Weekend Report

I'm kind of a rock star, you know...at the end of my weekend Ladies retreat a number of young women came to me to ask if they could have their picture taken with me. Some of them told me I should be on "Survivor". How does one become such a heroine to 20 yer old Christian women?
I think it's partly because I won my very first ever team sports award on Saturday morning. I was one of 6 members of the team declared "Most Challenged" in the Warrior Princess Boot Camp games. We placed 3rd...out of 3 teams. But I did get 2 of my 3 grenades into the baskets, and I let one of my teammates paint my face with cammo paint...black and pink...I was stunning.
Another reason might be that I took my really cool fish spear that we made in class (WARP07) to add some warrior-like authenticity to my costume on Saturday evening. But the main reason was that I shared some of my favorite outdoor things with a few of them during a short walk in the park just off highway 90 in Issaquah. We found cottonwood buds just ready for harvesting to make oil for salves. There was not a nettle, a dandelion, or even a plantain to talk about nor did we see any birds, except for the 15 or 20 Great Blue Herons that flew from the trees down by the creek. They were exciting, but were pretty high up and flying fast. The park signage had pointed out that the trail to the rookery was closed, and so we could not investigate that option. Then we hit a muddy patch of trail, and I feared losing them altogether...so I pointed out that trackers LOVE mud. One of the young ladies inquired about what I might be tracking on the trail. "Well, there are dog tracks, and I saw a coyote track just back a bit," I said.
"Can you show me a coyote track?"
"I sure can," I replied and pointed to the ground just in front of us. "And there's a coyote scat," I told her. "See the little bones?" Much to my surprise, she took photos!
Had I been alone, or with other trackers, I might have teased apart the scat for a closer look at the tiny vertebrae to see if I could identify the coyote's last meal...but with my new friends, I decided to play it safe and not scare them out of tracking...who knows, one of those photos may be my intro to Tracker fame! Anybody need a famous tracker chick to teach a class? I can bring my own spear!

Rest and Relaxation!

I'm hanging out at the office waiting for Duvall Reads book club to start at 7pm. Tonight we will discuss "Founding Brothers" by Joseph J. Ellis. It's a good book, but it broke my heart. I've always thought that the men who wrote the Constitution were good and honest men...I was dismayed to find that it's not all that far from "I did non have sex with that woman" to Thomas Jefferson's "I did not hire that man to write lies about you." I'm afraid politics have always been ugly. It should be a good discussion, and I'm looking forward to hearing the opinions of others.
Tomorrow, I'm off on a 3 day Ladies Retreat with 79 other 'girls' from my church. We will be at a fancy hotel in Issaquah, enjoying good food, high thread count sheets, a pool and walking trails in Lake Sammamish State Park - if the weather improves...We've had hail the past two days...Now that won't stop me from going out on Saturday afternoon- we have several hours of free time, and I'm hoping to get some of my girlfriends out to see if we can find interesting tracks in the park. There's a bit of beach area along the lake that's about half a mile from our lodging. We could easily find river otter tracks there! It's been a while since I've had a Friday off to do something fun! I'll report back next week.