Continuing in the theme of things one should do when one is sad, we went geocaching yesterday afternoon.
The cache we picked skirts the West Newbury/Groveland/Byfield border and had been in our sites for months. We'd been to this area before with Michael and Jon, I think back in June of 2003 or whenever it was we did a different cache in that exact area. We parked where we knew it would be a dry walk in, but should have parked where our hearts told us to because it was virtually bone dry on the trails. By parking where we did, we added nearly 2 miles to the hike. Which was good because you know we need the exercise, but it sucked because it was just a mother-humping longassed hike and I wanted to do more caching and not do a five mile walk for one notch in my belt (by the way, we're up to 420 found, thank you very much).
As we've learned here in the past, there is the right way, the wrong way and the Team Screamapillar, I mean, the Max Power way. And we definitely did it the Max Power way. We always seem to do it the Max Power way, don't we? Perhaps we should change our team name to Max Power Team or something.
It was really good to be out and hike and take care of getting this one out of our cleared radius. Before it rains again and we can't go anywhere near it. Jack needed the long walk and the good swim. The entire time we were out there I thought of how this one would have crippled Kinger for the next entire week if he had been with us, and realized that I never would have done this one with him anyway. It would have been way too much on his knees.
My life feels a little more liberated now that he's not with us. I can go on more caches in a day if I want to, and not have to worry about things being more than two miles, because the dog would suffer. Jack can go 100 miles without stopping, and now I have no excuse not to.
Geoff was up butt early this morning, and we spent a bunch of time working on Achievement number 3 for the bear trail for cub scouts. Why America is a nice place. He had to research a state (Rhode Island) color their flag, write a paragraph on why America is great ("Because we're better than Canada!" he says to me. Where does he get this? Surely from the Simpsons... not from me, right?) and we had to discuss what service to your country means, and not just the military kind of service. So we talked about volunteerism, the Hurricane Relief stuff, the fact the trash men come around and collect our barrels. And he had to tell me three things that he does which help our community.
All told, it was a fun thing to do this morning, and it got him off the topic of space aliens. Which is good. I'm so sick of space freaking aliens.
I have had other thoughts and things I've wanted to write about, but the whole Kinger fiasco has clouded my thoughts and feelings. Chief among them, and growing out of a discussion I had with Big Bad Bobby K on the phone this week is how I'm feeling about my parents moving.
His parents moved away from our home town a few years ago, and he shared a lot of his feelings from that moment, and it helped me a lot to talk to him and really put them into perspective.
They're leaving, and now, I've left for good. Even though I left when I was 17, I am now leaving for good. When home isn't there anymore... you've been left with no opportunity to go back and have it be "home." Now, it's just another place that is a part of your past.
If I want to go to NY for any reason, I no longer have a free place to crash. There are far too many of us to crash at Tree & R's place.
And aside from Tree and R, what reason would I have to go back there. My parents are leaving my childhood residence, and my hometown, and there is nothing there (aside from my sister) for me anymore.
Not that this is much of a giant shock. Really. I left there when I was 17 to go to college and didn't go back. I got married at 24. I had my own life, my home, my existence in another state. But it was always there for me to go back and visit.
There are some memorable things about the place my parents are leaving, the place where I grew up. I'm feeling a twinge of loss as they're getting ready to go. And I think I understand how my dad must be feeling. I've lived a lot of great places. He's lived in the same town for like 60 years. I can't quite imagine that kind of root system, that kind of familiarity, and that kind of harvest of thoughts, feelings and memories when picking up to leave and move on.
You'll notice lately in my journal, there is a great sense of loss going on. I don't like that. I want to go back to bitching about the jackasses in front of me on my commute. Can I please do that, Universe? Will you cut me a break and give me some berk from Indiana going 20 in a 45 zone tomorrow morning so I can have my head explode and get back to soem semblance of normal?
Thanks.
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