Back from camping.


With a hole in my toe from a saw being on the ground. Sure, you could blame me for being the one with sandals. But I was actually one of three (people wasting my flavor!), and, well, YOU NEVER PUT A FUCKING SAW ON THE GROUND UNCOVERED! The whole reason we teach/learn safety practices is because it’s dangerous to leave sharp things on the ground.  Screw open-toed shoes.  What if someone fell on it with their hands or face? If wearing covered shoes is the solution, safety practices are kinda dumb.

I think my Dad copped to it, though. I don’t care/am not mad. But still. Puncture wounds from a [very] rusty saw hurt like hell.

Our boys also did us proud, with a fire that had an old Christmas tree in the middle for kindling. Seriously, and not a small one.  It was pretty amazing.

As usual when you come home from a camping trip wherein you’re in close quarters with lots of other men, young men and boys, there are people you miss right away and people whom you don’t want to see again for a while, maybe even a long time.  Like Captain M.O.P. (Mullet On Purpose)# whose only words to me all weekend were a racist remark about home buying and neighborhoods that are “dark in da daytohm, too.”*

Not to mention how tiresome, childish and transparent constantly teasing someone about their fucking education is.  It’s not like anyone gave it to me or like I go around judging people without graduate degrees.  Or how insulting it is to be told that you’re “not a real parent” because you only have one child.  Of course, anyone could say that to anyone with less children than he/she has.  That’s mean and stupid.  There was a lot of mean and stupid this weekend, and I might cop to a little of both myself. “Mullet On Purpose” isn’t very nice.

But getting outside is always good for the soul, and we had spectacular weather Saturday for orienteering lessons (with paper, pen and compass, not a GPS unit), for sitting in the shade with coffee and falling asleep for a little while, and for just relaxing a bit.

A gross confession: For the first time in my life, I had an overwhelming urge to poop in the woods, in a hole.  The bathroom was nasty, but there were showers.  How often do you get to poop outside but then get a shower?  I had shower items ready, babywipes (Dr. Dad never leaves home without them!) and guts mustered and prepared.  I was even familiar enough (from 21 years of camping there) with the area to know where I’d not be disturbed.  I was excited by the whole affair.  And then I remembered that I didn’t have a shovel.

Of course, there was one sticking out of the ground in our campsite, I later found/remembered.  (Maybe next year!)

This is a volunteering commitment that I’ve been slowly backing off from just a bit, as it is starting to eat time with my own family.  I don’t want to miss every Friday night with my own kid (wow, still my kid, even though I only have one…) in order to be with other kids.  But I still go, around every other week and to most outings and camping trips.

Camping and hiking are good for me, and I don’t do enough of either.

There are nice walks to be had where I live now, but it’s even better .6-.7 miles up the road, where we’re moving in a few weeks.  Better shade, anyway.

#(My favorite new term, made of sleeplessness/sleepiness/spite.)
*(Baltimorese for “daytime.”)

Daddy needs a TIMEOUT.

Theoretically, TIMEOUT is to break a cycle or habit, not a punishment.  Charlotte used to like to make herself throw-up — just because.  Through timeouts (and teaching her the word so that the mere threat was often enough), we’ve gotten her out of that and a few other destructive habits.  I mean, puking on purpose isn’t just incredibly gross (OMG).  It’s important to eat, and Charlotte is continually high for height and low for weight on the charts at the Dr’s office.  Her head size, well.  She’s our daughter.  It’s huge.

After a month of house- and apartment-hunting, rain, hot weather, issues of this crumpling crapshack in which we live (!), Daddy needs to get the hell out of dodge for a day or two.

So when our annual Memorial Day campout arrives this weekend, I’m glad for it.  Sure, I’ll miss my wife and daughter and fans (it’s HOT!).  But, well, being Outside is good for the soul.  And mine’s been kicked in the nuts a lot lately.  My sanity has, at least.  I know it could be worse.  Yes.  It could ALWAYS be worse.  That line of thought leaves no one with permission to bitch at all.  We’d all go crazy and eat one another then, seriously.

I’m out of here at 6pm, riding up with my Dad, who probably also needs to get out for a while.  I don’t even have to cook.  I’m living on cereal and vegetarian MREs.  Add a nice fire, good company and the lack of internet access, and you’ve got about 40 hours of bliss.  Hot and buggy, but there you go.  At least we have showers and cots.

Need more outside.

outside1009
Taking the bus lately, I enjoy much more human interaction than you get when you travel by car or even by bike. But what I’m missing is outside time, which was/is a benefit of cycling to work.  I haven’t had to wear socks to work until today, when it’s raining and in the 40s.  I’m altogether too protected from the elements.

I got nothing but outside time this weekend, and it was fantastic.  From the spiders and deer to my wet feet and chattering teeth, I got a big dose of Mother Nature/Earth on our little camping trip.  But the end of Saturday, I was not bothered with being dirty.  By Sunday morning, shedding layers, sweating and packing/cleaninp up our campsite, I was elated over how stinky and dirty I had gotten.  I smelled like sweat, baby wipes, campfire and coffee.  I arrived home  in flannel PJ pants, a flannel shirt, dirty and wet socked/sandaled feet and visibly dirty.  Awesome.

I love living in the city.  The best way to really enjoy the outdoors is to enjoy it, not cut it down to live in a small piece of it, poison the air getting there and also waterways and the land itself with roads, etc.  I do want to retire and die in a little cabin one day, but that will have a small footprint.  But I haven’t been getting out enough even in the city lately.  Few walks, few cycling trips, little of anything.  Monday, I got three hours to show a nice guy around Baltimore for three hours.  It was his first time in Charm City.  So we walked from Midtown all the way to the Inner Harbor and East to Fell’s Point — and back.  It was tired, and we scored big sandwiches when we got back.  I gave a walking tour of Central Baltimore the next day and earned my pasta dinner.  These are improvements.

But now it’s raining and nasty today, and I haven’t even gone to get my afternoon coffee yet.