Snipe Hunt

When I was younger and I spent my summers in a suburb of Boston, the greatest nights were spent on a snipe hunt. If you don’t know what this is I’ll tell you. Basically this is where you get all of the neighborhood children together and keep them busy by having them run around looking in bushes for a fictitious creature. For the adults, the idea of a snipe hunt is ingenious… For the children, it’s an adventure.

So, one night a year about six of us would run through the neighborhood with large nets. We would look in bushes and up trees. We would stay up late in the pursuit of this elusive animal. The adults would laugh at our antics and socialize. They would humor us, telling us they would build a cage for it if we caught one. I remember telling my uncle that I was sure they looked like a cross between a fairy and a hamster. It never mattered that we never found one… it was the chase and the time spent as a group that was important.

Now as an adult I am searching for other elusive creatures. The fairy hamsters aren’t what I am looking for now, but the search is the same. My snipes now are myself, my dreams, love, friendship, and meaning. As adults we tend to focus on the goal, on what we want to find. We forget about the search. We forget how much can be learned and how much joy is simply in the path to finding said things.

Children live life for the experience. They aren’t blinded by their need to reach a goal. They are perfectly happy to run around with large nets in the pursuit of something. So my wish for myself, and for anyone who happens by here, is that we find the joy in our own searching. My wish is that we learn to live in the moment, thankful for the track our paths take us. And if you happen to carry a big net, I’m sure that can only help you when you spot the person you want to love…. It really is hard to outrun those suckers.

“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.” -- Robert Frost

Bolivia bore

I can’t believe how long it has been since I last rambled in here. This is where I tell you that I was off living some exotic life and couldn’t get to a computer. Maybe I was sitting atop my yak in Outer Mongolia and studying the mating habits of some rare bird. Of course I couldn’t get to my computer because it was still at the embassy. Or I could tell you that a host of kidnappers broke into my place and nabbed me in order to ransom me off for a pack of bubblegum and six rubber bands.

At least these would be more realistic than the old, “I was abducted by an alien” thing. I mean, that didn’t work when I used it with Mrs. Salmon as an explanation of why I didn’t have my paper about snow leopards in the eighth grade.

So, no, I wasn’t tagging wild bore in Bolivia (are there any bore in Bolivia?), nor was I backpacking across Western Europe. I was just sitting in my living room with nothing to say. It’s unusual that I have nothing to say. Generally I am the kind of person that needs to be told to be quiet or else you will duct tape my mouth shut. But if it makes you feel better to think that I wasn’t around because I was doing something exciting and amazing… I won’t stop you.

The only news I have to share is that I fell in love. Yes that’s right; I fell in love with a brown eyed girl. I should probably tell you a bit about her. She’s young, cute, sweet as can be, and a tad silly at times. She is wonderful to cuddle with, and makes my home brighter. Oh, did I forget to mention she is a puppy? LoL. As if it would be a woman, you forget who it is that you’re dealing with. I have a social life as slow as molasses flowing uphill. There’s no woman here, just a furry little imp (Pictures are coming).

So, if at any point you are wondering what I am doing, I’ll tell you. Just call me Captain Pooper Scooper. I am now the woman trailing after some sniffing puppy begging silently that it would “just go already.” Other than that, I am probably following around the same dog like its little servant, taking things out of its mouth and putting her bone in as a replacement. And you know what? I wouldn’t change a thing.

“A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down.” -- Robert Benchley

Dumb duh dumb dumb

Sometimes I wonder if stupidity is an epidemic running ramped in this country. Like the woman that always asks the waiter if something is any good. What waiter who expects to have a job at the end of the day is going to say, “Yeah, that’s just horrible, you should call the health department.” And yet, it doesn’t stop me from asking.

Then there are the people that live here in the desert. We are a breed apart. For example, it will be raining and because the streets have *no* drainage, every little dip in the road floods. So what do we do? Do we turn around when we see a road closed sign? Nope. Every year at least 4 people in cars the size of a matchbox will try to traverse the flood. What makes them think they can plow through the raging river? Did the tree floating by not cause them any concern? These are just some of the things I like to think about. I wonder what it is about us that stops our commonsense dead in its tracks?

I saw this and thought it would be a perfect example of what I am talking about:

Stored Bullets Explode in Wis. Oven

(AP)HOWARD, Wis. - A man and his wife ducked behind a refrigerator when bullets began exploding in their oven, authorities say. Capt. Craig Kohlbeck of the Brown County Sheriff's Department said the husband had put the ammunition and three handguns in the oven before the couple left on a vacation. He told officers he thought the items would be safe there in case someone broke into the home while they were away. After returning from their trip Tuesday, the wife turned on the oven to prepare dinner and the bullets ignited, Kohlbeck said. No one was hurt.

First of all… What the hell were they thinking? Who goes on vacation and worries about someone steeling their bullets and guns? Oh sure Mr. Burglar come on in and steel my TV, stereo, family jewels, and anything not nailed down… But *please* don’t take my guns. Didn’t you *supposedly* get the guns to *stop* would be robbers, not worry about them being stolen?

Second, if you use your oven as a hiding place, it might behoove you to take a gander in there before turning that sucker on. Heat + Explosives = Bad. Kindergartners know that. Why wouldn’t they hide it in the freezer where I hide all of my good stuff. Oops. Crap! The scariest thing to me is that these people are allowed to vote… God help us all!

I guess the point of all this today is a hope that you aren’t taking life too seriously. Sometimes you just need to look around and enjoy what you see. It’s too easy to forget to smile at the ridiculous.