I hear ya....

I was told by the locals around here that saving snapping turtles on the side of the road is a worthless cause. I'm not sure I liked being told that. Nothing is a worthless cause. Be it people, animals, plants, or old clothing some things just need a helpin hand and a second chance. I sorta feel like that's my "purpose" sometimes. I mean, I don't wanna sound all crazy or anything, but it's just how I see myself. My mom has been telling me for years about how all of the places she worked, or the people she had met were all a part of a bigger purpose of hers, and i couldn't agree more. Ya know what I mean? Like I'm a tool. Haa....not like I'm a tool, but an instrument. I feel like a mirror. I am a mirror of who you are. You need validation that your feelings matter, come hang out with me and sip a glass of vino on my porch. Bring it, I wanna hear, I wanna know, I wanna let you know that this/ that/ he/ she/ you are ok. I'm always up for giving ego boosts as well, or slapping your retarded delusions back into reality.
On the same hand, I'm not good at breakin peoples hearts. Never have been. I feel like that chick from that movie with Keanu Reeves. (which one i have no idea but i swear he's in it) Let me explain...It's like I'm here for a purpose and once that purpose has been fulfilled then I gotta go. Like a friggin fart in the wind I feel like I need to go help someone else. There are dozens of big hearted friends I leave behind me when I leave. Be it leaving KC, Des Moines, or Portland there is always a sense of loss competing with a sense of accomplishment and gratefulness. everywhere I go (even in airports/ public restrooms/ and at gas stations) I met such wonderful people. Potential life long friends, soul mates, role models, you name it....I meet em. I don't even set out to meet them either. It just happens naturally. My ears have heard some of the saddest stories being told by almost complete strangers. I have made life long bonds with the greatest people of the face of this earth who I only know once a year for a few days down in New Orleans. I can still remember the first kid (6 years old and living in filth) that I wanted to take home with me and raise. I was 17 and working as a missions trip volunteer on an Indian reservation in South Dakota. His name was Chris. Then there are the few, the proud, the ex- boyfriends. All of them with awesome redeeming qualities and lessons learned on both sides of the fence. Still some of the most kind hearted men I know and still my good friends. Then there is the often confusing, but ultimately hilarious fictional family of mine. My grandfather from Boston (not really my grandfather), My mother from Seattle (not really my mother) and my father from Boston as well (definitely not really my biological father). These people were (and don't get me wrong when i say this) supposed to be acquaintances. But once again they ended up being a bigger part of my life than i could have ever predicted.
So i guess what I'm saying here boils down to this: although I may not be around, I still remember and care about each one of you. I still tell stories about you to my new friends, and you are forever archived in my memories. I just gotta get a move on and you're comin with. So if ever you feel like talkin' or hanging out and shootin the breeze just gimmie a call or stop on over to my place on Catfish Farm Road and we can have a chat.

The ways we talk can be corn-fusing.

It took me a few days to catch onto the Cajun accent my friend, Sammy has. It's actually really pretty. Kinda a mix between a southern bell and a drunk. Ya know? Kinda slurry and all mushed up sounding words, but with ease and fancy. You gotta know Sammy to fully understand what I mean, but it is beautiful.

It didn't take me more than a minute to peg the Boston accent spuing out of the mouth of my friend , Michael the first time i met him. His accent fell from his mouth with much profanity. It reminded me of a cow chewing cud, really...there were "trademark" Bostonian words that kept coming up like "ovah heeah" and "wick-it nice." There's also something redeeming about a Boston accent, especially on a guy who's pointing at you with his cigar, head cocked and shaking around a rum and coke at the same time. Now that's classy.

Today I am still baffled by the deep southern accents of random people I have met in Tennessee. Yesterday while I was at a bluegrass festival, I ventured outside of all the action and stopped to chat with a few good ol' boys outside of a bar called the "Recreation Room." Swear to God one of them was wearing full bib overalls and had a piece of long grass jutting out from the side of his mouth. I was really only stopping to talk to them in an attempt to find the nearest ATM machine, but when I left I was more confused than when I showed up. The only thing I could understand in our short time together were the words "o'er thr." There were many hand gestures that confused me even more, and instead of smiling and saying thanks I just kind of tensed up and gave them the solid thumbs up and a smile. I really didn't know what else to do. I also never found that ATM machine. I'm convinced they were sending me to a slaughter house or a cross burning. kidding, kidding, kidding....kinda.

I'm not real clear on the means by which animals talk, but they seem to be screaming at me lately. Call me crazy, but I have made it my own personal duty to successfully remove all at-risk snapping turtles from the roads near where I live. You may think there are only a handful, but today alone I helped two. The first one needed assistance getting back into his little ditch near a cattail filled pond. When I attempted to help the second one I soon realized he needed no help. He was dead. I thought about building him a small raft of twigs ( which I would set a flame) and floating him out onto the small pond by the roadside for a proper viking turtle funeral, but instead I left him where he ly. Point being, I felt pretty proud about helping those moss covered dinosaur-esque heathens out of the way of a barrage of Peterbilts and Mack trucks. With the feeling of doing justice to the animal kingdom for the day I cruised back home in my little Honda. That's when it happened. Whap. A freakin' bird flew into my windshield and narrowly escaped certain death when at the last minute he tipped his wings up and made a defensive maneuver to avoid hitting me all together. I glanced into my rear view mirror to see him flip up belly over back a couple of times before coming to rest on the white painted shoulder line of the road. "Ah hell, i better go back and take a picture of him too." When I got back to him and got close enough to take his mug shot I saw that he was still very much alive, but stunned. He blinked about 47 times in the 10 seconds that I sat staring at him. I'm guessing he was morse-coding to me "What the F#*! are you and why are you staring at me with that shiny thing in your big hand and hey! wait?! aren't you the same a-hole that hit me 3 minutes ago?!" I'm just guessin' that's what he was thinkin,' but I could be wayy off. Regardless, I took his photo and helped him to a nearby fence post where I guessed his chances of getting eatin' by a rat snake would be far less than on the roadside where he had been laying.

Does blue grass smell like blue?

New Hampshire, Michigan, California, Florida, Kansas, North Carolina and Iowa. All of us twenty somethings have descended upon the green blue grass of Raleigh, North Carolina like a stealthy morning fog that sits on top of a warm spring lake. Were practically ninjas at this point. We have been taught the art and "zen" (if you will) of splinting a compound fracture, team restraining, and how to treat a snake bite. And no, you do not suck out the poison OR piss on it. I mean, you can, but it wont do anything but make your buddy's leg/ arm smell like piss. Although if you were proficient in your knowledge and identification of lethally poisonous snakes and one such as your everyday bull or rat snake (non-lethal) bit your friend, it would be pretty freakin hilarious if ya did pee on them. I'm just sayin.
Down the street from the house my brothers and I grew up in was a prime location for herding snakes. Every spring these little worm sized baby garter snakes would writhe in and out of the long grass that surrounded a rusted up man hole cover. The man hole itself was large enough for...well...a man to easily fit into. hence the name i guess. Anyway, my brother and a few of his dirty faced friends and i would sneak up on the snake den and then ambush the little squirrelly things. The snakes would panic and go every which way and our grubby little calloused fingers would scoop them up and shove them into jars, pockets, and pop cans. They were perfectly harmless and the only negative aspect of the whole scenario was the god awful smell that garter snakes leave behind after you handle them. I would compare the stench to that of rotting vegetables being stir fried in ammonia. Hard as hell to get off of your hands too, no matter how much spit and dirt you used to clean yourself. We pretty much just carried the snakes around with us for the day. We named them, had them race each other, and probably pointed out that "my snake is faster than your snake" and other completely irrelevant and useless information which small children seem very adamant in sharing with other small children. Eventually I stopped herding snakes and few years later and decided I was afraid of them instead. Overtime that fear completely disappeared and last spring on a bike trail in Iowa I found myself once again making a pet out of a wild bull snake for the day. He was a good sport and made one hell of a entertaining prop whenever things got boring on the trail.
Hmmmmm.....I always get way off track from what I want to write about, but this will suffice. I guess what I really wanted to write about was how great the people I am working with are. They have huge hearts, creative minds and selfless attitudes. I think we should all be cloned and sent to different parts of the world and perhaps the quality of life everywhere would become better. Damn that makes me sound like a friggin hippie, but hell....it's true. Three more days of training left before were turned loose like a rookery of albatross to parole our camps in search of emotionally needy children. Fingers crossed all of this material gives us more tools to help them when we get there.....

Tennessee should be "the snake state"

ahhhh, the smell of coffee in the morning, small talk around the water cooler and checking your e-mail before the work load kicks in for the day. walking in and out of air conditioned and spotless rooms to pick up a fax or chit chat with a co-worker about who got kicked off of last night's "Next Top model." And always, every ones favorite part of the day is LEAVING work. i used to feel the biggest sigh of relief and joy when i was pulling out of the parking lot at work in Des Moines. It meant a night of freedom and screwing off with friends (sometimes until 3 AM) before i had to hop back into my car and go back to the same drab job. take allllllll of everything i just said (minus the coffee, which seems to be a staple in most peoples sanity every work morning no matter what job) and throw it all out your sun roof at 90 MPH on the interstate in a downpour. instead of a water cooler i meet up with my group of ten girls every first work day of my new week at a little place we lovingly refer to as "Chuckwagon." picture a small town hall, or a rustic log Elk's club dining hall. That's Chuckwagon. It's the place where we eat our 3 squares a day. Oh yeah, and there's no "driving" to work. i live about a 1/4 of a mile down the gravel road in the T.O. housing. That's just one of about 2397 acronyms we throw around camp routinely. Time off housing is what it stands for and that's where i live. i have 2 other people as my roomates and another 4-9 as in and out guests who want to hit up the Internet or cable T.V. on their day off. Anyway...i have to pack up my awesome Dueter backpack (thanks Marie and David!!) with my rain gear, clothing and everything else i will need for 5 days in the woods and kick my ass to work. The days are filled with routines routinely broken. we set up time goals, behavior goals, and education goals in the morning and during the day we often break all of them. goals have to be "reset" dozens of times throughout the day and arguing is commonplace for 99.9% of the campers. when i give corrections the girls have to either listen to the correction and change their behavior, or we all "huddle up" as a group and take responsibility for our actions and set up a solution or problem solve for the next time. Outside of the girls and our routines some of the really cool things i have seen lately are as follows: One skunk, dozens of frogs, deer, deer, rat snake (named Alfonzo), box turtle, and today....a copperhead. i get a little uneasy walking home alone at night through the wooded trails back to the T.O. house due to the fact that i could get eaten alive by a pack of rabid coyotes, OR be taken captive by a toothless suspender wearing mountain man. I'm not sure which one scares me more at this point, but regardless i have taken to carrying a large walking stick with me and humming a nice church camp song in my head when i do have to walk at night.
speaking of....I'm tired. i think i wanted to hit a little more on how completely random and out of the norm this job is, but i think you may get the point. yesterday we did canoe certification, and sometime next month we will go out on a 5 day backpacking trip somewhere in the smoky mountains.
oh yeah, and i have a new tick species to add to my list of "known ticks." it's called the seed tick and the little SOB is about the size of a pin head. stupid ticks.

I almost forgot....there's also a lot of dead snappin turtles on the side of the road. they are as commonplace around these parts as dead raccoons are in iowa. i find it odd and sorta sad since i was raised to love turtles...but what can ya do?

p.s. i flipped this guy over after this pic and although he looked liked he had been jumped by a escargoratoire of snails he managed to move around a bit before i drove off. (so i like to think he just walked it off and went on with his happy little turtle life.) .....

Up and sorta running...

Instead of regurgitating the same information throughout a string of phone calls to friends and family about what I am doing and where i am doing things I have decided to start a blog. yea me.

So here goes y'all.

Eight years ago (my freshman year of college) when I met my first friend from Texas I was quickly introduced to the word "yall." It can be used in a variety of ways. "y'all headin out?" "Is this y'alls ramen noodles?" "What's y'alls plans later tonight?" < As shown.
Now sitting smack dab in the middle of the Cumberland Plateau in Deer Lodge, Tennesee I find myself using the same exact grammar. It's not that I have forgotten proper English, or even that I am making fun of the word, it is simply easier to get across to people this way. It really ain't no joke how they all talk down here. And it doesnt just stop with using the word "y'all" either. I have also quickly become a "Yes Maam', and Yes Sir," talkin' child from the north. Being from the north (which is odd to me since I never saw Iowa as very far north??) has also burdened me with the brand of being a "damn Yankee." Whatever I guess, I don't even like baseball that much. Anyway...where was I.....
Shoot I almost forgot. I probabaly should have started this blog by telling people where I am and what exactly I am doing. Ok, sooooooooo....
As many of you may know about a year ago I was still living in Des Moines and really becoming frustrated with the fact that I was at a job that I didn't enjoy waking up to every morning at 5:30. Fast forward 3 months>>>>>>>>>>I end up in Portland Oregon through nothing but the sheer grace of God. I got a phone call which pretty much went like this;
Biddy Ho- "Hey Sara?"
Me- "Yeah?"
Biddy Ho-" Wanna move to Portland, Oregon and house sit for me for about 9 months?"
Me- "Can I tell people I'm moving there because I'm knocked up and I wanna get rid of the kid as soon as it's born and then come back to Iowa?"
Biddy Ho- "Yeah, I don't care."
Me- "OK! cool, I'm there gimme a month."
And like that, I was gone. Oregon was AMAZING for the whole 8 1/2 months that I lived there. I lived alone in a nice town outside of Portland where I got the chance to really figure out a lot about what I want from my life and how to achieve it. I won't dare bore anyone with the details of it, but let's just say there are probably a handful of country songs that could do a pretty good job summarizing my existence throughout those 8 months. Nearing the end of my stay there I hopped online and filled out every single online application which I found to be interesting, exciting and challenging. I'm talking white water raft guide jobs, airbrush artist jobs, cake decorator jobs, basket weaver jobs, brew master jobs, you frickin' name it, i filled it out. I was hoping for a nibble from somewhere within the continental United States and I did get a few bites. After weighing the pros and cons of two of them I decided that instead of drowning on the banks of the Snake River as a white water raft guide (which I have NEVER done, but got a call to start employment as) I would instead go to Tennessee to live in the woods with at-risk teens as an outdoor theraputic counselor. So just like that within a week of bitter sweetly turning in my green vest at REI in Oregon I was back in my car and headed across the country again to a small town that rests in the beautiful state of Tennessee. I spent a week in Iowa running around making sure my friends and family knew how much I loved them all and then I headed South. I stopped off for a night in St. Louis to see and old friend and of course had to swing down to the Big Easy for an unforgettable 10 days of Jazz Fest, but I parked my trusty rusty at my new home here in Tennessee less than a week ago.
So what the hell is it I am doing here you may be asking yourself????
Ahhh, yes.....sleeping with one eye open at the moment. I'm kidding.
Yes, I am working with at-risk youth in the middle of nowhere where my phone has little to no reception and access to an axe or pocket knife is usually within reach of these "at-risk" kids, BUT I feel extremely comfortable. I'm here to build relationships with kids who probably have a closer relationship with their iPods than they do with their parents and their teachers. I am a co-chief to a small group of girls who wake up every morning at 6:25 and try to be in bed every night by 8:30. We spend the majority of our day outdoors hiking and doing chores when we are not in class or preparing for a meal. We have very high standards to keep day in and day out or privileges such as eating in the community center are taken away from our group. Indeed I also have to set a good example and follow these same standards so I too have been walking around camp with my shirt always tucked in, keeping low tones when in the community building, and not interrupting or cursing. This place is sort of like boot camp, but without all of the yelling.
I live 5 days a week 24 hours of those days "in woods." Our camp is set back in the woods about a 1/2 mile from the main community center where we eat our weekly meals. There are trails winding in and out of beautiful gorges and over babbling creeks. Coyotes and hoot owls lullaby us to sleep every night and whipper whills wake us up. I'm not even kidding, and I'm seriously not trying to over romanticize the place either, it's just the truth. This place is absolutely gorgeous. It reminds me a lot of Iowa if it were on steroids.
I can't really disclose very much information about the girls I am "Chief Sara" to, but I can say that they have already tried my patience to the point of no return. In the same breath, I can also say that although they have already tried my patience....I'm not about to go anywhere. These kids have been walked out on their whole lives by friends, family, and doctors and I'm not going to be put in that category. So stay tuned for a bit more exciting details in the future as I get to know my group better and as the seasons change. So far my tick count stands at 2. I picked about 6 off of me BEFORE they attached their greedy little blood sucking heads to my skin, but 2 of the little bastards got by. Ta Ta for now...