What was to be a simple weekend escape, somehow branched into a spectacular display of color and soul-enriching gluttony. In other words: I knit and drank and stared up a tree. Or two.

Of course, when it came time, we didn't want to leave for home. Our collective despair was best encapsulated by The Cakers, who, upon hearing the news, said "We can't go home. I still have three clean underwears!"

::I confess to spending more than a few minutes trying to figure a way to work this uncannily poignant logic into another, legitimate day or two off from work. Hello, this is Marcia. I won't be in to work today or tomorrow. We're stranded up north, on account of Too Much Clean Underwear. We're currently at two pair a piece, which puts our ETA some time after dinner,Tuesday. Wetting accidents notwithstanding.::

My special weekend project was a 5th of Vanilla Rum the
Branching Out scarf pattern, from Knitty.



The yarn is Nashua, worsted wool with a dash of alpaca. I bought it last week on my maiden voyage to a brand spanking new yarn shop, just two miles from my house. En skein, the yarn felt very soft. En knit, it's a bit scratchy and splits. But it is pretty.

The leaves are courtesy of our cottage neighbors' yard. I walked around out there for about 10 minutes, through damp leaves and a cold drizzle, in pj's and slippers, to find the least blighted leaves. For all the beauty they show on the trees, they were slim pickin's on the ground.



At first I felt a little silly walking around in the rain, wearing pajamas and slippers and a camera. I'm thinking my hair had a story to tell as well. But I figured this image was better than the last one the neighbors had of me, back in August...Severe Digression Warning...when I ran through the cottagehood, warning all of a sighting of a poisonous snake, in the water.

It's a Coppertop. My husband recognized it first thing. I said.

A battery? Asked one neighbor.

No, a Coppertop snake.

You mean a Copperhead?

Yeah, a Copperhead. They're poisonous. I took a picture of it. My husband told me that's what it was. And he knows this stuff. He was a member of Ranger Rick. And he once hiked some mountains in New Hampshire. Plus, I looked it up on the internet.

I didn't know Copperheads were this far north. Said another guy.

Looks like a plain ol' water snake to me. Said Juanita, the chain-smoking, 80 year-old, grand dame of the lake. Saw 'em all the time, when I was a kid. Can't hurt ya. See here in this picture? It has a yeller belly. Just like the ones we saw when I was a kid. Just a water snake.

Well, I knew they were wrong. So I went back online in search of more information. To bolster my claims. I ended up finding a picture of a water snake, indigenous to Michigan, called a copper belly sumvabitch. The snake pictured on the website could've been the less evil twin of the one I saw. Sssssshit. Said, I.

It would of been easy for me to just let it go. But no Yeller Belly am I. Armed with this new information, I returned to the scene of the faux pas, and confessed my stupidity. Juanita snorted, mid-exhale. The rest of them teased without mercy. I suspect this story will be fireside fodder for generations. I suppose there are worse ways for the neighorhood newbie to make herself known.

And now that my true assedness is known to all, I figure I'm free to be fucktarded.

50 Ways to Love Your Leafer
On the way out of town, my husband treated me to this view, from atop a local golf course. The lake you see is a bigger, more popular neighbor to our lake. I guess you can see why.





This was taken on the highway 115, just a couple miles out of town:



Now: Back to life. Back to reality.

Happy Travails.

Labels: Cottage, Pho-Ho'