Since I've been lazy again, I have two days to post about.

Yesterday: Mom, Mer & I went horseback riding in the morning! Very exciting for us. We went with an outfit near Northwestern Lake in WA. Got off to a rocky start as one of the "helpers" yelled "don't you understand English?! Let up on the reins!" Just after someone else had supposedly positioned my hands where he thought they should be. Not that it mattered much, frankly, as the horses were not inclined to break their formation unless guided to do so, and knew the trail better than any of us. But it was absolutely wonderful. We had a few out of control moments as our guide trotted in the lead and our horses followed suit, but soon that was the best part. I'm paying for all that bouncing now though, my butt is definitely sore. I kept trying to remember what Lindsey told me to do (as an aside, Lindsey, you would have found this absolutely hilarious!) and I asked our guide if one is supposed to bounce when the horse trots. His only response was that he didn't, since men just should not do that. My horse, Rocky, seemed to enjoy having his face right up in the next horse's tail. Well... sometimes I did start steering us up BESIDE Mer and Missy instead of, well, right in Missy's ass.

Anyway, despite some moments of "oh my God I'm going to fall off" as our horses galloped (well to us it seemed like a gallop) up hills or stumbled around rocks, we all immensely enjoyed ourselves. Perhaps this would be a trouble free and in the long run cheaper alternative to actually owning one's own horse... And I bet if we went as a family event all the time it'd become quite the tradition.

We missed Mrs. Rowan, although we hurried to meet up with her. Hope to see her when I'm home for Christmas, and get her address so I can write letters.

It was Dad's birthday, as well, so you can see it was a busy day. Ok, so here's the excitement in my life. So Mer & I get up to Dad's place, he has a slight cold & is helping to clean the place up as it's being sold. He's getting dressed & taking out garbage (I'm trying to keep this in the present tense to give it some immediacy) & we've shown him the "summer vegetables and fruit" basket Mom basically put together for us to give him, and a comic we picked out for him at the coast. Uncle Scott & his "lady friend" (as Dad likes to put it) are about, too. So there's a knock on the door, and it's just the screen door so I can see out, and no one else is right about so I go and open the door. Of course I know it's got to be Peter (the young fellow Dad has decided I should meet) because he's young and I don't know of any other guy it could be.

Yeah, well, suffice it is to say my father has high hopes for me. You can chalk this up to my lack of experience with a variety of males if you must, but I'm immediately struck by how good looking Peter is. Well, ummm... we all end up taking a walk downtown, window shopping and looking at books in Artifacts. Am I coming off as needy and high maintenance? I hope not. Do I come off as rather immature and not terribly attractive as a potential girlfriend? Probably. Do I seem awkward? I think, definitely yes.

Ok this present tense stuff has served its purpose. We had ice cream and walked up the steepest hill in Hood River, and then Peter went back to his apartment across the street. Yes, very close proximity. Ahh, so, we got home and Mer & I floated up in the sand traps again and I mooned over Peter. Eventually we had dinner (I made onion rings) and Gail stopped by (and we told her about the horseback riding adventure). We're getting ready to build a new house here, so Renneth has been over, plowing stuff &, uh... doing stuff. Like doing something to the septic tank that prevented us from letting any water down the drains for a few hours the other day. So he was here for dinner too.

Ok, today now.

It's been a day of phone calls. Dad called to say his cold had not improved and he couldn't go with us on a lake trip. Mrs. Rowan called to apologize for missing us (which we felt horrible that she felt bad, we love her so much). Dial America has called about 5 times.

I got up, showered and blow dried my hair. Found we weren't going to a lake. Went to my room and napped and read. Woke up and it was about a 105 degrees. Was eating hot soup with saltines. Realized I should have been eating something else. Got the mail. Decided to go with Mer to the sand traps.

We had a different experience at the sand traps today. We brought the camera. There are pictures of us now, doing our floatie rhythmic gymnastics and sliding down the bank (eroding it irretrievably, too). Mer suggested that we throw a floatie up the current over the really bad rapids that we can't float down. She meant it as, maybe sometime in the future if we're bored. I thought, or rather didn't think, and threw it right up. Then I realized I had a problem. The floatie was coming down, but not towards me, towards the opposite bank. And I was in the most "dangerous" part of our floating area. After losing my flip flops, attempting to swim upstream, grappling at boulders, & hitting all sorts of sharp rocks with my bare feet, I managed to fling myself back onto the renegade floatie. At that point I just remained lying belly down the rest of the way, looking out for floating flip flops. Luckily Mer had them, and no harm came of my lapse in judgment.

This evening we took dinner (already on our plates) up to Tollbridge Park for a picnic. The yellow jackets had a field day. I smashed a few with my army boot meets sandal footwear. Brought back warm fuzzy memories of killing those nasty buzzers in the side yard.

We drove up to Nottingham (as Tim says, a replacement for Robin Hood) and cruised through the campsite. Taking a '56 red and white bel air out is kind of screaming for attention, so we do weird things like this when in it. On the way back a deer froze in our headlights. Mer was upset when Mom honked the horn at it. Away it went and all Mer had on her wildlife video tape was the horn honking.
Funny, the deer was looking in the other direction, at its own shadow. Tim said because the lights blinded it.

Mom showed me some old black and white photos tonight. And I watched melt-your-brain reality tv shows. And a lovely show on how homosexuality is hitting the mainstream. Yay for that. Well... I guess I should get to bed soon. One more piece of good news, Prof. C. is helping me with my summer travel scholarship, and had good ideas for alternative ways to get to jolly old england. I'll certainly be trying. My itinerary is 9 pages long...

Ok this was a long & rambling post and I'm not going to read it over. So, my apologies!