Post #2 in the "Breaking the Trend" series

Here, have a few tidbits from the life of Sarah Lambson

Be sure to take these with a healthy dose of something else interesting ( i.e. a good movie, some solitaire, a different, more engaging blog, anything to distract you really).

Beware, this first one is a rather large tidbit so you might want to make sure you wash it down real good. It's almost a morsel, it's so large. I might even go so far as to call it a piece (or dare I say a chunk).

-This weekend was All Corps. I've been calling it a combination of a tri-wizard tournament and youth conference. It's really just a gathering of all the SCA Northeast conservation corps. SCA Massachusetts, and SCA New York (Albany and Adirondacks) were there. It's a chance for us to mingle, get to meet each other, bond, do service...

...and then compete ravenously against each other for a set of bull horns.

On Friday (after we/SCA New Hampshire returned from a NH volunteers recognition at Hampton beach (we saw a piping plover! I buried my feet in sand! We had a BBQ with the best potato salad I have ever had made with red potatoes!) completely unrelated to All Corps) the other corps showed up and started setting up tents in our field. We had soup for dinner. We had a talent show. It was good. I sang "The Longest Time" with 3 other people. It was grand.

On Saturday we arose early and went to the Lake Massebesic Audubon center community garden. We were divided into teams who all had a task. I was on the cooking dinner team. I set up water stations. I moved food into ice coolers. I chopped peppers (oh so many peppers) as thin as I could. I weeded for a while because, c'mon, it doesn't take 8 hours to make dinner for 100 people. Other people built shade structures, weeded, mulched, built an irrigation system, etc. Once everyone was done and resting I really got to work and cooked all the garlic marinated portobello mushrooms and helped flip burgers. It was HOT by that grill. Then there was a dance (contra dancing) much like a dance at youth conference right after a service day, no? I talked to Elise instead.

On Sunday we awoke early again and prepped ourselves to put all the friendships we had made behind us so that we could fight to the bitter end against each other for a pair of bull horns that have been passed on for the past several years. Bear Brook has had the honor of keeping these horns for the past 3 years and today we were going to try our darnedest to keep them. I got my face painted and wore a black shirt for the occasion. We got pumped and I grudgingly tried to feel as spirited as everyone else. You all know I am not one for competition unless maybe it's one based on musical talent. Long story short and pointless details aside (c'mon, you know you want to say it Clue lovers) we lost to Mass. But if I had to choose a team to lose to it was them. The NY team were sore losers and bad sportsmen.

That's all for that tidbit. Here are a few more that are smaller.

-See Inception. This is the beset bit of advice you will ever receive from your's truly

-Speaking of this movie, it makes me want to re-try a story I started writing with similar ideas.

-I force myself to think that goldfish are really good because it's what we have.

-I've recently gotten into podcasts. Mostly NPR but there is a nature video one in there too.

-Watermelon is needed to make any BBQ complete.

-After 7 months of fighting the feeling, I am back to craving Bob Evans Food.

-I am currently murdering everyone at Bear Brook.

-Sorry. Let me clarify that last one. I am moving on with the Bear Brook Massacre. A short story about the deaths of 33 people living at Bear Brook State Park serving an SCA internship. They are written in the form of letters from the last surviving member of the community, me (don't worry, this is purposefully arrogant. The story is supposed to be humorous to the members here and making myself sound arrogant adds to that humor). I am writing to the murderer from inside an insane asylum. Do you want to know who did it? I won't tell you. Not until they are written which will hopefully be before the end of this internship.

-I've been considering entering writing contests. Is that presumptuous of me?

Breaking the trend.

Part of me hates this title. It's so devoid of quotation marks and lyricalness (yes that is a word because Blogger does not underline it in red...). It also means that from now on I have to think about a title. I guess I could always do something generic like "This one is about this..." or "Today I will write a number of random statements that relate in no way whatsoever." Something like that. I guess it can't be any worse than trying to look up song lyrics. That trend did have a good 35 entry run.

So there you are Juli and Emily. I've moved on.

Moving on further...

Several individuals are of the opinion that I need to have a blog devoted to my critique of snack foods, restaurants, advertisements, movies, TV shows, and spinning signs.

Apparently I spend to much time thinking about and watching pointless things.

I did spend a good amount of time working at a movie rental place.

I also love my candy and snack foods.

Even though I have never taken an advertising class in y life I feel the strange need to evaluate how well and how poorly companies sell their wares to the public.

We all know I watch far too much TV.

Eating out is a favorite past time even though I can really no longer afford it.

And I just think spinning signs are a waste of energy. Luckily I have only seen one so far in New Hampshire, and it's in Manchester (of course).

These several people who think I should blog about this happen to all be interpreters. Most especially Rachel and Jess.

What is the solution here?

Take things as they come and then comment on them as I always have, I suppose. This is already a random thoughts blog. An updater blog. I have 4 blogs. I don't want to make another one just for the purpose of putting down my random opinions. And so here are some for you, dear readers, to ponder.

"Hip Hip Frap-ayyyyy!" makes me wanna gouge my eyes out.

A billboard with a woman wearing a diamond ring and covering her lower womanly parts with her hands with the words "tell him first things first" is just bad taste.

Hardees commercials make me want to vomit.

The Taco Bell Chihuahua was not a good idea.

Real men of genius? Genius.

Has anyone tried the new pretzel M&M's? If so let me know how you liked them. I have yet to get my hands on this enigmatic little candy.

Most sit down restaurants are nothing to rave about. We just convince ourselves that the food is really good because we are spending so much money on it. There are, of course, some exceptions. I for one usually end up getting the same thing at restaurants I have been to before because I know it was good and don't want to risk paying for something that I don't know if I will like or not.

French Onion Soup has to have the perfect amount of melty cheese, slightly burnt cheese (aroung the edges of the crock), onions, broth, and the perfect softness of crutons (not slimy like some can be) to be a good French Onion Soup. You can't make a soup with onions in it, slap some shredded cheese and crutons on it (without letting them soak in for a proper amount of time) and think that you can call the dish French Onion Soup. Someone should tell this to Panara.

Oh Panara. I can't stay mad at you. Your breads and pastries and bagels are so delicious. They make up for your "French Onion Soup". Plus you have a really good broccoli cheese soup.

Despite what many people say, adding strawberry flavor to peanut butter M&M's was a great move and I am glad they have kept the "limited edition" flavor so far.

What else?

I've got nothing. That's the problem. I don't remember life's little observations when I come to blog.

Should I write them down?

Does it really matter?

I wonder if Missouri has wintergreen?

Nope.

Oh well.

My new thing? Make envelops and filling them with letters. Don't want a letter from me? Too bad. Because you are going to get one! Unless I don't have your address or you are reading this and I don't know you. In which case I expect you to be greatly disappointed.

Where in the world am I?

"...you wonder if your chance will ever come or if you're stuck in square one."

Have I mentioned what an ordeal it is trying to come up with lyrics to a song that matches in some fashion what I am feeling or writing?

I can never come up with the right lyrics then and there. So I go to my iTunes and put it on shuffle. I then press the next button until I come to a song with promise. Then I go to Lyrics.com and look to see if any of the lines fit.

It's a lot of work and probably the reason I don't post as much as I would like.

I wonder why exactly I started doing this?

Here are some things I have learned about New Hampshire since living here.

-They LOVE their bikes out here. I'm not even kind of kidding. I was sitting in church yesterday and a fleet, a FLEET of them drove past (maybe a flock? I kind of like that better). It must have taken 5-7 minutes for all of them to whiz past. It was kind of like driving past a train and thinking "when is it going to end? Surely it will be soon." and then it just keeps coming and coming. On any given day I will observe at least a dozen bikers. Many with their shirts of blasting down the highway and driving in an unsafe manner. And who needs to be that loud? I mean, c'mon!

-New Hampshire-ites also love their liquor stores. There is at least one liquor outlet in every town. Outlet. Not just store. I'm talking isles and isles of cheap to expensive alcohol in every shape and form. I know most towns have a liquor store, but this is different. On the map of New Hampshire, there are little wine bottles marking the major liquor outlets near the larger cities.

-The people of New Hampshire hate, nay, loathe Massachusetts. (Actually it seems like a lot of other Northeasterners dislike the state in general). I wonder what they did? It goes way beyond sports teams...or maybe not. Maybe that's where it started and then esclated to something...well, laughable. I suppose it can't be any more laughable than other state rivalries. Good thing they are purely on the local level and we don't have little wars breaking out here and there.

That's all I got. Nothing fascinating. Just simple facts.

Some other facts are these:

I get really excited for ice water. There are several people who put ice in their tea or coffee in the morning. Understandable since it's not fun to drink something hot when it's already 80 degrees outside at 8am. But we have a limited ice supply. We have perhaps 1/2 a dozen ice cube trays. And with all these people making giant mason jars of iced coffee and iced tea, I find the ice supplies to be limited in the hottest hours of the day. I was unpacking my cooler from the weekend this morning. I went to put my melted ice packs into the freezer and there I saw a full ice tray! I wasted no time. I grabbed a glass and plopped 6 large ice cubes into it. I then filled it with tap water. It was such a wonderful treat that I stopped unpacking and went to sit on the couch and read my book with my glass of ice water.

I think I just took for granted always having an ice-cold beverage in the house. Back home we always had a gallon jug of water, or maybe a pitcher of kool-aid. It was nice. I am going to start cooling my water in the fridge from now on.

I also get really excited for veggies. We almost always have onions and potatoes. We also often have carrots and celery because those aren't highly sought after. The thing is, now that most people are on hitch, Sue doesn't order food as often. So when we run out of veggies a week after we got them we are out of them for another whole week until the next food order. When we manage to ration them out it is a major treat and means that I get to eat more than grains and cheese for food while camping. I LOVE it when we have Kale, mushrooms, tomatoes, zucchini, spinach, and if we are REALLY lucky, eggplant or broccoli or some other "extravagant" veggie.

I could also live the rest of my life on Feta cheese.

So that's me right now.

At least the me that mostly exists at Bear Brook. For Pawtuckaway Sarah you need to check out my other blog. If you have not yet received an invitation it's because you didn't ask for one yet.

Oh...to clarify a little more on the title, I suppose it applies more to Pawtuckaway Sarah than to Bear Brook Sarah but since these two beings are mostly the same person I felt like it fit.

Also I didn't want to search for lyrics anymore.