Your turn again...

There must be something on your mind... and you don't have a venue to share it... here is your chance! Write... Inspire... Transform (the two readers this blog has) into something better!

Have fun!

J.

Canadian Flopping Squrriel

Has anything in your world ever looked like it was something other than what it turned out to actually be? You know, like when you think it is safe to come into a room, where unbeknownst to you your cousin is standing in the dark ready to scream, " Boalahtheraha!" just to see what you will do. Or when you take that first bite that burger you ordered, from your favorite restaurant, and found that they made a veggie burger, not the double double you requested. Honestly, some people's kids... You know, normal things like that. Life altering unknowns.

Have you ever driven past something and thought it was something else? Like a tree looking like a deer in the bush, or a person wearing black clothing bends down and looks like a bear. Sometimes it is our eyes tricking us, and sometimes it is others doing it for us.

I drove through Stanley Park this week. It is Vancouver's largest park area. Constantly there are squirrels and other small animals crossing the street, which drivers are cruisin' at a whopping 30km/hr (That's (not) FAST!) and dodging the small rodents we canadians call "cute". You all know that if the squirrel had a tail without so much fluff we would love it like a rat, not a cat. I saw one of these squirrels lying on the road. Just as I got to it, thinking it was dead, not flat, but dead, it flopped a little bit! It looked like a fluffy Mexican Jumping bean, except it wasn't. This unforeseen soon-to-be-road-kill flopping maneuver scared me! I was NOT ready for that, at all!

Now I bet you are asking yourself, and tell me if I am right with this assumption, "what did Jody do?" I stopped the van and went to save it, or not. What would I do with a half dead squirrel? where would I take it to save it's rodently life? Who would I even call, besides Ghostbusters, of course? 911?411? My mom? Your mom? Honestly! I left it where it flopped to. It would be a quicker death if it got hit "well". (that last word was hard to write, yuck...)

Next time you see a Mexican Jumping Bean remember that not all things are as they appear.

the slug slide.

Recently I spent time at the one place that has, and has always, had my heart: Camp Hope (in Hope, BC). I was able to spend much time with my family and friends, who I see rarely, so it was great!

One afternoon my cousin and I went for a stroll. We walked all over the camp ground, saw only a few people we knew, but so many amazing views of the majestic mountains which the camp sits at the base of. Near the end of our chalk (chat+walk) we went and checked out the fire bowl. Going down the dusty, one graveled, path was not much fun in my flip flops. Nope not much fun at all! I has dirt and some of the afore mentioned nature roll into the cuff of my jeans. At that point I was taking my time going down the hill, so as to not stir up all of the silty dust that lines the path.

I near the clearing, where the large maple trees and pine trees pull to the side of the trail and lift their arms, and see the scene that for so many years was a place where I found God, for many reasons; there are so many memories of this spot. See, I worked at this camp ground during the summer, as a summer camp counsellor, where I had the opportunity to tell the girls in my cabin, and the kids in my classes, about the love of Jesus. The evening program, building the new benches, staining rocks, climbing rocks, hearing the word of God, seeing the light of God, evening talks, work assignments, skits, songs, friends... this is part of the reason this camp has my heart.

After noticing how much the moss has grown around the cross that my friend Gaelan pressure washed into the rock face back in 2002 (the cross has been re-pressure washed each summer) my cousin and I started back to our camp site. THis is when my world changed; another memory at the fire bowl was made. My life experiences had filled up a little more. I was not sure what just happened...

I slipped, on something that rolled under my feet ("tumbling down, tumbling down" la la la), I didn't know what it was, as I did not notice it before this life altering event. I instant thought that someone had dumped some slimy food thing, it got covered up with dirt, and then my flip flop found it with amazing precision! It was almost like fate.

It was fate actually. As studied the slime pile closer I noticed that it was not food goo; it was a slug! I had slipped and smeared the critter... all over the place! We had been gutted, and those guts were not making me happy! Not one bit! Not only had the event traumatized my some, as I had never stepped on a slug before, or since for that matter. I do have to admit that I have tortured them with salt and hair spray, but never have I smeared one all over the place.

On my pass over, or through depending on one's perspective, the slug ecto-slime covered the bottom of my shoe and then collected that soft silt/dirt I mentioned before. This concoction of paste almost did not remove itself from my $3 Old Navey deal. Within this one maneuver the slug also found a way to smear it's innards into the inside of my jean cuffs, which I had tried so hard to keep clean; now they have been gutted! A few steps farther I think I feel some thing in my shoe, which is hard as my shoe is not much of a shoe. I took my 'flop off to find some of the white guts had rolled up like a play-do snake and made for a layover in the heal of my shoe. Being the shoe it is means that I was not wearing socks so the guts were taking a rest against my foot.

At this point I gave up, the slug won... Are you kidding me?! I very quickly took off that shoe and smeared it, and the inner cuff of my jeans in the cleanest piece of grass I could find. The yuck did eventually come off my shoe, and mostly out of the bottom of my pant leg.

I survived! The slug did not. I don't recommend sliding over one of these little guys... Nothing good will come out of him... sorry, it.