Internet, hello,

How are you? We camped this weekend. (Edited to say: At Mt. Hood. Can’t say where — which river, which campground. Have been sworn to secrecy. Sorry.) It was fine until Hockey God took us on Death March from Hell single file, side-stepping dog shit all over trail, trail that had steep drop-off on one side and scared the hell out of me because MY BABIES! OH MY GOD! What if they fell over the side? I’d dive after them, but would it be Too Late?

(Yeah, I read too many stories about Drama in Real Life in Reader’s Digest growing up.) We turned back, but I was pretty freaked out by the time we did.

I’d like to blog about how Hockey God described the hike as “…just a short walk in…” (and how he is so much like my mom and his mom THAT IT MAKES ME INSANE — let’s just say — they are all pretty driven, and love 12 mile “hikes” up the side of mountains. I have been known to scream, “If you have to wear crampons IT’S NOT A HIKE, IT’S A CLIMB.” Etc. Not tampons, crampons. Those pointy things you hook to the bottom of your boots.)

…and the huge hideous fight we got into, because, you know marriage — My way or the highway. (That goes for husbands and wives equally, in most cases, from what I’ve seen.) But I cannot blog about this because I’ll get a stomachache. Not because I’m trying to be all la-la, I have a perfect marriage, Internet. I do not. But it is pretty good. Except when he chooses a campground with a pit toilet.

I like flushers. What’s the point of camping, then? Yeah, whatever. You can have it rough, but not too rough. I wouldn’t have minded peeing in the woods so much, would it not have been for the Forest Service road a few feet behind our campsite. But I’m not blogging about that, either, because all in all it was a fun time. The kids liked our huge two-room tent, and the cookies and snacks we brought, and the slugs, centipedes, salmonberries and huge trees.

We cooked spaghetti on our new campstove, made s’mores, drank a bunch of beer.

Wacky Girl: “How much beer did you and Daddy drink, anyway?”
Me: “Uh. One apiece?”
WG, counting bottlecaps (her brother collects bottlecaps now. I am so busted): “Nope.”

Good news — if you drink enough beer you don’t care where you pee. Everyone was mellow at the campgrounds — no fireworks, guns, or people staying up all night partying. (Hello, Clackamas River and Silver Falls State Park!)

I won’t blog about what an ungrateful bitch I am, having grown up in Oregon, surrounded by all this fantastic old-growth (what’s left of it anyway) forest and the beach! It’s only two hours from Portland! (An hour and a half if you go to Cannon Beach and drive like hell to get there.) And the desert! And the hot springs! Hot damn! And Puget Sound is right up the highway! And then, onward North and you’re in Vancouver, B.C. Goddamn. It. Just. Does. Not. Get. Any. Better. Than. This. (I’ll post pictures later, I promise. I’m so behind the curve on the whole Flickr thing. Loser. Will not blog about that, either. My Internet guilt.)

God’s Country. The land of milk, honey, hazelnuts, pinot grigio, wineries up the wazoo, Tillamook cheese, did I mention the Pacific Ocean? Sand buggies at Florence? The Oregon Country Fair? Yes, yes, yes. So how ungrateful am I, cuz all I think of now when I’m ready to drive to the coast is all the frickin’ casinos and traffic? And woo-hoo — David Cassidy is playing at the Chinook Winds, rock ON. Blech. And the mountains? Love the mountains. Hate the fat people and their four-wheelers, tearing up the forests and wrecking their RVs on the way home. Yes, this from the girl who peed beer all over the forest this weekend.

Never said I was fair, did I?

I will blog about this: I met David Cassidy in person once, at a ’70s retro night at a club here, circa 1989. He slimed me. It was icky. Someone asked him, “Do you miss the ’70s?” and he said, “I miss this about the ’70s…” and like, growled at me like a short little balding tiger. The man is not so tall. He does not look like this anymore.

He was excited cuz I was wearing bell bottoms and this gauzy peasant blouse with my bellybutton showing. He, like, took his hand and touched my stomach, leaving a trail of slug slime behind. It wasn’t the experience I’d been dreaming of since age 9.

Speaking of slime and mold (nice segue, huh?), also won’t blog about my mom’s basement, and how she refuses to disconnect her downspouts, which would stop water from pouring into her basement walls, and refuses to let me, my husband and my sister help her with doing any work on the house. Really, the house hasn’t had much work done on it since my dad died.

That was 1974.

Water in basement = Mold, mold, mold. See how it is here in God’s country? Moldy and mildewy. Big trees and trucks. Lots of beer and people peeing in the woods.

Also won’t blog about how the kids have been fighting since school got out.

Also won’t blog about how I cried when the director of the theater camp Wacky Boy was enrolled in for this week called to say they were one kid short, so camp is cancelled.

Also won’t blog about North Country, the Charlize Theron movie we’ve been watching, about female miners in northern Minnesota who filed a class-action lawsuit for sexual harassment. It’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen, but so bleak. They finally settled, after 14 years or something horrible, but all I can think, as a feminist, is how much farther we have to go. I’ve been hassled so much on jobs — I can’t write about it here because it makes me bummed out, even thinking about it. All I ever have wanted is to be able to do my work in life and not be hassled. That’s not too much to ask. To be treated like a human, not a piece of ass. (Elephant Man’s voice in my head: “I am not an animal!!!!!!!!”)

Fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa fwaaa

I’m not blogging about any of this shit. But really, I will try to post some photos later. You’ll like ’em. It’s perfect here.

Love,

WM