Sort of like s'mores, I guess...

Last night I attended a potluck/bonfire/Bye, Have A Nice Time Hiking the Appalachian Trail party for a girl I work with at my second job. It was a lovely evening with good company and mostly standard potluck fare. I brought fresh beer bread. Heather brought hot dogs and buns. Sarah provided the bonfire and chips n' dip. Mike brought a dead rabbit he had shot that afternoon from his back porch with a 9mm handgun. ("It was the first gun I grabbed, ya.") He skinned it, cut it into parts, skewered said parts on sticks, and we roasted them over the fire. There was no dessert.

Things I wanted to buy today that the grocery store does not sell:

1) Tom's of Maine natural deodorant. No, I do not want Lady Speed Stick.

2)Those delicious Cadbury candy-shelled milk chocolate Easter eggs. No, I absolutely do not want Brach's brand substitute.

Things the grocery does sell that I do not want:

1)Everything in the unrefrigerated "reduced for quick sale" meat bin. Just no.

Square Dances with Wolves

A couple weekends ago two of my good friends came up from the cities to visit for the weekend. I cannot stress enough how much of a good time this was. Delicious meals! Saunas! Rampaging on toboggans down sledding hills stuffed with 7 year olds! However, I would say my personal highlight of the weekend was the "square dance" I talked them into attending with me. It was held in a town about an hour south of Ely that's so small it's not actually incorporated, and is more like a clump of people living in the woods very far away from any other towns. We put on our dancing shoes. We found directions to a town that Google says doesn't exist. We showed up. We started square dancing. We gradually realized that it was not the open-to-the-public square dance I had thought it was, but was actually a retirement party/dance for a woman none of us knew. "Standing out" doesn't quite do justice to what we were doing there. It took me longer to come around to this realization than my friends, which was embarrassing for a couple reasons. Namely, it made me realize that my social life is such that I can no longer tell the difference between gate-crashing a retirement party and a typical Saturday night (actually an above-average Saturday night).
Not to be stopped, we had a great time. We danced many polkas. We waltzed with elderly men in suspenders. We took home commemorative Smokey the Bear teaspoons shaped like shovels as party favors (I actually took two- ask me about them some time). We exchanged warm goodbyes and congratulations with the women whose party it was.
And, best of all, while driving home an enormous white wolf crossed the road in front of us, then stood majestically on the side of the road for a few moments while we slammed on the brakes and shrieked and backed up for a better look and just generally freaked out. Best Saturday ever?

Classifieds Selections 3/6

--Wanted: electric meat grinder. Have poor teeth. Will pick up.

--Stag Party! For Terry Kerntz! Saturday, At His House.
(this was literally the entire ad)

--WANTED: Handgun, what have you? Call ---_----. Please leave message if not home.

T-shirt at Saturday's bluegrass show

"Exercise your right to burn my flag, and I'll exercise my right to break your face."
Naturally with the stars and stripes waving behind the words. He finished off the look with a skeevy blond mustache, backwards snowmobiling hat, and a PBR tallboy in each hand.

What this gentleman was actually doing was exercising his right to dance the hell out of the banjo numbers, with lots of knee-jerking and upside down arm-pumping and kicking up of heels. So mostly exercising the right to exercise, I guess.