Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky

Fourth of July weekend, 2009. Theresa, New York. Moon Lake. This is the setting. The characters: Mom and Dad and I, Jay and Hallie, Hallie's brother Matt and his girlfriend Kim, and Kim's sister Audra with husband Nathan. The event: a cabin retreat with boating, skiing, campfires, outdoor movies, fireworks, games, flame-kissed chicken and s'mores, and plenty of beer.

There lies concealed within each of us a carnal propensity towards explosive destruction. When manifested, we find ourselves surprised at the force required to retain the mask of empathetic civility, as the thinly veiled smile of satisfaction threatens to fracture the façade. Even more surprising can be the momentary pang of disappointment in the face of an explosion that fails to live up to a suddenly defined expectation. Shows like “Moment of Impact” and “Seconds from Disaster” inexplicably draw us in despite our outward protestations, claiming that “this sort of thing does nothing for me.” All the while, our pitter-pattering hearts make a quiet wish for the channel to remain stationary, even if only for the first clip of an air-show disaster. But how joyous for us all that a holiday exists that allows us the indulgence – celebrates it even – of birthing crackling, whistling, thunderous, and blinding explosions in the sky! My country ‘tis of thee, indeed! I may still be unborn, but Mom said she could tell I was fully enraptured with the ear-splitting hammer-blows of Thor they call fireworks. And maybe just a bit scared, too. But that comes after. First is the before.

We arrived at the cabin after a lengthy drive on the evening of July 2, during which we stopped at the state line for some fireworks. Mom helped with the firework shopping by recommending the mortar shells that produced V-shaped bursts of pretty colors from the tube and bottle rockets with pretty wrapping. Dad called them the "girl" fireworks, but in the end guess which ones were the crowd-pleasers? Girls rule! After arriving at the cabin, unloading the car, and generally making ourselves at home, we went out to the back porch overlooking the lake to get caught up with our new weekend housemates.

The next morning, Dad was invited to go on the daily "big beer" run with the guys. Dad is talented in a couple of regards, but he has still never quite gotten the hang of getting up early in the morning, so he respectfully declined. They still brought him a big beer, which he enjoyed with his morning cup of coffee. He said you know you are on vacation when you can't decide whether you'd rather drink beer or coffee first thing in the morning, and you especially know you're on vacation when you decide not to choose between the two. The morning continued the homebuilding process as the deck was cleaned off, the fire was built, and the movie screen was installed. Yeah - Mom and Dad can't seem to go too long in the summer without their outdoor movies, so Dad brought a roll of white plastic from work to use for a screen at the cabin. They wrapped the film between two trees and hoped it would be good enough when darkness fell. In the meantime, they took the boat out for a morning ski session, where Dad found out that he can still get up on the first try and even drop a ski for some slalom action. He also found out that he gets worn out about 4 times faster than he used to and cut his session off after a few times crossing the wake on one ski. Getting worn out might have also had something to do with being attacked by Swamp Thing when he fell in the shallow weeds. "Like fighting off an aggressive mop" Dad said. I've attached pictures of Mom and Hallie in the boat and the view of the cabin from the lake.

Later in the day, Mom and Dad took a little trip with Hallie and Jay to a winery, where Dad got a wine slushy (doesn't sound right to me, but then again I don't really know much about wine or slushies). They also went to Wal-Mart to stock up on the things they'd need throughout their stay. At this point Dad and Hallie came to the realization that they 'got their drink on' a bit too early, and they were not quite in the correct state of mind for grocery shopping. Perhaps it was the wine slushies. Dad did a pretty good job of faking it, however, and for his reward he was finally able to purchase one of the highly coveted 'big beers' of Theresa, NY. Look at how happy he is! Also during the day, Dad was able to get some good wildlife photography including some loons (which make the coolest noises), a frog (which kind of sounds like 'burmp, burmp'), and the dragonfly pictured here. The one animal of which he didn't get a picture was the silly crow that screamed like a girl every morning to wake us all up. Seriously, it was really loud and human-sounding and on repeat. Scaredy Crow, the silly bird that screams about everything.

So the outdoor movie theater worked out pretty well. While tuning the system, Dad threw in one of his favorite movies to watch while at a cabin in the woods: Evil Dead 2. A couple of the girls claimed they couldn't watch those kinds of movies, but guess what happened when Dad went to switch to Raiders of the Lost Ark? Everyone had already been sucked in by the B-movie charm and wit of the legendary Bruce Campbell. Oh yeah, the magic of Evil Dead 2 had delicately woven a net of compulsion upon the captivated audience, and we stayed for the whole presentation (even while a small group tested out a few of the fireworks in the big tubes). After Evil Dead 2 came Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it got rained out before Indy made it back to his classroom. So we all went inside for some Cranium, which was one of the craziest games I've ever heard. It sounded like a tornado of cacophonous chatter just pirouetting and crashing down upon the cabin dining room.

The next day (this would be the 4th of July) Dad once again slept through the 'big beer' run. Poor guy just can't seem to wake up before 8 on a Saturday (or Friday). He subscribes to the lesser known mantra "late to bed and late to rise makes a man kind of healthy, moderately wealthy, and wise-ish". But they still brought him back his beer to enjoy with coffee again. It was a beautiful cloudy morning, and the geese were enjoying our part of the lake. So Matt hopped in the kayak to put a stop to that. He completely separated the flock into two madly honking factions and left them discombobulated and disorganized for a rough start to the afternoon. But to the non-goose onlookers it was nothing short of hilarious. Then to make the outdoorsman morning complete, Jay caught a pike! It was quite exciting, especially considering it was right off the cabin's dock and these fish weren't the most common in the lake.

This day turned out to be rainy and overcast for much of the afternoon. The gang found a variety of distractions to carry them through the afternoon until their big trip to the bay. Kim and Audra found an old-school Gameboy to Tetris out on, Nathan created a make-shift grill on which to cook some mouth-watering chicken, and there was a mean game of poker out on the deck. And after one of Dad's many bottle rocket barrages the gang piled in their vehicles and made for the bay, Alexandria Bay. This was the section of the St. Lawrence river (that separates New York from Canada) that contained the Thousand Islands (where the salad dressing originated - there are actually more than a thousand islands). There, we were able to hop on a double-decker guided boat tour of the bay (and Mom and Dad travelled to Canada for the first time). There were aparantly a lot of interesting things to see like big bridges, small bridges (the world's shortest international bridge), beautiful mansions, castles, and islands. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see any of it, so Mom and Dad took a lot of pictures for me to see someday, including a great shot of them on the boat. After the tour, they went into town to see some beautiful and expensive boats and eat some delicious pizza. Well, Mom and Dad said it was delicious - I just felt the satisfaction of not being hungry. Oh, I almost forgot the best part about that trip - the sun finally came out! Which meant that it would be a clear night for fireworks, and that made everyone happy. It had been getting rather cold with all the rain lately, and this tends to dampen spirits in the middle of summer. Just look at the heavy clothes everyone was wearing in the completely candid, not at all posed, shot on the cabin dock. Those aren't summer clothes! So the sun was definitely a welcome guest by this point. And as they arrived back at the cabin, the sun was getting low in the sky, creating the most beautiful scene on the lake.

Well, now it was time to prepare for the festivities of the night. The guys had a lot of fireworks to sort out, so they went to work opening all the packages, collecting all the shells, and arranging all the tubes. Jay found a way to get rid of the empty boxes, and in doing so inadvertantly unleashed a fire demon from its smoldering slumber. Don't believe me? Check out the picture Dad got - Dad said you can even see the demon 'flipping the bird', whatever that means. It must have been angry because it about knocked Jay over. At that point we knew we'd have ourselves an amazing fireworks display in the dark hours ahead - we had a fire demon loose at the cabin! So let me tell you about these fireworks. The guys would light them off usually two or three at a time and I would feel the THOOM THOOM .... POW POW through Mom's belly! Then I'd hear the occassional CRACKLE CRACKLE and the follow up cheers of the crowd, and I'd do a little dance. I may not have been able to see the colors that Mom said were so pretty, but I still enjoyed the explosion-rific excitement of the display. And we weren't the only ones with fireworks. Other cabins around the lake were firing theirs off, as well, so we got a total surround sound show. What a great way to celebrate the Chinese ownership of our country - blasting Chinese made colored explosions into the night sky! I love the 4th of July! We finished off the evening watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, but Mom and I couldn't stay awake to finish it, so everyone but Audra and Dad retired for the evening while they stayed to watch the Nazis' faces melt off - DON'T LOOK INTO THE ARK!

The next morning Dad got up early enough to go into town for a big beer. I'm just kidding! He slept in again. Oh Dad, when will you ever learn - snooze isn't the answer! He did decide to do some skiing again this morning, though, as it was our last at the cabin. He even tried the kneeboard and found that he still had the ability to pull a 360, even with a view partially obscured by his stylish Kanye West/Trent Reznor 80's shutter-shades. Everyone was in a gaming mood this fine Sunday morning, and they quickly progressed through a card game with crazy rules about when to consume your beverage to a dice game called 3-Man. It turns out that 3-Man is actually just 1 man (or woman), and you don't want it to be you. It didn't sound too bad to be the 3-Man, however, as everyone was laughing and carrying on no matter who was wearing the 3-Man hat (Mom tried it on, but she did not partake of the typical 3-Man drink of choice). After the games, it was time for another boat ride. This time Jay and Hallie wanted to show Mom and Dad 'the island'. There is a small island in the lake where you can be dropped off for a picnic. Mom and Dad brought the iPod and speakers, and the gang had a little island getaway for a couple hours. Jay and Hallie swam to shore at one point to practice their diving off an elevated rock. Dad said they got some pretty good hang-time. The island also gave them a good view of skiers cruising around the lake. At one point Matt brought the boat in between the island and the closest shore landing so we could get a closer look at Nate's kneeboarding abilities. Mostly, we all just hung out, relaxed, and enjoyed some time in the sun before Mom and Dad called it a day. As the boat taxied us back to the cabin, we got one last view of the lake-side of our weekend retreat. I may never directly remember the experience, but at least I'll someday be able to relive it as you have experienced it now. I got some good sleep on the drive home. I was able to dream about fire-flowers in the sky, fire-demons in the woods, giant bridges over waves, and tiny 3-Men playing Gameboys. And it took me a long time to sort out how much of it all was really a dream and how much was real (which is why it took me so long to post the story). It still surprises me how much of it was real. Or maybe it actually was all just a dream. After all, can there really be a lake on the moon?

See you in less than a month,
Azja

Floor Lumber and Church Grumblers

Howdy! Azja Kathleen here after a rather long period of blog silence. Not that I myself have been inactive, nor have my parents. In fact, their recent burst of constant activity is the primary cause of my blog absence, as well as the impetus for my busy wanderings throughout my cramped quarters. So what have we been up to lately? Well, since you asked, I feel obliged to relate to you the ongoing adventures of the Pennsylvania Dunhams.

As you may have noticed from my previous blogs, Mom and Dad have been hard at work lately improving the house. They improved the yard with flowers, grass, and a fountain. They improved the back room by turning it into a functional work shed. They improved the guest room by turning into a nursery. And now they focused their attentions on the living room. Mom has always disliked the red carpet in the living room. It had always been extremely efficient at collecting Eddy the Dog's hair, and the best option they had for dealing with the atrociousness until recently was a rug that wrinkled down the middle in a manner especially frustrating to Dad (who possibly suffers a very mild case of obsessive compulsive disorder - he alphabetizes the records and DVDs and even sorted the movies by genre - I have some organization ideas of my own involving the floor and drool that he's probably going to strongly object to when the time comes). They felt they were on a roll lately with all the other house projects and decided it was time to finally rip up the carpet and lay down a wooden floor.

Roll out the red carpet - right out the front door and into the trash! Mom and Dad were pretty excited about ripping up their first strip of carpet. With maniacal glee, Dad used a razor blade to cut a long exclamation point to accentuate the end of years of frustration with the Eddy hairnet that had adorned the living room since moving to Pennsylvania. Then, after prying up the tack-board lining the perimeter and the staples that held the carpet pad in place, they were able to sweep up the newly bare floor and marvel at the carpetlessness of the front quarter of the living room. There was relief I could actually feel through Mom's body, and the project had officially begun. Dad was also excited about once again being able to use some of the awesome tools Grandpa Dunham had given him over the years. Mom and Dad became an efficient floor-laying machine. Mom would measure and Dad would cut. The kitchen was utilized as the board-cutting workshop, which quickly led to the filthiest kitchen Mom had ever seen - but that was a problem for later. The front of the living room was the most difficult, as it had several tricky borders that Dad had to navigate with a jigsaw puzzle. I don't quite understand what that had to do with cutting, but apparently Dad felt he was pretty good with this part (I can't tell you whether or not this is the truth, having no ability to see for myself at this point).

They finished the front of the living room (the hardest part) on a Friday night, giving them great confidence that the rest of room could be completed throughout the rest of the weekend. It was quite rainy this weekend, so it worked out well that the project they had in mind was indoors (and that the workshop had been set up in the kitchen, even if this was originally to Mom's dismay). The only one not happy with the rapid progess was Eddy the Dog, as he kept lying directly in front of the path of the boards as Dad put them in place. Perhaps he was upset about no longer having a soft spot to sleep wherever he felt like falling. Perhaps he felt like Mom and Dad were under-challanged and needed a further obstacle. Or perhaps he was just confused and truly trying (and continuously failing miserably) to stay out of the way. Whatever the reasoning, he seems to have now abandoned any previously held animosity, as he now happily tap-dances around the new wooden living room floor at all hours of the day. Clickety-clack clickety-clack clickety-clack snort sneeze thump - that's the sound of Eddy the Dog finding a spot on the new floor on which to sleep. Mom and Dad finished the floor on Saturday night and were free to enjoy their new living room by Sunday (after cleaning up somewhat, that is - remember that the kitchen was a filthy mess that seemed beyond the conception of cleanliness at this point). Luckily they were afforded a modicum of relaxation and respite Sunday evening, as the week to follow would be quite the whirlwind of demanding activity - Dad would be in Chicago at a plastics exposition most of the week and Mom would be left at home to prepare the house for guests arriving in less than a week's time.

Before I move on to the details of that visit, I had to include a picture Dad captured before leaving for Chicago. In a previous blog I mentioned the groundhog family we have living around our house, and Dad had included a picture of three of them roaming the hillside viewable from the guestroom window. Unfortunately, the critters were difficult to discern in such a distant view through the veil of the window screen. The same animals, however, have other entrances to their underground domain, and one of these is in the side yard beyond Mom and Dad's hammock. Dad was in the right place at the right time and was able to snap this excellent picture of the groundhog he calls Dave catching a bit of sun atop our neighbor's concrete porch wall. Just in case you were wondering, the other two groundies have been dubbed Gertrude and Rasputin. They really like apples and the paper plates the apples are served on - they seem to hold both in the same regard with respect to edibility.

The next Friday saw the return of Dad. I was quite excited about this, as Dad has now gotten in the habit of reading to me each night before falling asleep. He is currently favoring the tales of Edgar Allen Poe (which are not all as morbid and melancholy as most would fear but do contain enough French, Latin, Italian, and general linguistic flexibility to present nightly storytelling challenges for Dad to overcome - he's getting pretty good at this point), but sometimes he switches things up with some mythology, Nietzsche, and Plato. Plato's dialogues are especially entertaining, as Dad assigns funny voices to the men Socrates challenges to logistic sparring matches. I feel my blog-writing ability has also benefited from these nightly excursions into the world of classical literature and philosophy. Mom says she can tell that I am at least interested from time to time - so that's something, right? Actually, Mom also enjoys Dad's bedtime stories, as it helps her fall asleep, and I make it increasingly hard for her to find fruitful rest these days.

On top of this, Dad was now able to take a little burden from Mom's shoulders in preparing the house for guests (not that he really had that long to help out, but every little bit helps). That night Uncle Greg and Aunt Karen arrived. They had spent the week in New York City where they were able to, among other things, attend a taping of The Late Show with David Letterman. The guests on this particular show were Johnny Depp, who is apparently a very appealing man, and Megan Fox, who is apparently a very appealing woman. So that was pretty exciting. Johnny Depp had even signed some autographs after the show, which allowed Uncle Greg and Aunt Karen to get some pretty close-up pictures. Everyone seemed to agree that he was just as attractive and interesting in person as he is in the movies. Uncle Greg and Aunt Karen also visited a museum where they saw some famous paintings like Van Gogh's 'Starry Night'. After all that culture and excitement what a better place to spend the weekend than Pottsville, Pennsylvania! Okay, so maybe this isn't the culture capital of the world, but Mom and Dad have something for which many city-dwellers hold a decent amount of respect from time to time: relative peace and quiet. Mom and Dad's firepit area, with its scenic overlook of the valley in which Pottsville resides and quiet nature-filled isolation from the row-home lined streets below, offers quite the getaway without having to leave behind the modern conveniences of home.

While here, Uncle Greg and Aunt Karen were able to take in some outdoor cinema (including the classic sasquatch documentary 'The Legend of Boggy Creek' which is so bad it couldn't even be endured under the pretext of campy hilarity), visit the Clover Hill winery (where they learned of the Broadway and Marx Brothers connection to Pottsville's history), play some Rock Band (where Uncle Greg was able to wail away on some classic Stone Roses and channel the spirit of 60's Bob Dylan), and take in 18 holes of Heisler's putt-putt. They missed Cousin Lily, this being their first trip away from her, who had just turned one. But the relaxation they found was clearly welcome. Plus they got to play lawn darts for the first time ever while visiting Mom and Dad's friends Jay and Hallie. This is a game that is so dangerous it can no longer be sold in stores in which you toss weighted darts towards each other trying to stick them in the ground closest to a plastic ring. Mom and Dad said it was like horseshoes but pointier and with a better chance at winning money on America's funniest home videos (or at least visiting the hospital). It seems the highlights of the visit were a pitching golf game Uncle Greg and Dad came up with where they tried to hit practice balls from the upper level of the side yard into a dog dish in front of the movie screen and a sign outside a church on the way to Heisler's that had to be seen to be believed (as I did not see it, I find it hard to believe, but I tend to take Mom and Dad's word on these kinds of things). Pictures of both highlights are to the left along with a picture of Uncle Greg playing some Wii baseball (which left both Uncle Greg and Dad a little sore for the next couple days). It was great having Aunt Karen and Uncle Greg up to Pennsylvania, especially during such beautiful and enjoyable weather, and it was sad having to bid them farewell. I can't wait to meet them in person someday, rather than simply hear them through a belly quietly, to twist a literary expression.

Our next adventure was a 4th of July lake trip in upstate New York, but that is a tale for a different blog. Until then, I'm Azja Kathleen Dunham and you're not (that's one from way before my time!).

See you in August,
Azja