Pictures from our overnight backpacking trip

Yes, yes, you guessed it... that IS me in Vivian's backpack. I just got too tired to walk any further.

And this is my trick of pushing down on her head just to make sure it's clear to everybody that I'm an inch taller.






These are the "little ones"... who really aren't so little anymore, are they?





When Vivian was taking down the tent in the morning, she discoverd a small stash of Chris' dirty underwear and socks. Chris then attempted to practice his priaml hunter-gatherer skills:
Chris: "Man say, 'Woman take clothes down to river and beat with stick!!'"
Vivian: "Woman say, take man down to river and beat with stick."


"Seriously, I can take a good picture of the four of us... just let me try this... no, we don't need to stop and ask another hiker to take it..."






Almost back to the car... thank goodness!

What to do when you're out of milk...

Put some cookie dough ice cream in your cinnamon coffee.

:-)

Woot!

A miracle has occurred

So yesterday, I was at Firestone getting the car inspected and I decided to go over to the mall and walk around. And I was in JC Penney, and lo, there appeared unto me a rack of jeans.

Now you must understand the personal history here. Blue jeans, historically, are not made to fit my body. Blue jeans are made to fit Other People's bodies; at times I have hypothesized that either a) they are designed to fit aliens or b) I am an alien. As one person put it, "it's like they design clothes for a whole other species." If you are a person that has little or no trouble finding jeans that fit, I congratulate you in your good fortune in life and wish your Species well.

Lee jeans for awhile made a product known as "carpenter jeans," complete with ever-so-useful loop (to hold a hammer?? a calculator would have been more useful in my line of work), of which five or six pairs sustained me from approximately 1999 to 2005. They fit reasonably well and were a welcome relief from the Denim Purgatory I had been in as a teenager. (As a teenager everything I wore was really thick, really stiff denim that shrunk in the wash and just sort of made life unbearable. The carpenter jeans shrank less and had much lighter and more flexible fabric.) When these jeans had been out of production so long that it became nigh unto impossible to find them in clearance sections or at thrift stores, I despaired. I thrashed around wildly. I owned one or two pairs of the carpenter jeans' successor- The Painter Jeans, where the loop had been moved to the back of the waistband, because isn't that where we all keep our paintbrushes throughout the day? but they weren't the same. I went to thrift stores and tried on pair after pair of assorted label jeans, in a variety of sizes, none of which were confortable. I tried on a pair of Lee's latest product- ironically entitled One True Fit, supposedly a miracle fit for every woman- and they were Wrong in every way. Depressed, I nearly gave up hope. I dwindled down to a single pair, a flower-embroidered, way-too-long pair of boot-cut jeans from St. Johns Bay. (They're cute and I still have them and wear them, but the embroidered flower thing and denim under my shoes gets a little old.)

That is- until yesterday. When, lo! I approached the rack. I looked at the jeans. (They were on clearance for $11.99, which is why I looked.) I examined the denim. IT HAD SOME MIRACULOUS STRETCHY STUFF IN IT!! without looking like spandex! ha ha! Hope! I picked out a size that I thought might fit and went to the dressing room.

Choirs of angels sang! A misty light shone from above! THE JEANS FIT!!

They were the right length! They fit my legs and waist and hips! Due to the amazing stretchy fabric, they were AMAZINGLY comfortable! Look, she sits! She rises! She lies down! COMFORT!! Lack of strangling! Behold the miracle!

And then- then I turned around. And then I laughed. I laughed hard. For, lo- have you ever experienced that "gap in the back" problem with jeans? You know, there's a good space between your back and the back of the waistband? Not a problem if you're wearing a long shirt, but if you want to wear something waist-length, a little disturbing?

Friend, I can fit A CAN OF COKE between my back and the back of my jeans. (Or, as the ever-helpful Nate said when I showed him- TWO CANS OF COKE. Yes, it's that dramatic!!)

WHAT are the denim people thinking?? I have come up with some possibilities:
1) If I happen to grow a large tumor on my spine in the next year, they want the jeans to still be comfortable.
2) I might gain 10 pounds- in my lower back.
3) Automatic weapon concealment possibilities.

There are other ideas but I won't bore you. Suffice it to say, if denim makers could invent a way to take that space and put it in the front, so I could, you know, go to an all-you-can-eat buffet or Thanksgiving dinner without feeling a little uncomfortably choked at the end... that would be worth a LOT of money.

(Are you reading this, denim designers??)

:-) Neb

PS No, that's not a photograph of me wearing the jeans above, but thanks for asking. Instead of Size 2 Extra-Tall substitute Size 14 Petite and you'll have the truth. ;-) Interestingly enough, to be honest, I'd rather have my body than hers. Don't her legs rather look like stilts? It's a bit surreal.

The Really Short Version of Comings and Goings

Nate was at camp! Creation was cancelled! I spontaneously roadtripped by myself to Illinois to visit my best friend Bethany! 768 miles in 11 hr 10 min of driving time! We went to the hippie grocery store! She has emails and letters I wrote her when we were adolescents! Wow, I was a piece of work back then!

Now I'm in Maryland! Tomorrow we leave for Townshend, TN! To a cabin! With A/C! And cable! And many bedrooms! But we will backpack, overnight, and potty in the woods. :-( But the cable! And A/C! :-)

Later!
Love, NEB