New Year's Eve and it's hard to believe
another zodiac has gone around.

While you drank yourself high on hoping
and watched the ceiling spin from the ground.

Counting down from ten it's time
to make your annual prayer.

Secret santa in the sky
when will I get my share?

Then you tell yourself
what you want to hear.

Cause you have to believe.

This will be my year.

This will be my year...Semisonic


Go Ahead Punk: E-Mail Little Squaw @ squawpunch@hotmail.com

AIM: gimletgurl7 (Remember when she used to be here?)

Monday, July 05, 2004

Okay, here's what happened on Saturday.

Gill and I had intended to go to Camden to see his battle ship (the Battleship New Jersey). But we slept way too late. I didn't want to sit in the house so I suggested that we go visit the new Cabella's store in PA. Apparently it's LL Bean x 100.

So we hopped in the car and hit made our way there. We stopped for lunch along the way. As we entered the restaurant we were reminded of how fat the people are in eastern PA. This is not a stereotype. This is an observation. The people are just large. Then again we live in a very body concious area. (Not that we tend to obsess over that nor do we curb our urges for cake and glog). But the people around us are probably not "average" nor are their politics but that's another conversation all together.

So we supped. Then we got to the store which was basically a complex which didn't look as large as it actually was, only because it was nestled on a lot in the middle of a valley carved out of the mountains. PA is nice like that. For example, Pittsburgh...say what you will about the rust belt (or so I've been told) but that city is gorgeous. If only because it feels like you're surrounded by a lovely bowl of green. Very idealic if you ask me.

But I digress. We started towards the store on foot. As we approached we got a good look at the massive wooden carving of Indians in a canoe and animals and such. Plus there as the "Cool Dog" vendor which basically was a frozen dessert in the shape of a hotdog. But in actuality it was comprised of ice cream and chocolate and candy, OH MY!

People were swarming from all directions. We walked in and were immediately handed a map. A MAP! So the long and short of it is we walked through this massive fish tank. I found it all very sad that the people oohing and ahhing were the same people who would spend a ton of money on lures and whatnicks to catch the very same fish in the wild. Still fish tanks are relaxing.

We proceeded through the fishing area with no big issue. Then we ended up in the "African Diorama". This is when my head began to melt and my mood sank into my shoes. Basically it was a massive room bearing an amazing resemblance to the African plain. Well if Africa was full of STUFFED DEAD ANIMALS REENACTING THEIR MURDERS.

Seriously. Lots of stuffed creatures placed as if they were being pursued in the wild. There was a gazelle. Said gazelle was being held by its neck by a crocodile while another crocodile was eating/pulling on its tail. Then there was leopard in a tree with a dead something or other (it took it there to eat it) with a jackall trying to drag the dead thing away from the leopard.

There was a stuffed elephant. I think it was real because it had fur on its belly. There were dead baboons, lions, zebras, impalas, etc...It was a room full of death. Now don't get me wrong. I am down with the circle of life and I am understand the necessity to manage wildlife populations through regulated hunting. HOWEVER, there is no reason on God's green earth that any human needed to kill any of those animals in Africa. NONE. That's just cruel.

It wasn't like the Museum of Natural History where there's one or two animals. At a museum you can't buy what you need to kill similar creatures while visiting the gift shop.

Cabella's is a store that preps you to kill. There are all sorts of signs about "conservation" etc...but you know that's not a store for nature lovers. LL Bean feels like a store for nature lovers. Cabella's feels like a store for egg headed human killing machines.

It only got worse. In the center of the store was a mountain called "Conservation Mountain". It featured all manners of goat, moose, bear, dear, mountain cat, etc...all dead...all stuffed, many of which were ravaging each other.

Then there was the "Dead Deer Storage" or rather, "Deer Country" as the sign read. There were at least 30 deer all tagged with things like, "White Talled Deer Taken by George I.Am.A. Flippin Caveman Lewis, Debois, IW 1953". Not to mention the stuffed gophers, squirrels, birds, skunks, etc...scampering under their feet.

There was room that sold rifles, crossbows, deer bait and all sorts of lovely weapons of mass murder.

Then there was the counter that sold handguns. I am not going to sound like a hypocrite. I know I wrote about going to the range and I posted pictures of "human" targets riddled with bullet holes. But that was a result of me shooting on a range. I've never shot a living creature and I'd only entertain the thought of shooting a human if they were in my house trying to harm me or Gill or the monkeys. I don't tote my gun with me in my car "just in case". I am not the kind of person you need to worry about.

The kind of person you need to worry about was the "urban" guy at the counter who when asked what he wanted he said, "I want something big and not skinny. I want something that when I wave it around people get scared!" All said while his four year old waundered out of sight.

Of course after all the death rooms I told Gilly that I'd have a much easier time shooting a person than I would an animal. Humans are more likely to have been evil at one point or another.

Upstairs there was one of those "Ole' Time Shooting Ranges" where you shoot a gun that sends a laser or light at a target that sets off "cute" things like dancing bottles and swinging doors. The Amish girls seemed to love it, but at that point I was as depressed and as surly as humanly possible and just wanted to get the hell out of there.

We did end up buying something...three telescoping/rotating marshmellow toasting forks.

To add insult to injury I had the worse cramps and all hell broke loose three days early. BAH!!!

Gilly tried to cheer me up by taking me to the King of Prussia mall, which is massive to say the least. So massive that on top of my cramps, my anger about the dead animals and well just being exhausted...I was unable to enjoy it as much as I could of under normal girie shopping conditions. However I did buy an outfit for the VMA's. That was good.

We ended up waiting forever to eat at the Cheesecake Factory (with visions of desserts floating in my head)...well halfway through dinner I started to get horrific stomach pains. Though I stuck it out because I wanted to minimally take home dessert (which we did)...I was dying in the car "wrapped around the seat just like a prawn" and I don't know how I made it home. Pain pain pain.

I couldn't sleep. I got up at 3AM and wandered around the house. Eventually I watched all my TiVoed shows including, Blowout, The Committments and a couple of True Lifes. Plus I watched a few Pimp My Rides. I ended up showering, brushing my teeth, crawling back into bed and reading before falling asleep at around 7AM.

Now the cycle keeps repeating itself. The stomach cramps don't come for breakfast only lunch and dinner. I am afraid to eat at work tomorrow. Terrified.

Today we went to Camden (ship and aquarium) and the same thing happened to me again. Stress? An allergic reaction to fatty foods? I don't know.

Going to take a shower and try to fall asleep. G'Night.
posted by JustKeepMum on 9:39 PM