The weekend, part 1

I'm making it short this morning. Turning over a new leaf and focus focus focus at work. What a concept.

Let's see, I'll talk about the climbing later. You all wanted to know how it went with the ex-b? Fine and dandy. I arrived at his house around 8 am and got to meet his wife, who is of course very nice. It's still odd to think of him being married.

But, we had a good time. It helps that I haven't seen him in at least 7-8 years. It's so odd to think of that. I have in my climbing book notes on every climb I've done, and the ones with him are from 1999! He wanted to do some of those, and not sure how many we did.

One thing that's great is he's a big birder. So, any noise and I could ask what it was. Only one he didn't know. I swear, it was a weekend of wildlife - birds alone at least 10 different kinds: red tail hawk, peregrine falcon (way cool), turkey vulture, wood thrush, osprey, wren, robin, 2 different woodpeckers at least, sparrow, etc. And we saw two snakes - garter and black racer. I screamed at the black racer since it was crossing the path in front of us. That is my wont. And there were the ever present chiggers, alas. At least 5 in my crotch area - sucks to have to squat to pee.

And then there was the human wildlife. The campground owner, Bill, who is a yack-er. But really nice guy. The squirrel and his favorite tree. The people at the bottom of climbs and their conversations and observations. One dude gets down off rappel and immediately lights up his joint. Then he's yacking with his friend as they are packing up about this woman he's dating or at least had sex with once, who lets her 4 dogs stay in her bed. He left at 1:30 am one time and gets a text from her that she wanted to cuddle. But apparently the dogs were licking his ears and there was no space. I'd leave too! And the guy who remarks about the calls of the wildlife in climbing areas: "on belay!" "off rappel!" "climbing!"

My ride home. Well, imagine a dollar sign. The straight line is the way to go with no traffic. The curvy parts around it is how you go when there's traffic. I went all curvy. Lonnnnnng ride. But made it back.

OK, smoking break is over. Gotta go work.