Newly-minted NRA member?

In response to Wendy's post on working on a Saturday I've decided to regale you all with the story of my own lovely weekend... not because I want to rub it in your face but because I want to shower you with a little sunshine and goodness :)


This weekend my parents and I went to visit friends of ours who have a house 2.5 hours north of New York City smack dab in the middle of nowhere. They have a son about my age who I've known for most of my life, so I decided to go - instead of staying at home and watching youtube videos. Anyway we arrived at their place at around noon and it was a beautiful day so my friend decided to show me around the huge property on which their house is built. We first walked down to this little creek that runs along the entire perimeter of the land and sat down on some rocks. Sitting there by the little creek with nothing but trees and birds and my bare feet skimming along the water - I realized that summer had officially begun. On the one hand this sorta sucks since I now have even less time to finish my thesis paper, but its also nice since summer in NY means plenty of camping, hiking, and kayaking.

Anyway my friend and I spent the entire day biking and hiking around the woods and saw all sorts of lovely things that sound cheesy when written down - the trickling of the hidden waterfall lying behind a copse of trees, the frolicking of deer, rabbits, groundhogs, and raccoons. At one point my friend took me to this beautiful lake and showed me how to fish. Surprisingly it wasn't boring at all, although I kept expecting the boxcar children to show up or maybe even Lassie. Since I didn't catch anything I don't think that I was much good though something tells me that thats not the point. The entire time I kept asking my friend "what he gets from fishing", I guess I wanted to hear an answer soliloquizing on the merits of solitude and the beauty of nature but he said something along the lines of "It's exciting when you catch something." Sigh

At one point we were walking along an edge of property that bordered along theirs and he pointed out a teeny tiny house whose owners hadn't been home for a while. This time however, the door of the house as far as we could see was open. At this point all of the fresh air had damaged my brain and I suggested that we go explore this house only slightly bigger than a garden shed. When we reached the door and peeked in we realized almost at once that the house must have been deserted for a long time. The entire thing had only two small rooms, a bedroom and a kitchen with a door separating the two. There was a musty smell characteristic of a thrift store or an indoor garage sale. There were shabby dolls lying on the old wooden bunk beds and a decade old box of Scrabble that we had to look at up close to recognize. Interestingly, the one thing that didn't look ancient was a picture posted on the refrigerator that was obviously drawn by a small child. It was a picture drawn for Mother's Day and had all of the requisite smiling stick figures and red balloons. The picture was dated 1992, yet it had not even started to yellow and the colors were crystal clear. All in all it was an interesting little anachronism which made the house that much more spooky. We found two swiss army knives, a box of UNO cards, and some jacks - and since no one else was gonna miss them decided to take them with us. :)

So that was my weekend, however before I finish, I want to explain the title of this post. I leave it for last because I am ashamed and my liberal guilt is acting up. A weekend of hiking, biking, fishing, and trespassing is not complete without....shooting. That's right, my friend has a nice little collection of rifles, pistols, and air guns that he loves to play with and I spent a few hours shooting at targets in the backyard. By targets I mean cans and bottles - I draw the line at hunting for sport. I wonder if this means that my membership within the Democratic Party will be revoked and I'll have Dick Cheney knocking at my door asking for hunting advice? Hmm, well I'll deal with that when the time comes.