ziparumpazoo

Back at work and in the office today. All that writing and reading I'd planned on doing while I was off did not get done, though it's not unexpected - I'm not very good at sitting still when I'm not on the clock.

Went camping with the express purpose of hiking some trails and getting some kayaking in. Success on both fronts. The weather cooperated nicely, even if the brain didn't. Witness the litany of things I forgot to pack:
- a pot (amazing the number of things you can cook in a single frying pan in a pinch)
- a lid for the non-existent pot to put over the frying pan
- camp chairs (can be attributed to a lack of space)
- a strainer for pasta (used a slotted spatula to pick noodles out of the pan)
- a coffee pot of any sort (see comment #1 regarding the frying pan)(I have three camping perks in a bin under the stairs. There's no excuse for this one)
- pancake syrup (picked wild blueberries and used as substitute with extra bacon grease while cooking. Yum!)
- the dials for the camp stove that fell off and which I found and put in a VERY safe place LAST summer. (Used the pliers in my tackle box to turn the propane up or down - who needs eyebrows anyhow?)
- the frozen pork chops for one night's supper (thank god they never made it out of the freezer and not left sitting on the counter)
-Miscellaneous tongs, oven mitts, and other cooking-over-the-fire paraphernalia (I was a boy scout. I got this one with my eyes closed. Witness me brandishing my marshmallow roasting sticks!)

Books I did finish: The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules (Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg) - The League of Pensioners, unsatisfied with the treatment at their retirement home, plan and execute a series of white collar crimes, escalating in a bank robbery. Tranlated from the original Swedish, it's both a fun read and a clever statement on the invisibility of aging.
Next up on the nightstand: Yiddish for Pirates (Gary Barwin). From the author's website: Set in the years around 1492, Yiddish for Pirates tells the story of Moishe, a young man who, enchanted by maps and seeking adventure, leaves the shtetl to join a ship’s crew. There he meets Aaron, our ribald yet philosophical parrot narrator who becomes his near-constant companion. With a beakful of Yiddish jokes, this wisecracking bird guides us through a swashbuckling world of pirate ships and exploits on the high seas.

Here, have a vacation picture: