oh goodness.

i couldn't find my contact juice for the life of me last friday. i turned this house upside down... and nothing. i could only find one flip flop and it's time for me to start wearing flip flops again. i can't find my cell phone charger. my tax info was amongst the missing for a while, but that turned up. i found my contact juice in the refrigerator after returning some salad dressing, but no luck with the charger or my flip flops. the flip flop thing is really starting to annoy me.

my little red truck found its way right up on the top of a snow bank on friday as well. needless to say, it was a little slick on my road and i just touched the break, which seemed to put my truck at about 40 mph and i drove it right on top of a snow bank, that i couldn't get out of, as my left rear tire refused to touch the ground. a very nice lady came out of her house as i was attempting to shovel myself out of the before mentioned snow bank. (i would probably have been shoveling until the spring thaw.) she was absolutely wonderful. took me into her home, called everyone she knew to come pull me out but without any luck, so then i called a tow truck... which took an hour to come haul my sorry pathetic self out of the bank. this kind old woman reminded me so much of my grandmother i had tears in my eyes as i left. she had the same shape... kind of like humpty dumpty. she even smoked red 100's, now if they were misty slim one millions, it would have been scary. oh and a pbr tall can, then i would have stayed.

speaking of blueberry raking. talk about hard work?!!! oh my land! it is absolutely the most wretched, back-breaking work a person can do. it is usually mid to late august and it gets blistering hot out on those fields. you are bent over all day, raking up through the bushes, which in some cases are interspersed with hay, ragweed and hornets' nests, which are always fun drive your rake into. once while on the fields, a woman raked into a nest and the hornets... why those hornets managed to buzz right up her shirt... and not just one or two. well the fiasco that ensued was so funny the rakers were rolling in their rows in laughter. this was kind of mean, but if anyone else would have witnessed this scene, they would have done the same. this woman, not small one might say, ripped her shirt off in terror (understandably) and began hootin' and hollerin' as she frantically ran around in circles.
my grandfather owned blueberry land and still does today. needless to say, the grandchildren raked as soon as they were old enough to carry a rake. i wasn't strong enough to carry a bucket full of blueberries, so i had a smaller mop bucket that i would fill and then run it to the top of the row and dump into a larger 5 gallon bucket. that walk became a "break" that i looked forward to. i remember wearing the skin off my elbows from resting one arm on my thigh while raking with the other hand and then switching off when one arm got tired. i got blisters on my hands from the rake and my back ached so horribly that once i got home, there was no more bending over till 5:30 the next morning when we'd go back at it. raking in the morning was better because it wasn't hot out yet and the dew on the berries was almost pretty. until you closed your eyes later that night... and all you could see were blueberries, blueberries, blueberries. and this is not a joke. when i closed my eyes at night... all i could see were those damn berries.
we got 5 dollars a bushel, which was about three 5 gallon buckets, roughly, if i remember correctly.
i worked for my school clothes, which my mother refused to pay for after i wanted to shop anywhere other than walmart, rich's or ames. she did cut me some pretty sweet deals like matching whatever i made that summer for blueberries. my aunt would rake on the fields as well and set the most outlandish goals for me. 10 bushel is a whole lot of berries for a kid, but she probably raked about 6 and i raked about 4. i shouldn't complain.
another tough job: wrinkling. anyone that says downeasters are lazy ought to come spend a weekend on the flats picking periwinkles. it is the same, unending back breaking work as raking berries, but instead of the sun beating down on the fields, you are on mudflats.... ankle or more deep in muck. most clam diggers will dig clams 'till the tide gets to a point on the beach where there aren't many clams, then they'll finish the tide by wrinkling until the water reaches the ledges. i did this for one week, double tides. that's two tides a day, which means twice the work, but twice the money as well. we'd get up before the sun, hit the beach till the tide was high, go home and grab something to eat, close our eyes for about 10 minutes, then hit the beach again for another tide. wow, talk about some good motivation to go to college.
then i worked scooping ice cream and doing "take out" at a local restaurant in my hometown. i got my work permit as soon as i turned 15 because i was all set on spending another summer on the fields and flats. this certainly wasn't anything like the physical work i previously mentioned, but dealing with tourists is another nasty aspect of working in a small "vacation" town. they would ask the most reeediculous questions like, "so where is the town?" "you're in it darling. this is the town. this is it." "where is the nearest kfc?" "go back in the direction you came for about two hours." "it's 9pm and everything is closed, what are we supposed to do?" "go back to where you came from you morons." and the all time best: we live in a small town located on the coast, and there is a small canadian island right across the border. some people would ask, "we were wondering, what time does the bridge close?" hahahaha... it's an international border! "oh, the bridge, it closes at 9 too, once that puppy closes, you are there for the night. be sure to get back before about quarter of, sometimes the customs' officers like to leave early." that's a hard one to get out without cracking a smile. and the people from big cities that can't figure out the roads in my town... oh man. don't get me started. as much as i love the summer, i'm not looking forward to the pfa's. blah.
one of my childhood friends has recently become engaged and again i am a bridesmaid. i certainly am not complaining, but i really like shiny things and wouldn't mind a little sparkle on my finger. :)
walmart. you'd think they'd have recipe cards, huh? or maybe some lilac crepe paper? but no. honestly? walmart? oh my land! what a let down!

well hokay. enough is enough and it's almost 2. i must go to bed... 5 is going to smack me in the face.