Brevard: Day Fifty-two

Have I told you lately how much I love Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet? Because I do. It is tremendous. The BMC Brevard Sinfonia played it tonight and the conductor was amazing. Natty and old school and awesome.

In the meantime, just because I am SO excited about going home in one week and two days (but who's counting?) and seeing my Beebla again:

Brevard: Day Fifty-one

I'M A CELEBRITY (IN MY HEAD)!! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!

This morning, I didn't have any coffee before my (relatively) early quintet rehearsal and BOY was I cranky. Anyway.

I present to you An Anatomy of an Assistant Dean's Cabin Table:

1. David Maslanka's Wind Quintet No. 3. The clarinet part. You know what you will see if you open the pages? LOTS OF NOTES, that's what. And somehow, I think that if I stare at these notes enough while listening to recordings and write in the occasional observation on the pages with a pencil (pictured), that I will somehow play all of these zillions of notes in the correct order at the correct speed. I'll let you know when that actually happens.

2. Coffee. DOY. Like, what else would you expect to find on this table? Whiskey? Tequila? Gin? Hehehe. Well, not when it's still daylight out, okay?

3. Ye ole trusty iPhone. Except totally NOT trusty here in the mountains. More like freaking unreliable and frustrating as hell iPhone. Bleh.

4. Dean of the Day phone. Nicknamed "Googly" (Long story...okay, short story: the Dean staff is obsessed with googly eyes. The end.). This is the phone that you have to carry around once every five days when it is your turn to be the official "Dean of the Day" and get to answer at 3 o'clock in the flipping morning when a production crew member's wife decides that it is an emergency that their smoke detector is chirping. And that somehow, the Dean of Students staff is obligated to do something about this. Not that I'm still bitter about this. BARF.

5. Yeah yeah yeah, so I know burning candles are not the brightest (no pun intended) thing to keep in your cabin in the woods. But you know what? They smell good and the bit of light amidst the pitch blackness keeps the psycho hillbilly zombies from molesting me at night.

6. Awwww. Look at me and my Schooblebuns. This picture was taken in Japan - during the UW Wind Ensemble tour in, what, 2007? This explains why we are wearing traditional Japanese yukatas. Anyway, I miss my Schmoobs. Only a couple more weeks until we are reunited and commence subsequently getting annoyed with one another again! 

7. Agh! Look at my Beebla! I MISS THEM SO MUCH IT MAKES ME WANT TO PUNCH THINGS. I can't promise that I won't be taking the remainder of my summer pay (what little there is left after taxes and bills, blergh) and splurging on the entire contents of our local Petco when I am back home.

8. Mmm...water. I peed out many many MANY bottles' worth of water when I was going through my kweech troubles earlier this summer. Man, was that miserable.

9. iPod touch. I'm not going to lie, my LOST playlist gets the most play in my cabin by far. Beethoven who? Sibelius what now? Michael Giacchino FTW!

10. Dr. Beat metronome. Ugh. The devil's box. I KNOW I CAN'T PLAY THE MASLANKA FAST ENOUGH, OK?? Leave me alone..... *runs to go cry in a corner*

11. My girly beauty station. Because I'm still a lady, damnit! You can see here the mirror with which I like to stare at my face in the quiet solitude of night and obsessively stare at my Left Brow Wrinkle of Doom whilst slathering it with layer upon layer of heavy moisturizing cream. Is that what I'm supposed to use? Because I went to Kmart (waaah I want Target) the other day and perused the wrinkle cream aisle, and it seemed like they were all just moisturizers. 

12. It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again...

13. Kweech pills. Mmm...kweech pills.

14. Reeds. Reeeeeeds!! REEEEEEEEEDS!!! Incidentally, this entire pile contains precisely zero good reeds. *sigh* I love spending my hard earned money buying a useless pile of wooden sticks, don't you?

15. Now, if I were a hardcore rockstar (like I imagine myself to be in my head) these would be, what? Like oxycotin? Ecstasy? But no... these are kweech pills and Midol that I laid out to remind myself to take. Probably best that way anyway.

*****

Meanwhile, look what Schmooblebottoms emailed to me:

My very own office in the brand spanking new multi-million dollar Music Building at TAMUC! Look, I'm a grown up! Wheee!

I decorated a little bit in my head.

Brevard: Day Fifty

What in the flaming hell is up with my goddamn Blogger app not posting posts that I type up on my iPhone and making it seem like I skipped a day when I actually stayed up an extra precious ten minutes just to make (Pacific Standard Time) deadline?!?! GAAAH.

What-ever.

So yesterday I didn't do too much of consequence. But the good news is that I ended the day with a nighttime bonfire at the lakeside firepit complete with toasted marshmallows and two people with melodicas. The best part was when they started playing Weezer.

Brevard: Day Forty-nine (Go Niners!)

Good news: I have lots of pictures to post here.

Bad news: Not tonight, my friends. Sorry.

But here's a teaser:

Look! It's my cabin table! What the hell is all this crap on it?

Brevard: Day Forty-eight

This brief blog post is brought to you by copious amounts of chocolate and Midol. Mmm...Midol.

Is there anything in this life that brings me more joy than watching the blooper reels on my LOST DVDs? Maybe BB, but besides that... Anyway, I have officially reached the end of The Great LOST Summer Rewatch 2010 (sad face), which means that I have no choice now but to go back and watch all the DVD extras (happy face!). On the agenda tonight: a re-rewatch of The Pilot complete with audio commentary. That should do nicely to distract me from my Monthly Backache of Doom, I think.

Brevard: Day Forty-seven

I just had a lesson! From this gentleman! And it was great!

I need work on my finger technique. BUT WHAT ELSE IS NEW?? Blargh. And then on Wednesday, my quintet* is going to play the first movement of Maslanka's Wind Quintet No. 3 for the clarinet studio class. We are going to show the childrens how it's done, my friends.

In other news: it is like 99.99% humidity right now. In fact, I would venture to say that it is almost literally 99.99% humidity right now. It feels super and not at all disgustingly sticky.


* We are unofficial because it is comprised of myself and the other female Assistant Dean, Erin, on flute; two of our RAs, Casey and Matt C. on oboe and bassoon; and a student, Matt M. on horn. Casey and the two Matts are students and, therefore, members of other official chamber groups so we apparently have been nicknamed The Adulterous Quintet because Erin and I stole them from their other groups. HAHA. That's okay, though, because we are awesome. And the Maslanka is hard as balls.


UPDATED: Hooray for non-cafeteria Dean Dinner! Cale got some stressful news about work and needed a drink. I had a good lesson. Dan just had chamber rehearsal. And Erin and Michael are tall, beautiful, talented and in love. What better way to commemorate the day than with Deanner, am I right?! I also feel compelled to add that the consensus at thetable was that the waiter asked for our IDs because he thought I looked underage. HAHAH! Take that, Furrowed Left Brow Wrinkle of Doom! FOOOOLED YOU (That was for you, Cale). I win this round! And I will continue to slather you with nighttime moisturizing cream until you whither away and perish into smooth nothingness! Anyway.

Don't let the picture fool you, that margarita was the size of my head. And I promise we did actually order food after this picture was taken.

Brevard: Day Forty-six

BREAKTHROUGH!

I have been too tired/lazy/moody to post about this, but a few mornings ago, I had just come back on campus after doing laundry in town and decided to drop by French Quarter to make sure it was open while still carrying my laundry bag. I passed by Yoni the Angry Jew and said hello. Guess what happened? He said hi back...and then, because I assume he thought I was on my way to do laundry, offered to give me a ride into town. What a kind, normal and non-douchey thing to do, am I right? Anyway, I will count that as my greatest achievement this summer (no progress on The Diva front).

Random: I really need to stop furrowing my brow in deep concentration and/or judgment so much. I am developing a permanent brow wrinkle adjacent to my left (most active) eyebrow. Yargh.

Also, this afternoon I attended the high school orchestra concert (Wagner overtures and Beethoven 5) and picnicked (is that proper spelling?) on the lawn. It was good times, despite it being a zillion degrees out. At least we were in the shade.

Totally unrelated (actually, it is related, because I mentioned how a**-hot it was this afternoon): OH GOD. I THINK I SMELL LIKE B.O. Gaaah! Shun!!! *runs away from the general public*

Brevard: Day Forty-five

Agh, two lame blogging days in a row. But tomorrow, ok? I promise...maybe.

Watched our production of Pirates of Penzance this evening. So much fun! Geez, those opera singers may be obnoxious in real life but, man can they sing! Plus, I love Gilbert and Sullivan anyway.

And then we went down to the lakeside pavillion on campus where I "supervised" a firepit, s'mores and folk singing. Good times.

Oh, did I mention that I got woken up twice in the middle of the night last night because the wife of one of our production crew guys decided that it would be a good idea to call me because THEIR SMOKE DETECTOR KEPT CHIRPING. And she couldn't figure out that they needed to just take the batteries out. And that an Assistant Dean of Students is in no way shape or form obligated to help them with this extreeemely minor issue. And most especially not AT 3 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.

Blargh. Anyway. More tomorrow!


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Brevard: Day Forty-four

Yo. Way past deadline. But this still counts in California-time. Too bad because all I'm saying is it is sleepy-sleepy time. More tomorrow. Smell ya later.


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Brevard: Day Forty-three

BOOOP BOOOP BOOOP! Paranoia alert! This blog will be private until further notice (probably for like a week or so). If you can read this then I guess you are one of The Chosen Ones. How does that make you feel? Special and loved by me? Like Rib Shaped Meat?

Hey, remember that nighttime Smoke Monster critter I told you about? I took a video (in order to capture the audio) of what it's like right outside my cabin at night. Notice that it is pitch black. There could have been a sociopath hillbilly wearing a bear costume watching me videotape from behind some trees ready to pounce and I would not have had the slightest clue. Anyway. I HEAR YOU, SMOKEY!

Brevard: Day (4 8 15 16 23) Forty-two

Ah, nothing like a midday emotional breakdown, am I right?

Long story short, I woke up this morning in continuation with my thoughts yesterday, feeling as though I needed desperately to see different faces than the ones I've looked at everyday for the past six weeks and even more desperately to see lovely familiar faces from home.

And then I went to French Quarter to heat up a therapeutic mug of Star*ucks VIA (instant...meh) coffee and realized only too late that I had nuked the coffee and creamer for two minutes in the microwave WITHOUT ADDING ANY WATER FIRST and was faced with a mug lined with molten encrusted black coffee grounds and creamer and a big communal room that smelled like burnt coffee.

And then I went to the cafeteria to have lunch surrounded by the same aforementioned faces from the past six weeks in a big steamy hot un-airconditioned hall with sub-par food-ish items. And I was so cranky that I chose to bypass the longer line EVEN THOUGH IT WAS TO RIB SHAPED MEAT, PEOPLE.

And then I decided once and for all that I hated everyone and everything in my nearby vicinity so I called up Schmooblebottoms just so I could hear a warm non-irritating voice and when he said hello I (ugh) immediately started crying like a stupid little baby. And when he asked me if everything here was going okay and if anything was going wrong, all I could say was, "No, everything here is fine. Really. I'm just SO ANNOYED WITH EVERYBODY."

Bleh. Hormones are a real botch, seriously. But not as much as The Diva.


Addendum: So I locked myself in my cabin for the afternoon and cried some silly girl tears and attempted to take out my frustrations through my clarinet (not a good idea) then through sitting on my couch eating trail mix and watching Season 5 of LOST (VERY good idea). Note: I'm almost at the end of my Great Summer LOST Rewatch of 2010 and I still have over two weeks here! Gah! 

And then I had a late afternoon rehearsal with the new piece that my chamber group is premiering tomorrow that went better than anticipated followed by clarinet studio class in which I contributed some suggestions without sounding like a complete moron.

And then I drank some whiskey.

So now I feel a little better. Happy face :)
Happy face with open-mouth :D
Happy face with furrowed brow that will make me super paranoid about wrinkles now that I'm thirty ~:D

Brevard: Day Forty-one

I think I have officially hit the wall. As in, I AM SO READY TO GO HOME NOW.

As fun and inspirational and motivational and enriching this place is and continues to be, I miss:

1. my Schmoobeebla
2. my bed that I can climb in every night without first searching for potential deadly spiders snuggling under my blanket
3. delicious non-cafeteria food (cover your ears, Rib Shaped Meat, I don't mean you)
4. non-spotty cellphone service
5. trashy summer reality television (Big Brother! Top Chef! I lust for you!)
6. a vehicle.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I may be PMS-ing. Can you tell?

Anyway, I know I'll miss a lot about this place when it's time to go home (in precisely three weeks!) so I suppose I should try to enjoy these last remaining weeks as much as possible. But I'm cranky and hormonal so I'm going to be a betch instead.

Hey, speaking of betches:

Stalker pic of The Diva (she of the blue t-shirt and poorly bleached hair giant asterisk)!

* My dear mother who, as I have mentioned before, is a sweeter human being than me sent me a message reminding me to be kind and careful in my blog. So I have edited this photo a bit. Do you like? Haha.

Brevard: Day Forty

FORTY?! What what whaaaat?

Anyway.

1. I have a tummy ache and I kind of sort of feel like I am going to puke my brains out.* This is going to be brief. ps. Only this picture can lift my spirits:

2. Payday is less than four days away. It will be a time of rejoicing. But only kind of, as I found last payday. (*shakes fist* Taxesssss! Billssssss!! KHAAAAAAN!!!)

3. There is some kind of nocturnal creature here that sounds JUST like the Smoke Monster. Most people would be terrified, but whenever I hear it I get the warm fuzzies. I will try to post a sound clip later.


* And yet I type this post. For you.

Brevard: Day Thirty-Nine (*whispers*...and Thirty-eight)

Sooo. Two skipped days in over five weeks isn't bad, right? (Say "yes, ma'am" or I will kick you in the shins.) Anyway, nothing too eventful yesterday except that spent the earlier part of the day registering 2nd session students (all, like, ten of them) and then Dan and I went back to Asheville to check out a music supply store there (which, incidentally, had my reeds of choice there for a very good price - which is a rarity outside of the Intarwebs - only they didn't have the size I play on in stock. Boo hiss.) and then we stopped at Poppies - which is like a compact version of Whole Foods and is GLORIOUS when you've been eating cafeteria meals full of mystery meats and unseasoned watery vegetables for nearly six weeks - where I spent more money than I wanted or expected to* (Budget: $20. Actual: $40. d'oh!) and then I stayed in my cabin and watched LOST on my laptop for the rest of the evening before falling asleep. I didn't go into French Quarter to supervise any drunken college childrens. It was neat.

Anyway, now I am awake at the ungodly hour of Before 10:00 am O'Clock to take care of some very quick Dean-y business that had to happen before 8am and, as a result, I will now go reward myself with heaps of cafeteria bacon because I am actually awake during breakfast hours for once. Huzzah!

* Upon inspection of the receipt post fact, I learned that I apparently spent $2.40 on like eight freaking olives at the olive bar. Not a jar of olives. Not eight ounces of olives. Eight. Olives. Those olives had better make a damned excellent martini later as they were bought at a ridiculously high price expressly for that purpose.


UPDATE 8:09am - WTF. Continental breakfast?? No bacon?? Oh for crying out loud... Note to self: Never wake up before 8am for breakfast in the cafeteria ever again. Angry face >:(

UPDATE 11:30am - Aaaaaah. Brunch at 10:30. Bacon, eggs and tater tots in mah belleh. All is well again.

Brevard: Day Thirty-seven

Oh. Mah. Gawh.

Most traumatic toilet-related incident of my summer happened this evening. Can't talk about it now as I am too busy willing the slowly rising bile in my throat to recede back down. Also had a few bites of raspberry sorbet off campus and, subsequently, now have heartburn which is not helping the rising-bile situation. Mergh. More tomorrow. Off to wash the (hopefully) imaginary filth away with scalding hot water and a scouring pad. IF ONLY IT COULD WASH MY MEMORY AWAY!!!


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Brevard: Day Thirty-six

Do you know what kind of conversation you overhear four men having while sitting around a table at a music program? The kind that starts like this:

"Ugh. 500 hundred calories of chocolate."

"C'mon man. You deserve it."

*sigh* Opera singers.

Brevard: Day Thirty-Five

Dear blahg,

Today I played 4th clarinet in the high school band for their concert because they asked and I said yes. 1) I was still the shortest person in the section (damnit) and 2) I totally miscounted my rests and came in like two measures early. *sigh* But is was still good times.

The end.

Lust,

Ysabel

ps. I'm fully engrossed in Season 4 of LOST at the moment and - while that season kind of felt like a jumbled troubling mess in real time - it is TOTALLY AWESOME to watch in retrospect. Case in point: remember this scene of Hurley and Ben silently sharing an Apollo bar while Locke goes into the creepy Jacob's cabin? Total foreshadowing of future Number 1 and Number 2! Way cool.



BTW, I'm already preparing myself emotionally for when the freighter blows up and we think that Jin blew up along with it and I was totally sadz for like 6 months after.

Brevard: Day Thirty-four

1. Happy Birthday to my Schmooblebonbons! Oh, that 'twere possible to mail a giant box of Rib Shaped Meat with a pretty bow wrapped around it!

2. I got a call from one of our composition students today asking if I would be willing to play in a piece he wrote (clarinet and string quartet) for the composition recital next week. I said yes, mainly in the hopes that he will one day become a famous and wealthy composer who will shower me with gold dubloons. Or at least that I can someday say, "I once premiered a clarinet quintet of __________ back when he was just an aspiring composer."

3. It is gray and rainy again today. An umbrella would be a nice thing to own right about now, I think.

4. Last Friday (not coincidentally, payday) I went to the town liquor store to buy four bottles of espresso-infused vodka (No, not all for me, sicko. One for me, one for Schmoobles, one for my mommeh and one for my sister) except THEY WERE SOLD OUT. Sad day! Sad day for everyone! But apparently they will be restocking on their next truck shipment which happens to be...our next payday. I'll take that as a sign :)

Brevard: Day Thirty-three

Rainy and gloomy today: Laundry day it is! Which means a couple of hours away from campus...and a couple hours with non-sketchy wifi and coffee!

The Diva UPDATE: A few days ago I was walking to a morning rehearsal with the high school band (Did I mention that I am sitting in the clarinet section of the high school band for one piece to help out? It is not at all a blow to my self-esteem to be sitting in an ensemble of minors who could all play better than me when I was already in college...) and I noticed Reilly about fifty yards ahead walking towards me on the other side of the road. So, naturally, I crossed the road on purpose just to facilitate a possible (fingers crossed!) actual encounter with her. As we neared each other, I put on my best cheery morning greeting face (Do you even know how difficult that is for me in the morning before any coffee?? Do you see how much of an effort I'm putting into this, Reilly??) and was greeted with...NOTHING. But by "nothing" I mean the bitchiest most steely glare. I was actually so impressed that I started laughing before I even fully passed her. Which, in retrospect, probably just made her think that I was a psychotic loon, but it's not like I care. Anyway. The quest continues.

Super Happy Fun Picture Time!

Why do I always whip out my iPhone to take covert pictures in the cafeteria when I'm sitting across from Misha the Russian Monopoly Playa at lunch? Anyway, yes that is his shoulder again in the foreground. But do you know whose right profile that is in the center of the photo wearing the blue t-shirt? Why, that would be Keith Lockhart! Musical Director of the the Utah Symphony Orchestra, The Boston Pops and the BMC Orchestra. Also, future love slave of Sarah L. Woot!

Sarah, I apologize for bringing this up, but he and his wife just had a baby. He even went up to our table about a minute after I took this photo to say hello and introduce his little girl. I may or may not have joked that I wanted to pop off her toes and eat them (complete with "popping" sound effect).

So right above Cale's porch on his overhang, a bird decided to make a nest for her little birdie babies and they hatched! Now there are three little baby birdies living above his porch! There's the momma in the nest and one of the baby heads peeking up on the right. So cute.

What is not so cute is this mess of bird turds (burds?) directly underneath the nest on his porch. This is clearly a no-standing zone.

I own an iPhone camera, therefore I judge. For example: Oy! The mixture of pinks on this lady! A dusty rose salmon tank top paired with 80s neon pink shorts?? Gross.

And in What The Eff Do They Have At The Grocery Store in the South THIS Time?? news: Pre-boiled and peeled eggs in a bag. You guys. (And somewhere out there Sandra Lee is creaming her panties.)

So Dan and I went to celebrate payday in Asheville last Friday. The first photo-worthy landmark? The Hotdog King! I would like to meet this Hotdog King. And then I would like to have his babies. And then eat them with mustard and relish. Whoa, this got way weird way too quickly.

Have you ever wondered what the first meal you would buy would be if you had been eating cafeteria food for four weeks straight and then suddenly got a direct deposit paycheck in your bank account? Well, wonder no more. The answer is a slice of creamy gruyere, bacon and sun-dried tomato quiche (pronounced "kweech" for a fun little nickname for ladyparts if you want to gross out your friend Dan). The subsequent poisoning is most definitely worth it.

And then for lunch you will meet up with some friends of a friend at a Thai restaurant where they serve you a Coke with a cute little straw wrapper decoration.

And then you will order some Mussamun curry. Yoink.

Here is a beautiful Catholic basilica in Asheville. Dan damn near ordered me to take a picture of it because it is a pretty building and because I am Catholic.

We went back to Double D's so I could get this mug for Schmooblebuns. I wasn't kidding when I said I was going to get him one of these for a gift. Felicitously enough, tomorrow is his birthday! And I may or may not have written on the box: "Sorry I can't provide you with the real thing, but this will have to do." HA

And then a group of us went for an afternoon hike on Saturday. WHOSE BRIGHT IDEA WAS IT TO HIKE FOR FOUR GODDAMN HOURS IN THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS IN THE DEAD OF SUMMER IN THE AFTERNOON?? A hike that is virtually straight uphill the entire way. Anyway, here we are at the trail head. You know, before our bodies had gotten beaten up and before we had each sweated about ten pounds off our bodies. From the left: Sara, cellist from Boston; Stephanie, violinist from Florida; Dan, tubist from Michigan; Jessica, violinist from Maryland. Notice that the trail we hiked is called "Looking Glass Rock." Incidentally, the name of the DHARMA station where Chaaahlie died (*sigh*) was the Looking Glass station. I tried to make a LOST reference during the hike and nobody got it. I was sadz.

Note: About two hours in (when I wanted to just throw myself off a cliff), we passed by a nice older gentleman (okay, he was a hillbilly...but not a psychotic one) walking down the trail with two dogs. He tried to give us some encouragement saying, "Well, about fifteen minutes further up you'll find yourself at a nice cool stream. You can sit in it and cool yourselves off. It'll feel real nice." So we were like, "Awesome! Yes please!" And then about fifteen minutes later we came across this. And I was like, "Haha, what if this was the stream that guy was talking about? Wouldn't that be funny?" YOU GUYS, this was what he was talking about. It was the equivalent of a DHARMA polar bear hiding behind the bushes peeing and we could see the tiny little stream of piss trickling through the rocks. Well, thanks for the false hope anyway, old man.

Ah! But two and a half hours after starting our trek, we were rewarded with this view of the top of the Appalachian mountains.

The top of the trail just shoots you out to this rock overlook that is awesome. You can see the mountains for miles. We saw some hawks flying underneath us. We had hiked so far up that we were above where the hawks flew. It was all so satisfying and beautiful that it almost made me not want to throw myself over the rock ledge at the prospect of climbing back down the mountain. Also worth noting: We broke for snack/lunch time at the top and when I finished eating my apple, I decided that I wanted to throw it off the side of the mountain (you know, a nice present for a bear or something). I also decided that I wanted to take a picture of my apple core flying in midair above the mountains (don't ask, it's how my brain works). Anyway, if you've ever wondered what would happen if you ever tried to stand at the top of a mountain and coordinate a simultaneous throw-an-apple-with-one-hand and take-a-picture-with-the-other-hand maneuver, what will happen is that your brain will suddenly freak out and envision you falling forward as you throw the apple and meeting your untimely death over the side of a mountain and you body will instinctively lock up as the apple core flies straight upwards instead of out and you will yell, "OH, SH**!" as the apple lands about two feet in front of you much to the amusement of your hiking buddies.

Up there at the top were a few other people and their dogs. Look at the pretty doggies! One was a husky named Bruiser and the other was some kind of husky-German Shepherd mix, I'm guessing.

Look at the cool mix! Kristina, doesn't he look like a combination of Xander and Rebecca?

And the musicians shall overcome the mountain victoriously! Look at how normal-sized I look in the picture. Way to go, scarily sharply-angled rocky ledge! In reality, Stephanie (in the pink tank top right next to me) is about the same height as me, and the other three are probably all at least six inches taller or more.

Another shot, just because. I mean seriously. I hiked for over four hours that day. I deserve an icy cold dirty vodka martini for that. Also: I should mention that at least one of my fellow hikemates is a very sweet and very conservative young lady who may have been horrified at some of my during-hike commentary ("My ass had better be significantly higher and tighter by the time this is all done!!")

Funny story: So there the five of us are, four hours of grueling hiking later and we are back at the bottom of the mountain. I mean, LITERALLY, we were about thirty feet from the parking lot and I could see the sign at the trail head. And that is when my body decides to take a wrong step and I twisted my ankle. Go figure. I think even this worm was laughing at me.