Hello there, dear audience. I am back from Spring Break! Not that you would have known or anything, what with the infrequency of my blog postings. I apologize. Apparently my long-term levels of dedication still need some tweaking.
I have oh-so-many stories to tell you, dear audience. However, it is 12:30 am, I am waiting for my pasties to finish cooking in the oven, I feel every spot of grime from the day in the pores on my face, and I have become so incoherent as to forget how to spell the word "application." So I will settle with telling you one of my exciting stories and getting back to you tomorrow. And this one begins with a plate of waffles.
Over Spring Break, my roommate and I decided that we wanted to do a little more than just go back home and visit our families, so we planned in advance to spend the second, and last, weekend of Spring Break in my dad's cabin up in the mountains.
I want to dispel any misconceptions about this right away. First, yes, this cabin has electricity. Not only does it have electricity, it also has WiFi and cable TV. So we were, in no way, shape, or form, "roughing it." There were also a whole bunch of cool toys in the garage, such as snowmobiles and four-wheelers (which relates to one of the other stories I have to tell you all).
On Friday morning, my roommate was making waffles in her grandmother's waffle iron while I showered in water that smelled vaguely of sulfur. I was looking forward to a day outside without having to worry about any other things that needed done or other people who needed my time or attention. I wandered out into the kitchen, dug through the cupboards until I found the huge jug of Mrs. Butterworth, and settled myself down at the table to gorge myself on strawberries and waffles.
It's amazing how quiet it can be when you're out in the middle of the woods, with someone who doesn't feel the need to fill the silence. I don't know if I would enjoy living that way all the time, but there is definitely something to be said for those mornings when you can just sit at the table and look out into the forest without any of your normal distractions.
Which is why it scared the bejeezus out of me when I looked up from my waffles to find a moose practically standing on the back porch. Only, it would have been a lot less worrying if she (I was almost positive that she was a moosette) had decided to stand right up on the porch. As it was, she was slipping and sliding her way across the side of this giant snow pile that had formed at the edge of the roof. I eyed the poles supporting the roof with a little trepidation. One misstep and she would slide right into the poles that were holding up the roof/awning over the porch, which looked disturbingly fragile with their stacked wood held in place by some sort of cross between a spring and a screw.
Luckily, she made it across the porch without incident and proceeded to wander into a nearby stand of brush and eat twigs. I had never truly realized how big a moose was before. I would hate to hit one with my car.
She stayed there for about 15 to 20 minutes, seemingly unconcerned with us gawking at her through the window. We weren't quite brave enough to venture out onto the porch. After a while, she wandered away through the trees, leaving us to our breakfast and the rest of our day. My roommate was quite disappointed when she didn't come to visit us at breakfast again the next day.
And you are all in luck today, dear audience, because my roommate is as swift as a cheetah and happens to own an iPhone, so she snapped a couple of pictures of the moosette standing by the porch. You're lucky that she was there, because I am sad to say that my own photography skills leave a lot to be desired.
