When Hobbi Drowned the Cat

Our new kitten, Cameo, has fleas. This horrifying discovery was made by Pippin yesterday. Today Hobbi took it upon herself to rid poor Cameo of her tormentors.

She had a good motive, but alas, knows nothing about bathing animals. She also did not take stock of our supplies. We have no shampoo, no flea comb, and no flea collar. Thus, no way to properly wash her, no way to remove any fleas we found, and no way to keep her flea-less once she's been cleansed.

Regardless of all these things, and many others, Hobbi proceeded to shove the kitten into the sink, douse her thoroughly, and scrub her with a new toothbrush.

This did nothing but aggravate poor Cameo, who is no longer speaking to us.

Hopefully tomorrow we shall give her a better version of a bath, but I fear Cameo has been taught to fear water and shall never forgive us for this trespass against her.

Camping

I am not an outdoorsy sort of person. I'm just not. I don't like heat or humidity, I don't like cold and damp, I don't like dirt, I don't like mud, and I especially don't like bugs. *shudder* You could say I've been domesticated, if you like.

We went camping last week.

I didn't want to go. (See above paragraph as to why. Also, it was likely to rain on top of that all.) Like I said, I've been thoroughly domesticated. I don't like tents, they always smell funny and I inevitably end up sleeping on a rock about the size of my foot. I also don't like setting up, as it takes hoooouuuurs, or leave-taking, which takes even longer then the setup.

Nevertheless, being the guest of my aunt and uncle and not wanting to make myself a burden I held my tongue and helped pack. We packed and packed an packed. Now me, I'm a purist. If I am going to be forced to go camping, I will do it right!  That is to say, you take a sleeping bag, a skillet, a fishingpole and hook, a jackknife, and, if you're really a wimp, you'll take bug spray and a tarp. Hot-dogs and marshmallows are traditional, so you can take those too without being branded a softy. Usually. Oh yeah, and don't forget the coffee. Never forget the coffee.

We, however, packed everything and the kitchen sink, and we even packed the bathroom sink too, just to be absolutely sure we weren't missing anything,ya know? I was growing more and more worried as the time wore on. How would we fit it all into the van? It turns out we didn't have to. We fit it in a trailer instead. that really grated on my purist nerves, but I put on a brave face and said nothing as we packed things into the trailer.

Then, when everything, including the bathroom sink, was strapped in and tied down, off we went on a two-and-a-half-hour drive to reach the camping site.

Let me just interject something here. I, being the purist I am, have a conviction against camping sites. If you're gonna go camping, go ALL THE WAY and camp out in the virgin wilderness. Campsites are for babies. I also have a conviction against campers, but I'll bet you already guessed that. Ain't no-body gonna haul their precious ten-million dollar, air-conditioned, wi-fi equiped camper out into the wilds. It might get scratched.

This was the campsite. Isn't it pretty? All green, all leafy and most importantly, all the poison ivy was on the other side of the path. This cheered me up immensely. I have only once had an encounter with poison ivy, and it was when I was five. I don't remember it that well, but one of my cousins recently had it ALL OVER her face. It has become my goal in life never to let poison ivy near my person. 

This was the path leading to the boy's campsite. They had to have their own because they didn't want to hang out with the girls. I'm pretty sure they spent the time complaining about how much stuff we brought. 

We settled in, and I was surprised at how not-miserable I was. Before leaving the safety of the dry, air-conditioned vehicle I had sprayed myself all over with my peppermint water. It has originally been only for my hair, but it has come to my attention that most bloodthirsty insects detest peppermint. Added to it's insect-repelling qualities, peppermint water does not smell like bug spray. Or taste like it.

 Two of my aunts and two of my cousins began supper preparations at once, while the rest of us set up camp and fetched and carried. I was a fetcher-and-carrier because I am exceedingly useless when it comes to setting up tents. I am too short for one, and for another I can't make heads or tails of all the random pieces of canvas, metal rods, or nylon rope. It is my firm belief that modern tents defy both logic and gravity. How they manage to remain upright, especially when missing several pieces, is a mystery to me. 

Once camp was set up we sat down around the campfire to feast. Now, being a purist, I would have probably have brought a package of hotdogs and left it at that and we would have starved. Fortunately, my aunts are not purists and they grilled shish kebabs, made potato salad, and cut up a massive watermelon. It was divine. One misses things when one is a purist, it seems.

After eating, we went on a walk to explore. 

Aunt Reggie told me these are mountain laurels. There were hundreds of these flowering buses everywhere. It was lovely.

This here is the Pennsylvania grand canyon.

I will admit that I was extremely disappointed at how small it was, but it was PA after all, and it was quite pretty whatever the size. 

When we returned to the campsite we made smores with dark chocolate and it was very fine. After that we sat around the fire and talked (or in my case, read) until it was dark, when we did what campers traditionally do around a campfire at night. We sang songs. We sang "The Little Brown Church in the Vale" and "Shenandoah" and "Goodbye Old Paint" and "To God be the Glory." My uncles taught me the tune "Beautiful Dreamer" so I could play it on my recorder. My relatives on my Excellent Mother's side all sing in parts, and it sounded very grand indeed. (I cannot sing parts, which is extremely frustrating.)

Then we went to bed, and since it was dark and we had two flashlights among the sixteen of us, this was slightly problematic. We girls were getting settled in our tent, arranging bedding, situating backpacks and washing feet, when we suddenly heard Uncle Elon cry out, "I feel a lump!" Very loudly. (In his defense the ground was very hard and lumpy and sleeping bags are not much good at saving your back.) All six of us girls burst out laughing, which inflated his ego and he spent the next hour calling out about how hard and painful the ground was. By the time the hour was up we felt so well acquainted with the lump that we named it Gerald and asked Uncle Elon to stop squashing it. 

The next morning we had a wonderful breakfast of potatoes and sausages and watermelon, which would have been a wonderful breakfast of potatoes, sausages, watermelon and scrambled eggs, but the eggs were tipped into the fire on accident and we spent the rest of our breakfast mourning them. Also there was coffee. It was the sort of breakfast, which I, as a purist, would not have been able to enjoy if I'd been the one to pack. 

All in all I quite enjoyed camping and am actually looking forward to doing it again. And that's coming from a thoroughly domesticated miss!