Friday, March 30, 2012

Short Story Friday- Star by Rachel Fisher

Short Story Friday, today's epic by Rachel Fisher.
I would love to add pictures to this. 
But I don't have time, since I am leaving in a few hours for that camp we spoke of earlier. 
So I have scheduled this to publish on Friday. 
Maybe I will add a photo later to this ecstatic poem. 








Star 

It sank through the epidermis

filtered through the various underlayers of the skin 
and dove into the bloodstream.


It shot around the body and even the eyes (who saw it)
didn't believe themselves.


It ran on and on and on
stopping briefly to jumpstart the frozen brain,
encourage continued breathing.


It flowed into the square, calloused fingertips
the red-palmed farmer's hands 
implanted them with a surprise of their own.


And shot straight out
into the diamond-spangled brilliance








I begin to wonder when and if I should add pictures to things like this poem, I don't want to ruin the image set in your head from reading it.


91. Brilliance 





 92. Star



I wish SOOOO badly I could say that I took the pictures featured below, but sadly no, I did not take them. I don't know who took them, they were taken with Dad's Nikon so maybe him.
The pictures were taken 4th of July 2009









Wednesday, March 28, 2012

365- Royal Rangers, Russians, and Broken Cameras


Dark and foreboding you stare at the potential death trap I crammed into with 85 other people around this same time last year. This dark bus marks one of those times in my life when I head off to another camp to spend some 5-10 days, this time it was a Royal Ranger camp and I was the only English speaker. Unless of course you count ‘Hello’, ‘My name is Dema’, ‘I like sugar’, ‘What tha F---?!’, and ‘Pink Floyd’  as knowing English, than in that case we all deserve the Webster’s Dictionary merit for most superlative use of the English vocabulary.  I was thus forced to speak Russian the entire time, what better away to tap into the hidden second language deep in my brain than 4 days of non-stop brain wracking Russian.
               


 One of my favorite things about hanging around the friends I have at Rangers is that they don’t treat me differently because I am American. With a lot of the people I’ve hung out with I can be considered like, a novelty, ooo a rare Native American! Let’s get a picture with it! Or they might just ask me to translate stupid song lyrics the entire time, Что это значит? Baby baby ohhhhhh’ But they usually just ask about Pink Floyd songs, or strange rappers I have NEVER heard of, most likely rejected by America and forced to live in exile selling their Grammy raps to piraters in Southern Russia.  

To my friends at RR I am just Madi, no special treatment and no exasperating pestering with : translate this song or swear word!
                 
             I love going to Royal Rangers, and was totally psyched about the idea of going to camp. Ok, yes I was a little nervous, I mean who wouldn’t be? No English? No internet? *GASP* NO. But every moment was worth it, from the tragic breaking of yet another camera, to Roma praying that my dad wouldn’t kill me because I busted yet another….
               
             Tragic camera break story? Yes I know you all want to hear it.

So I was just minding my own beeswax, when all of a sudden the floor decided to turn into a cliff, covered in ice, and my shoes into horribly waxed tap dancing footwear. Like a Tom and Jerry cartoon my feet shot up into the air, my arms waved about wildly and my body went crashing to the floor. The pain was, obnoxiously strong, but not nearly as strong as the sound that continued to ring in my ear, the sound of my camera as it hit the ground with a gut churning CRUNCH. I limped around for the rest of that day, no the next 2 WEEKS. But that wasn’t so bad at all, even when the bruise that covered my entire thigh turned yellow and developed purple spots it wasn’t so bad, I had broken the camera lens, and THAT was bad.
               
           This camera was over 15 years old, so I am pretty sure its death wouldn’t be toooo tragic. The problem was that it was the second camera lens I had managed to break in a matter of 2 weeks. The first one broke when I had left the case unzipped on the chair at my mom’s desk in the corner of the kitchen, I left it unzipped because I was getting the card out to empty off onto the computer. I left it because I felt the sudden need for milk or something…I was only gone for 6 seconds and that is all it took for Brooklyn (who is not allowed to sit at this desk EVER) to come up grab the camera bag UPSIDE DOWN thus dumping all its contents onto the floor. I literally cried when I heard the sound of that 700 dollar lens crack as it hit the floor.  After crying, asking for forgiveness, crying some more, Brooklyn just walking off saying it was an accident, Dad was able to forgive, though I do get reminded about this incident about EVERY week.

Thank you dear friends and family for your enjoyment in reminding me of this tragic episode of my short life. 

Turns out only the protector glass broke, but the rim is dented in so we can’t replace the protecting glass. I figured that dad would ban me from all cameras, but it turns out he loves me being the one to remember to take pictures on Christmas way too much, so instead of banning me from using his, he heaped responsibility upon disaster and gave me the old Cannon Rebel. And of course a few weeks later, I break its lens at camp.
               
              That entire story I managed to relay to about 10 kids while at camp. And THAT is why I am so stinken glad (in a way) that I made those stupid mistakes. I believe that story is the most Russian I have spoken without interruption and still been understood.  They got the whhhooooole story! So much so that they brought in their camera savvy friend to help me with my camera, she explained to me that I only need to take it to a camera story and they can jimmy the piece that’s off track so that my camera will auto focus again and everything will be a ok.

                But enough of me talking, you want to see pictures I am sure
(All taken with the Cannon Rebel) 



The first night at camp they made food for us, the rest of the days we did it our selves. 

This is Andre, Yas refused to let us squash him. 
One of the kids asked me if I'd  brought markers and paper, when I said no they looked at me like I was crazy. Sorry, it never occurred to me to bring coloring stuff to CAMP. 
 





We did a LOT of knot tying, it is Royal Rangers after all...

 

 
Our AWESOME creation!!!

85. Mesha


This is just part of a breakfast picked out by Russian teenagers, it also features, Muesli, with sweetened condensed milk instead of normal milk, a small chocolate bar for everyone and hot chocolate. 

 

Our very own dork, Dima, decided to combine everything. When he complained that it was too sweet I told him to put some salt in it. He actually did, and continued to eat it....YUGH >-<

This is Roma, he had an unfortunate run in with the zipline. This is like day 3 so it's healed up some. I got hit by the zipline too, when you get to the bottom of the zipline 2 kids will sit on it to hold it down so that you can unclip yourself, and then they let go. In my case, before you are clear of the rope. So the rope bounced up hitting the side of my face and totally flipping me over backwards, which resulted in lose of hearing for the next thirty minutes, and a bruise on the side of my face (lots of bruises this trip)

89. Not good, great
Bathroom, what can I say, it's still Russia.
 




86. Fire and Grease
 


 87. Shashlik
A lot of people would say (I'm sure I have said it as well) That Russian food is gross. I  mean why do you always see Indian, Western, and Italian restaurants and never a Russian one? Over the years I have realized that I really really REALLy love Russian food! When it's done well, it's done well. I've had some pretty terrible stuff, but the good stuff, now that's worth it.

88. Soup.
 



 

90. Steam


I DID THAT!
 

The Bench of DOOM (where you take your tests)






So why am I talking so randomly about Royal Rangers......OH YES. BECAUSE I AM GOING TO ANOTHER CAMP TOMORROW. 
SCORE. 
Fun fun fun, and this time, Natasha, fellow english speaker, is coming with me! YAY! 
So I will so you procrastinators, later.
see ya.






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