Well. I’m still here and still alive. Whoopdee-fricken-doo.
This last weekend we went banding owls again. Apparently
Katie thinks she’s becoming “one with nature” or some other stoner liberal bs.
If she really wanted to become “one with nature” though, she’d die and we’d
bury her. That way she could literally decompose and become “one with nature.”
As usual though, she’s all talk and no action.
I have to say, banding the owls was much more enjoyable this
time. For one thing, they caught 14 of those little devils and I was able to
squirrel one away for a snack later. For another, I thought Katie was going to
poop her pants out of fear on three separate occasions. First off, she had to
take one of the birds away from the camper so it could fly away. She basically
just sets the thing on her arm and waits for it to fly. This particular bird
did not want to leave and sat there for a good 3 minutes. In the meantime,
Katie heard a bunch of rustling in the bush nearby and was convinced she was
going to be eaten by a mountain lion. When the owl finally did take off, she
wasn’t paying attention and the sudden flap of the wing near her face almost
gave her a heart attack.
Next, they were removing a different owl from the net and
Katie was holding its razor sharp claws. Not only did she get scratched but the
bird jerked down and bit her hand. She was so surprised that she screamed and
probably let out a little urine. Also, fingers crossed that she got some crazy
untreatable bird disease!
Itching to take a bite out of the finger Katie couldn't manage to get out of the picture
Lastly, the people she was with forgot the box to carry the
owls back up at the camper which was about 400 meters from the nets. Katie was
sent back up to the camper alone to get the box. It was a super overcast night
so you couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of your face and the
flashlight she was using kept cutting out. With her overactive imagination and
tendency to jump to worst case scenarios, she immediately imagined us being
killed by a beast, picked up and carried off for food by an eagle, or—my
favorite—running into some crazy hillbilly, Deliverance
style. By the time we got back to the
camper, she was basically running. It was hilarious!
She then drove two hours down to Rapid City to get her piece
of crap car into the Subaru dealership. She was a nuisance to her kind family
that let her stay with them but other than that, she didn’t do anything there.
In fact, we spent an afternoon laying outside because it was “nice” out. The
only positive side of the Rapid trip is that Katie did just enough walking in
her Toms to develop as nice blister on the top of her foot. Maybe it’ll get
infected!
On a spur of the moment decision, Katie decided to drive 5
and a half hours to Sioux Falls from Rapid. You know, because she was already
part of the way there (insert comment about entitled, clueless, white girl
here). Her first action upon reaching Sioux Falls was going to Olive Garden
with Raeann where she had the misfortune of seeing a mother breastfeeding her
baby in the middle of the restaurant and then having said baby shrieking and
crying loudly for the next 20 minutes without the parents even attempting to
calm it. Katie and I don’t agree on much but we do agree muzzles are a good
idea for dogs and babies. Invest. Katie and Raeann then went to The Perks of Being A Wallflower. Which
is about a weirdo who is the girl from the Vampire
Diaries brother and Kate Walsh’s son. The weirdo starts hanging out with
Hermione Granger, her gay brother, Lorelei Gilmore’s daughter on Parenthood and the rest of their friends
who are into drugs and The Rocky Horror
Picture Show. Yeah, it didn’t make sense to me either. Apparently it’s
uplifting. Whatever. Get Hermione back to Hogwarts where she belongs.
We got up the next day, Katie snapped a picture of me with
my long lost brother who belongs to Raeann (who, believe it or not, has a worse
life than me. I mean, she didn’t even name him) and then decided to drive to
Pierre.
Clearly I'm the only one in the family concerned with keeping a trim body
It was actually a fairly good idea because Pierre is part way between
Sioux Falls and Buffalo. Well, it would have been a good idea if the wind wasn’t
blowing 40-60 miles an hour. She’s an iffy driver at the best of times but we
were literally all over the road as she fought to keep her car (which has the
equivalent weight of a matchbox car) on the road. We almost died so many times.
And don’t even get me started on the amount of dried corn husks and tumbleweeds
blew into our car. Like seriously, South Dakota, can you try a little harder not to live up to all of
your stereotypes?
Well, at this rate, who knows where I’ll be next week. Until
then, I’m Ivan Denisovich. God bless.
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