New Birds in the Yard

 If they gave out awards for trash picking, my daughter The Heir would garner the gold. But if you think about it, championship trash picking is intrinsically rewarding. You come home with better stuff than some stupid trophy.

Yesterday we had a little pre-Thanksgiving get-together here at Chateau Johnson, since the Heir is going to Harrisburg to have Thanksgiving with her significant other's family. When Heir and her s.o. arrived at our house yesterday, I head a little hubbub in the front yard. Then she came to the door and said, "Mom, there's someone here to see you!"

EXHIBIT A: Someone

It was a breezy afternoon. The birds were teeter-tottering back and forth, and their wings flap too. The unit still had its sale tag (although not the price).

Heir trash picked this from in front of a house in Germantown. It was in a plastic garbage bag at the curb. She lugged it all the way to West Philadelphia before she unwrapped it to see if it was damaged. That's a bus and a regional rail line and another bus.

It works perfectly.

EXHIBIT B: L'Oiseau en Up de Close

If I had stacks and stacks of cash, my whole yard would be covered with such wonderful things. But this is far sweeter than buying a dozen silly metal lawn ornaments. This one was free!

EXHIBIT C: L'autre Oiseau

This is the happy outcome of teaching your youngsters to sift through other people's discards. Both of my daughters learned trash picking at my knee, but living in the city they can elevate their achievements to new heights.

Never mind that they both have jobs they like, jobs that make a positive difference in their communities. Never mind that they both have amiable gentlemen as partners. My kids can trash pick. Say what you want, that's a skill.

Felicitous Announcement

 It is with great pleasure that Lord Mark and Lady Anne Johnson announce the engagement of  their youngest daughter, Fair Johnson, to an amiable gentleman of high moral repute and moderate, diligent habits. The two young persons reached their understanding during a tour of the Italian provinces, concluding today. A date has not been set for the nuptials.

Lady Anne received this news with utmost enjoyment, having no other goal in life than the happy unions of her daughters with worthy gentlemen.

I Have a Crop!

 Welcome to "The Gods Are Property Owners!" I'm Anne Johnson, proud yeoman of the soil. I'm here to report on my crop yields.

I bought a plot of land in February and visited it in April. Nothing much was growing then except a little bit of sturdy lichen.

This past weekend, my daughter The Fair and I made a sojourn back to the property. If you recall, I named it Anneland.

The Fair is very much into foraging. If you haven't heard of that, it's basically bypassing the local eateries in favor of finding something wild to eat in the woods. The Fair actually found some morels when they were in season ... and those are solid gold.

It's not morel season anymore, but I was so, so glad to have The Fair with me, surveying Anneland. Because as it turns out, there's a crop growing on the hillside. I mean, all along the hillside. As in, probably a quarter acre or more.

EXHIBIT A: PRIMARY CROP, ANNELAND

This is an actual photo from Anneland!

Now, I am intensely grateful to The Fair for positively identifying the wild blueberries, because if I had gone there by myself, I would have assumed that these were poisonous dingleberries or some such, and I would have given them a wide berth. Instead they will be nurtured (along with one tiny raspberry plant I also found).

As you can see, very few of these were ripe. The Fair says I will still have some to pluck when I return to Anneland in August. Maybe enough to make a tart!

It's kind of fun to have your own blueberry patch. Thanks be to Venus Cloacina, great Goddess!

An Auspicious Full Moon

 Thank you for visiting "The Gods Are Bored!" I'm Anne Johnson. How can I help you? Please hold.

Had to add that last part, for those of you who actually remember how phones used to work.

Just now I got home from work and opened my home email. (Can't do it at work without spying.) Nestled among the come-ons for Hello Fresh and the latest God Pod and my Patreon payments and my electronic pay stub, there was another email.

An email with a deed.

And another email with information on how to close on a property from afar.

Full moon tomorrow, perfect time to sign documents and cut a check and get everything under way.

This is the part where I add that the property is coming to me from a private sale. On the multiple listings land of this sort goes for twice to three times the amount I am paying per acre. I've been looking at the online listings for years and years and years and years.

Four acres and change, all of it forested, off the grid with nothing built on it. No house for me to fret about. One contiguous human neighbor whose house cannot be seen and who was a chum of my uncle's. The other boundary belonging to the State of Pennsylvania, game lands.

Feature this. For the price of a middling cruise to Alaska, I will have a forest. A forest all of my own. Just for me and whichever bored deities like to go camping. I know Cloacina is wild about the area. She'll be my first invite.

Hold me in the light for this last haul, but it does look like all systems go.

Extreme Ice Cream

 How far would you drive for a quart of ice cream and some local oysters?

Let me add some detail to that question. How far would you drive for some award-winning small-batch cinnamon ice cream and a quart of freshly-shucked oysters from a local trawler?

Yeah, I thought so. You would throw all thoughts of gas prices to the wind.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I was as fried as a slab of Virginia ham. Mr. J had ordered some ice cream from the Scottish Highland Creamery in Oxford, Maryland, and we agreed to drive down to get it. Oxford used to be too far for a day trip, but Delaware (yes, it does exist) just opened a nice highway to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and now scenic Oxford is less than a two-hour drive.

But you know what happens when a place is quicker to get to, and you've been there 10,000 times? You go farther afield. Last summer we rented a place in Cambridge, Maryland. It's not far from Oxford, but it's not touristy. Less crowded, less posh, more genuine. We loved it immediately.

In Cambridge last summer we found the local fish store. And you just know what a fish store on the Chesapeake Bay has in abundance in November, right? Lovely big snotty oysters!

But you know what happens when you just found a new fun place last summer and you're fried like a ham? You wind up way the Hell out on an island in the Chesapeake, sea-glassing your fried little eyeballs out.

EXHIBIT A: LOOK AT THAT SHIT-EATING GRIN!

It wasn't Halloween, but it felt like Halloween. It felt like vacation. It felt like I was 180 miles from all my troubles. Damn, I do so love Maryland.

All that driving, and we still got home by 7:00. And don't try to pry the location out of me, but I got five goddamn pounds of sea glass. A quart of oysters. Three quarts of cinnamon ice cream.

And for a few days, I wasn't fried. More like soothingly marinated in a beach glass bath.

Adopt, Don't Shop!

 A post-Thanksgiving, bloated welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Hope you had a pleasant Turkey Day.

Thank you to all readers who participated in my daughter The Fair's research questionnaire! If you haven't done it yet, it's the post below this one. Fair was very pleasantly surprised by the level of engagement. So please keep "The Gods Are Bored" relevant to all cutting edge scholars ... fill out the questionnaire!

Today's sermon: Adopt, don't shop!

You see it all over this time of year: some big SUV with a giant groomed pine lashed to the hood. Or, think about those Christmas tree lots. You go in, run your fingers down a sculpted bough, and 70 needles fall off and drift to the ground. And the price? Fifty bucks for a pretty sickly specimen. Upwards of one fifty for something big and healthy.

Well, I do love a fresh Yule tree. There's something about bringing a tree inside the house that appeals to my school-weary spirit. It's not only festive, it's nourishing to the soul.

I guess it was three years ago that I happened to find myself at a stop light, and I looked to my left and saw a vacant lot. As you might expect in a state that is 1/3 covered with Pine Barrens, the lot had a bunch of pine seedlings growing up, each one about the height of a Christmas tree. The only difference being that these seedlings were somewhat scraggly, and they sport long needles (which I actually prefer).

Something clicked in my head. I could snip down a pine from a vacant lot! Nobody would miss it. I would be able to carry it myself, it would be fresher with fewer boughs to deck, and best of all ... can't beat that price, which is free!

Thus began my new tradition of adopting a feral tree rather than purchasing an expensive (mostly dead) one from the landscaping store.

EXHIBIT A: FERAL TREE

I took a pleasant morning drive in rural New Jersey. I stopped at a vacant lot I had been scoping since last summer. Took my clippers, snipped down this fine tree. Left some branches so it can regenerate.

Isn't it chaotic? I love it.

Oh! The big bright lights are bubble lamps, which I bought because I got the tree for free. They are adorable.

So I adopted a feral tree that is also:

*organic, free range

*ethically harvested

*locally grown

and

*free!

I won't be one bit surprised if two dozen Bored Gods show up to gawk at this tree. They appreciate a bargain when They see one.

Hope Is a Thing with Oak Trees

You know that even in the Wild, Wild West there were people who planted apple trees and built schools, right? That's kind of how I feel about Facebook.

The platform is a dung heap of buzzard-gagging proportions, but how else would I be able to keep up with the Southampton Township Historical Society? (They have a page.)

You see, the Southampton Township Historical Society is the historical body responsible for the area that my ancestors called home from the earliest 1700s. The president of the Society posts all kinds of stuff about that area. One day I clicked in, and there was the obituary for my great-great grandmother, who died in 1947. All kinds of stuff like that. And there are a lot of people following that page ... 939 to be exact. I'm probably related to 938 of them.

It was on this page that I saw an offer, by owner, for a small property in Southampton Township. The property is a quarter mile from the churchyard where my great-grandparents and great-great grandparents are buried.

Earlier this week, I went up to see the property in question. It's small. But I am in love.

EXHIBIT A: NOT JUST GENERIC FOREST

I was expecting a steep, rocky thicket of scrub pine trees with no place to even set up a pup tent. Instead the land is a growing hardwood forest that has achieved enough maturity that the floor is springy with leaf mold and there's ample space for a cozy campsite.

This picture doesn't really capture it. The trees are tall. They're hardwood. No invasive species, no poison ivy, no place for rattlesnakes to hide.

I love it. I want to buy it. I want to be a citizen of Southampton Township again.

Working on it. Wish me well!

Rush To Judgment

I heard about Rush Limbaugh before I heard him on the radio.

And the first thing I heard about him is that he said that the vast majority of Americans are conservative. Which had to be true, because Rush said it.

Rush, in this case, was whispered with reverence. The hapless soul doing the whispering was my Uncle Foggy, who had tuned in to the radio one day in 1988 and never looked back.

By 1988 Uncle Foggy had been unemployed for 10 years. It wasn't his fault that he lost his job. His line of work (lamp manufacturing) was off-shored. He was in his 50s when he got laid off, and then as now, a person that age wasn't going to waltz into another good-paying job.

So Uncle Foggy moved in with my grandparents in their home on Polish Mountain and took care of them as they aged. After they died, my dad and my other uncle demanded that our family allow Foggy to live out his days in the house on Polish Mountain without having to pay rent.

This was not a hardship for me. I loved my uncle Foggy, and I loved going to see him. He was well-read and affable, and a good cook to boot. Not a bad senior citizen to subsidize with my private income, in the form of taxes on an appreciating property.

And then came Rush.

My formerly affable uncle became argumentative. Snarky. He said mean things about liberals and feminazis. He reserved special ire for people sucking the government's tit.

The man was living on $500 a month in Social Security, as well as Medicare and Medicaid.  If not for the privately-subsidized family roof over his head, he would have needed food stamps and SSI. But he couldn't see that Rush (reverent whisper) was talking about people like him.

Point of pride, I have never listened to more than 10 minutes of a Rush Limbaugh broadcast. I knew poison when I heard it. The inside jokes, the "we get this because we're special" jeers. The predator seeking lonely rural people and then inviting them to his toxic worldview with chummy hatred.

I stopped going to see Uncle Foggy. To me that poor man stands as a microcosm of the brutal fallout from the ending of the Fairness Doctrine. So many people who should have known better got sucked into the Limbaugh orbit, and that orbit spins directly into what happened on January 6 of this year.

Therefore, I, Anne Johnson, Grand Wazoo of the Independent Republic of Johnsonia, hereby decree GREAT REJOICING at the DEATH AT A RELATIVELY EARLY AGE of the MENACE known as RUSH LIMBAUGH. To Hell with him, and speedily!

I would love to think that this PUSTULE ON THE BUTTOCK OF SOCIETY won't be replaced in the American psyche, but alas, HE HAS SPAWNED A DEVIL ARMY OF CLONES. With more to come, I'm sure!

It's ironic that this creature died of cancer. His words were cancerous, they spread throughout the land, and they POISONED THE WELL.

The Christians get him for eternity. And if that isn't a good pitch to become Pagan, I don't know what is.

WOOT WOOT! Let's get this party started!

Gritty's People Are Amazing

Hello from "The Gods Are Bored" on this day that begins with Y! Don't ask me which day it is. There will be time for that in late August.

Every now and then I do something that I know isn't right, but I do it anyway. This makes me human.

A few months ago Mr. J gave me a jean jacket for my birthday. It's not one I would have chosen myself, being kind of heavy and clunky. But pish tosh, I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth! I decided to make the jacket more appealing by covering it with embroidery and cross stitch and patches and pins.

So I went to Etsy, and I searched "Gritty Cross Stitch," and the most badass Gritty cross stitch came up. Sadly, it was for a finished cross-stitch made by the artist. There was no offer of the stitch chart by itself, which -- if you do cross stitch you know -- is a necessary element of the proceedings.

I loved that Gritty, though. I loved it so much I downloaded the photo and drew my own chart.

"Now Anne," you say. "That's copyright violation!"

EXHIBIT A: HOW COULD I RESIST?

Yes, it is theft of intellectual property, and I felt sorely bad about it. How would I feel if some up-and-coming humorist cribbed this blog for pithy sayings?

Before I mustered enough guilt to message the creator on Etsy, the entry was gone. Gritty had been pulled!

But all was not lost. There's a badass page on Facebook called "Gritty Memes for Philly Teens" which of course features Gritty in all his Anti-fascist glory. Lo and behold, someone posted iron-on patches that use the same Gritty as the cross-stitch.

I left a comment on the post: Are you the artist of this Gritty?

No, the poster was not the artist, but she knew the artist and gave me the artist's name.

I sent a private message to the Gritty artist, to whit: "Hi, I used your Gritty design on my jean jacket, and I feel like I ought to give you $---. Do you have a PayPal account?"

Two days later, I got a reply.

"GRITTY BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE."

Oh, readers. Sometimes the world gives you bliss. Especially if you are a disciple of Gritty.

Now I can proudly wear my Gritty! And if the slogan around him was a bit unnerving to you, well, it was to me too. Here's my jacket:

EXHIBIT B: ALL IS WELL

Best part is, Gritty gave my jacket a theme; namely, monsters. I have since added a Flying Spaghetti Monster patch, a Cthulhu patch, I'm halfway through a Moth Man cross-stitch, and I put a nasty Donald Trump tweet on the side with the hashtag #notmypresident.

Monsters. All monsters. The word of Gritty for the people of Gritty, thanks be to Gritty.

Friends

You know how it is. You're sitting in the dining room with a cup of tea and the newspaper ...

Wait. This dates me.

You know how it is. You're sitting at the island with a solo cup and your phone, and you start feeling sorry for yourself. You start wondering why you don't have any friends.

Earlier this summer, I was wondering why I didn't have any friends. Of course, I had the answer. I'm not a bit sociable. When you spend your whole day entertaining teenagers, it's hard to find energy on the weekends to lift a teacup (or solo cup), let alone socialize like a normal person.

I was really and truly convinced that my years of having friends and being a friend had passed me by. From now on it would be family and cat. Crickets when the weather starts to cool.

And then came August, when I was told I could just forget ordering any books for my classroom.

The first hint that I'm not friendless came on this blog, when I issued my shameless plea for school supplies. Loose leaf paper started arriving at my door. Then books. Lots of books. Including books that are appropriate for sophomores!

All of this generosity served to remind me that I have good pals out there on the World Wide Web. Even if I haven't met them. What does that matter? They're friends.

Then something else happened. My daughter The Fair had a show that she wrote and directed make its debut in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. The show (now over) had a run of four nights.

At first I wasn't even going to mention the show on my Facebook, but I broke down and posted something about the production, and if any of my friends wanted to see it, they should hit me up.

They did.

On Wednesday night, my friends Buzz and Patti McLaughlin joined the Johnson family for the debut. I met Buzz and Patti at the Two Street Stompers Mummers club. So I've only known them about six years -- but it seems like they're family. Like I found myself with a brother and sister-in-law that I never knew I had, but suddenly they just appeared.

EXHIBIT A: BUZZ (LEFT), NOT DRESSED FOR THE SHOW

On Friday night, my friend Diane Rugala went with me to the show. We worked together at the Vo-Tech for about four years until she retired last year. We were thick while working, finding that our political views go together like a hand and glove. It was a pleasure to take the El train with her, and she really enjoyed the show.

EXHIBIT B: DIANE AND ANNE ON ANOTHER OCCASION

On Saturday, for the matinee, my good, long-time Mountain Tribe faerie friend Pam drove all the way from Maryland, and then had to take the El train to the theater all by herself -- having not set foot in Philadelphia since a heavily-supervised 8th grade field trip -- to come to the show.

EXHIBIT A: ANNE, MR. J, PAM, and FAIR AFTER THE MATINEE, PHILADELPHIA FRINGE FESTIVAL

The bored gods have taken time out of their busy schedules to remind me that I do indeed have friends, and they're straight-up swell friends at that. The Fair's play was not free admission. It was a regular Fringe offering, with tickets. These friends of mine traveled to Philly, bought tickets, and saw the play.

If you combine that with the largesse for my school that has floated to my door, you will agree I need not be crying in my tea, or my solo cup, over the newspaper or the IPhone, because I don't have friends.

If you contributed to my classroom library (or paper), and you didn't get a thank-you note, drop me an email at
annejohnson17211@gmail.com

because I don't want to miss any friends!

Novice and Nope Ropes

Did you know the Internet calls snakes "nope ropes?" I love that. I wish I had thought of it.

Springtime is a busy season for nope ropes. They're just waking up, and it's still cold at night, so what they chiefly want is to sun themselves on rocks. Often they haven't eaten in a whole season, which makes them extra venomous too. This is not good news if you're a human.

I went to Utah to meet a condor, but I wasn't going to sit around staring at him for five days. In a search for other fun activities near Salt Lake City -- outdoor only, no temple tours -- I discovered a hike to a hot spring.

Hot spring! That's been a bucket list item for me lo, these many decades!

There were several glitches, however:

1. Mr. J has never gone hiking, even in the benign Pine Barrens of New Jersey. He's a water person. Give him a rowboat and an oar, and he's all set. But hiking? Hasn't done it.

2. Nope ropes. Abundant nope ropes of the rattling variety have been documented on the trail I wanted to take. There's a particularly compelling YouTube of a cluster of rattling nope ropes right next to the hot spring. And it's the season when these creatures come out needing a little bath to keep them in tip-top shape.

3. Speaking of shape, I'm out of it. And the trail was ranked "moderate." I had no idea what that meant in Utah. In Pennsylvania it generally means steep and rocky.

But never mind the concerns! It's not like the hot spring was going to hike down to see me! Mr. J bought a pair of hiking shoes, and bright and early on a sunny morning, we set out for Diamond Fork (Fifth Water) Hot Springs.

The first thing I discovered is that Mr. J sets a nice pace for hiking. I'm used to watching my daughters disappear into the far distance, but I kept up nicely with him. The trail was pleasantly Poconos-like, meaning steep and rocky but not what Utah can throw at a hiker. The scenery was outstanding, and the creeks were muddy torrents of snow-melt.

It was a long slog, but we made it to Diamond Fork. And there it was, a real hot spring, bubbling up from creek-side, scalding and smelling of the sulfurous bowels of the earth!

The hot water flows into a series of man-made "tubs" where you can sit and soak. It's like the Three Bears: one tub is too hot, one tub is too cold, and one tub is just right. Actually, the high water in the creek meant that the tubs weren't their signature deep blue color (the creek was overflowing into them), but they also didn't reek quite as much as they would most days.

Right above the tubs there was a Poconos-grade waterfall too! Added to my collection!

There's something about waterfalls. They always bring out the bliss.

Now, here's a sad fact for you striplings: A time comes when it's harder to hike downhill than it is to hike uphill. Gravity might be helpful to the heart, but it's a bitch for the knees. Nevertheless, Mr. J and I (after a good long soak) limped back down the trail to our car. Round trip it was five miles. My knees felt every damn rock, but Mr. J -- a complete novice -- handled it with nary a complaint.

As for the nope ropes, we didn't see any. There were many other hikers on the trail and in the tubs, and one guy said he saw two, but not the rattling variety. Nor were there any insects except butterflies! Even as I write this there are mosquitoes humming around New Jersey.

The scenery, like the hot springs, was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. I haven't gotten around much. I had my own piece of mountain for the longest time, and I spent much of my life there. These Utah mountains, though ... they made my mountain look like a lil' old knoll.

If not for Andy N. Condor, I never would have known about Diamond Fork (Fifth Water) Hot Springs. Never let it be said that buzzards won't do you a good turn.

Making a Pact

I am about to make a pact with an Andean condor who lives in an aviary.

He was hatched in the spring of 1959 and is celebrating a 60th birthday on Saturday.

They say he's in excellent health and could perhaps shatter records for his species in captivity.

Therefore, with a wink and a nod, I will enter into an agreement to see him again in 2029.

I have been in touch with the aviary, and they are awarding me a private audience with the dapper fellow. After our tete-a-tete, I will be spending the day doing volunteer work to help the staff prepare for the big birthday bash on Saturday.

I'm dragging poor Mr. J along, but after all this time he's well accustomed to my eccentricities.

Dear readers, I will report back when I return.

--Anne

Union, Yes!

We at "The Gods Are Bored," as well as Great Deities of Justice from multiple pantheons spanning millennia, congratulate the teachers' unions of West Virginia for reaching a deal on their contract demands!

EXHIBIT A: THIS IS WHAT SOLIDARITY LOOKS LIKE

Two weeks ago, if you had asked me about the future of organized labor -- as it faces certain disruption by a conservative Supreme Court -- I would have said, "Palliative care only, send to hospice."

And then ... in deep red West Virginia ... a "right to work" (for less) state ... the teachers just walked out. Fifty-five counties, all the teachers walked out.

EXHIBIT B: ANNE FEELS STRONGLY ABOUT THIS

Bring it on, corporate pig-dogs! We will taunt you mercilessly!

I'm not playing, here. I believe in unions. No system is perfect, but the practice of collective bargaining, so maligned in our modern times, is the only way to keep decent, living wages in the hands of hard-working people.

All glory, laud, and honor to the WVAFT, the WVEA, and their parent organizations! Guess what? The bargain the teachers brokered extends to all public employees in the Mountain State!

United we bargain, divided we beg.

Solstice 2017

Oh, these dreary days, these long, long nights! We try to push back the darkness by covering our homes with lights and bringing trees inside. And apparently it works, because by this time next week, the daylight will be returning, slowly at first and then in great gobs.

I'm sure all of us would love to go to a henge and see this sight. It's not always possible, though. Well, as luck would have it, there is a way to orient yourself so that you absolutely face the rising sun over Solstice Stonehenge.

Some extremely intelligent individual (not unlike the readers of this blog) has come up with a worldwide map of every single street that aligns with the Stonehenge solstices! Imagine that! You can find the site here.

I used the site to locate my city in North America, and what did my wondering eyes behold? A series of aligned streets are clustered around my school! It's quite a coincidence, too. It's not like Camden's city founders said, "Hey, let's lay our streets out so that, if you face east on winter solstice, you'll line up with Stonehenge! There aren't very many streets in my metro area that fit the bill. What an absolute joy that the little residential streets around the Vo-Tech are among the chosen few!

Snobville has one aligned street, too. If a girl were to get up at 3:00 a.m. to go face east and commune with Stonehenge energy, that Snobville street is closest.

But day to day, while I'm working, what a joy to know that a street I can see from my classroom window aligns with Stonehenge! This boosts my spirits.

A blessed Solstice to you, whatever your path. I hope your street is on the Stonehenge alignment grid.

An Extra Fairie Festival!

In just a few short weeks, the Spoutwood Fairie Festival will be having its first ever Fall Fairie Fest. In honors of this milestone, I publish below a relic of Fairie Festivals past ... some fun that Olivia and I had when she was still The Spare.

The Moving Saga of the Mutt Named Flip Flop

You know all about motherhood, right? Maybe you have sweet daughters of your own who ask very little of you ... until they ask for something big. This weekend my daughter (new name) Gumby and I went on a waterfall crawl in the Poconos.

Oh, I had the thing all planned out. I researched it, printed out trail maps and gentle walks through leafy glens, leading to brilliant, swishing cascades. Because, you know, I'm a woman of a certain age and getting a little creaky, it's best to adhere to hiking trails described as "moderate."  Being a planner, I had both days scheduled. First some bucolic walks in a New Jersey state forest, then -- the next day -- a gambol called Tumbling Waters across the Delaware in Pennsylvania.

It was getting late on our first day when Gumby and I pulled up at beautiful Buttermilk Falls, New Jersey's tallest waterfall. Take a look. Isn't it fabulous?

EXHIBIT A: BUTTERMILK FALLS, DELAWARE WATER GAP, NEW JERSEY

Now, you say to yourself, "Anne, prove to me that this is really New Jersey!

EXHIBIT B: REALLY NEW JERSEY

Gumby liked Buttermilk Falls all right, but when she looked at the trail map at the base of the falls, her eyes glazed over and a little bit of foam appeared at the rim of her mouth.

Buttermilk Falls, you see, is touristy. It's right by the road, and anyone can drive right up to it and cackle with pleasure. But above Buttermilk Falls is a hiking trail that leads to the Appalachian Trail. Once on the AT, an intrepid hiker can stroll to one of several crater lakes, high and lonesome and picturesque in that oh-so-not-a-waterfall way.

Gumby lost enthusiasm for Tumbling Waters Trail (my planned Sunday outing) and instead expressed interest in an amble along the Appalachian Trail, beginning and ending at Buttermilk Falls. Where even the steps to the observation deck will tire a mortal out.

I had done my research. The Buttermilk Falls Trail was rated "difficult," and most of the hikers who chimed in on it using various hiking sites pretty much confirmed that assessment. Of course, it's the hikers who don't use social media who can be the most arresting:

EXHIBIT C: SOUND ADVICE

Trouble was, this sage advisory was at the top of the trail, not the bottom! And in case you're wondering what a difficult trail looks like in our mild Eastern mountains, here's a little photo I captured of part of the one and a half mile straight up trek.

EXHIBIT D: WHERE'S THE TRAIL?

Gumby can leap up these rocks like a gazelle. Who am I to say her nay? Gamely I followed. And followed. And followed. Eureka! We made it to the Appalachian Trail!

EXHIBIT E: YOURS TRULY, TRANSFORMED BY 6 WEEKS OF PAINT CREW

This is where the mutt named Flip Flop enters the narrative.

Gumby and I were tooling along the AT like old hands, when we spotted a spry, mid-sized mutt sort of standing on the path, looking lost. The pooch had no collar. He started to trot towards us, but when he got close, he changed his mind about making our acquaintance and tore off down the trail. He was a sturdy specimen as are most mutts, and his ribs weren't showing, which meant he probably recently got lost.

EXHIBIT F: REASONABLE FACSIMILE OF THE MUTT FLIP FLOP

On a Sunday in August, the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey is not as busy as a shore town, but there are still a fair number of able-bodied folks. Gumby and I started asking everyone that passed us whether or not they had lost a dog. Other hikers reported seeing the pooch, but no one could get close enough to pet him. What would we do if we did? Take him home and keep him forever? By that time Gumby and I were a good three miles from even the most basic form of civilization.

Gumby and I discussed this as we walked. What do you do when you see a stray dog where no reasonable stray dog would ever stray? And what if the dog didn't want to see things your way and tag along until you could find his person? Long story short, this conversation ended when we followed the Appalachian Trail to a portion that looked like this:

EXHIBIT G: NOT GREATLY EXAGGERATING

Yes, the infamous Appalachian Trail just disappeared down a cliff, and you only knew you were supposed to go that way because one of the rocks way below had a white blaze on it.

Scrabbling up this genuine cliff was a scruffy young bro. He asked us if we had seen a loose dog. We confirmed the sighting and pointed in the direction the canine had sprinted. The bro said the mutt slipped his leash when he got threatened by a German shepherd.

Then, as if it wasn't already bad enough that a little doggy was running lost and scared through the nearly trackless wilderness, the bro added: "I'm dog-sitting him."

Truth, dear reader, is always more compelling than fiction.

Gumby and I continued on our way. We descended the perilous cliff (self reminding self of self's age and status as a provider throughout), and at the bottom was a charming little cliff-free path that led to the crater lake.

Boy, it was a really pretty lake!

EXHIBIT I HAVE LOST COUNT: CRATER LAKE

It doesn't look like something you'd find on a mountaintop, after a death-defying hike, does it? Rather put me in mind of Walden Pond, which can of course be reached by either automobile or on foot from a commuter train station.

While Gumby and I took a load off and munched our granola bars, we heard a great to-do from the cliffs above the lake.

"FLIP FLOP! HERE, FLIP FLOP! FLIP FLOP!"

It was the shaggy bro, calling his dog.

This went on for about five minutes and then stopped abruptly. Gumby and I assumed that a happy reunion had occurred.

I don't know if you have ever been hiking on the Appalachian Trail or one of its link trails. It's not for the faint of heart, especially if you have to go down the same way you came up. Because when it comes to hiking, the only thing worse than climbing rocks straight up for more than a mile is going down rocks for more than a mile. Gravity seems to be saying, "Aha! Another aging Baby Boomer, daring to defy me! I'll push and shove and make these rocks really loose and wobbly!"

It took us about 90 minutes to edge back down the Buttermilk Falls Trail, and I for one was never so happy to see a cheesy observation deck in my life as when that graffiti-laced structure loomed below me like a welcoming beacon. Then it was a mere 100 steps (straight down, of course) to the bottom of the falls, where self quickly shed her beloved and ancient hiking boots and shoved her tootsies in the water ... photograph-snapping tourists be damned.

It was during this blissful toe-bath that I heard another ruckus. Something was happening in the parking lot.

Gumby came running over and said the stray dog Flip Flop was in the parking lot, looking just as spooked as he had up on the trail. I quickly re-donned the footwear and pulled out the smart phone to make an emergency call to the Park Service. But the battery on said smart phone had had enough, and I couldn't make the call. So I went to the parking lot, where other baffled tourists were staring at a car.

The lady tourist said, "The windows are open, and the key is in the ignition, and the guy's backpack is just sitting there! And look! This dog just jumped through the window!"

I looked in the open car window, and there sat the dog Flip Flop, looking like he'd just seen 10,000 ghosts.

Now, if I had somehow managed to drive to the Poconos in my 2001 Saturn, I would most certainly have seen an opportunity not only to care for a dog that deserved better, but also to own a nice, newer car. But I had my 2015 Subaru (which, by the way, absolutely lives for such adventures). No contest. Subaru victorious.

Just at this moment, the distraught bro emerged from the woods. He spied Flip Flop sitting in the driver's seat (no irony there) and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Well, I'm glad I was here to see how this little story played out!" I told the bro affably.

He muttered something incoherent, then something half understandable about dog-sitting, and Gumby and I decided we'd seen enough. We parted ways with possibly one of the most misguided and irresponsible humans I have ever encountered and a city dog with enough smarts to smell his way back down one damned difficult trail to his keys-in-the-ignition-windows-open car.

You gotta love mutts. Even when they're scared, they're smart.

I'm not going to state the moral of this sermon explicitly. Suffice it to say, if you have a beloved pet, do by all means pay a bonded pet-sitter to minister to the animal in your prolonged absence. Flip Flop's scaly saga had a happy ending, but I am not lying when I say that I saw a bear track in the one little bit of mud through which we all passed. If dear lil' Flip Flop was afraid of a German shepherd, how do you suppose he'd feel about an Eastern black bear?

If you've read this far, thank you. We all need to laugh at garden variety morons when there's a bigger-than-garden-variety moron at loose in the halls of government.

My Crush

When the world is in an uproar, it's best to find multiple effective escapes from reality. In my case I have developed a crush.

EXHIBIT A: ANNE'S CRUSH

This is Andy N. Condor. He lives at Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake City.

You know, women of a certain age (like me) often get crushes on younger fellas. Not me! Andy is exactly my age! We were born the same year.

I discovered Andy on Facebook, and now I get all of his posts in my "read first" feed. I always comment, and he often likes what I say! Already we have created a virtual bond.

In these dark times, it's good to have an escapist plan of any sort. Here's mine: In just two short years, I'm going to fly to Salt Lake City and meet Andy N. Condor! I'll bet by then we will have escalated our Facebook flirtation to such an extent that I'll have a good long love-fest with him when I arrive at his pad.

EXHIBIT B: DON'T BE JEALOUS

You know, we can't all be Andean condors. They are the few and the special. It's my daily pleasure to flirt with one on the Internet. He's my buzzard Tinder, and at times he keeps me from going insane.

Fairies in the Rain

Old-timers who visit this blog know that every year I go to the May Day Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm. Spoutwood is a charming property in south-central Pennsylvania, complete with a vintage farmhouse, adorable outbuildings, and a burbling brook. Every year on the first full weekend in May, the owners at Spoutwood open their land to anyone and everyone who puts their hands together for the faeries.

My daughter The Spare has attended this fest for a long, long time.

EXHIBIT A: SPARE AT HER FIRST FAIRIE FESTIVAL

EXHIBIT B: SPARE AT SPOUTWOOD 2017

She's a little taller these days.

The first inkling I had that this would be no ordinary Spoutwood was while driving there. It was raining. Not just raining, but pouring in great torrents. We all know what happens to burbling streams when they are visited by torrential rainstorms, right? So I was a little bit worried about the stream. But, when I got there, the rain stopped by some miracle. The brook mostly stayed in its banks and didn't rise like it had in the past.

Another obstacle remained, however. We all know what happens to spongy spring ground when it gets saturated, and lots of people walk over it, don't we? Maybe you're too young to remember Woodstock, but things do get muddy when a lot of people get together in moist weather to have fun.

Cold, rainy, muddy, and ... well-attended.

Many people sojourn to Spoutwood for happiness and healing. When we assembled on Friday, quite in the numbers, we all looked at each other and said, "Never mind the weather. We need this." Not saying every single person there was traumatized by the election, but every single faerie there was traumatized by the election, and They needed healing too. So we healed each other.

EXHIBIT C: ANNE ENJOYS SPOUTWOOD, 2017

This is me, telling the faeries that everything will be okay! Thank you Casie A. Chilcote, for the photo!

Long story short, the muddy conditions on the farm and in the parking grounds caused the festival to shut down on Sunday. It was so sad that I didn't get to see some of my friends and Mountain Tribe members, but safety first!

Seems like a good many events I've attended this year so far have been weather-challenged. Must say, though, that I will take a rained-out Spoutwood after the Women's March came off on a day that was way milder than seasonal, with not a drop of precip. Maybe the faeries had something to do with that. I'll have to ask Them.

No Time for Losers

Most people stay up on New Year's Eve to be awake at 12:00 when the next year begins.

Not me. I go to bed early.

I go to bed early because I get up early on January 1 (basically 6:15 a.m.). I put on a satin-and-sequined costume and go to the clubhouse of the Two Street Stompers, a Philadelphia Mummers Parade comic brigade.

We wish each other a Happy New Year. We put on makeup and wigs. We partake of beverages of our choice. Then we get on buses and ride over to Philly to be in the Mummers Parade.

Our youngest marchers are actually carried or pushed in strollers. Not sure how old the oldest marchers are, but they are certainly senior citizens who know that being able to dance all day gives you a longer, healthier life.

Philadelphia has been hosting a Mummers Parade since 1901, when rowdy behavior in the neighborhoods was cause for concern. Now the parade is a tradition, and I think the Powers-That-Be have been trying to marginalize it for awhile. Good luck with that, because 10,000 marchers and over eight hours of entertainment aren't going to be something you just sweep under the rug.

The parade was live-streamed on computer and broadcast on t.v. Ahem. Our Two Street Stomper routine lasted exactly one minute and 52 seconds, and somehow the network cut to a commercial after the first five seconds, resuming live coverage with five seconds left in the routine. Basically a commercial break of two minutes right in the middle of a routine? Curious. Could our content be deemed worthy of censorship?

It's difficult to get a video of the routine. Even in these days of YouTube. With that in mind, I hereby re-create it with still photographs shamelessly stolen from the Internet.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WELCOME TO THE MISS MUMMERDELPHIA PAGEANT, 2015!

Out comes our "host," Donald Trump (a member in a suit and wig) and all the kids under 12, dressed as judges with cute white wigs.

OUR FIRST CONTESTANT, FROM 9TH AND WASHINGTON, MISS ITALIAN MARKET, IN HER SWIM SUIT!

(cue "Rocky" music)

SHE'S A REAL KNOCKOUT.

OUR NEXT CONTESTANT, FROM 8TH AND ARCH, MISS CHINATOWN!
(This was the unit I was in.)
(cue Donna Summer, "Lookin' for Some Hot Stuff")

SHE'S HOT AND STEAMY.

OUR NEXT CONTESTANT, FROM 5TH AND CHESTNUT, MISS OLD CITY, DOING HER SPECIAL TALENT, THE MUMMER STRUT!

(Miss Old City's unit limps out, then cue music, "Get Up Off Of That Thing." The whole unit, with Miss Old City front and center, begins the energetic and traditional Mummer strut.)

AND THE WINNER IS, MISS OLD CITY!

(Miss Old City is crowned.)

HAPPY NEW YEAR! HAPPY NEW YEAR! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And we're finished. Exit stage right, onto Broad Street.

The weather was absolutely glorious.

And, thanks to some special fans on Broad Street, I got this terrific image of Self and Spare.




The Two Street Stompers strutted. And strutted. And strutted. We were on Broad Street, basically Philadelphia's main drag, and the cross traffic was allowed to go at the green lights. It took us a long time to complete our entire circuit. Not that we minded. Did I mention that the weather was beautiful?

Between the weather and our general good humor, the miles seemed like ... well, today I must say they felt like miles, because my bones ache from stem to stern. At the time they felt more like furlongs.

At length we danced up to the banquet hall on Oregon Avenue, where a warm lunch awaited. (Beverages are distributed bountifully along the route.) As we chowed down, our captain came in, hushed us all, and told us ...

...Some members who passed away this year looked down upon us, and ...

We won.

Guest Blogger: The Spare

The days are getting shorter, there is a hipster wearing every item of clothing in his closet, drinking a pumpkin spiced something or other, and I’ve got a wicked cold. These could all only mean one thing: It’s the beginning of fall. 

 While drinking a spicy gourd is not really my thing, fall definitely is. I love the colorful foliage, and the (to quote my hero circa 2005, Rachael Ray) yum-o food. Being from a quaint, albeit snobby, small town, autumn was our time to shine. I fondly remember not paying attention at the big high school football games. I would even have to work at our pathetic but cute fall festival which showcased horrifying homemade scarecrows and blue haired woman giving out sugar-free candy if you promised to donate to the church.

 

But there was one special day where we really pulled out all the big guns. Halloween.  

Oh my bored gods, was Halloween the main event of Snobville! Kids went ham, adults used up disposal cameras by the dozen, snapping the best shots of their children in the most up to date costumes out there. Parades, haunted houses, free candy, overly kitschy theme parties, and goofy decorations as far as the eye could see. It was perfect.

 

Once I got to college, I found myself very sad as Halloween approached. This was a shocking first. Had I become too old to enjoy my favorite holiday? Soon the existential crisis checked in for what seemed like an extended stay. To make things even worse, I had class until 10:00 pm on Halloween so I couldn’t even go home to steal candy from little kids give out candy. My class was late enough that I couldn’t even watch a cheesy Halloween movie afterwards because I had class the next day at 8:30. Talk about mega bummer.

 

So I put my best foot forward. Put on my classiest pair of cat ears and high tailed it (pun intended) to my six hour studio class. When I came home that night I was blown away by how much of a nut my mother is. She managed to sneak into my dorm room and tee-pee my side of the room, right down to the pictures I had of my cat. She did this through what I could only imagine was a Grade A espionage mission. For the full story check out the blog post on November 1st, 2012.
Readers, if you haven’t picked up on it by now, my mom is incredible. She always finds ways to make life interesting and unconventional. Growing up it wasn’t her activity in the PTA that made her special to me. It was her ability to make even the most mundane things seem silly. To give you some perspective, she used to moo at my sister and our friends, and for some reason we just LOVED this. Even when she was in the PTA she did things that made me feel so special. For our fifth grade holiday party she made a huge batch of my favorite Christmas punch and served it from a fountain! I felt like the most important person in the world that day.
I guess that’s what is so incredible about my mom. When you least expect it, she will do something so amazing that will make that existential crisis go find someone else to bother. When she asked me to do a guest blog post about a Halloween memory, I knew right away that I had to write about my first Halloween in college. Because no matter how many wonderful years of parades and trick or treating I had, nothing will be sweeter than knowing you have a nut for a mom who loves you so much she’ll waste a whole two rolls of toilet paper just to brighten up your day.