Summer Hijinx are the Hijinxiest of All

Field season is at the "ready to kill ya" point which explains my absence over the past little while.  But I'm bursting with stupid stories, and just had to make a point to make some time tonight to post.  Between the stupid, the awesome and the terrible, I'll try to paint an adequate picture of the past couple of months in not more than a couple paragraphs! (ha, brevity, never my strong point..)

I had the roughest go I've had at work since I started my job nearly six years ago, which did a pretty decent job at sucking my thoughts into a spiralling crazylady vortex for most of May and June.  When it comes to just me, gettin' my work done, doin' my thing, meeting my deadlines, I'm bang on. That is when I flourish.  When you add people to the mix it always makes things trickier.. especially when you add ones who detest you, don't respect you, lie about you (um, yup, that's all one person), I get thrown totally off kilter.  Dealing with people, especially when their motives toward you are.. using synonym feature to find right word.. "sinister" too harsh.. let's just say "untoward"... can really do a number on your head, making you question yourself and your decisions.  The good news is I kept treading water with the help of my wonderful friends and family who are so supportive and I am so grateful for every day; I kept my head above the proverbial water, murky as it was, and I made it out of the deep end and have climbed out of the cesspool.  I am moving on from that toxic swimming pool and doing everything I can to put it behind me.  Like an angry fire-breathing whack-a-mole, I'm sure this person will pop up again in my life, but hopefully I'll be in a better position to breathe in, breathe out, shake my head and laugh a little, and continue moving forward.

My allergies have been pretty redonculous this season; not sure about the rest of you grass pollen allergy sufferers, but I really think this has been one of the worst years for pollen allergies on the record.  I knew it was bad.  Then I decided to walk through a field of 5'5" tall grass.  I know exactly how tall it was because it was hitting me in the eyes and mouth as I walked.  If I'd put on my rubber boots I could have walked on the submerged trail, but I hate having wet feet for the drive home and was only in hikers, so I thought dry feet + field of grass sounded like a much better idea.  I started sneezing.. 3 sneezes (usually I just pull out a double). Then 5-6 sneezes.  When I was at one point bent over letting out a chorus of 12 consecutive sneezes and my face subsequently exploded, I decided I probably shouldn't continue to blaze my way down the grass path.  As I reached my car on the return journey I noticed it felt like I had something in my throat - grass seed?  Not sure.  Ouch.  Itchy.  Can't tell.  Cough cough.. ouch.  What the heck.  Deep breath.. having trouble breathing.. Oh, I see, it's just my throat closing up.  Nice.  That was a terrifying 15 minutes as I drove in a panic along Hwy 90 practicing breathing and painfully coughing.  Luckily after blasting AC at my face for the 1.5 hr drive home, I was in decent condition, and promptly made an apt with an allergist.  Hopefully 2013 will be my last year of face explosions: tbd!


View from Sneezefest 2013 - at least it was worth it!

I went out to spray Dog-strangling Vine, my favourite nemesis, for a week at the end of June.  I led a team of 8-9 people each day and we did a serious number on this plant, helping to keep it off some very important habitat - ya us!  I only gave one person heat exhaustion, 2 people funny foot rashes from wearing rubber boots in 35C heat (nope, it can NEVER be a reasonable temperature when I'm spraying) and maybe ended up with a team of 5 down from 9 on Day 4.. but we persevered!  To celebrate near the end of Day 4 (final spray day), I looked over at one of the team members who was fiddling with the straps on her backpack sprayer while holding the spray trigger on the nozzle and was promptly greeted with a face full of Roundup.  Watching it come towards me in a blue, slow motion arc through the air was something else!  It smacked me in the forehead, eye and cheek on the right side of my face and I looked at one of our other interns, who was panic stricken.  "Do you want paper towel?!!?  LET'S GET YOU SOME PAPER TOWEL!".  I replied "I need you to get the handwash water and wash out my eye right now."  I sort of fell to my knees while she started pouring clean water in my eye and across my face.  At that point, there wasn't much else to do but laugh and her controlled freak out was kind of hilarious.  So I started laughing as she poured, which made it sound like I was choking on the water that was pouring on my face.  An intern who had been around the front of the van came to the back to see what the commotion was about and could only utter: "Laura, why are you waterboarding Kristyn?!?!"  Which made me laugh harder, which is when another intern showed up and thought to himself: "Laura is doing a really bad job at giving Kristyn a drink of water from that jug...".  Which he later shared, which made me waterboard laugh again later.  We spent the rest of the day retelling that story and laughing until our stomachs hurt.  Just after that I went to call my parents to tell them the funny story and apparently can't handle holding two phones and a beer, as I poured the beer all over my shirt, my pillow and the bed I was to sleep in that night.  Ahh. The perfect end to a dreamy week ;)



Badass 2013 Spray Team

Last weekend I headed to Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH.  This is our annual trip of roller coaster awesomeness that we missed in 2012 and I have since vowed NEVER to miss a year again.  I missed it so much I'd find myself staring misty-eyed into the distance thinking about the twists and turns of Maverick (two launch starts, a drop that's greater than 90 degrees - yup picture it, like a backwards "S" (ride that S from the right), a two minutes of crazy barrel rolls and thrills), the fastest you'll EVER accelerate and probably EVER go from 0mph - 120mph on Top Thrill Dragster, and the 300 foot sheer drop on Millennium Force, then catching air on hills overlooking Lake Erie.  Basically, the happiest place on earth.  Somehow it's never really rained on us before.   A bit during our trip in 2007, but never REALLY rained.  We had a great morning in the hot hot sun, rode all the goodies and were planning our next moves when we saw the sky getting a bit funny.  We made it right to the front of the line for Magnum XL and then were told the ride was shutting down due to incoming weather.  Ok, time for a beer!  Then in line for Maverick for an hour and a half waiting for it to run again, which it just does not do in the rain because of the launches.  Ok, let's head to dinner!  We got sprinkled on on the way to dinner, and when Viv and I felt the subzero AC temperature of the restaurant we made the executive decision to walk the 7 minutes to and from the car to get some dry long sleeved shirts to change into.  We didn't want to get chilled then be cold all night.  Nice plan ladies.. instead we got SOAKED in the storm that would eventually flood Toronto that day.  We were soaked RIGHT THROUGH.  Right through.  At one point there was nothing to do but laugh.  Or maybe I said "this will be one of those things we think back on and laugh about" :P  When we showed up back at the restaurant looking like two drowned rats, Jay and Jeff (warm and drinking their beers inside) just sort of stared at us in feel sorry for you/kind of funny/oh my disbelief.  The restaurant folks who gave us towels to go towel ourselves down in the bathroom were very nice.  We drank some tea to warm up, changed into the dry shirts (thank goodness for plastic bags) and made it through the rest of the evening no problem, even though we were extremely wet from butt to feet!  Anyone interested in riding the best rides of your life, plan to be IN for Cedar Point 2014 - all welcome! (sidenote: Viv and Jeff laughed like maniacs for their first time over the 420' off the ground arc of Top Thrill Dragster - there is nothing like your first time!)

Millennium Force - pic from the line.  That's a HUGE bitch!



Top Thrill Dragster against the sunset (photo by Jay).
420 feet of magic straight up and down.  Vroom.. VROOM......

Sidenote: our campsite for the weekend was under big shady trees, so typically that would be "dirt".  For this particular weekend post all the summer rain, it was "mud".  Mud which we a) skated in b) slid in c) dropped steak AND vegetables in.  Mud which I refused to brave at 4 a.m. when the rain was pouring buckets onto our tent.  You know you have a good husband when he agrees you shouldn't go out there, hands you an empty Powerade bottle and goes back to sleep.  A saint, my Jeff!  Not my finest moment THAT'S FOR SURE.  I hope that very embarrassing factoid at least made somebody laugh - if so, it was worth it.

Bailey has started swimming, which is very fun and cute and probably very useful for a dog wearing a black fur coat in 30C+ weather.  It's been great taking him to the dogpark so he can cool down and fetch sticks - he's a great swimmer!  Yesterday morning while hiking with Bailey, my mom, Ziggy and my mom's friend Art and his two dogs, Bailey got lost - in Stouffville, in a giant forest, quite far from home, somewhere he's never been.  We called and called for a good 5 minutes before he finally came back - completely out of breath, soaked from head to toe and looking a little panicked.  We'll never know what happened.  I'd like to put a GPS tracker on his collar, even if just to see where he goes on these expeditions!

Bailey (front, black) swimming with his lunchtime buddies at Guelph Lake today (photo cred: Busy Bee Critter Sitters)

This past weekend I got to attend an event at Little McCoy Island way up near Pointe au Baril in Georgian Bay.  Fantastic day, beautiful weather, lovely people and to top it all off, there was a moose swimming across a channel of the bay on our boat ride out to the site.  I put it in my speech, which was then an instant hit with the GB folks (apparently moose are relatively rare to see in the area).  Ya moose!

MOOSE!  Prob a 2-3 year old male

Anywho! More hijinx to follow, I'm sure.  Wow, did you know hijinx is actually spelled hijinks?  You learn something every day.  Thanks Blogger spellcheck.  I of course will continue to spell it my way.  Like the time I tried to bring back "whack", or coin a catch phrase ("you're breaking my box!") or am currently trying to make stick: "waking up in the 6's; eating breakfast in the 7's" - like for when you wake up anytime between 6-7 and eat between 7-8.  Another example: "Waking up in the 5's is the worst!" (so true).  Just wait.. it'll stick ;)