Monday catchup

Yes, it's a catchup kind'a day.

First, a bit of an outcomes/"whatever happened with that?" accounting....

• My parking ticket (for parking in front of my home in broad daylight with plenty of other parking around) was dismissed. Yay, City of Brookline! Of course, the Hearing Officer (different department than the Seeing and Speaking one, apparently) also cryptically wrote, in all caps, "APPLY FOR RESIDENTIAL PERMIT," which is fascinating (not quite to weather level, but close) b/c I thought Brookline didn't have residential parking....
• And, it appears, appears State of Cal isn't going to make me pay for taxes from four years ago when I didn't live there, so that's a relief.
• Unfortunately, Travelers does continue to suck as an insurer and is not going to refund me any of the terrible-horrible-v-bad-day sewer money I spent. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
  

Camping was successful, wonderful, divine! We found a wonderful spot in Western Mass and totally want to go back. Apparently so does the rest of the world, doesn't sound like there are many spots left for the rest of summer. But we got to canoe our gear into our site! !! ! Supreme awesomeness. And my former doubles partner and I discovered the challenges of paddling together in a straight line (come to think of it, we never did try to row a pair together, did we?). But it was fun learning. Bottom-line solution was to put me in back 'cause I got no problem slacking and not rowing in the interest of rowing in a straight line....

More bottom-line learnings:

• When given a map, be sure to ask about the scale of it! We paddled many more miles than needed ... still all in the name of fun, but pretty funny.
• Also, men wearing STAFF shirts do not have all the answers:
  Friend (politely calling to man in said shirt, fishing): Excuse me, do you know where Campsite 31 is?
  STAFF-shirt man: No, sorry, I sure don't.
  Me: laughing hysterically b/c of the sheer ridiculousness of it all . .. we'd been paddling around looking for our site for...? maybe an hour or more at this point? Good times.
  

And, I made that joke about a bear eating us? (If you're getting anxious, I'll cut to the punchline and tell you we weren't eaten by bears.) Turns out bears do make visits to this place and to our site in particular b/c it's the most remote.

I wasn't thrilled at the news. But we decided to keep all food & fragranced items in the car, so I then felt better. And, we were only visited by Stealth Bears, my v favorite kind....

Also, Whole Foods' Large Roasted Corn (capitalization theirs) is muy delicious. Can't stop eating. Essentially cornnuts. But w a clearer name. And, Trader Joe's trail mix kicks Whole Foods' trail mix' ass. Up and down a mountain. Twice. In case you were wondering. And, I'm going to start a petition to ban raisins from trail mix.