Mountain Getaway

  

I just returned from a weekend back home in the mountains. I haven't been home to visit since... uh... well, I'm embarrassed to say I don't know when I was there last. Maybe last August? Or was I there for Thanksgiving? I don't remember. I wish I could say it was purely a social/catch-up/self-reflection visit, which it was, but I also went home to attend the wake of the mother of one of my good girlfriends from high school. It's hard to imagine that we're at the point where worrying about our parents and their health has become a part of our lives. I still have a hard enough time coping with the idea that most of my high school classmates are married or have children or are going through divorces or all of the above. I, as you may or may not know, have yet to reach any of those stages or milestones yet (ever?). It's hard to imagine we're going to have to start dealing with losing our parents.

So, Friday night my sister, a good friend of ours and I attended the wake. There were some familiar faces in attendance, and while it was good to see them, it certainly wasn't the best of circumstances. Part of the evening was spent reminiscing, part was spent crying, or more accurately, bawling, and the other part was spent discussing breast feeding, Dora the Explorer, potty training, and... well, I don't really know because I stopped listening at breast feeding. I had originally planned on returning to NP on Saturday, but I was easily persuaded to stick around for "girls night out" (which, I am sad to say, is nothing at all like "girls night out" used to be) on Saturday evening. I also liked the idea of spending another day with my nephews. Here's a pic of Owen B'dowen telling me to, "Shhhh. Be quiet" because his brother was sleeping:

I had forgotten how deliriously giddy and stupid my sister and I can get when we're tired and haven't been around each other in a while. I've been told we have our own weird system of communication. We probably do, but when you've known someone since conception, I guess that can probably happen. Here's a pic of my sis when I was trying to show Owen B'dowen how the smile function on my camera worked. For those of you who don't know how this works, the camera can recognize when people are smiling and then automatically take a picture. For some reason though, the camera wouldn't recognize my sister's smile, but would instead snap away whenever she made a goofy face (I'm posting the tamest pic):

On Saturday, I was able to enjoy some of the previously unacknowledged (by me) perks of the mountains, no internet (well, my mom has dial-up, but that's so painful, she might as well not have it), no cell coverage and no television (again, my mom has a dish, but her tv is so small and old, she might as well not have one). In other words, complete isolation with very few distractions. This was something I hated about the mountains when I was growing up, but as an adult, with a ton of work to do, this was actually quite welcoming. My sister had hauled the boys off to a birthday party, so I was able to complete a few hours of work in silence. I think there's something to be said for the whole recluse in the mountain cabin thing. If I had a mountain cabin, I'd spend the next two weeks in it to get this thesis completed on time.

Saturday evening, my sis and I ventured out in a small caravan of minivans, sedans and SUVs to the middle of nowhere and drank around a bonfire campfire pile of coals with about five girls we graduated high school with (and the band members of E'town Express, as well as a few other folks). There was more reminiscing, and of course, more kid talk (yawn). The evening made me realize two things: 1. I miss having close friends, especially my high school girlfriends. They were the absolute best, and 2. I have very little in common with them anymore. Oh, they're pretty much the same people as they were in high school, a little more mature with a few more laugh lines, but, for the most part, I can't relate to their lives (read: kids, marriage, divorce). We were able to bond over our latest (mostly failed, or failing) adult relationships. We commiserated over our unemployment woes and reflected on the fact that we were entering (in the case of my sis and I, have entered) our 30s, and for the most part, none of us find ourselves where we thought we would be at this point in our lives. Now that I reflect back on it, I guess we do have more in common than I thought. All in all, it was good times. A little chilly, sure, but no one's shoes caught on fire, the police didn't show up, and no one fought over anyones boyfriend. Isn't it amazing what age can do? Just for fun, here's a pic of a "girls night out" in high school. Please, by all means, be embarrassed for us. Fashion didn't seem to exist back then:

Good times. So, this morning I woke up to snow. It is only March, you know. It's been known to snow in the ADKs in May, so this shouldn't have been that big of a surprise to me, but I feel like I've been gone for so long I had forgotten about this type of weather pattern (it had been sunny and in the mid-60s the day before). It was good to get back to the 72 degrees in NP. Overall, the weekend was good for my mental health. I reconnected with some good friends, saw my favorite nephews, completed some thesis work and was able to clean out some of the cobwebs in my head and do some spring cleaning/organizing in there. I hope everyone else out there in blogland had a productive weekend as well!

OH! I almost forgot! You know how I have a not-so secret, long-standing crush on Christian Slater? Well, I was pleasantly surprised to catch a repeat episode of My Name is Earl Friday guest-starring none other than Mr. Slater. And when I returned home tonight, and decided to turn on the TV around 8:50pm, low-and-behold, there he is again! On Extreme Makeover:Home Edition (which I don't actually watch, but I suffered through ten painful minutes of a very scary looking, spasing Ty for two brief glimpses of Christian)! Why didn't I know about this?