Hello, Gentle Readers. Indeed, I was gone for few days, and here I am back again. Overjoyed? I thought so.
We went a few hours north of here to a summer art festival on a river. I must say it was wonderful, wonderful to see old friends, wonderful to NOT HAVE MY CEL PHONE WORK and NOT HAVE MY LAPTOP and NOT BE NEAR A TELEVISION. I almost forgot what bliss that is. Wonderful to be on a river, wonderful to see redwoods and a nest of ospreys. Of course, this wouldn’t be my life if the whole thing went without incident.
We decided to camp this year, to save money and just be outside. So, after packing up all the booth stuff and all the product, and all the camping gear and food, we set off. We arrived at the campground and it seemed OK. The Partner and I both prefer camping in the middle of nowhere, but this was a working trip after all. So, there we were, relaxing after a long day, looking up at the redwoods through the tent. I confess to having had a nagging sense of foreboding because the Partner had said, more than once, how much he was looking forward to peace and quiet. Uh oh. What to our wondering ears should appear but…..A Large Asshat. With a surround sound system to blare out his almost beyond belief terrible taste in music, two stand up barbeques to provide chemical fumes, AND!!! two, count ’em, small pony sized dogs with basso profundo barks. This was nothing but enhanced by the arrival of four more humans, bringing the festive group to a total of six. Six loudmouths and two Hounds of the Baskervilles. Lots of liquid refreshment. So, there we were. “Quiet time” supposedly commenced at 10 p.m., so I called the ranger station after having endured two and a half hours of top volume Kenny Chesney interspersed with 80’s techno and intense barking. Rangers were at an emergency, apparently. I went to the “camp host” trailer, and found they were cowering in it refusing to answer the door. Yes, this meant that I, clutching my newly rebatteried MagLite, had to stump over to Happy Acres and ask them to tone it down. This did not go particularly well. What noise, Large A. enquired with a flat stare and stiff shoulders. The dogs? Ha ha, the dogs. They were by now foaming at the mouth and lunging at me, and his comment was, “they’re friendly”. This, Gentle Reader, is right up there with “I’ll only park in your driveway for a minute”. A passive aggressive owner with two out of control dogs telling me the dogs are friendly. So, I said, I can handle the dogs, pal. I watch the Dog Whisperer, after all. And, indeed, they started wagging their tails, sat down, and barked conversationally. They just need to be quiet, and the music and yelling needs to stop, I said. If you could just be mindful that you aren’t the only person here. I leave you to imagine the special hours that ensued after Large A. snarled at me, have a wonderful night. It was long, is what it was.
Anyway, we got out of THERE, giving Large A. & Entourage a hearty 21 horn salute on the way out, and everything was totally groovy from then on except for not having had any sleep at all that one night. (And not much the night before because our neighbors at home were up all night partying. Sleep people, sleep. It’s more important than you know.) My inventory got a bit gnarly but what the heck. I found myself laughing at irritating non-customers instead of worrying. Good. It took all this week for the fatigue to wear off and the anxiety to kick in again, so that once again I can send off my crisply worded memos to whitehouse.gov about how non-stimulating the stimulus is for small business. And blog, of course. It’s more fun than ever because Boo is now imitating my every key stroke with her beak against her food bowl and cage side. Ah, home again. I missed you guys!
Boozilla: learning to fly one room at a time 