By Beth
As previously posted, Lara and I turn 30 in 2009. Rather than sinking into a deep depression where we wallow and wonder where our lives are going, we decided to celebrate. All year. With 30 fun, strange, and silly things to do together. So without further ado, #1. Letterboxing.
Letterboxing
I have a a subscription to the "I'm a Better Mother Than You Are" magazine, in whose pages I am reminded monthly what a complete and utter failure I am as a mother. I cannot make my children's food resemble prehistoric reptiles, or any other animal for that matter. Unless worms as spaghetti counts in which case I'm all over that! I cannot make elaborate games that entertain for hours out of marshmallows, popsicle sticks and mom spit.
When I tried the trick one mom wrote about to get my kids to stop leaving their towels on the floor, a routine that involved juggling, rap music and me in yellow spandex, they laughed until they cried then tried to emancipate. And the towels are still on the floor.
I think the mothers in this magazine are robots. Stepford moms maybe. Or maybe they're just married to filthy rich husbands (or trust funds) and can't think of a better way to spend three hours than gluing macaroni elbows onto a photo frame. They don't know the meaning of the word "nap" as it relates to anyone over the age of six. Why sleep when they can make a 100 person party out of pillow feathers and grass clippings? These moms have no greater desire than to make other moms look and feel like worthless toads. Mission accomplished.
Why do I continue to subscribe to this you ask? Perhaps I'm a glutton for punishment, I need to be told I'm bad. Moving on from that though, every once in a while, this magazine has something us common moms can use. Or even that can be used by anyone, anywhere with minimal skills. This is where I stumbled upon letterboxing.
To simplify as much as possible, letterboxing = treasure hunting. Something is hidden, there are clues, you have to find it and when you do you get to put a stamp in your notebook and put your stamp in the notebook that comes with the letterbox. Be sure to re-hide. For a full explanation please see www.letterboxing.org. Some boxes are harder to find than others, some you need more sophisticated equipment, like a compass (Ooooo, scary), but most can be found by common people in common locations.
Lara and I began letterboxing a little over a year ago. We both like treasure hunts so it seemed a good fit for a Saturday afternoon. We stuck to finding the boxes at first. But when we were compiling the Year of the Birthday list, an idea struck us. We could plant our own letterbox! How cool would that be? So we began scouting locations near each of our hometowns, trying to find a suitable location for what would be a temporary letterbox. We settled on Susquehanna State Park because it already has other letterboxes nearby so we figured there was a good chance people would look for ours too.
The cold of January 1st was no deterrent, our box was packed and we set out. This would be the very first event we would do together in the Year of the Birthday! I was prepared this time for the walk and wore sneakers rather than the nine inch platform shoes I wore the last time we went to the park. Before I go on, you need to know that I am rather directionally challenged. North, South, East, West, right, left, it's all Greek to me. I'm the guy, Brody, from Indiana Jones who gets lost in his own museum. I'm the one who goes down the hill for a soda and ends up in north Jersey with a couch on my car. Lara held the compass. I was allowed to touch it. Once. She was a girl scout and learned how to use one of those, whereas, the only scouting I ever did was to scout out the cute boys at the mall.
If you read our clues, we began facing the river, don't ask me what the name of the river is, I think it's the Susquehanna, that would make sense, right? And we turned left, heading down the nice, even, well cleared railroad tracks. NOT! Let me also take the opportunity to inform the world of my balance problems. Uneven ground just doesn't like me.
There were two spots along the trail where the ground had been washed out from beneath the RR tracks so there were these nice "monkey bars" suspended in midair. I did not swing on them. I was already tempting fate enough with the days' activities. So when we got to the second spot where the ground had been washed away, Lara points to our left and shows me the rock that had been deemed worthy to hide our tupperware. It's flat. And you kind of have to climb to get to it. For the clue's sake, Lara whips out the compass and proceeds to do a little math/science/hiking goddess dance and tell me the rock in question is 3 million degrees North-South-East from where we stood. I said, "If it were 3 million degrees we'd be dead." I got the look. I get that a lot. So I shut my mouth, not something I'm very good at. I'm at her mercy here, she controls the compass which means she knows which way we're supposed to go. She could tell me anything she wants to and I have no choice but to believe her. DO NOT ANGER THE WOMAN WITH THE COMPASS!!!!
Hiding the box was the best part. We got to do it over and over and over and over and over again. The Year of the Birthday scrapbook needs to be complete so these things must be fully documented. Plus, it was our first time, we were letterboxing placer virgins so we got a little carried away. So after making Lara contort to the downward facing dog position one last time for one last picture, we both fell down the hill (really) and headed back to the car. We had done it. We had completed the first item on the Year of the Birthday list. There was a lot of "squeee"-ing on the walk back as well as more falling and perhaps some swearing. We wiped the mud from our hands and shoes, and pants, and faces, unbundled ourselves as the heat kicked in and as the excitement began to fade just a bit, the question came............
What if no one finds our letterbox?
Next time...Pretzel Turds