Jonesy and The Leeches

Did you know that leeches will chase you?

Well, my friends, let me be clear; leeches CHASE YOU! I'll say that I have never had an experience with a leech until this last Saturday morning when George woke me up (at the crack of dawn, mind you...) to take me fishing...

We headed out Friday evening, to camp in New Hampshire's White Mountains, Russell Pond to be exact. After a pit stop in Tilton, NH where the nightlife is beamin', we grabbed our wood and hurried to relieve Ben from a 3 hour stint trying to keep a fire alive and a buzz in his belly. I really haven't been camping in a long while, so I was ecstatic when we started setting up the tent in the thick green thicket and roasting marshmallows on the fire. Just when we were getting cozy, a large bright light swept over our camp and the thudding hum of a truck screeched to a halt just at the foot of the path. With the lights still on, a few men stumbled out and started walking to the fork. George went down to check out the scene, since that scratchy truck was basically on my car's rear end.

"Jerry!?" cried the man.
"Um no..." I'm assuming George said this...

Then another group of men from the campsite yonder came to meet the obviously intoxicated individual.

"Can you believe how f&^*ing green this is!" said Jerry's first mate. Then with probably a breath of 'hello' Jerry's friend tumbled into the said green bushes with a loud thud.

As you know, we all were watching the new development with an eyeful of fervor and consequently started laughing our little behinds off! It was probably the funniest thing I have ever seen while sitting around a campfire. So funny, that I started snorting (thanks Jen..) and holding my area of relief (thanks Becky..) to keep from putting out the fire!

Side note: Funny that I did not realize this earlier, but we had our own Sailor Jerry to laugh to...(wink wink)

Anyway, after the commotion, we calmed down for a night under the starry sky. This brings me back to the leeches. Morning rose with a beautiful mist. The water on the pond was so calm and crystal clear, I actually thought we had to do some seriously climbing to get down to the shore. The shore was no more than 5 feet away at this point. George lured me to wade in the water to get to a farther and better fishing spot. After realizing the water wasn't that bad in the cold department, I hear from behind me, "I hope that's not what I think it is! Oh wait, it is..." A leech! I have never seen a live, slimy squirmy, red, gross leech before and here was this little rascal chasing after my leg!!! George came to my rescue after the thing came back, scooped it up and threw it to it's demise on the dirt-ridden land. This wouldn't be the end of the leeches during the trip, but it was at least out of sight to me. (I'll have you know though, that this is the same feeling when you have a spider in your bed, or crawling up your pants; you just keep feeling them all over. Paranoid, you constantly check every limb, OCD-like, for the remainder of the day.)

After fishing, catching frogs and newts, cheesy egg scrambling, rain-proofing and lunch-time napping, we went back for some more water fun. George and Ben decided to find a better place to fish and ended up swindling our kind neighbors to lets us use their kayak. They rode around for awhile, then switched it up to let George and I go for a spin. We ended up finding a nifty little rope swing on the other end of the pond. Let me tell you, this was wicked fun! We took a few turns and then headed back to grab the rest of the bunch. The plan was to let Mike, Amy and Ben hop on over and then taxi George and I back, but alas this did not happen the way it was planned. I blame too much fun. The rest of the day pretty much went like this:

More frog catching.
More rope swinging.
More napping.
More fishing.
More eating.

Then the rain came. After our Brats and Beer, a clap of thunder hit and you could literally hear the rain sweeping across the pond. I knew it was coming, fast. After sitting in our rain proof hut, the night wore thin and I grew tired. While I thought it was a good idea to go to bed, George Mike and Amy thought it was a good idea to go catch more amphibians. (are you starting to notice a trend with these frogs...?) Yeah me too. So this was about midnight. I slipped in the tent, fell asleep and woke up and hour and a half later to Mike coming back to refresh his stock. I thought to myself, 'oh they probably won't be too much longer. Half hour maybe...' The next thing I know, I'm waking up at 3:30 in the morning and they are still not back. Worried, I get out of the tent and use the only light source I had, my ipod. I know, lame. But in my best efforts to go looking for these crazy fools, I got too scared to walk in the intense black of night, during rain nonetheless. So I climbed in the tent Ben is sleeping in.

"Hey. They aren't back yet. What should we do? I'm worried."
Sleepily Ben mumbles, "Huh, ummm I don't know..."
He looks at his watch.
"Well I'm staying in here until they get back"
...
...
"Maybe they got taken in?" Ben says.
That sets my mind off racing...all sorts of situations run through my head. Taken in by cops, held behind bars with one phone call, which I actually thought at that point it might be good to check my phone, attacked by bears, attacked by hitchhiking crazy murder men...

Then we hear voices coming up the path. And then a light. It was them, they were back. I step out of the tent and say, "Where were you!?"

"You don't want to know," all three chime in together.

Turns out, the frog hunting was a success. Then, they thought it might be a good idea to commandeer a canoe sitting helplessly on the shore of the pond. After floating out into the middle of the pond, Mike accidentally tips to the side and isn't quick enough to correct, which ends up capsizing the canoe which then became impossible to flip back over. To make this long story short, they came back soaking wet from swimming for an hour or more to shore, each with only one shoe and Amy with a leech in her behind. (Dang leeches!) After I hugged them all and said "I'm glad you're ok.." I slapped them all silly! I was worried! Making me think they'd been taken in an exit-only manner by some pedophiliac New Hampshirites! Geez!

After all the slapping and blood sucking and water logging I believe this weekend was a camping success. I mean, after all Jonesy, who was a very lucky little fly ended up living after accidentally falling into Mike's beer! That's got to be good, right?

All Kinds of Witchery Things

"Witch witch! She's a witch, he's a witch! Your dog's a witch!"

Although there is absolutely no validity to this quote, I'm pretty sure that's what was said in 1692, the year of the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Sure everyone has heard of the trials, but how many times have you gotten the chance to see where these people lived? Up close and personal even!

Amy and I started off toward Salem, which is actually not too far from Boston...about a half hour. It's a small cluttered town and once you enter, prepare for everything witch. Besides the multitudes of museums, there are little stores filled with trinkets and glittery toys, all to enchant your sorcery imagination. Tarot, palm readers, witch dungeons, and magic dominate the common area. There are tall, ominous-looking mansions and 17th century cottages all wrapped around the Salem Harbor.

We started off at the Witch House, which (haha, see what I did there? ;) is actually the house where the weathly town sheriff George Corwin lived. He was a prominent man who was involed in most of the village's hysteria. It was crazy to see how "wealthy back then" was simply a 4 room house with a fireplace. And one interesting fact? You can tell how much money a family had by measuring the heigth of their ceilings! The higher the room, the more money you had. Basically since you had more money to heat the bigger room.

Next we paddled around to the Witch History Museum, where we walked through a basement of diaroma exhibits depicting the stories of the 3 afflicted girls, Tituba the carribean servant, the townspeople, George Burroughs the minister getting pulled out of his house, Gallows Hill where most of the accused where hanged, and the cemetery where Giles Corey, an accused man who refused to respond with a plea, was buried. Corey was actually smashed to death with piles of rocks! Uck!

The next stop was the Witch Dungeon Museum, which was basically the same thing, except for the little acting out of a trial and the actual beam from the dungeon itself. The dungeon was a place where all the accused were held. And get this! They actually had to pay for their accomodations and food! So, you can imagine if you were a poor farmer...yep, they called them "coffin cells" You couldn't even lie down in these things! I think people died from just mere exhuastion of standing 24/7!

After some lunch at the Upper Crust, a delicious pizza joint, Amy and I hit the last stop: The Pirate Museum! I know, witches? Pirates? Relation? Well this was the late 17th century and piracy in the New England area was full force and abound! Now these pirates called the Salem Harbor their safe haven because, well, Boston Harbor was just too dang big for their briches! I mean, well they didn't want to get caught. So we learned about Blackbeard and William Kidd, and also the first woman pirate, who was in fact the last pirate to be hanged here in New England. It was a mighty good time! Our tour guide was a little fast talker but after the 'arghs' and 'gahrs' we made off with all our appendages. Also, an interesting tid bit...the reason why pirates are missing an eye, leg or hand? Well there was a pirate bonus for anyone who lost a body part during battles. Talk about workers comp!

Anyway, that's my history lesson for ya'll today. Brief and golden. I'm on my way to go camping in the White Mountains for the weekend...so keep an eye out for some tall fish tales! Here fishy-fishy! Here fishy-fishy! And a good AAARGGH! (just for good measure.)

:)

The Pen is Blue!

So I'm off to the Salem Witch Museum.

When I get back, prepare for a history lesson! This week has been full of history, from the infamous Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, to the polygamist communes I've been reading about in "Under the Banner of Heaven". You guys have no idea how 'different' some people can be...

I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories from those crazy Puritans that once ruled all of New England! Wait, they still do! Crazy blue laws...did you know that the Puritans once banned Christmas for 200 years in 1659?

Cheese and Wine

Ok! I admit it! I saw Mamma Mia before seeing Batman!

There, I said it.

Aw man, that's been on my chest for the last 24 hours...phew!

So now before you go chastising me, I must tell you Mamma Mia had some very fine points. It had glitter, glamour, song & dance, Grecian landscapes and Pierce Brosnan singing. All that make up for some fine and purely entertaining cinema. Yes really. Ok, it started off completely and ridiculously cheesy...but then the cheese aged and it grew into ripe deliciousness. Pure cheese, pure satisfaction. All I needed was some fine wine...

....which Batman had promised and delivered to be! Oh and what a fine wine it was! Christian Bale, Heath and that new Ken-esque guy...

This weekend was surely not a disappointment.

A Weeks Worth of Llama's and Fireworks

Well well! I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! As some of you may know, it's one of my favorite holidays...but then again I just love holidays in general. Here's the thing: I love holidays because it's an excuse to get dressed up in some silly garb and spend time with friends and family, whether it's eating roasted duck, singing Irish drinking songs, or watching parades and fireworks! But wait, I just had a thought. I don't really need an excuse to do all that, right? I mean Andrea, Camille and I got dressed up all the time for no reason. I remember one night, Andrea and I wanted to watch The Sword and the Stone, (or was it The Road to Eldorado??) anyway, we decided to dress up like medieval princesses. (it must have been The Sword and the Stone then..) Well, she ended up looking like a British punk pop diva and I ended up looking like a Grecian harlet. Ahh, the times!

Nonetheless, the weekend was filled with fabulous and spectacular down home enjoyment. It actually started off with a trip to the UniverSOUL Circus, and let me emphasize SOUL. Haha, all I saw when I went to grab the tickets were cornrolls and finger snappin'. If you know what I mean by that, well then good for you. It was so cliche. I'm serious...fried chicken jokes included. Anyway, Mike's little sis Amy, is staying with all the boys for the summer so I decided to try and get her out of the house by taking her to the circus. Plus, I've never been! We got to see zebras, llamas, tigers and elephants. Clowns and acrobats, Chinese flippers as well! There was even a "little" sidekick, who had some killer dance moves! I'll tell ya, I've never felt so pasty in my life! And it was awesome!

Friday morning we were well on our way to go cove kayaking on Spectacle Island, but unfortunately due to "island maintenance" we had to forgo that idea and instead see the Gloucester Sea Chanty and Clogging Band on Georges Island. (yeah, would you believe there really is a 'georges island' ?) Although when we got there, there was no clogging to be had and they in fact were not from Gloucester. Oh good 'ol Gloucester! They did sing Yankee Doodle though and played the pogo bass/thingy, yeah that. :)

We stopped and had some delicious meat, burgers, rice, noodles, pound cake, more meat and soda from the family that George carried coals for on the ferry to the island. They were incredibly sweet, and would not stop handing us food. They could've rolled us of the side of the island and we'd have floated back home no sweat! The remainder of the day was filled with tourists, arm painting, cell-phone hugging, BBQing and watching fireworks from a penthouse apartment with a killer view of the entire city!

Saturday, we got up early once more to make our way to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in Merrimack, New Hampshire! Oh and the boys were super excited! For what I say?! Ok, who am I kidding...

After learning how the brewery worked and that Budweiser, Michelob, Natural (light or ice..no just natural..) were all the same company, we sat down in the "hospitality center" to have a few samples. Our conclusions? I love the Michelob Ultra Raspberry Pomegranate beer and the Summer Ale was OK. The Clamato beer was Uck! and the Lime infused was not so bad for me, but the boys hated it. The stout definitely puts hair on your chest, so I passed on that one. And the porter was a close second. I'll stick to my pales and ambers. :)

After the brew-haha, we took off for some poolside BBQ and a little lacrosse playing. The night rounded down with some lighting of our own fireworks in which the "Grand Canyon" was AMAZING!!! Sunday the day was good enough to head to the beach where some wave surfing was definitely in order!

So what do you get when you play hard all weekend? YOU SLEEP HARD! And that's definitely what I did the last two nights. Too bad it was too much of a sweaty hot mess over here to use any blankets, or clothes for that matter....

KIDDING!

But I'll just say it was minimal. ;)