5 Minute Time Waster

There comes a point when children are no longer enthralled with coloring cowboy hat-wear pizza slices and hamburgers with legs while waiting for an order to be filled at a restaurant.  Of course, that usually coincides with the acquisition of texting plans and iPods. But I always feel self-conscious if everyone at my table is texting to other people while sitting together.  I feel like we should be doing the family thing of sharing that time together.  But there are only so many conversations about Roger Waters (per my 13 year old daughter) and Pokemon (per my 12 year old son) that I can stand!

Enter Cthulhu!

Yes, we are some geeks (me, particularly).  This game only cost about five bucks and looks like this:

That is all that you need to play and it fits in a tiny ziplock that I keep in my purse.  We have pulled this out at restaurants and played games ranging from 3 minutes long to 5 minutes long.  The pieces are small and discrete so everyone in the place doesn't actually SEE how much of a geek you are. 

It's not one of those games you'd buy to play at home, but fun while you're waiting somewhere, or during lunch. All it requires is a surface big enough and flat enough to roll the die.  The object:  To send all your opponents into the depths of madness by stealing their 3 marbles or forcing them to lose their marbles to Cthulhu. Not very educational, but we do laugh a lot with it! (And while it is very small and discrete, we have gotten a strange look or two from a waitress.)

Steve Jackson is so cool! Planning on teaching my kids Munchkin next, since tabletop RPGs didn't appeal to them.

My Uncle's Lessons

As I sat at my mother's house tonight, with everything mostly quiet and dark, listening to my uncle and watching his face light up during our conversations, I began to think back on our lives together.  He is only three years older than I and has had a rough go of things.  Spoiled? Yes. Mean? As a snake, sometimes.  But he has some contributing factors to those things.  Still, if you need something and he has it, you can bet he'll give it to you.

People discount him because he's foul mouthed and because he acts immature they don't take him seriously.  But if you filter out the bad words and the manic emotions, the man does not even realize how much he knows and how much he has to teach.

In the hour I spent talking to him, about nothing that seemed of substance, these are things I realized about him, things that he knows that everyone should know:

1.  Never leave a loved one unhugged or unloved.  It could be the last time you get to show them how much you love them.

2.  No matter what else you do, put your children first.  You are their world and their refuge.  You are their strength and their source of self-esteem.

3.  No matter what your political opinions, when you see a military person, show them respect.  If nothing else, they are doing a job that you do not want to do and because of them, you don't have to.

4.  Thoroughly enjoy every movie you watch, no matter how terrible your taste in movies is; every game you play, no matter how badly you get beat; and every story you tell no matter how many times you tell it.

5.  If someone hurts you, tell them immediately.  If you don't, they will hurt you again and again, maybe even without knowing it.  And if they are doing it on purpose, at least you won't be a doormat.

6.  Say "hello" to people, even strangers.  You never know what kind of horrible situation they could be going home to.  That kind word could be what tips the balance in favor of letting you go before they shoot everyone else in the store.  And be sure not to give their description to the cops as a thank you.

7.  Love those you love fiercely and be willing to do anything for them, even if they take a huge shit right on top of you.  You are doing those things because you love them, not because they have done something to deserve your kindness.

8.  When someone is sick or sad or has a birthday or loses a job or gets married or divorced or has a baby, call them and let them know you heard and you care.  Not in exchange for anything, but because you DO care, because when all is said and done, you are loyal and you keep close to you those who keep you close to them.

9.  Take time to talk to children.  They are curious and their feelings get hurt and too many adults ignore them, beat them, ridicule them.  Too many kids have broken homes with at least one parent who doesn't care.  The moments you take to show interest in them could stick with them for the rest of their lives.

10.  Love the people who love those you love.  If someone sees in your loved ones the same things that you see in them, they can't be all that bad, right?

Sabine Wildlife Refuge Wetlands Walkway

Moving out into the country did the opposite to us from what we thought it would do.  In our townhouse in 2007-2008 we were always busy.  Maxx was riding his skateboard on the ramp I bought him, Ashlyn was riding her scooter, and I was walking all over the complex and walking at the park in the mornings.  We thought the country would add to our activity.  We were wrong!

We turned into inside people.  Sometimes Maxx will ride his bike to a friend's house.  On rare occassions Ashlyn and I get out and walk.  Maxx does go out a lot with his friends to do physical activities and goes to school dances and plays a sport or two each year.   But overall, we became more sedentary.

Being a single mother, working full time, and going to school full time, we don't have a lot of time to plan long trips and even less money to do so.  But I decided to take this week with the kids home for spring break and myself out of work after the store closed and try to find something active that we could do.

Oh, did I neglect to mention my terror of bridges? And the fact that I live in a state that is mostly water? This prevents me from going a lot of places. But today I drove over 2 small drawbridges and one regular bridge, also fairly small, but this was a milestone for me!

I discovered a few places I had never been to in our part of the state and planned a day trip there.  I printed out a nine page trip guide and the day after my 37th birthday, we headed out. 

The place was Sabine Wildlife Refuge's Wetlands Walkway in Cameron Parish.  The refuge is comprised of about 125,000 acres of protected marshland, 61 miles of levees, and 8 major water-control structures.  It is the largest coastal mash refuge on the Gulf of Mexico.  The property was bought by the federal government and established as a refuge in 1937.

There is parking on either side of the shoulderless roadway that, if followed to its end, takes you to Cameron and to the beach.  We were lucky that we were the only people out on the walkway that day.  The Wetlands Walkway is developed with a nice restroom facility (because where else are you gonna go out there?) and water fountains near the parking area.  The walking trail is mostly sidewalk winding through 1.5 miles of marshland.  There is even a portion that is raised and walks you over the water.  On the raised track where Maxx is standing in the picture above we saw more than a dozen owl pellets, and for good reason.  The sounds of insect life out in the bambo were plentiful.

One section of the walkway juts out further into the marshes and ends in a lookout point with two telescopes.  At that point in the walk, it seems as if you are going down below the level of the surrounding land.  As you approach the lookout post, the land around you seems to rise until you are looking up at the level of the water while standing on the ground.  We saw at least 6 different types of birds close up and many groups of turtles throughout the walk.  We heard even more bird sounds than we saw birds, and a lot of beautiful insect noises as well.  We saw half a dozen alligators, some quite near us, and it was not even April, which is the best time to start going out to see alligators.  We even watched some crabs moving about in the shallow edge of the marsh.

The diversity of species in coastal wetlands is second in the world only to the rainforest! I felt this was an important opportunity for my children to see how magical the Louisiana wetlands can be before the wetlands disappear. 

There were covered benches, well maintained, throughout the walk.  During the summer, this would have been a scorching adventure.  It was late March and already we were getting hot from being right in the marshes, but the wind was perfect and kept us cool.

We've seen alligators before, but my children had never seen them in the wild.  We were amazed that as we stood on a platform, one came right near us as if wanting to check us out, and lingered in the water there watching us (and a red-eared slider) until we walked away.

We had had more mini-excursions planned for the day, but we were so pleased with this stop that we turned around and headed back home.  Even Ashlyn enjoyed herself and left us behind on the trail a time or two.  It's rare that goths get out in the daytime. ;-)

I got them out this time.  It wasn't a major vacation and it wasn't a carnival, but I think we all had a good time.  The testy moods in the car on the way down had disappeared completely by the time we left and headed back up north.  The kids were not fighting.  On the contrary, they were laughing and making jokes and talking to each other.  All in all, for a trio of movie and video game addicts, we impressed ourselves with this practically impromptu little hike.

We even made a decision to find little hiking trails and go on hikes at least once a month (until it gets too hot, we ~are~ in the deep south) and spend time together, get out and exercise, see nature up close, and as Maxx pointed out "be a healthy family".