Picnics @ MindSay

Yesterday we looked at the apartment in Friendship.  To keep Woody from yelping in the car I had to go out and buy him a Wendy's jr. bacon cheeseburger.  I laid it down on the seat and all three of us ran from the car.  By the time he finished eating the burger we were out of sight.

Looking at the place was awkward because the woman was also showing the place to another couple at the same time.  It was beautiful though and quite large.  Ryan and my bedroom is about the size of a large dinning room, more than enough size.  The other rooms were large too with marble fireplaces.  We were afraid the other couple was going to take it, for once we all agreed on a place.  The couple left though with out grabbing an application.  We talked to the lady about the security deposit.  To move in each of us will need seven-hundred dollars.  She forgot about the dog and since we had Woody in the car we offered to show her.  She told us the security deposit for the dog would be five to eight-hundred dollars, which bummed us out.  We'd never heard of a pet deposit being so much.

Later though Randy called the lady back and she made arrangements with us.  So as far as I know we are moving and I couldn't be more excited.  I want to live in this neighborhood so badly.

Then later in the day, me feeling horrible from this sore throat I've had for three days now, we went to my house and picked up my pay check.  We were on our way to my mom's so I could give her my car money.  Along the way we stopped for cold medicine.  We met my niece at Sheetz so I could give her thirty-dollars in hopes she could find me tea.  Her friend Melissa was picking it up for me.  She's one of the few women that I have a major crush on.  It's just not that she's beautiful and has dark hair and an Italian complextion.  She also has this great personality, almost tom boyish.  Where she's pretty yes, but she also isn't one of those girlie girls.  She hugged me when I saw her and I thought my whole body was going to explode. 

At my mothers we sat outside while Ryan and her smoked and drank coffee.  She told me to go to the supermarket to get honey and lemon for my throat.  While we were gone Beverly actually showed.  I hadn't planned the cook out even though I told Bev there would be one.  Firstly, I didn't think she would really show.  Second, my throat was hurting so badly I just wanted to lay down.  My mother also didn't know about the cook out.  So she told me to start the grill and she went back to the supermarket. 

She was gone for an hour and while she was gone I tried smoking the tea that Beverly and Melissa had gotten for me.  It made me feel like I was choking and I couldn't even enjoy it, I was in so much pain.  When my mother came back she had so much food it was ridiculous.  Three packs of hot dogs, two pounds of meat, corn, stuff to make coleslaw and more.  So everyone scrambled doing various chores my mother picked out for us.  My job was grilling the food but somehow Ryan took over.  He brought along some beer and I kept running to the car to get him another can.  He didn't want my mother to see him drinking because she doesn't exactly agree with that life style.  The grill kept erupting in flames and the foil kept catching fire!  Ryan wasn't sure how to make the corn on the grill and had this huge grin on his face.  My mother was inside the whole time preparing food and I felt badly because she wasn't outside and we were getting first dibs on the food. 

My nice also brought over her two monster children who wouldn't listen whatsoever, a three year old and four year old.  I think my mom enjoyed the company though.  She gets very depressed and said that maybe the reason she didn't clean up the house anymore is because no one visits.  She kept saying depressing things about being a slob.  It's not her fault after all she's old and she world sixteen hour some days.  In all though the cook out was fun and I'm glad my family got together.  I'm also happy that Ryan had a good time and got to meet everyone and see how dysfunctional my family is.  It didn't seem to bother him at all.

After all this we said good bye to my mom.  She chopped up some cabbage and gave me coleslaw mix along with hot dogs and left overs.  We met Beverly at a red neck bar down the road in New Alexandria, someplace called the Roadhouse.

The female bartender there was rude.  I sat next to the television at the bar and they were watching the Nascar races.  All I could hear was the roar or cars.  She asked me what I wanted to drink and I couldn't hear her the first time, so she yelled in my face, "What do you want to drink!"  So we all decided to go out on the deck and have out drinks which was nice until a group of rednecks came out hooting and hollering.  After that we drove around the nearby lake and smoked tea.  Aside from my throat hurting so much it was a great day. 

Chapter 1

 

            One dark and chilly morning during Spring Break, Sarah called Staci, Liz, and Will and said “I have a great idea! We can all go to Tyler Creek and have a picnic lunch!” Everyone agreed it would be a wonderful way to spend the day.

            But as soon as Staci stepped out the door, she knew this would be no ordinary picnic. “Ahh!” she squealed, as two huge, dark brown bats shot out from under her neighbor’s roof and swooped all around her like a scary tornado of death, trying to steal the bag lunch she had so skillfully packed 15 minutes earlier. “I know Pilates,” she warned, even though she was only bluffing. Staci rarely exorcised.

            Suddenly those malicious bats swung out and away as fast as their leathery wings could take them, but it wasn’t for fear of aerobics. They had used their evil powers of echolocation to sense that Staci only had a Gardenburger and warm bottled water with her; nothing worth killing over.

            So Staci went on her merry way to Sarah’s house, where she was informed that Paula, Alyssa, and Matt would be delayed in their return from their safari in Southern Africa because their plane had exploded. Luckily, everyone had gotten out moments before to help rescue an injured field mouse. While Sarah and Staci pondered the details of the incident, Liz and Will made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

            Soon the foursome set out. Suburbia faded away into wilderness and the worries of modern life seemed to go with it. It felt as though the only place in the world one could be was right there, in the forest, with sandwiches. Right until Sarah said, “Oh, I forgot to mention, I don’t actually know how to get to Tyler Creek.”

So, my dad's friend from work held a picnic at his ah-mazing house, on saturday. Also on saturday, our other friends had a picnic. So, we went to borth... But it's always so funny to see people get drunk at family parties, like that. :P I had one woman tell me a MILLION times that I looked "Just like Julie!" (my aunt). I'd heard it before, but not that many times from ONE person.
I compared a picture of the two of us, just to see if it was true. It really is! I'm going to look like her in about 20 years. The food was soooooooooo good. They had steaks that were like 3 inches thick, and deliciousssss corn on the cob. It was so good, I could even eat it whith my retainers in.

At the other picnic (not the guy's that my dad works with), some lady walked up to my mom (who I've known for a long time), did a double take at me (I was standing next to her) and she said "Wow, you're pretty!" Errr... Okay?


Well, I'm tired. I have to go. Bye,

Sarah

I am trying to decide on what to ORDER for dinner.. hubz is on his way home finally, the lady dropped off 12 lbs of hamburger for the party after church tomorrow.. I offered to marinade them in a special dry brine from NY Mennonite store..its yummy... and then I have to make the burgers later after they 'stew' a little bit.....

 

So, now I am starving.. this is the bad time for me.. I can hold out til Hubz calls me, then it is a minimum of another half hour before he gets home, then another 1/2 hour or more while he showers, etc.. by then I am on meltdown trying to wait for him!

 

What o what shall we eat?

What is better than anything else in the whole world? London in the sunshine. I discovered this when we were blessed with an entire week of London sun. Suddenly I was incapable of doing anything—cleaning my room, revising for my exam, writing my blog, all of these became onerous tasks because they meant staying inside for more than half an hour at a time. As a result, I am behind in all of the things I should have been doing this week.

My dad comes on Tuesday, and I was hoping to have finished studying for my exam by the time he arrives (I have to take it the day after he leaves, this semester has been a masterpiece of poor academic planning on my part,) but now I fear I will have to send him off to a museum while I sneak away to read Henry Fielding for a half hour here and Johnson for fifteen minutes there. Still, it’s been worth it. At my college at home, the campus is small enough that the entirety is connected by a series of underground tunnels, and during the winter months, if it is cold and wet, I have been known to go for days without seeing the sunlight, moving from class to class underground. But I’ve never felt as sun deprived as I have this semester, when I had a long walk in the open air to get to school. I’m pale normally, but I’ve now reached a state of pallor so extreme that small children run when they see me because I resemble creatures they know only from storybooks and Scooby Doo. So now the sun is irresistible to me. Slowly it’s repairing the long winter damage. The other day I noticed that my usual sickly shade of pallor had been upgraded to just plain pallor, and thought, well, it’s a start.

I’ve been using the sunshine to explore London’s park system. There are a series of beautiful parks in and around the city, which come alive in the nice weather. A typical day for me involves taking a blanket, a book, and a Diet Coke and heading West of Trafalger Square where three of the big parks are in easy walking distance. Hyde Park is the grandest, and on a Sunday people are still known to “promenade” through the park in their Sunday best, but it’s also the farthest away, so I don’t tend to spend a lot of time there. Instead, I like to go to either Green Park or St. James’ Park. Actually, Green Park and St. James Park are connected, and I’m never quite sure which one I’ve ended up in, but as I can’t make distinction between them I can say that they are equally lovely.

There are the requisite lakes and flower beds and soft ice cream vendors, along with the bird poop covered statues that seem to exist in every park in London, but I prefer to stick to the large open grassy spaces, fringed with trees that provide shade. I’ve taken to spreading out a blanket under the trees and reading the non-school books that I’ve been buying for a pound from Oxfam. I’m reading PD James right now, who I never really enjoyed before (I’m not really a huge mystery fan,) but now I love reading her work because it’s set in London. It’s great to read a scene and realize I had lunch there just the day before. Reading in the park is fun because I can look around at the other sunbathers, most of whom are couples in their twenties and thirties who seem to enjoy bringing bottles of wine and feeding each other various kinds of fruits.

There are also kids playing Frisbee or football (the British kind) while their mothers and baby sitters read or gossip nearby. These could all be terrible people, but I have no notion of it. Everybody looks kinder, gentler in the sun. I get the urge to buy strangers ice cream, and to join in the football games—we’re all emerging from the blah’s of winter together and there’s a sense of camaraderie between us.

St. James’ Park has a pond, actually all of the parks have several ponds, but there’s a particular pond in St. James’ Park that has been set aside as a bird sanctuary. For the record, I just want to state that I hate birds. I’m fine with all manners of creepy crawlies—snakes, lizards, spiders—these don’t really bother me, but birds freak me out. It’s an irrational, but strong, fear. My least favorite types of bird are waterfowl, particularly geese and swans who are both vicious and strong (not to mention disease ridden; I think flue can be passed between ducks and humans). For some reason, though, people decided that a duck and geese filled pond would be a good thing to have in the middle of a park filled with vulnerable children. I tend to avoid the pond whenever I can, but it bears mentioning because the variety of waterfowl the park has managed to acquire. I’m used to seeing the typical green-headed mallards and their brown-feathered lady friends that inhabit both the Thames and the ponds of Central Park, but there seem to be an endless variety of ducks and geese here. My favorites (from a safe distance) are the ones with bright blue bills, maybe because the vivid colors make them easy to spot if they should chose to come after you. But St. James doesn’t stop with the ducks, there are also much less exciting pigeons and sea-gulls (pond gulls?) and other city birds taking a break with their fellow human Londoners in the quiet of the park, not to mention partridges and other types of game fowl that enjoy the human free banks of the pond, and pelicans. One of my favorite signs warns park dwellers not to feed the pelicans—feeding the disease-ridden ducks and vicious swans and geese seems to be perfectly all right, but the pelicans are taboo. Go figure.