{Virtual Coffee}

I have started this post so many times that I don't know whether to offer you a coffee or a vermut. But since it's still morning and despite the sheer mania on my side of the pond, I'm sitting with a coffee. So, if we were meeting for coffee today I would say welcome to the Valentine Day monkey edition of Virtual Coffee! Do you see the monkey too? If we were meeting for coffee today I would feel like I have some 'splainin' to do, falling off the face of the blogosphere for two weeks. I would tell you it was a simple case of Overwhelm and I may not be completely over it yet. It's kind of felt like this.

My good and best intentions seem to get blown off the track and my focus shattered. Self-discipline is all very fine and dandy until things go viral. It feels as if life has taken me by the throat and spun me around a little these last few weeks - OK, who am I kidding - these last few months.

If we were meeting for coffee today there would be eight or nine things on your mind. I would start by showing you "8" (he kind of looks like a beatnik from the 60's - don't ya think?)

and then "9", I am choosing to see the sweet and wondrous side today.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you that I survived another cub scout winter camp last weekend. But that I have 3-day/night camp hair to share

But before I get to the real nitty-gritty I would tell you about the optimistic leaders who had this as a schedule

and with all due respect to the ones who organize and work the camp, I would ask you if you think that shepherding approximately twenty-five 5 to 10 year-olds through the maze of "arriving" at an external camp that it would take slightly more than half an hour to get to point "B". And so on from point "B" to "point C". And really - "Walk outside"??? Someone forgot about the snow pants, boots, scarves, hats and mitts and factoring in the time for that. But really what I love is the sense of optimism, the quote unquote vision that this might, at all, be possible.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would show you some more photos from the camp weekend like the tubing hill and the tree guards at the bottom of the hill

If those trees didn't stop you, you might run into La Hutte

and if you were still screaming past La Hutte, a friendly sign would let you know you had gone too far.

I would show you the outdoor climbing structures

and the campfire, both during

and after

which kind of makes me think of a cub camp Stonehenge.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you at camp I was given my new leader name, Raksha. It is the name of the female wolf who raised Mowgli, so you had all better watch out from here on in. And that my room mate, Bubbles,

had a bit of fun with it

Even my spellchecker wants to call me Rickshaw. If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you that these

toe warmers helped me survive the weekend. They are little pads filled with something (probably toxic) that stays warm for 8 hours. But they kind of got stuck to my socks.

I would show you the houses in the woods

the natural mosaics in the snow created by our wacky snow-rain-snow-rain routine

the trees that welcomed us with open arms

and some classic nature shots.

I would tell you we had 5-star accommodations

but I was just happy that the bathrooms were in the same building as the bunks. Last year we slept in train cars and the bathrooms were across a certain expanse of land.

And you would probably say you had heard enough camp talk so I would tell you that I have proof I am the only one in my house who puts anything away or gets rid of anything.

This thing has been a test, to see how long everyone else will live with a pumpkin on the kitchen counter. Yup, four months and counting now. While we were in the kitchen I would ask you if you would use up the old garlic

before breaking into the new bulb. I hate to waste any of it, myself. And you would say that the one on the right looks like it has been around as long as the pumpkin.

And because I'm not an entire scrooge, I would offer you one of my raspberry tarts

partly because red is, well, so very valentine-ish and partly because I've eaten all the chocolate. Then I would suggest we go over to Amy's Lucky Number 13 to see if she has any of those little cinnamon hearts left.