Pip the Squirrel

I realize I haven't thoroughly done justice to my summer of late.

I didn't mention anything on here about my darling Pip, the orphan squirrel I helped raise & release into the wild.

I must also mention that I didn't take a single photograph of him--seeing as I don't have anything to take a photograph with-- and therefore you must imagine just how adorable my darling Pippin was.

I take it back! Here's one of me syringe feeding him. Anna took it. I also have my dog scrubs on so I think that's a nice touch.

Squirrels are little troublemakers. They're full of energy (when they're not dehydrated and malnourished like he was when he first came to me) and they make lots of messes.

He loved me though. He would "bark" at me when I walked in the door to make me come play with him. He would grab my fingers and try to crawl onto my arm and around the back of my neck (because that was his favorite place of all) entangle himself in my hair.

The first day I took him home from the rehab center, I had him in my shorts pocket all day. I even took him to ceramics class with me and we made sculptures together. Everyone there loved him, of course, even though I wouldn't take him out of my pocket because he was cold & needed to warm up.

Generally everyone loved him. My roommate wasn't so fond of him since he's small and rodent-y but Ash loved him and Nat didn't mind so much....however, my new roommate, Stacy adored him and vice versa. It was a beautiful relationship.

Now, however, he is somewhere out in the wild having oodles of fun with his new found squirrely friends. I hope. Missin my Pippin, but I'll be alright. I'm sure I'll come up with something new to raise sometime soon. A fawn? Just kidding. Mom.

VPLCT

That stands for the Varsity Parking Lot Camping Team.

Yeah, I've camped in a parking lot. Well technically we set up the Duchess (the tent) in front of the Wilkinson Jamba Juice doors, but it was close to a parking lot.

Most of us in the tent, ready for HBL

I can't even describe what a fun, sleepless night it was. We had too many people even for that 10man tent (read 15 or more people)  so we were squished as squished can be. Ryan got there at 2pm so we were as FIRST as you can get. (Last year the VPLCT was behind 15 people so it was not tolerated this time around.)

Here's a little of that night's schedule.
I arrived with Anna at 7pm
Homework/not really doing homework at all until about 9pm.
Phase 10 for two rounds until there were too many people for the deck.
Zombie run until I got asthma/hurt my heels running on bare feet and the zombies ate me.
Tent setting up
Watching HottieBoombaLottie (HBL) (2:30am)
Being creeped out by the box people who showed up
Waking up (5am)
Moving into the WILK (6am)
Getting in the real line (7am)
Watching Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog
Napping on cold cement
Doors open and chaos insues (9am)

5am: Ryan: "Did anyone hear that dog outside the tent?" Cameron: "You said that at least 5 times in your sleep. You were dreaming."

Basically, the whole thing was hilarious. We slept hardly at all. We laughed most of the night. We quoted movies (mainly HBL). We ran. We danced. We ate. We conquered.

Seriously, it was madness.. 

Guys, the VPLCT isn't messing around. We had strategies. We had trash bags, and we went around the circle and said what we wanted, and then we had our responsibilities and we grabbed anything that was a maybe and stuffed it into the bags.

I'm super into the strategy Cameron is proposing. Anna is apathetic. Bronwyn  I couldn't explain. 

Then we congregated back at the meeting spot and picked through whatever we wanted. I got a 100% leather jacket for 3 dollars. Eliot told me I look like the Black Widow from the Avengers in it (even after I'd slept in a tent on concrete all night). He can stick around. The vultures started prowling around after a little while because everyone knew we had the best stuff--so they were waiting around the fringes of our piles hoping for some scraps.

We have our own gang signs. 

So here's to us. Cameron Asay, Ryan Hansen, Eliot Wood, Trent Heiner, Ben Romney, Nathan Weatherford, Angela Robinson, Anna Wendt, Bronwyn Bent, Jennie Smithson, Taylor Teeples, Natalie Fuller, Erica Mueller, and myself. The VPLCT. We're so cool, you wish it was summer so you could heat up a little bit.

It's really not my birthday yet.

This all started in July.

Seriously, people--it's not my birthday. Miss Lauren Claspell, soon to be Sister Claspell, decided that it was my birthday in July. It's in September. She forced me to go to some ice cream joint that made me dance, yodel, and eat three huge bowls of ice cream. We (Karina, Lauren, and I) finished them. In case you wanted to know.

Next thing you know Jenna's fixing to take me to blow glass for my birthday in August. That one didn't end up working out so well though, so that's alright. And then we're making plans for mine and Lily's combined birthday party in September (ACTUALLY my birthday) so that we can celebrate together.

Still in August, however, I am up at Teri's house and celebrating Maren's birthday (ON her birthday). I pick up a postcard I think is funny, turn it over, and see my own name with a Happy Birthday banner and an iTunes gift card. "Oh yeah, that's for you," she says. "Happy Birthday!" she says.

Now I have friends here wanting to plan a party or some such. Here's the thing--I don't really like celebrating my birthday. It makes me a smidgen uncomfortable. I don't accept service well, perhaps, and I seriously don't like people spending any money on me. I'm not a partier, either, and what I hate the most is a party centered around me. I don't know how it's going to pan out....BUT, if there's anything I do know, it's that my friends and family are the best. Period. Even if they are going to/already did try to kill me with a birthday party or something like it.  I couldn't be luckier.