a worm by any other name

Isn’t the rain great? I mean there are the obvious reasons to enjoy it, the ones all NW folk can spout off at the first mean remark about our weather: “But it give us our green grass and trees,” “But there is nothing like the euphoria of the first day it stops raining and the sun breaks thru,” and, of course, “You haven’t had a childhood if you haven’t been out puddle jumping.”
Most of the time I really love everything about rain. The way it will roll down your forehead and drip off your nose. The way it splats when it hits windows. The sprays that fly up when you drive thru puddles too fast. Hydroplaning. The sound of drops hitting tent canvas. The smell of rain before, during and after a storm. And the way the rain allures worms to come up to the surface.
Okay, so maybe that last one seems a little strange. But I’ve always had this weird affection for worms. In the summer I would rescue the ones that had made their way to the sizzling concrete. Sometimes my cousin I would race thru the rain to see who could collect the most worms the fastest. Don’t think me too weird, I’m not going to be joining PETW (People for the Ethical Treatment of Worms – I’m sure they’re out there somewhere), I don’t tap dance around them on the side walk, I certainly don’t brake for them, and I don’t spend my free time knitting them sweaters.
I’m off track – let me get back to the reason I bring any of this up. Just the other, very rainy day, I noticed that there were no worms to be found. Well, none to be found on any of the sidewalks near my apartment or work. None. I was rather disappointed - I have so many fun memories involving the little squiggly guys…

Okay to set the stage: I’m at my friend Beth’s* house. It’s a rainy day, her mom has left us home alone while she runs an errand, and we’re watching Beth’s little sister Sarah**. It’s probably about noon or a little after. And I’ve probably been over at her house since about the same time the day before. I imagine that we were getting a little snippy with each other, as adolescent girls tend to do, and to keep from attacking each other we decided on a common enemy. Enter poor Sarah.
I’m not sure what made us decide that worms should be our weapon of choice that day, but we collected a mason jar full of them and then started taunting Sarah. Okay, then we tried to taunt Sarah. She would have nothing to do with it! “Worms? Schworms.” her glance seemed to say.
We couldn’t stand it. This was not the fun we had hoped for. We can come up with something worse! We took our worms and retreated for the moment. We ran to the kitchen. With only one door leading into it from the rest of the house and a convenient sliding door to the back deck for quick escape – it was the perfect place to set up camp. We started brainstorming, but nothing we came up with sounded horrid enough.

We eventually decided to admit defeat.

Since we were in the kitchen anyway we decided to bake a cake. I know, a decidedly girly thing to do, but having been beaten at things more mischievous it was time to revert back to something a little more, well, known.

Okay, as a slight break in the story, I’d like to explain something real quick. As much as I would like to say that I was about eight in this story, I can’t. We were old enough to stay home alone for several hours, old enough to watch her little sister, old enough to use and reach everything in the kitchen. And somewhere in all that ‘old enough’, you would think that ‘to know better’ should show up…

We started digging thru the cupboards for a box of cake mix. I mean, come on now – we were woman of the 90’s, we only make things that come out of boxes or are cooked in the microwave (or easy bake ovens). Unfortunately, there were no boxed cake mixes. But, no worries, that wasn’t going to stop us. We both started grabbing anything that looked like a cake ingredient from the cupboards.
Flour…sugar…hmmm…what else goes in cake? Something to make it taste good of course! We decided that if we’re going to make it from scratch that it should be unique. Something you couldn’t make with just a boxed cake mix. We started throwing out ideas – anything that we saw around us. “Oranges!” “Apples!” Our ideas got stranger, “Licorice!” and grosser and we went, “Onions!” , “Worms!”

Worms!

That’s it! We both stared at the jar of worms still sitting on the counter. It’s brilliant! We did a happy dance around the kitchen and started to plot again.
We made our cake batter and threw some worms in. “Chocolate ripple cake,” decreed Beth. I pulled out the blender and threw some worms and powdered sugar in, “Chocolate chip frosting to top it,” I added. We started giggling. We started laughing so hard that we could hardly pick ourselves up off the floor. But we did manage to throw the cake in the oven.

The cake was done. It was time to start phase two of the plan.

We started loudly debating who would get the first piece of our extraordinary cake. It wasn’t long until Sarah heard the word cake and came running. Busting into the kitchen she joined the fight. Keeping as straight of faces as we could, Beth and I ended our aurgument, agreeing that if Sarah ate the first piece of cake that we'd have nothing to fight over. Grinning wickedly we cut her a piece. “It’s our own recipe Sarah, let us know what you think,” we tell her, “Can you guess our secret ingredient?”

Things get a little fuzzy here. I can’t remember exactly how many bites of cake we let her eat before we revealed our secret ingredient. But I do remember the look on her face when we did! She ran from the room screaming and crying. Beth and I clapped our hands with glee and laughed ‘till our stomachs hurt.

After typing this all out, I’m almost ashamed of my behavior. I’d be really ashamed except nothing happened to Sarah, she didn’t even get sick. And we did have so much fun. It's not like we got off scot-free, either. Sarah told her mom what had happened and we had to clean the kitchen, clean Sarah’s room, and do enough yard work to raise money to buy Beth’s mom a new blender and cake pan. It was so totally worth it.

You always hear guys that grew up with brothers talk about how rough and tumble they were. How the youngest always got it the worst. You don’t hear many girls complaining about how horribly they were treated by their older sisters. My guess? They still live in fear.

* Name has not been changed. Please pretend that it was in order to protect the innocent. Should you run into a Beth, please do not bombard her with accusations about the ethical treatment of worms. Thank you.
** Name has not been changed, but has been misspelled to protect the innocent.

the snail that I was

Have you ever wondered at the saying about life speeding by? Now, it’s just my guess, but I’m pretty sure that time doesn’t really speed up…. so does that mean that we just slow down so much that everything looks to be quickly passing?

Like most average Joes, I’ve done a terrible job of continuing to post anything to my blog. My excuse was going to be that lately time has just been flying by – but I’m not sure that I’m ready to admit to everyone that I’ve really just been moving too slow :)
Anyway, either time has slowed down or I’ve picked my speed back up. And even being the snail that I was, great things have happened since my last post. I’m excited to share them with you and promise to do it soon.

‘Till then, may your time be of moderate pace and joyful!