And then, Fred turned to me and said “The hiking is about to get hard, but remember – it’ll only last about a quarter of a mile.”
“Oh, really,” I snapped, because I’d JUST been thinking “This trail has its difficult spots, but overall, not a bad hike!”
“A quarter of a mile,” I said. “Is that ALL?”
A quarter of a mile is VERY VERY LONG if you’re doing a hard trail, let me tell you. Maybe not for you experienced hikers, but for people who really prefer to sit on their asses on the couch, it’s hell. And I have my doubts as to whether or not the hard part was only a quarter of a mile, because it went on and on and on and ON, and I had to keep stopping and bending over to gasp some air into my lungs, while Fred just kept on going like a fucking mountain goat.
I said “I hate you” many, many times on this hike, let me tell you.
At one point, Fred said “We just have a little further!”, and I gasped “First of all, I HATE YOU. Second of all, I can see the top of this hill. Is that where it ends, or does it go on?” and he said “Uh. Well, no, it goes on a little more.”
And then I killed him.
No, actually, what I did was growl “GIVE ME THE CAMERA”, and he did. Then I said “Get your ass back down the hill to the last tree I can see from here, so I can take a picture and show all my readers how HATEFUL you are.” And he did, and I did.
The picture does NOT do the hill justice. It was WAY FUCKING HILLIER than it appears in that picture, believe you me. And after I’d taken the picture, do you know what the hateful bastard did? He RAN back up the hill, and he was NOT even breathing hard when he got back to me.
He is a hateful, evil motherfucker.
We finally finally FINALLY got to O’Shaughnessy Point, where there are benches for resting upon, and the path from there to the parking lot is nice and flat and easy (it’s the same path I went on to get back to the car last Saturday when Fred and I split up to meet back at the parking lot), and so we sat on a bench while I caught my breath and drank some water.
Fred: “What hill?”
Robyn: “I hate you.”
We split up again so Fred could go on a hard hike and I could take the easy path back to the parking lot. It took most of the way back to the parking lot before I felt like I had finally caught my breath and could breathe easily.
So on the way home, I said to Fred “That was NOT a step above last week’s hike. That was like TEN STEPS above last week’s hike!” and then we had to have a discussion about what hike we’d done last Wednesday, because he couldn’t remember.
Sunday morning I woke up, and my ass muscles were VERY sore. Which is good, because that means I worked out some new muscles, I guess.
Tonight we’re supposed to go for an “easy” hike. Which probably means it’ll be ten miles straight uphill the entire way.
I hate that fucker. Good thing for him he’s so damn cute, is all I have to say.
* * *
When we got home from hiking, rather than taking a shower and a long nap, I had to finish cleaning the house in preparation for Fred’s parents’ visit. The thing that most needed cleaning was the hardwood floors in the entryway, hallway, and dining room. The last time I mopped them, I used a vinegar and hot water solution, and the floors looked HORRIBLE. I did some looking around online, and found that rather than using a wet mop, what I should have done was used a barely damp mop. Some more research, and I found a cleaning solution recipe for hardwood floors, and I decided to give it a try.
The cleaning solution is water, ammonia, rubbing alcohol, and a bit of dishwashing liquid. It was strikingly similar to the recipe for the solution I use in spray bottles for cleaning the kitchen, the litter box, and basically whatever else needs to be sprayed and wiped down.
The recipe is
here.
When I was at Target last week, I bought a handful of microfiber cleaning rags, and so I got down on my hands and knees, sprayed the floor with the cleaning solution, and then wiped it up with microfiber cloths. I’m not crazy about getting down on my hands and knees to clean, so when it came time to do the dining room floor, I got my Swiffer out, and put the microfiber cloths in the Swiffer. And it worked like a CHARM. My floors haven’t looked this good in quite some time. They’re shiny, streak- and smudge-free, and even the cats with their wet little paws haven’t made the floors look bad in the past two days.
It’s a cleaning miracle!
* * *
The spud left for California yesterday morning. She got there with no problems at all, and she’ll be spending the next few weeks in California, then fly to Rhode Island to spend time with her father and his wife.
The house is oddly quiet.
* * *
Currently
reading:
Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris.
Recently finished:
The Husband, by Dean Koontz. I think this is the first time in my life I’ve finished a Dean Koontz book in one day. Usually it takes several days of reading, since his books tend to be so long, but this one was a fast read – and I really, really liked it a lot.
* * *
I fail to see how this could possibly be comfortable.
“What?”
“Duh?”
Go be petted, or run and hide? Run and hide, or be petted? SUCH a dilemma.
All of today’s uploaded pictures are
hither.
* * *
Previously
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Then, I stopped and thought about it, which hurt a little.
2002: I was an errand-running fool today.
2001: You always know you’re going to have a nice, clean system the next day if you’ve eaten you a big ol’ helpin’ of okra.
2000: Oh, that’s right. That was my bright idea.]]>