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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Things Go Awry

So this one time, about a month and a half ago, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea: to go hiking on Mother's Day and collect a bouquet of wild flowers, then photograph the bouquet and send the pictures to my mom. I know nothing really compares to actually spending the day with your mom on Mother's Day, but I dreamed up the gesture and spontaneously decided to act on it. However, instead of achieving my goals and heading home with a smile on my face and a warmed heart in my chest, I fell while trying to scale a rock wall in Raccoon Creek State Park and tumbled 20 feet down a rocky hill side, tearing up my arms and legs in thorn bushes and piles of gravelly rock. So much for gestures.

Before my dramatic and bloody fall, however, I did manage to snap some good wild flower pictures. I never posted them anywhere except on Webshots, and knowing how few people actually look at the albums posted there, I thought I'd take this blog-ortunity to share these pretty little pictures.

And just so you all know -- I'm fully healed from the adventurous tumble.



Monday, June 18, 2007

Halket Street All Star Weekend

I am in love. It's not a new love but a renewed one. This past weekend, I fell in love with my friends all over again. We all met up in Deep Creek, MD. Along with 14 of my favorite people, I stayed in a sweet house (beds for 12 plus two big couches, four and a half bathrooms, a hot tub, a deck, a huge grill, and a sweet sound system).

I left Pittsburgh with Bobby, Freshman, and Brendan late Friday afternoon and met up with everyone at the house that evening. Between the sand-coated conversation, the reflections and memories shared under the shade of lakeside trees, and the cuddles and hugs five people wide, we danced and drank and chowed down on delicious home cooked food. The state park was just a 10 minute drive from our house, so we spent a lot of time on the sand at the lake (and in the shade behind the sand).

Boooooooty! The pool table was excellent. (F'n Greg and Anna)

Halket Street's finest (Brendan, Quinn, Rachel, Bobby, Brewer, Freshman, and me) and all our favorites (Texas and Shelby, Jonathan, F'n Greg, F'n Kevin, Anna, Lacey, Byrne, and Jordan) made what would have been a good time with anyone else into THE BEST WEEKEND OF THE YEAR.
Family dinner ala Eddie Izzard (Bobby, F'n Greg,
Brendan, Freshman, and F'n Kevin)


There were some incidents of violence (mostly involving brie and a plastic baseball bat), but mostly the danger came in the form of empty threats. We're much calmer than we used to be.

My how we've grown up. In the old days, at least half of
these people wouldn't be wearing pants.


It's so good to know that we will always be able to ridiculous, but it's even nicer to know that we can be sane. Between these moments of belligerent hilarity, we read and talked. I've been working on "The Cloudspotters Guide" and Thoreau's "Walden," both of which were perfect for this weekend. The weather was phenomenal: mid-80s and sunny. I read on the deck, in the living room, in my sweet bed, on the beach, under a tree... What makes Halket so phenomenal is not that we had great parties (which we did!) but that we weren't just tied to each other by those long nights. No, what keeps us together isn't our knack for craziness, it's those moments when we're cooking for each other or swapping our favorite books.

Anna always looks at the camera. (Anna, Brewer, and me)

I don't know any other group of people who have so much rowdy fun but also manage to keep it together by making and sharing salads and brownies, marinated chicken kabobs, and Old Bay hash browns. From "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" to "Mean Girls," we share a common sense of humanity and humor. I'm the luckiest gal in the world.

The F'ns, Lacey, me, and Brewer.