The Junk Drawer

Thanks to an alert reader, who didn’t chomp down and ask questions later, we have a new submission to the Food That Looks Like Stuff series.

Behold!

Peanut butter-filled pretzel face

Oooo! A photo shoot? Lil ‘ol me? I must be special! Wait… what are you doing?

CRUNCH.

I’m always on the lookout for food that looks like stuff, so if you find something, please visit my Contact page and email it in!

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On another note, I want to thank everyone again for your positive response to the Windy story that aired on NPR Monday. I’ve had the time of my life and I’m so happy to have readers (and new followers!) like you. This is what makes blogging so incredibly fun and fulfilling.

You guys are THE BEST!

Welcome NPR listeners! Please click here to access all the posts about Windy, the plastic bag stuck in a tree since March, 2008. The posts appear in reverse chronological order.

To all my regular readers, big news! I had the honor and pleasure of being interviewed by Melissa Block of National Public Radio (NPR) for a segment on All Things Considered, which aired today.

Visit NPR’s website to read the story and hear the interview (available at approx. 7PM EST).

Who knew our little Windy would go national? If we can’t get her out, I’d say that’s not a bad consolation prize.

I want to thank everyone who’s followed and enjoyed Windy’s story. Getting on board with it helped make the saga something worthy of all this attention. I have the best readers in the blogosphere and no one can tell me otherwise.

Thank you! Thank you!

When I was about ten years old, I went to a wilderness camp with my girl scout troop. Until then I was content with earning merit badges, singing hokey songs at after-school meetings and selling overpriced cookies once a year to my Thin Mint junkie friends and family.

As with everything else I did at that time in my life, I went with the crowd. Camping is not something I would have chosen to do for fun. Even then I knew I liked my creature comforts. Or rather, comforts without the creatures. I don’t need to get close to things in nature that have a thirst for blood, too many legs and a desire to get all up in my face.

I was OK when we all arrived at the camp site and got checked into the main building, which was nice and clean and looking every bit like the civilization I’d just left.

But as we made our way toward the cabins to drop off our backpacks and stuff, things got more and more rustic, and less and less civilized.

On approach to the cabins, wait. What? We’re cooking on a campfire? Sitting on logs? Eating? Here? My mind was spinning. And the cabins? Where are the lights? Those mattresses are funky. Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I have to pee in a hole in a shed?

I began plotting right then and there how to get back home where a warm bed would be missing me.

That day’s activities included ice-breaker games, gathering sticks for firewood, acquainting ourselves with the layout of camp, singing songs around a fire and then eating off dented metal plates on logs.

What I wanted was to be home watching Soul Train. What I got was dirty and gross and sweaty and can’t I eat in that nice clean building where we started?

That whole day all I could think about was having to sleep in the pitch black cabin. No lights. Cracks in the wooden ceiling. Creaky doors. The one thing I forgot to think about was how much water I drank during the day.

I shouldn’t have had anything because I realized I’d have to use the latrine, which is such a pretty-sounding word, right? [from French, from Latin latrina, shortened form of lavatrina bath, from lavare to wash]. Please. It’s a hole.

Just as we got settled into our cabins for the night, the rains came.

And then I had to pee.

I took a buddy with me, through now-sloppy grounds, up an incline to the ramshackle, bug-infested shed with a hole in it. The smell. The darkness. The fear. I positioned myself for the Infection Avoidance Crouch-and-Hover over the hole and OMG! Is there something touching me? What was that? Is it a rat?

That’s it. I’m outta here.

This is the part where my parents, who read my blog, will find out the Big Lie of 1975.

I feigned sickness.

While heading over to the scout leader’s cabin, I tried to work up a good puke, or at the very least, appear as pathetic and pasty white as possible. It’s very hard to puke at will, so all I could muster was a whiney “I don’t feeeeeel so good.”

The wheels were set in motion and a call would be made to my parents early the next morning.

I’d be free in T-minus twelve hours.

I didn’t care that my fellow scouts would probably talk about me after I left. What a weenie she is. Yeah, can’t even make it one day. I didn’t care that I truncated what should have been a neat experience. For most people.

I’m not most people. As a girl scout you’re supposed to learn “skills for success in the real world” and know your potential. I did. I learned that I’d always be a room service, crisp bed sheet, luxury hotel kind of girl.

The real world is full of luxury hotels.

Last week my husband Dave and I received the outdoor pet tent I ordered from Amazon. We wanted one because our cat Lucky is always jonesing to go outside, but he can’t be trusted to stay put, nor did we want to struggle putting a harness on him.

The Outdoor Feline Funhouse is perfect and I highly recommend!

Lucky enjoys feeling a breeze, sniffing the fresh air, watching birds and rabbits in the yard and rolling around inside of it.

I even trained him to go right into it when I open the patio door. I just tell him “Come on” and he slips right in. There are two panels, one on the long end, one on the short, secured with easy to open and close zippers.

Lucky is clawed, but he doesn’t bother scratching at the mesh, so we don’t have any problems there.

When he’s done enjoying the outside, he meows to go inside to take his eleventh nap of the day.

The tent is great, except for one thing.

It’s lightweight.

Really lightweight.

Dave and I left the house to run errands yesterday, pulled out of the garage and started down the street.

Before I noticed, Dave said “I wonder who that belongs to.”

“Who what belongs to?”

“That.”

Four houses down, smack dab in the middle of the street, sat our new mesh tent. (Of course I took a picture, you silly goose. I’m a professional.)

The tent got up off the patio, hung a right, tumbled past the neighbor’s house, across the front lawn and then down the street.

Luckily it folds up quickly and I could stash it in the trunk of the car. We hightailed it outta there like we just robbed a bank. I felt oddly embarrassed that our tent ran away. Was anyone watching?

Anyway, we know now we have to fill bags with sand to anchor the tent. The bags the tent came with. The bags that the directions say you should use because the tent is lightweight. The directions I never read unless you have a gun to my head.

I picked up takeout food last night at a restaurant and found a sad little Bird of Paradise drinking his sorrows away over at the bar.

What’s up little buddy?

What’s up? Just have a look.

Did you see all that? And what happened at the end?

Yeah. Brutal. What gives?

I don’t know. I tried everything. I cleaned my pad, swept the patio, buffed my tree branches to a nice shine and burned up the dance floor. Then nothing.

You know, I’m terribly impressed. You’ve got some mad dance skills.

True dat. I practiced at the studio for like eight weeks to get that down. I wanted to give up in week three, but my trainer encouraged me to stick it out. Six days a week. Sore feet, sore wings, sore neck. And for what?

I’m sorry.

She didn’t even wait for my finale. I was planning on throwing in a moonwalk and then a little soft shoe at the end. I would have killed.

I believe you. So is this something all Birds of Paradise do in your forest?

Please.

I’m the only one who took the lessons, went to a stylist, got a Feather Smoothie, consulted with a clutter expert, and bought a Swiffer. You could eat bugs off the floor of my tree house.

I don’t understand why she turned you down. You did everything you’re supposed to do. You smell nice, too.

I have my suspicions. Word on the tree is there’s some shinier bird over in 2C with a really big wingspan. He just moved in and all the ladies are curious. Got a Wii, high-def TV and a mini-fridge filled with spiders. Pffft. He’s got all of the fluff and none of the substance.

Well, all I can offer is my sympathy. You have it hard. Are you going to put on another show for someone else?

I don’t know. I may take off a couple weeks. I’m frustrated and tired. Trying so hard to get a date is for the birds.

Hey, did you see that?

See what?

That chicklet over there, by the jukebox. She winked at you.

Uh. Maybe you should leave now. Might be able to salvage this night after all.

Sure thing. Just don’t try so hard. Sometimes the ladies like a more relaxed approach.

Relaxed? Hell, no! Drop some coin in the jukebox for me, will ya? I feel a dance coming on.