Never fear, we’ve returned, better than ever.

This week, we have to thank John Tesh, local radio show host, for supplying us with the inspiration for this blog post. He shared a news item about psychologists administering personality tests to their patients in order to better understand their mental state and to treat them more effectively. With that in mind, we’ve developed our own personality test, so that you can learn a little bit more about us, and draw your own conclusions about our mental state.

Question #1:

It’s finally here–the Zombie Apocalypse! You must make a decision; let the zombies destroy you and eat your brains or let them turn you and join the ranks of the flesh-eating undead. What do you do?

Katrina: Become a zombie. Zombies are super trendy right now. Plus I have a bit of a destructive streak that I’m rarely allowed to exercise. As a zombie, that sort of wanton destruction would be completely socially acceptable.

Heather: Let the zombies destroy me!  I don’t want to contribute to the madness.  On that note, we discuss a lot how we would want t be prepared if we were to be eaten by things such as zombies or cannibals.  So if the zombies were able to comprehend this, I would want to be made into a pot pie.  A Heather Pot Pie.  Bon appetit!

Question #2:

You’ve met him, the love of your life, and he’s…A VAMPIRE! (Are you sensing a theme here? We’re sort of into the undead at the moment.) Do you become a vampire too and live together FOREVER, knowing that you will have to drink the blood of innocents, or choose mortality and waste away in front of him, while he stays young and beautiful and people begin to gossip about the inappropriate age gap?

Katrina: Become a vampire, definitely. However, I would like to be allowed several months to get into really good shape before being “turned.” From what I understand of vampire myth, you are trapped forever in the body that you are turned in, so I’d want to  be free of all my jiggly parts.

Heather: Become a vampire, for sure.  I would make it very clear though, that I would not be living together forever with this other vampire.  There are very few people I can tolerate for a long period of time, let alone forever.  Also, being a vampire might be an appropriate time to bust out my old goth clothes!

Question #3:

A freak accident has left you in a coma for a year but doctors assure your family that you are not brain-dead and can still “hear.” You can still learn in this state. What would you want to listen to?

Katrina: If there were some sort of GRE prep book on tape I would like to have that played for an hour or two a day. Short of that, if somebody could just read me the dictionary, that would really help in improving my GRE vocabulary. I would also like to have basic Japanese language CDs and slightly more advanced Spanish language CDs played every other day or so. Some of the longer Russian classics, like “War and Peace” or “Crime and Punishment,” just to get them out of the way. If they make those “Idiot’s Guides” on tape I’d like to go through the wholes series, picking up as much useless knowledge as possible. And finally, NPR webcasts episodes of “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me,” I’d like to listen to that on Saturdays.

Heather: I would want to be surrounded by Spanish speakers.  If someone could get their hands on literally every single classical ballet “soundtrack,” and really any music from the ballet/modern/jazz genres and play those daily, that would be great.  I would like to be read to every day, I’m not going to be picky about what, just no chick-lit please.  The news paper needs to be included in the reading aloud thing too though, I don’t want to wake up and have some kind of era crisis like that guy from Blast From The Past.  Similarly to Katrina, I would also like NPR webcast episodes to be played, but of “Radio Lab.”  Maybe to make it easier on you folks, Katrina and I will just try and go brain-dead at the same time…

(1) Who was the first person to eat a chicken egg? How did they prepare it?

No one seems to know. A Google search turned up a somewhat funny story of an ancient tribesman who mistook a chicken egg for a snail and cracked it open looking for the snail meat inside. Unfortunately, I don’t think this story is true.

There is archaeological evidence to suggest that humans have been consuming eggs since the Neolithic era.

(2) Speaking of chickens, why do we have an Easter bunny? Why not an Easter chicken? It would make more sense.

Pirated directly from the internet :

The original Easter Bunny myth comes from a pagan holiday which was celebrated on the Vernal Equinox. According to Pagan legend Ostara, the goddess of spring, turned a bird into a rabbit. The rabbit was supposedly able to fly as fast as the bird could fly, but it was still disappointed that it was a rabbit and not a bird. Ostara had pity on the creature, and one day out of every year, on the Vernal Equinox, she allowed the rabbit to lay eggs like a bird. Due to the proximity of Easter and the Vernal Equinox, converted pagans continued to associate the myth with their new holiday, and the idea has been passed down ever since.

(3) Why is it that left handed people are called “southpaws” but righties are not called “northpaws?”

From Wikipedia:

The term southpaw to describe a left handed person seems to have its origins in baseball lingo. Ballparks are often designed so that batters are facing east, so that the afternoon or evening sun does not shine in their eyes. This means that left-handed pitchers  are throwing with their south-side arm.

As to why we don’t call right handed people northpaws, I really couldn’t say.

(4) How does wireless internet work?

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/wireless-network1.htm

The above links to a very good article explaining the “science” of wifi. I still don’t understand it, but hey, you can’t win ‘em all, right?

(5) Who figured out that the sap of a maple tree could be turned into syrup?

Stolen from the website of the Massachusetts Maple Producers Association:

Maple sugaring was not new to Massachusetts when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. The Native American Indians had been making sugar from the sweet sap of the maple tree for many years. From the journals of early explorers we know that the Native American Indians had a process for making maple sugar as early as 1609. There are many Indian legends about how maple sugar was first discovered. One Iroquois legend tells how Chief Woksis had thrown his tomahawk into a maple tree one late winter evening. After he removed it the following morning, the weather turned sunny and warm. Sap began to flow from the cut in the tree, and drip down into a container which was at the base of the tree. Chief Woksis’s squaw used the sap to boil the meat for dinner. As the water in the sap boiled away, a wonderful, sweet maple taste was left with the meat.

(6) Why do we use light bulbs in cartoons to symbolize a good idea? Is it because light bulbs are bright, like a bright idea? The sun is bright…

There are several competing theories on the origin of the light bulb trope. My favorite theory hypothesizes that the use of the light bulb to symbolize an idea was developed in reference to Thomas Edison having a great idea about something.

(7) Why don’t cats like water?  Along those lines, are big cats afraid of water too? We’re talking lions, tigers, panthers, etc.

It seems certain cats don’t like water because it becomes trapped in their fur and interferes with their ability to warm themselves in cool water. However, certain breeds of house cat such as the Bengal and Turkish Van are largely hydrophilic (water loving), possibly because those breeds originated in areas where they were forced to swim in order to find food.

In the big cat family, tigers, leopards and lions (cats from warmer climate zones) are known to like water, whereas big cats from colder climates tend to shy away from it, as water interferes with their thick layers of insulating fur.

(8) Will N’Sync ever get back together?

TMZ, that bastion of American journalistic excellence, reported in November 2011 that N’Sync will NEVER reunite. Former N’Syncer JC Chasez is quoted as having said, “We’re all done with that. Completely done.” Sorry ladies.

(9) Are the following jobs are real or just employment urban legend?

-Video game tester

-Ice cream flavor inventor

-Nail polish color namer

-Butt double (in the movies)

The simple answer to this question is yes, all of these jobs do actually exist. As to how one breaks into these industries, I couldn’t really say.

(10) What does one call a person from New Hampshire? Vermont? Connecticut? Most of the New England states really…

NH = New Hampshirite, Granite Boy (I’m skeptical of this one, but hey, the internet never lies), New Hampshireman

VT = Vermonter

CT = Connecticuter, Connecticutensian, Connecticotian

(11) Who sanctioned “National High Five Day?” Who sanctions any of those wacky holidays?

Much like the answer to the age old question “How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop?”: The world may never know.

(12) What do dog biscuits taste like to a dog?

I’ll admit it, I tried one of my dog’s biscuits once. I just wondered why he went so crazy over them. I still don’t know. It tasted like cardboard to me. No one could tell me what a dog biscuit tastes like to a dog, but it does seem that a dog’s sense of taste is much less sensitive than that of a human’s so maybe all foods just taste the same to them.

(13) Could Twinkies really survive a nuclear holocaust?

No. That seems fairly obvious in hindsight.

(14) Why are burritos called burritos? Doesn’t that mean baby donkey in Spanish?

Burrito does indeed mean baby donkey in Spanish, and it seems the Mexican food is, in fact, named after baby donkeys. Perhaps it’s because baby donkeys are short and fat and their insides are made of guacamole.

(15) Why has Chris Brown been allowed to make a comeback?

There is no sensible answer for this. It is inexcusable.

(16) Can you really get cancer from standing too close to the microwave?

It seems there is no real evidence to suggest that microwaves can release enough radiation to actually do any damage. Do be careful about overheating Hot Pockets though, super heated Hot Pockets can be deadly.

Smeather: Catrina!  Why are you crouched in the fetal position?

Catrina:  There is a BIRD in our house. You know how I feel about fish, butterflies, and birds! I hate them, I hate them so much!

Smeather: Okay umm, What would David Shore do?

Catrina:  He would get that bird and eat it for dinner!

Smeather:  Thank goodness we’re on a strichtly carnivore diet!

Catrina: Alright, while you’re catching that bird for dinner, I’ll research how the Two Fat Ladies cook up tiny New England Birds.

To prepare for this adventure Catrina and Smeather put on bucket hats and coverall’s, their traditional gear for intense activities. 

Smeather:  Alright, ready! I’m going up the stairs… I see it… I think I got it…

A blood curdling scream, that sounds a little bit like  Ladley Blehman’s, comes from the bird room.

End Scene. 

Tune in later to see what other pickles Smeather and Catrina get themselves into.  Also, don’t forget to check out the Would You Rather and Fun Fact pages!

Two weeks ago we had a group up to camp for a youth retreat; they enjoyed sledding, broomball, snowball fights, all of the usual winter activities. TWO WEEKS AGO! I’m looking out the window of our office as I type this and there is no evidence to suggest that winter ever happened. The pond has thawed, the snow has melted and the mud in our driveway seems to have dried up completely. I’m not complaining–if you’ve been keeping up with our blog you might have noticed symptoms of cabin fever–just somewhat flabbergasted. Where did winter go? The little old ladies at knitting club tell us this recent turn of sunny weather is just a fluke, that we’ll see more snow before the month is out. Winter went on vacation? Probably to Florida, where everybody in New Hampshire seems to escape for the winter.

This recent streak of spring weather has been terrific, especially coupled with the great “spring forward.” The days are longer, it’s warm outside, we don’t have to dress like arctic explorers to check the mail each day. It’s still light out when I leave for band practice at 6:30 pm. The southern Californian in me could not be happier with this uptick in sunlight and temperature (little known fact, San Diegans are actually partially photosynthetic creatures, requiring excessive amounts of sunshine to produce energy. Without the sun we are slugs. I was a slug. For the last four months.).

But I digress. This blog post is not an ode to spring. Rather, I must air a grievance. I love sunshine. I love warmth. I love spring. I also love people who wear clothes. Is there a law on the books in New Hampshire that requires all males in the state to remove their shirts when temperatures climb higher than 70 degrees? Unless such a law exists, I cannot understand this recent epidemic of shirtlessness in New England. And it is an epidemic.

There are, in my mind, only two reasons why one should ever be shirtless in public: (1) You are about to go swimming (2) You are a cast member on the Jersey Shore. It’s not just that I don’t want to see your sweaty torso paraded around town, it’s that nobody does. Am I right? Please tell me I’m right. I’m not even going to start in on the gender inequity.

You’re probably thinking to yourself, “Katrina’s from San Diego. Aren’t they shirtless there all the time?” First of all, you’re confusing San Diego with an episode of the OC and second of all, we are a civilized people in San Diego. Yes, one encounters a high rate of shirtlessness at the beach and by the bay but it has not yet leaked onto street corners or the library parking lot. Men of southern New Hampshire, hear my cry! Put a shirt on.

This public service announcement brought to you by “People in Favor of Farmers Tans (PFFT).”

One of the adult volunteers serving as a chaperone for the weekend came into the office on Saturday afternoon looking for medication to treat a headache and I was nearly too excited for words. I know what you’re thinking, and you are correct, my life is unfairly fabulous. Normally I don’t find over-the-counter pain killers too thrilling, except when it comes to headaches. You see, if Excedrin Migraine had its own cult following, I would be first in line to drink the Kool-Aid. I am an Excedrin Migraine fanatic. Here it should be noted that Excedrin Migraine is almost completely useless in treating migraines, at least in my experience; the one time I took an Excedrin Migraine to treat a migraine, I actually threw it back up almost immediately (TMI?). However, for a bad headache (non-migraine), Excedrin Migraine is a wonder drug. I’m a fairly headache-prone individual, and when I get headaches, they’re real whoppers. A couple of Excedrin and I’m functioning like a normal human being in a few hours. Thus my excitement over the events of Saturday afternoon; I’m very enthusiastic about sharing this miracle cure with the unindoctrinated masses. After I sent the young man away, having dosed him with two pills and expounding upon on the life-altering, curative effects of Excedrin Migraine I got to thinking about other products that I would happily promote for free, and there are quite a few…

Cherry Carmex: I’ve used this lip balm for years as it’s cheap and effective and smells terrific. It wasn’t until the move to New Hampshire, in the middle of winter, that I truly grew to appreciate this product. Granted, all of the experts (read little old ladies in knitting club) have told us repeatedly that this is nothing close to a true New England winter, but the San Diegan in me is sufficiently satisfied with the state of the season. Winter air, I’ve discovered, is so dry as to transform one’s skin and lips and really any exposed bits into something very nearly reptilian. Sorry folks, in these conditions, Chapstick just doesn’t cut it. Cherry Carmex is where it’s at. Try it, you’ll like it. Just don’t eat it; it tastes terrible, nothing like cherries.

Jergens lotion, in original scent: Pretty much the same deal as cherry Carmex, except it smells even better (like cherry and ALMONDS!). Sometimes I worry that it smells so good that I’m going to get sniffed by socially awkward strangers but this hasn’t become a real concern as of yet.

Rice cookers: I don’t have a particular brand to promote here, although Zojirushi is very good; I just need everybody to know that cooking rice in a pot is silly, and detrimental to the quality of your rice. Get a rice cooker. It’s 10 times easier than stovetop preparation and the end product is at least 12 times tastier. I grew up in a household that only ever cooked rice in a rice cooker. I didn’t even know that there were people out there in the world foolish enough to cook their rice on the stove (if this is you, I am passing judgment) until I joined AmeriCorps and found myself rice cooker-less for the first time in my life. It was terrible and depressing and basically if you don’t already have a rice cooker just get one.

Strawberry Lemonade Powerade: I’m not a huge consumer of sports drinks, I usually just prefer water, but sometimes a girl just needs a bottle of colored sugar water after a good workout. There are a few reasons why I prefer Powerade over Gatorade, chiefly that I find Gatorade pretentious (seriously, I think they’ve developed a 13 product hydration system involving gels and goop and probably some sort of self-administered IV fluid, it’s too much). That being said, strawberry lemonade Powerade is easily the best flavor of drink that Powerade makes. And it’s pink, you could practically serve it at an afternoon tea.

Always Infinity Products: I won’t go into too much detail here, as I’d hate to offend the delicate sensibilities of our male readers, but let’s just say they work.

Pilot Brand, Precise V5 Model, Rolling Ball, Extra Fine Tip Pens: I’m a bit of a nerd. Actually, I’m a HUGE nerd, but this is really to your advantage as I am able to recommend any number of quality writing implements. These pens are cheap (not as cheap as those awful PaperMate pens that are sold in packs of roughly 1000 for three dollars, but still inexpensive) and they write smoothly and dry fairly quickly. As a southpaw, quick drying ink is important, as we lefties are very smudge prone, which is detrimental both to your hand and whatever you happen to be writing. The only complaint I have about these pens is that they tend to be excessively ambulatory, just sprouting legs and walking away in the middle of the night, never to be found again; I assume they’re off canoodling with all of the socks that escape from the dryer.

Am I boring you? I’m probably boring you, so I’ll wrap it up. Other products that I happily recommend:

• Hershey’s Cookies n’ Crème candy bars
• Peanut Butter M&Ms
• St. Ives Apricot Scrub
• Spam
• Moisture wicking socks (for blister free running)
• Febreze

Heather recommends:

• Chubby Hubby flavored ice cream by Ben & Jerry’s
• Cadbury eggs
• Midol
• Dunkin’ Donuts blueberry coffee

There you have it, the list. Try a couple; see if you love them too. Or recommend your favorite products in the comments section.

Advertisers, if you’re out there (and I know you are) please let it be noted that I am not above renaming Cabin 5 the “Excedrin Migraine House.”

Until next week,

Katrina

Lately we’ve been a little bit concerned about our ratings, as the crazy antics that made our previous shows so watchable have been greatly minimized due to location and lack of opportunity. It’s harder than you would think to get up to some good monkey business in rural New Hampshire. Some of the highlights of our week:

• Knitting club (average age of a knitting club member: appx. 71)
• Forever Fit at the local gym (average attendee age: appx. 65)
• Grocery shopping at Wal-Mart
• Checking the mail
• Trips to the post office
• Rehearsal with the Kearsarge Community Band (average member age: appx. 55)
• Borrowing DVDs from the library
• Perusing the Kearsarge Shopper
• Internet runs at Starbuck’s

Life is pretty uneventful lately—the most exciting thing that happened to us this week was buying a set of new non-stick pots and pans (eggs slide right off!). The relative isolation of our new home/job is starting to wreak havoc on our social skills too—we’re getting pretty strange, and not in the weird, endearing way that used to be our M.O. We’re talking muttering to ourselves, shouting at inanimate objects, pondering very loudly the actual slipperiness of a banana weird. As an aside, have you ever seen those scenes in cartoons when somebody plants a banana on a sidewalk to make some cartoon nemesis slip? This scenario is highly implausible. Bananas, I recently discovered, actually provide a good deal of tread.

I digress. Poor social skills aside, Heather and I are brainstorming some ideas to boost our ratings. We’re considering a fake engagement (oh wait, one of us already did that today. Happy Leap Day!), a friendly, “Parent Trap” style assault on our neighboring summer camp, an unannounced, unsolicited flute solo during the next performance of the Kearsarge Community Band, two person flash mobs, explosions, a cross-promotional episode where we invite the Travel Channel’s “Ghost Hunters” to investigate Camp Wilmot, skydiving (we really did buy a Groupon for skydiving last week, more on that in a later blog post), extreme knitting (not really sure what this entails, but it will be EXTREME), a musical episode with cameos by Zac Effron and Taylor Swift, the list goes on.

What would you like to see in the next episode of the Real World: Wilmot? Tell us your ideas in the comments section.

Don’t forget to check out Fun Facts and Would You Rather, they’re new this week too.

Until next week,

Katrina

Two girls, Smeather and Catrina (with a C, not a K) sit in their beds, knitting (poorly), while a DVD of the NBC comedy “The Office” plays in the background.

Smeather: I think my body hurts from Zumba.

Catrina: Me too. Probably too much shimmying.

Smeather: Is it possible to knit a scarf inside out?

Catrina: I don’t think so.

Smeather: Well, I just did.

Catrina: I’m going to whip up some sort of cucumber based dipping sauce. Want some?

Smeather: You know I’m allergic to cucumbers. Besides, I’m a dedicated carnivore, I only eat meat.

Catrina: Right. Sorry, I forgot.

Smeather: And yet you always get so upset when I forget that you’re half Korean, not half Japanese.

Catrina: Not all Asian people are alike, Smeather!

Smeather: Whatever. How about pterodactyl burgers instead?

Catrina: Sounds great. Food always tastes better when it’s illegal.

Catrina walks to the kitchen

Catrina: (Shouts) How do you want your dino-patty cooked? Medium? Medi—

A loud, clattering sound

Smeather: What’s all that noise?

No response

End scene.

Don’t forget to check out Fun Facts and Would You Rather, they’re particularly awesome this week.

THE BEST OF HEATHER AND KATRINA’S EPICUREAN INVESTIGATIONS

Vegan Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients: a couple of butternut squash (we don’t really know how to choose a good squash, we typically just pick the ones with the weirdest shape), vegetable broth, minced garlic, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper.

It’s a pretty simple ingredient list, and would actually be a pretty simple dish if it weren’t for the rind (?) on the squash. It’s nearly impossible to peel the rind off and one or both of us usually comes very near to losing a digit while preparing the squash for consumption. Once you’ve made it past that hurtle, however, things get much easier. Just boil the squash and garlic in the vegetable broth until it’s soft and then stick it in the blender—if you ask me, there really aren’t enough foods that can be made in a blender. Blend until you’ve got something roughly the consistency of baby food, add spices and voilà, soup’s on!

Tacos a lá H and K

You’re probably asking yourself, “What could a meat free, tomato free, lactose light taco night possibly consist of?” I’m glad you asked…

Ingredients: bell peppers (assorted colors), onions (color inconsequential), canned black beans, canned whole kernel corn, chopped cilantro, minced garlic, sour cream, hot sauce, shredded cheese, tortillas, guacamole (see recipe below), cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper

To start, we like to sauté the peppers, onions and garlic together with a liberal sprinkling of garlic powder, cumin, and chili powder.  Next we combine the beans, corn and cilantro in a separate pot, add salt and pepper and heat. Then there’s the guacamole…

Ingredients: avocadoes, red onion, cilantro, garlic powder, salt, pepper, lime juice

To start, smush the avocado all up with a fork, or your hands, it’s pretty fun. Chop up the onion and cilantro and mix it in with the avocado. Sprinkle in some spices then drench the whole thing with lime juice. Easy, right?

Once you’ve got the guacamole all mixed up, it’s just a matter of assembling your taco: Peppers and onions on the bottom, then the beans and corn, large spoonfuls of guacamole and sour cream on top, sprinkle with cheese and drizzle with hot sauce. Olé!

And now you’re probably thinking, “That seems like a lot of dairy for someone who is claiming to be mildly lactose intolerant.” And you are correct. For this particular dish, you just suck it up and hope for the best, it’s worth it.

Falafel

Ingredients: one box falafel mix (what? You though we made this from scratch), pita or flat bread, hummus, sliced cucumbers, sliced tomatoes (prepared far, far away from Heather), spinach.

We like this recipe because the whole thing can be made in less than 15 minutes. To start, follow the instructions for the falafel mix—usually add water to the mix, stir, and let sit for ten minutes. While you wait, heat a bit of oil in a frying pan and start slicing those veggies. After the ten minutes has elapsed, form the falafel mix into something resembling a ball (mine are never perfectly round, but as close as you can get), and place in the hot oil. You’ll want to roll them around a bit, to make sure they’re browning evenly; the goal is a crispy, golden brown outer shell.

Remove the falafel from the oil and let drain on a paper towel. While the falafel cools, prepare your pita! Smear with hummus, add veggies and, when they’re ready, a couple of your falafel spheres. This is a pretty great dish if you’re trying to impress somebody. They’ll think you’re very worldly and wise and a genius at mixing spices. Just make sure to stash the box somewhere it won’t be found.

AND THE WORST…

No butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

We were halfway through mixing up a batch of cookies when we realized we were out of butter. We live pretty far back in the woods so a “quick trip to the store” is more like a thirty minute, epic journey through miles of forest and winding roads past no fewer than three libraries and an alpaca farm. Sufficed to say, we weren’t going to pop out for a couple of sticks of butter. Instead we googled, “out of butter, trying to make cookies, help!” The search returned something like one million results. A few benevolent bakers suggested a substitution of vegetable shortening—we happened to have a tub in the kitchen. We don’t recommend this. The cookies looked beautiful, and were about as chewy as hockey pucks.

No egg banana bread

Same idea here. We were trying to use up some bananas that were getting a wee bit squishy and thought we might bake some banana bread. The recipe called for two eggs, we had none. So, being the clever, experimental bakers that we are, we substituted a random amount of vegetable oil. Again, not recommended, unless you love really dry, dense, crumbly banana bread.

And that’s the news from the Camp Wilmot Test Kitchen—don’t forget to check out our “Would You Rather” and “Fun Facts” pages.

Until next week,

H and K

1. If we didn’t want to, we would never have to wash our dishes. With enough dish/silverware for hundreds of guests, we could just fling our dirty dishes on the front lawn or somewhere out in the woods, which would actually really reduce our dish soap/sponge costs. Our Board of Directors probably wouldn’t appreciate this, nor would the EPA, but it’s interesting to think about nonetheless.
2. Along the same lines as #1, we could probably go a pretty long time without cleaning our bathroom, just rotating through the many bathrooms at camp. Sure, it would be a pain to have to walk all the way out to the cabins just to brush your teeth or “use the facilities” but again, we like that we have that option.
3. We always have mail to open. It’s not always the best mail, but we still get pretty excited every time we open the mailbox. We get a lot of interesting catalogues too. Ever heard of Bubber? We hadn’t either, until the Discount School Supply: Active Edition showed up in our mailbox. Know the going rate for a teeter totter or a dozen hula hoops? We do.
4. There is an abundance of sequins and glitter. You should see some of the crafts we make!
5. This isn’t so much to do with living at camp, but more about why living and working at the same place is great. While we try not to exercise this privilege too often, we can, and have on more than one occasion, gone to work in our pajamas.
6. While this one is still really in the “concept” stage, we’ve realized just how much space we have should we wish to construct the ultimate box fort. We’ve been meaning to contact IKEA to see what they do with all of those old couch boxes.
7. We have our own pond. Katrina is actually terrified of this pond (or, more specifically the creepy crawly thingsliving in it) and is going to do just about everything she can to avoid swimming in it but it’s nice to be able to casually drop the phrase “our private pond” into conversation.
8. It’s okay for us to have balloons in our office. And stuffed animals. And garden gnomes. And guitars.
9. The camp has its own popcorn machine. We haven’t used it yet, but we do both love popcorn, so we sense a lot of potential for some creative popcorn projects.
10. No TV. While we’ve been missing some of our favorite shows, the lack of television really keeps us more productive. We’re pretty easily distracted anyway, but at least this way Patrick Dempsey isn’t preventing us from keeping up with our e-mail correspondence.
11. We’re going to get really good at hide-and-seek.
12. Every day is like a scavenger hunt. This sort of goes along with #11, but with so many odd nooks and crannies, there are a lot of places where potentially useful items could be hiding. Can’t find a glue stick? Check that weird cubby hole above the bathroom door. Autoharps? We keep those in the office closet.
13. We live on a 200 acre property with plenty of woods and hiking trails. This is pretty ideal for dumping a dead body, but it also makes for some killer (pun intended) outdoor recreation.
14. Our game closet is full of great board games and puzzles and other weird, fun things. Catch Phrase is our favorite.
15. It’s really fun to tell people that you live at a camp. Seriously, try it some time, the reactions are priceless. Do you have heat up there? Where do you do your cooking? Is there electricity? How do you shower?

Answers to these questions and more in our next blog post.

Until then,

H and K

Without further ado…

I celebrated my 24^th birthday yesterday. It was a little quieter than birthdays past, for one important reason, I think: Twenty four is, in my opinion, one of those throwaway birthdays. Consider, at ten you become a distinguished member of the “double digit” club, you’re a teenager at thirteen, then there’s the sweet sixteen, followed by eighteen, when you gain the right to vote, buy cigarettes and porn and lotto tickets, all of the vices of adulthood.  Twenty one is, well, twenty one and at twenty two you’re no longer twenty one, which probably seems inconsequential but is significant in that waitresses and bartenders and liquor store clerks will stop commenting on your “twenty one-ness” when scrutinizing your ID. At twenty five I will be able to run for Congress (Vote Hill 2013!) and rent a car without paying what I will call the “youth tax.” At thirty five I’ll be eligible to run for the Presidency (my PAC is still in the planning stages), and the list goes on. Twenty four is something of a non-event.  I’ve reached no major milestone, gained no important rights or privileges. Still, having lived one whole day as a twenty four-year-old, I’ve had some time to reflect on my life thus far. The part of me that tends toward melodramatic displays and an inherent tendency towards cheesiness will now share some of those reflections.

(1) At age four my major life’s ambition was to become a dog (ask my parents). When that dream didn’t pan out, I thought I might become the next best thing—a doctor. I spent most of my adolescence believing I would one day practice medicine. A couple of months as an urgent care volunteer and two courses in organic chemistry taught me that medicine is not my calling. Sure, I like to check my symptoms on WebMD as much as the next person, but I no longer have any desire to become a physician. Today, I work as a co-resident director at a small camp in rural New Hampshire (who saw that coming?) and spend the majority of my days struggling with various social media “tools” and trying to figure out where that weird sound is coming from. Is this what I thought I would be doing at four, or fourteen? Definitely not. Do I have any idea what I’ll be doing at 34 or 44? Not at all. That’s the beauty and curse of being twenty four, the doubt and uncertainty mingled with almost limitless possibility. Check back with me at twenty five, maybe I’ll have the whole dog thing figured out by then.

(2) 60% of the members of my immediate family are male. With two brothers and a dad who are all pretty sports obsessed, we watch a lot of football at home. Sadly, I never have any idea what’s going on. You might think that after twenty four years of watching games with these people I would have picked up a thing or two. Not so. What does a cornerback do? I couldn’t tell you. Where’s the pocket? I don’t know, apparently it’s not something on your clothing. In two decades of life, I still know nothing about football. Other things I do not know or understand that I probably should know or understand at the age of twenty four: How to spell the word occasion without assistance from spell check. Canadian politics and Canadian culture in general. How to iron shirtsleeves. Twitter.  The internet. Where baby corn comes from. How to cut a pineapple. The stock market. I could keep going but the list would be interminable.

(3) I look just like the picture on my driver’s license. It was taken when I was fifteen. Apparently, in the nine years since, I have aged only three or four days. What I don’t know is whether I was a prematurely old-looking fifteen-year-old or if I am a very youthful looking twenty four-year old. I suspect it’s the latter, my half-Asian genes being what they are and because people routinely ask me what grade I’m in. Two years ago, at the age of twenty two, I was carded at a rated R movie. I’m told that I should enjoy looking young while it lasts, that I’ll be disappointed when bartenders stop asking to see my ID. It’s just that at the current rate I’ll probably look thirty five well into my eighties, and I’ll be getting carded at early bird dinners and AARP events.

(4) Twenty four is an awkward age. I feel very much trapped somewhere between adolescence and adulthood. I bought a pair of what I consider to be rather respectable looking boots for my first winter in New Hampshire; I routinely wear them with a pair of novelty socks. My desk is littered with business cards and office supply catalogues and a Sea Monkey aquarium. We keep bagels, English muffins, low fat yogurt, granola, etc. around the house, but today I ate two pieces of birthday cake for breakfast. I take adult gummy vitamins. Twenty four is all about maintaining that balance between youthfulness and adult responsibility. I don’t know that I’ve struck that perfect balance just yet, but I like to think I’m getting there.

So that’s my take on twenty four, complete with all of my annoying, philosophical musings. Tune in next week for some lighter fare, maybe an update on my newly acquired Sea Monkeys or the best ways to bother your roommate (tin whistles are high on the list) or maybe Heather will chime in on things that really “burn her biscuits.”

Until then,

Katrina