to us in a rather forceful way that they were the best in Scranton. She was unappealingly pushy but right - it was really good. The lamb or goat or whatever they cram in there was greasy but not gross. I'll probably eat there again in a couple of weeks when we see the warped tour.
I didn't get any pictures of the show, but I did get pictures before while we tailgated. Here is a picture of my dad looking unimpressed and some wild flowers.
On the way to Montage we stopped to check out the new windmills that they built in Schuylkill county. Despite whatever people say, I really like Rendell and I like that he was part of this initiative. I am going to try and get a picture of these all lined up on the top of the ridge, but I didn't feel like dying on 81 this day. There are about and they are spaced a couple miles apart. Whichever way the wind blows, they will turn with it.
They are striking. That's the best word for it. It is a beautiful design and just awesome. I don't know why I'm so fascinated by them but I couldn't take my eyes off of them. Which wasn't good because I was driving.
Sunday. We went huckleberry picking in the morning. Unfortunately, it's too early in the season, so we didn't get many but we did find a new spot that is going to be ridiculous in about 1 week. Only Troy, Tyler, Teddy and I went. I didn't have my camera while we were in the bush, but here is a picture of when we got to the house.
This is a picture of me, Tyler, Pop-pop and Edie
Here are all of the boys.
Sometimes picking berries sucks. I squat in the woods - over snake holes and spit beetle hang outs. It's often too hot or there is are too many bugs. My legs cramp up and my hands are stained blue. There are spiders and tics.
But there are many reasons I do go. 1 because my pop-pop is awesome and says things like "dryer than a pop-corn fart" and "I slipped my clutch." He tells us stories everytime, some old and some new. This time he told us about how when he was younger he went picking with Carl Sanner and another one of his buddies and that his buddy would lay down and pick berries on his side. Apparently, berry picking was pretty cool for dudes to do in the 40s and 50s but dudes were still lazy.
And to me, the whole excursion is just a meditative retreat. You think about everything. From whether or not my air conditioning in the Subaru needs recharged to who is going to die in Harry Potter. Mostly this time I thought about how lucky I am. Tyler was telling Troy some long story about Robot Chicken Star Wars - he just babbled on and on. Pop-pop was off by himself scouting and probably either singing or talking to himself. I was trying not to step on a snake (not that I ever saw one).
I thought about how glad I am that I'm not famous. You could never retreat into the woods if you had a million cameras trying to get a snapshot. I probably wouldn't even have time to be there, let alone know enough to enjoy it. When I go home, I usually don't see any friends, other than the ones that I might on occasions see at the mall or bar. I spend most of my time with my family and happily so. I would rather hear the same story about perogies or listen to my nana bitch about how the neighbor is a know-it-all busybody.
Enough of the sentimentality. I didn't mean to drag you there. What's next?
Later that day we went to Harry's U-Pull It to pull our own. Hhahahaah. No. We went there for a steering column and a bunch of other junk for the truck. I did pull a column out of a dakota but I don't have a picture of that. What I do have pictures of are me and Tre like nuts. Here are a bunch of photos of us acting inappropriate and one of Tre working. Who knew a junk yard could be so much fun.
This is the beautiful sky that day. It was pretty chilly to just be wearing tank tops. Me and Tre hung out in vans for most of the day. The vans looked more like mini-RVs. We called them baby wagons because tons of people must have gotten laid in all that swankness.
This truck is in the entrance. I'm surprised we didn't get tetanus looking at it.
Here is my pretty sister.
This is the bastard tree that I hit in 98. It fucked up my Cutlass - BAD! I guess we are both still scared from it. If you want to hear the long story, ask me, but here is the short version. I wasn't paying attention and I somehow jumped those railroad ties and hit the tree.The longer story is funnier and much more embarrassing.
Sorry about your van. Here are the keys back. Thanks for letting us borrow it.
Troy working.
Tre working. For reals. She's taking bolts out of the steering column.
This is us carrying around the steering column. We pretended it was armageddon (it doesn't take much imagination at Harry's) and this was my rocket launcher. Tre thinks this should be my default pic.
This is us hanging out in a baby maker trying to keep warm. Tre found these in the back seat. That is probably poo. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Check out my new wheels. It needs some work.
That night, July 1st, we watched the fireworks in Frackville. I met some dude my sister is seeing and Troy used Edie as a machine gun. Here are some pictures.
My nana and pop-pop, Tre throwing up signs and me squinting.
Me and the ol' lady.
Edie does not like being a machine gun.
I like this picture. We did stuff like this in Color Photo in college.
Tuesday, 7/3/07: Bellefonte Carnival.
This is another thing that I've never done even though I lived her forever. I went to the Carnival with Mark and Jodie. They had some disappointing Pizza and I had one of the best sausage hoagies ever. Yumyumyumyum. Here is a picture of a very cute Mark and Jodie. Mark won a little yellow dog for Jodie and she gave it to Toofy. It's now hanging out in his cage making him feel more at home.
I really wanted to ride the salt-n-pepper shakers. But we were talking about all of the recent accidents on rides lately. I think Mark is more afraid of something bad happening, whereas I'm afraid of blacking out or throwing up. Either way it means your old.
The next night, I went with Troy to get an ice cream cone. We were walking back to the car and we took these awesome pictures.
I took this picture of the butterfly on the 4th. I saw a butterfly tongue. How neat is that.
Friday, 7/6/07: Spikes Game: Ball Toss.
Yes, we went to another Spikes game. I really wanted an equipment bag and I so got one. It has most of our badminton gear in it, holding about 13 rackets, a net and poles and a half dozen shuttlecocks. (We have another bad downstairs holding about the same amount of crap, but it is not as stylish).
Troy did the bass toss at the end to win a bucket of chicken. I don't think we need a bucket of chicken, but Troy can peg a feral cat crapping in our garden from 30 yards away with a rock so this seems like a good use of his skills.
This is a picture of Troy practicing over the weekend with Tyler as a target. Troy didn't ask Tyler to pretend to be a bucket of chicken. He did it all by himself. Don't call DC'n'
 S.
That's it! We are done. This should definitely kept you looking busy at work! Not me! I had the privilege of spending my Monday night sitting at my desk, ignoring the truck and sweating a little. This heat is neither cool or fun and I find it completely unenjoyable, so any enjoyment you get from this rambling will probably be scarce as the summer goes on. Or maybe not. Whatever.
Keep cool, use sun block and keep your hands off my wallet.
Oh. We are renting a house in Chincoteague again this year - August 17-24th. As always, your invited. Bring your own sheets.
If you want to see all the pictures, including some that I did not post, click here. |
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