Zombie cats and Explosions
my weekend in so many words...
Ah, Sunday... for the first time in several months I slept on my own and woke up LATE. Well, late for me, which was 11AM, and stayed in bed frolicking for another hour or so. Sunday was a day with few plans. I actually started the day rather grumpy, being that it meant I had to decide whether I was going to start another pack of Ortho Cyclen (which I decided to do) and then discovering that the only pack I had left was the one with the first three pills taken from right before I started the Archdemon Depo. So I was peeved, rather. Cause not starting meant risking mood swings, ugliness, water retention problems and most unsavory of all- an UVER-nasty period while in Glacier. Kind of hinders mountain-climbing. But I wasn't too keen on starting a Sunday pack on the day marked "Wednesday." But since all the pills have the same nor-estro-whatchemahoozit doseage, I figured that there at least has to be some way for me to get another pack in the next eighteen days before I'm three short. Sunday was not the day though, both Student Health and Planned Parenthood were closed. So, needless to say, I was a bit grumpy and frustrated.

Justin and I finally got out of bed and after a bit of mucking around, decided that Sunday would be a good day to climb up Spencer's butt... err... Butte... Spencer's Butte, for those of you unfamiliar with the Eugene area, is a scenic little knoll about 15 minutes south of Eugene that reaches Upppp up up up into the sky and has numerous ways of getting to the top of varying degrees of exertion. Now, we get there and I discover that it's very hot. And I can't find my hairholder. Note, I'm already grumpy and this only serves to piss me off more. It is not a good day for a hike. But I eventually find a ribbon for my hair in the car and Justin ties it up.

We decide to take a runoff path straight up the butte. It is hot. Soon, I'm sweating rivers, pushing on in that headstrong way we do when hiking because we know we're just training for Glacier. This is a hill, I tell myself, it's a fucking hill. Hill or not, the stupid runoff path is worn almost to the rock by water and foot traffic and even my hi-grade hiking boots sometimes can't keep traction on the incline in the fine dust. I stop for water a few times and forbid Justin from having any. I don't want to kill him but I know he can go without because he never brings his own. And I won't sacrifice mine. It only takes half an hour to get to the top. We rest, basking in the sun on the summit. Justin mocks a group of Japanese parents and exchange students who come panting to the top. I eavesdrop with what limited language skills I have and notice that they talk a lot about landmarks and taking pictures. Once the guide (a white UO student) mentions us. I'm still unsure why.

While we're resting, a comrade from the dorms, alias "Big Gay Matt" comes to the top with his girlfriend and another guy. We greet them but, for some reason, none of them are very social or friendly. We lie in the sun for over an hour, taking our time and eating lunch. Eventually, Matt and co. head back down the main trail. We follow about five minutes behind and notice we've taken the wrong path when it begins cutting STRAIGHT down the rock. We're stuck on another switchback cut-through/ runoff slough but before I can cuss out Justin, who's been up here before, we find a way through to the main trail and stroll leisurely down the butte. We see Matt at a fork in the path, looking for the rest of his party. We also see a girl jogging up the path who we swear we saw miles away from the trailhead jogging up the ROAD. The way down is a much steadier grade and it takes us at least twice as long, hiking merrily, to get to the car as it did to get to the top. I feel much better. On the way home we stop at albertsons for ice cream, popsicles and Copper River salmon.

Later that evening, I decide to work on my computer which has been acting screwy lately... not posting regularly and things like that. It's time for an upgrade anyway and since I've pulled all the important data off of it I figure, what the hell, I'll flash the BIOS because it's obviously having problems. So I get the appropriate flash utility and upgrade, shove it on a boot floppy and flash away. A few minutes later I end up with a computer that does not post AT ALL. Funny, that. Fsking BIOS upgrades... I hate computers. So now I'm pissed again. My computer is fried and I haven't the money to buy new hardware. I suppose I should though, it's about time. Ryan tells me that ASUS will RMA my board though, even if it's 2 years old. Sigh.

I'm mad. So I decide to clean. I pick up my shit in the bedroom. I pick up my shit in the computer room. I clean the fridge... I take every item out, wipe off the shelves, hose down the drawers, scrub the dirt out of the cracks, and sterilize the whole motherfucker. I wipe everything off and put it back in. I forget to turn the fridge back on. Justin is not happy when he finds out the next day that I melted his ice cream and popsicles. Luckily, everything else is find because the fridge and freezer stayed cool all night.

Monday morning I wake up before ten, stay in bed until eleven, and lay naked on the living room floor listening to music for another two hours. We decide to go to Florence to play on the beach and watch the sun set. We leave around two.

As we drive out 126, I nap until Justin comes to a screeching halt. "What the fuck?" he says. I look around, blearily. All traffic in front of us (not much at this point) has come to a stop in front of the tunnel before Mapleton. Black smoke is coming from the tunnel and a single Lane County fire vehicle has blocked off access to the tunnel. People are coming out of their cars and peering into the smoke to see what happened. Judging from the number of parked cars and the hastily thrown-together blockade, we guess that this happened less than ten minutes ago. We are right. A woman standing by tells us that she heard at least eight tires popping and two large explosions. At the other end of the tunnel we hear sirens and fire trucks. As the smoke begins to clear, EMS, Fire, and Forestry vehicles pile against our end of the tunnel but none enter. The accident, they tell us, is on the other end of the tunnel. Another woman claims that as the smoke started pouring out of the tunnel and other cautious drivers stopped, one SUV barrelled out from behind the crowd and blew into the underpass and didn't come back. After the smoke has cleared, we hear on the radios that all EMS vehicles are heading back to florence and the wait from Florence to the tunnel is now more than 45 minutes. So, like everyone else, we abandon hope of them opening the tunnel without running integrity tests on its structure, and we head back toward Eugene. But we're not about to give up on sunset at the beach despite the voice in our heads saying, "Go back! You're doomed! You're all doomed! DOOMED!!!" So almost into Veneta, we hit Poodle Creek Road and take it over to Triangle lake which puts us on 36, a straight route into Mapleton the other way.

Highway thirtysix is hell. Imagine 126 with more turns and no shoulders plus the added stress of a constant stream of traffic coming out of Florence around the blockade. We didn't get to Florence until 5:00 and Justin had to get ice cream to calm his nerves. Irony upon ironies, as soon as we hit the beach a front literally rolled in (we could see it boiling over the ocean) and blanketed the whole area in thick fog and rain. I hate Oregon. We hiked down the hobbit trail and read on the beach. After a while I decided I'd had enough sitting for one day and we took the hobbit trail back up to the Heceta Head trail junction and hiked a couple miles to the lighthouse and back. The whole trail was shrouded in mist, a cooling, soothing fog that made it easy to hike and hard to see.

Though we didn't get a sunset, the mystery of walking through the coastal forest shrouded in clouds was almost as profound. When we got back to the car it was getting dark and we were cold and starving. Mo's in Florence Old Town serves a mean bowl of Chowder (with extra butter... bleh).

We drove back in the dark, counting the stars because, of course, anywhere more than a mile from the water still had clear sky. When we got to the now open tunnel we realized just what a huge detour we'd taken and how stupid it was to do all that extra driving. On the way back we passed a dead housecat on the side of the road, a poor disheveled grey kitty with white paws that I'd seen on the way out to Poodle Creek earlier. I named the cat "Robert Pawsnon" and bemoaned his fate so loudly that Justin asked me if I wanted to stop and give him his last rites. I declined, knowing that stopping to look at someone's poor dead cat would only make me depressed.

Maybe I should have stopped and taken a moment to bless the poor thing because I swear to god it followed me home. This morning on the way to school, I stopped to make sure I had everything in my bag and when I looked up there was an arthritic grey and white cat looking at me. His tongue stuck out of his mouth and one of his eyes was dark and unseeing. He was sweet but most certainly a zombie. I made sure to greet him and then left him to go his way and eat brains or whatever zombie cats do.

I hope he doesn't know where I live.