Should auld acquaintance be forgot. Harry was right, ‘what does this song mean? My whole life I don’t know what this song means.’
Today has gone so quickly. And as usual there are million things I didn't get done that I really should have. There are also a million things that I probably shouldn't have done that I did. But tomorrow is a brand new day. There'll be a brand new sunrise and a brand new chance to do things better than yesterday. I like that. Despite all the attention New Year’s gets it really doesn’t have to be the only chance you get to start over.
I don’t know if you make New Year’s resolutions or not. I don’t officially but kind of did when I came back to the Lake. For instance:
-I try to do dishes on a more regular basis, rather than when everything in the kitchen is dirty.
-I try to read my bible everyday. (Although it could just be 'I try to read my bible' at the rate I go at.)
-I dry my toothbrush after I use it. (Oh I sound so odd now – I’m very OCD about toothbrushes in bathrooms. This was not a problem in NI, I had my own sink. But here I have my own bathroom so it needs to be covered, and in the cabinet. But when you put it away wet, it gets all gross. So now I put it away dry. Better without the explanation right?)
-I write notes in church, bible studies and the like. It helps me focus and helps me remember what was said. I might not ever read them again but that option is at least there.
How am I doing? Hmm. Not so good on some, better on some others. For Lent I decided to walk round the lake everyday. This has the benefit of giving me time to think about God stuff too. I have a little playlist just for it (which reminds me, if you are going to sing out loud as you walk, probably best not to do it with people walking behind you. For the entire song. Oh ya ho)
So maybe you decided to give up something for Lent and have already fallen off the wagon, so to speak. Or maybe there’s something that you should have really given up but for some reason you didn’t. You know, like swearing (can’t think who that would apply to!)
But here’s the thing, there’s no reason to wait to change something. You can use all the excuses you want, but really there is no excuse. You just need to change it. Of course me being a Chirstian, I think that doing things in Him are so much easier than doing it in my own strength. I like even more.
The picture illustrates my point perfectly. It was a fake New Year’s we did on 3rd January. Fooled you!
It was the weekend, I did stuff, blah blah blah. Everything I did has been overshadowed by Saturday night.
I was making dinner (Thai Green Curry – turned out well, thanks for asking) quite late on Saturday night, about 9.00pm. This was mostly to do with getting up later than even I would like to admit on Saturday…afternoon. So cook, cook, cook. I went to get the rice out of the cupboard, and with my back half turned to the rest of the kitchen (but importantly with one half still towards it) out of the corner of my eye I saw a mouse run across the floor. Let me repeat that, a mouse ran across the floor. Ross, I’d like you tell you that I expressed utter joy at seeing one of God’s creatures share my humble abode with me, but there was definitely a swear word. Or two. Well alright, there were a series of them. (Ross and Mother skip to the next paragraph now.) One phrase that repeated itself had ‘hell’ at the end, in the middle a royal title that wasn’t ‘queen’ and I'm sure you know the letter it started with. But again I tell you a mouse ran across the floor so there was good reason for the obscenities.
You see I don’t like mice. Not one bit. I’m not one of those girls that runs a mile when there is a spider or wasp (coughLynseysplutter). But along with birds on the ground, I am scared of mice. This is as direct result of summer camp. The eve of my 21st birthday was spent listening to a mouse running around our cabin. After a few hours of not being able to sleep because of the noise of it scratching and the fear that it would crawl over me, I eventually caught the beast in a box and put it outside. Megann was of no use whatsoever during the night. Oh she woke up alright. But promptly went back to sleep and leave me to deal with the brute on my own. Next morning I went out to get the box and discovered that its tail was stuck under something so hadn’t moved all night. Worse was to come however.
Megann and looked more carefully around our cabin and began to see all the signs of mouse activity. Most of Megann’s t-shits were chewed, food was eaten and there was mouse poo. But again, worse was to come.
I checked my clothes which were in my case under my bed. I discovered that the mouse from the night before was, in fact, Mummy Mouse. To my absolute horror, inside the case were three little baby mice. I don’t know a lot about mice but these looked fairly new born. They were all pink and, well, foetus like. Megann and I told ourselves as we threw them into the woods they’d survive and that Mummy Mouse would find them. You see, I’m all for nature and what not, but so long as it stays where it belongs. Outside.
I’m fairly adept at keeping an eye out for mice now. Any little speck of dirt I inspect closely (but not too closely) to see if it’s mouse poo. I have never found any evidence of mice in my house until Saturday night when, sadly, there was irrefutable evidence.
So I stood frozen to the ground with the rice in my hand. I looked to see where the mouse had run to. Turns out there’s a hole underneath the cabinet. This is being sealed imminently. But not wanting to ruin a good Thai Green Curry, I kept on cooking, telling myself that the mouse would probably not come out if I made enough noise. I couldn’t settle however so straight after dinner I ran out to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart being Wal-Mart, it presented me with a choice of mouse traps but there were only a few minutes until it closed. So in the situation of having to make a fast choice I chose a variety pack for an all round offensive strike. It had two traditional mouse traps, or ‘snap traps’, four glue traps (which are what they sound like, a layer of glue which the mouse sticks to) and a bait box with bait. When I got it home, the bait box scared me a little. I didn’t want to have to open it to find a mouse inside, so I went with the other six traps, and following the instructions for best placement I really did feel better. I would go to bed and hopefully on Sunday morning I’d come down and see the being dead in one or tother of the traps.
In my list of scenerios however, I did not consider the possibility that the traps would have worked by 12.30am Sunday morning. From the front door you can see through the kitchen. I know now that from there you can also see a mouse stuck in a glue trap trying to break free. More swear words ensued. Minutes passed and I don’t think I moved an inch. What really scared me was that the mouse had moved itself and the trap about a foot from where I had left the trap. I didn’t want it to get out of the glue, but neither did I know how to stop it.
I got my phone and started to scroll down through the names. ‘Who could I call at 12.30am who’d answer and also would be able to tell me what to do? George and Virginia? No too late. Jose? No, in Europe. Maggie? No she’s out and will never hear her phone. Megann! I’ll call Megann!’ No answer. ‘Dammit she’s asleep! (Later she, rightly, pointed out the unusefulness of calling her given her help in my last mouse emergency, or lack thereof) ‘Roma and Wayne? Definitely too late.’ I got to the end of the list and there was only one option left, Will, one of Jose’s friends. I ummed and ahhed a bit over whether I could call essentially a friend of a friend about a mouse trying to get out of a glue trap in the middle of the night. But staring down the barrel of a mouse as it were, I knew I had to.
The conversation went something like this.
Will: Hello (sounding a bit confused, no doubt about the lateness and randomness of the call)
Tina: Hiya Will (too flustered to even tell him who it was)
Will: Hey Tina (my accent is that obvious then) Whatcha up to?
Tina: Sorry for calling so late, are you still up? You’re obviouly still up. Anyway the thing is I have a mouse emergency (talking way too fast for a southerner this late at night)
Will: You have a what?
Tina: A MOUSE EMERGENCY! (actually thinking ‘dammit boy understand me!’)
Will: Well where is it?
Tina: It’s in a glue trap and it’s trying to get out. Will it get out?
Will: I don’t think so.
Tina: WILL! Don’t tell you don’t think so, tell me you know so!
Will: laughter
Tina: Don’t laugh!!
Will: more laughter
When Will stopped laughing he suggested to me that I should try and kill it with a heavy book or shoe or something. I said I didn’t think I could do that. I mean it wasn’t like the thing was half dead. It was still very much alive, and I could see it. So then he said that I should try to get it outside using a dustpan. Great plan and it worked well, but it was made so much harder when you’re holding a phone. I carefully pushed the trap onto the dustpan with an ice scrapper thing so as not to get my hand too close lest it should bite. I didn’t think to orientate it so that it wasn’t looking directly at me as I carried it outside.
Tina: It’s looking at me!
Will: It’s looking at you?! Well you're an awful lot bigger than it! (clearly wanting to say ‘oh dear goodness, just get on with it woman’)
So job done and the mouse safely outside, I apolgised again, thanked him and hung up. But still I could not rest. I thought it still might unstick itself. Then a stroke of genius hit me. Put a glue trap on top of it. Ha ha! The beast’ll never get out from that.
But just to make sure I stood on it.
Mice don’t suvive that you know. But I checked every time I walked past the front door.
The mouse was clearly bricking it. Much like I was (although not actually you understand).
That’ll be the butt of a former mouse.
So just incase there was any doubt, I am so my mother. Except of course for the swearing.
Maggie was right, the lake has been drained. Gutted.
This is my favourite part of the lake. Really doesn’t look so pretty now though.
Do you normally wear a life jacket to walk through a puddle?
All I can say is thank goodness the lake run was completed well before they drained it, otherwise there might have been a Stewards’ Inquiry as to whether I actually ran round the lake.
picute n. hybrid name for pictures of cute children
Ok so it might have been a typo by Megann, but it works well. Here are the picutes of Clark and Amelia.
Oh I’m so maternal. Actually after Amelia’s initial reservations of me, we got on extremely well.
Clark and my dad would get on very well. Clark knows an awful lot about trains for a nearly 4 year old. Megann is reading him a Thomas the Tank Engine story before his nap and judging from the super yawn it’s working.Saturday
On Saturday morning Megann got up to study for a test on Monday morning. I knew there were advantages of not being a student anymore. When I got up we watched the rest of the film that we had fallen asleep to the night before, Chasing Liberty and then Sliding Doors. We also played Farkle, it’s a dice game. It came from ICYC in Jordanstown and then Megann and I played it loads when we travelled in 2002. Since ICYC I’ve never really played it with anyone else, nobody else seems to take to it the way we did! Megann was kicking my butt, but I rallied a bit, but she still won. Just in case you are interested.
For lunch we had left over Chinese. Two men would be lucky to have us! Megann’s mum, Tina was coming over to go out, but first of all showed me my tax forms that she’d filled out for me. Being a proper grown up sucks! (Until you discover that you might get your tax back)We went ice skating in downtown Detroit. Yes, I realise saying ‘downtown’ before a town/city name is horrendously American but it really is a good way to describe it. I suppose we’d say Detroit city centre or something, anyway you get the idea. The rink was outside and needed no refrigeration to help with the freezing process. Brr.
Megann and Tina had their own skates, the pretty white ones. I always wanted a pair of pretty white ice skates, but alas I had to make do with the hired blue ones. One day I’ll get my own pretty white ice skates.
Our finishing pose for the short programme in the cabin-mate pairs. Sadly there are no photos of the actual routine.
All that hard work ice skating meant we had to stop hot chocolate. This is Megann and Tina (not me obviously!)
After ice skating we went to the Fisher Building, a beautiful old building in Detroit. It is lovely, pure class and a relic of aul dacency. After dinner, in a cool restaurant (I had ‘Londontown Fish and Chips’, no really that’s what was on the menu) we went back to the apartment and played a Nintendo game with Megann’s friends Chris and Sarah.
We never have a Nintendo growing up. Sega Mega Drive II the Park’s video console of choice. We all had one and many a summer, Hallowe’en, Christmas and Easter holiday was spent playing Sonic, Micro Machines, Streets of Rage (which brought about the infamous quote in the Park ‘I know how to get the bitches!’ Oh two swear words in as many days!), California Games, Ecco the Dolphin amongst others. How sad is this, we would even pair up and one person would have the controller while the other shouted instructions. The twist was the person with controller would have a duvet thrown over them. Blindfolds were for wusses.
Anyway, one of mine and David’s favourite things to do was to let my dad have a go. This was nothing to do with being generous with our toy, but everything to do with laughing at how crap he was. Seriously, you need to understand how crap my dad is with computers. He’s an intelligent man, he really is, but computers, especially computer games! Forget it!
But right here, right now, I’d like to apologise to Father. On Saturday night I got a little insight to his world. I had not a notion what I was doing. We were playing Mario Party for those of you who know it. It’s kind of like a board game on the computer, with a board that you move round and each round of turns bring up a new challenge, with witty titles. The other three had played them before and so each title that came up there would be a cry of ‘I hate this one!’ or ‘This is my favourite!’ I had not a clue and while the others would try and help me telling me to hit the grumbos or whatever they were didn’t really help me a whole lot. So sorry Dad. Telling you to run, collect the rings and jump into the lollipop thing in Sonic 2 probably wasn’t the help you were looking for either. But it was a good night all the same, even though I lost.
On Sunday there wasn’t much time for anything other than breakfast at Megann’s grandma’s. Tina made us waffles. Mmmn mmmn. On our way to the airport we stopped at a Seven Eleven. I suppose it’s a bit like Centra only better, better for one simple reason. Slurpees. If you have never had a Slurpee I think you should buy a ticket to America right now just to experience it. Imagine a nicer, better, bigger Slush Puppy but in proper flavours, like Pepsi, Cherry Coke, Mountain Dew, Diet Coke etc. At camp there were many reasons to volunteer for the shopping trip for food for cook outs. Chief amongst them in my mind was the stop at the Seven Eleven. There are no Seven Eleven in my area of North Carolina so it was important we got as many in as possible to the weekend.
All too soon we were at the airport. I said my goodbyes to Megann and Tina. I still had my Slurpee going through security at the airport. I am such a classy traveller. Some people have their double latte tall mochachinos going through security. Not me, I have a Coke Slurpee. It turns out there’s a good reason why you don’t see more people with Slurpees going through security at airports, the x-ray machine ate my straw. 
I sat by this fountain and finished my Slurpee. I think I am all too easily impressed with fountains, especially airport fountains. This one was tres cool.
I love airports. I love everything about them. Except maybe the uncomfortable moulded plastic seats that are all too common. But I especially love moving walkways. Who remembers the one at the International, ‘please push you trolley over the ramp’?!
I will never understand people who don’t use moving walkways like these fools. ‘Hello? Yes excuse me, you seem seem to be carrying a heavy laptop and trundling a suitcase and walking at the same time. Do you know this walkway moves and will make that much easier for you? You can even walk on a moving walkway, you nearly appear to be walking like a 50km Olympic walker when you do that, it’s fun. But just be careful at the end that you don’t do head first into the passenger infront of you as you adjust to walking on boring normal ground again.’
So that was it, I was back on a plane to North Carolina. Going home isn’t half as exciting as going somewhere. And to make matters worse the stewardess gave me the customary glass of Pepsi, not the full can.
[As I write this is it is currently 23 degrees outside. That’s Celsius. It’s probably 23 Fahrenheit in Michigan. I discovered this weekend that I don't like really cold weather.]
Thursday
I woke up half an hour later than I should have. Things you should know about me by now, I am usually late and I hate waking up in the morning. So although I wasn’t surprised I was already running late, I was relieved that I still had enough time to get myself to the airport. I’ve never taken myself to the airport before so that in itself was quite exciting. Fact number 72 about me is that I’m not good at making decisions. This had the knock on effect of me having a huge suitcase for a four day trip. I couldn’t decide what to pack, I like having options, so instead of picking between two t-shirts (or indeed four) I took both (them all).
Anyway I got to the airport, parked the car in the apparently one remaining car park space which took 10 minutes to find. It was conveniently located at the furthest corner from the airport. Asheville airport is not the kind of size that requires a shuttle bus so I trundled my supersized case to the terminal. I checked in without problem and made my way to the security. The security staff were perhaps the friendliest I have ever come across and at the other end when I was putting on my shoes again one of made sure I knew where I was going.
‘Northwest to Detroit? Do you know the way?’
I thought I did well to muster all the strength within me and not say:
'To Detroit? I think actually flying the plane might be a more immediate problem than finding Detroit from the skies!’
Instead I got out:
‘To the gate?’
So not only is Asheville airport the kind of size that it does not require a shuttle bus, but it is also the size of airport when you really have to wonder why they bothered to number the gates. Left and right would have done. Hence my surprise that the security man was asking me did I know where to go. Think a smaller version of City and you’re there. Actually, although I’ve never been there, probably more along the lines of Eglinton. Although Asheville does have its very own Subway (sandwich shop, definitely no need for an underground system) and I’d bet good money Eglinton does not have that.
I’ve always liked Northwest as an airline. I think it must be from Autumn Soul Tour and our 23 flights in three weeks with them. I think we all knew the safety procedure blurb off by heart ‘please place your own mask on before helping that of a child’. Although I knew the iPod purchase was going to happen, I took along my CD player for one last hurrah, so I sat back and listened to music and read. When the stewardess came with drinks I was delighted to receive a full size can of Pepsi! Yes!
Megann’s dad picked me up from the airport. I haven’t seen him since 2002 after TOM and I was a bit worried I wouldn’t recognise him. I discovered on the drive out to Megann’s that he too was worried he wouldn’t recognise me. Megann told him to look out for a tall girl. He said, and I quote ‘you were the tallest girl in airport, your head was nearly hitting the ceiling so I knew it was you’!
Megann was babysitting so I helped her. Clark(e?) and Amelia are perhaps the cutest children ever! Clark(e?) was just a baby when I was last there, and Amelia was but a twinkle in her daddy’s eye. I have photos of them, but I don’t want to put them on because of child protection and all that. But here’s one that should be ok.
Clark(e?)’s cute feet. Little toes!
When we were done there we went out to Megann’s apartment. It was just a quick stop as we had some serious shopping to get done.
First stop: Catching Fireflies . A lovely, magical shop where a lot of money could easily be spent.
We then went to the Navy of Old where I bought a few tops. Well, it’d be rude not to! 
Third stop: The Mall with the Apple Store. As I was trying to decide between the 60gb and 30gb, a very helpful assistant came over and upon seeing me holding the two sizes said ‘the 60 will hold twice as much as the 30’. For the second time that day I held by tongue. I wanted to say ‘No shit Sherlock! Tell me, do you have to go through special training to work here?!’ but instead nodded. She turned away allowing Megann and I to laugh at her.
So I bought an iPod but you already know that. You also know that I got my ears pierced. I don’t really know why I suddenly decided to get them done but I doubt I would have without Megann’s enthusiasm. I was quite glad of her, she helped Britany, the 17 year old who was doing it make sure the marks were straight. Before me there was a little 8 year old girl getting hers done. She cried a little bit afterwards. I did not. Ha!
Friday
Michigan, being in the Artic circle, meant it was cold enough for skiing. Yay! So Friday morning, Megann, Yo (Megann’s room mate) and I headed to the slopes for day’s skiing. We were actually some of the few who were skiing, it seemed everyone was snowboarding. Having mastered skiing, it really is a wonder to me why anyone would want to start again and fall their way down a mountain.
Falls on the slopes: 0! Yes!
Falls resulting from the chair lift: 2 (including one major incident where the chair lift had to be stopped. Oh die!)
The first fall can be blamed on Megann. She stuck out her poles as we were getting off, leaving me nowhere else to go but the ground. But the 'incident'? Somehow I managed to get myself ahead of Megann and Yo and had a chair lift coming ever closer behind me. Indecision was my big mistake, I tried to get back to them but couldn’t. But neither could I actually get on the chair lift. I had dropped one of my poles which further added to the confusion. The attendant guy apparently thought was on the chair lift and so didn’t stop the lift. That is until I was further up the hill, lying on the ground to avoid getting hit by the chair as it swung overhead. He then thought it best to stop it. Thanks mate! He asked why I didn’t stay on the chair? Em…how about because I wasn’t actually on the chair lift? It wasn’t like I sat on the lift, and then decided to get off again! Needless to say I did not rush back to that particular chair lift.
On Friday night, the two old ladies that we were, sat in and watched videos with a Chinese takeaway. Yummy.I'll stop here and tell you about Saturday and Sunday tomorrow. Don't worry, I'm sure it'll be shorter!
