Pussy Galore

Six days of searching for any big cat sign, hunting in the wilderness five hours east of Vancouver, in Canada,  yielded little more than some minor chaffing and disappointment.  My husband was smelling ripe after wearing the same clothes ever since his outpost cabin burned down.  Admittedly, he was jinxed getting a lynx.

On the last day of the hunt, in the last hour, he heard a big Tom screech.  His mind’s eye flickered with a flashback to the old Mercury car commercials….it was the throaty growl of a confident cougar!  High stepping in stealth mode, John stalked it.  When he was within 50 yards, he realized that this old boy was about to mount a female.  Two cougars!

He turned off the safety, gingerly raised the barrel, took aim through the scope, and expertly blew that big Tom right off of the back of his woman.  185 lbs. of muscle and mean collapsed and fell to the ground.  He thought about letting the cat have his fun first, but he thought, “Oh, this cat is screwed already.”  With daylight fading, he really had no choice but to pull the trigger.  BOOM.   John gutted it and flanked the hide over his shoulders for the walk out.

The next morning, he transferred his trophy from the outfitter’s truck to the roof of a rented Alero and headed for the border.  There was six inches of fresh snow on the road and a blowing arctic wind swirled mercilessly with whiteouts; visibility was less than 20 feet and it was pitch-black-out-early.  No moon.  He had lots of luck on this trip, but it was mostly bad.

Now it is one thing to travel internationally with a rifle, a load of bullets, and some raw meat and quite another to do the same without identification, luggage, or money and projecting an aroma much like Pig-Pen’s from the Peanuts Comic Strip.   The fire had reduced all of his worldly possessions to ash.  He had no real shelter, no water, and no  civilization for a week. There were tracks as wide as I-75 in his under britches and his socks smelled of something that died a long time ago.  He was technically destitute in a foreign country and had to prove  he was a U.S. Citizen to the Consulate in Vancouver by knowing the full names, dates of birth, and cities of birth of both of his parents and his wife.  Successful, he was then photographed in his filthy clothing and his sprouting, grey beard.  New Passport in hand, he had what he needed to claim a seat on the next flight home.  I was thankful not to be anywhere on that airplane.

With his usual luck, the next best flight home hopscotched across the country in every direction with three big layovers and four connections lasting two days.  He landed in hot climates wearing his only shirt, a heavy woolen one, which caused beads of sweat to fester between his shoulder blades and roll down into his butt crack.  He soldiered on in his wet pants and heavy boots, arriving in Detroit 20 hours later.  I saw a lady being wheeled out with an oxygen mask and wondered, “Coincidence?”

Borrowed Underwear

I’m curious to find out if he comes home with whitey-tighties or silky boxers.  Just what do our friends in the great north wear under their Mackinaws?  My destitute husband is living in borrowed underwear and outerwear ever since his spike camp burned to the ground in Canada while he was hunting a Lynx.  In a very Theodore Roosevelt kind of way, he has soldiered on.

He and his guide were five hours north of Vancouver, off grid, in the bush, spotting cats and killing time.  Then all hell broke loose.  Over the ridge, in a valley, blue smoke belched skyward.  Their horses spooked.  Nervous energy filled their lungs.  The two men split up.  John stayed in the mountains, glassing sheep and cat hunting, while the guide circled back to camp.  An hour later, the truth came riding back with just a sad look.   Up in smoke went the tales:  his worn Pendleton merino-wool shirt with the shoulder repair after a near miss with a wolverine, the spare boots that saved his life in the arctic circle after he went all Chuck Norris on a polar bear with a roundhouse kick to the jaw, and gone, sadly, is his lucky rabbit’s foot whose luck, obviously, ran out.

So far, as he tells it, he is getting by by the skin of his teeth.  They are trapping their meals and doing everything short of going all “Brokeback Mountain” to stay warm.   He has a smart horse this time, which is about the only good thing that has happened.

There will be no more word from him until Monday, January 4, 2015.

Sugar Momma

Last time he went out, he slept in a cave. So a simple fire should be a piece of cake.

Ever since his wallet filled with identification, cash, and pictures of his wife burned to the ground in an outpost cabin in Canada along with his U.S. Passport, I’ve been making calls to the United States Consulate in Vancouver to figure out how to get my husband back into the States.  I’m kind of thinking about leaving him there, but someone has to take out the garbage on Wednesdays.

What I learned from the agents is that I am married to a man who is technically destitute.  They have a label for people overseas who have lost their passports and money and now John has been labeled destitute.  He doesn’t know this yet.  When he gets out of the bush and heads to the U.S. Consulate in the rental car that (I hope!) is full of gas, he will learn the ugly truth.  He will have to stand in the “destitute” line:  I can’t get enough of that word –and he will figure out real quick who his Sugar Momma is.

Yes, I’m laughing.   In hindsight, he probably should have paid more attention to the American Express slogan, “Never leave home without it.”  Hopefully the outfitter he is with is still feeding him and will probably fill up his car with gas and give him lunch money and tell him not to talk to strangers.   Sugar Momma is working the deal on this end, and somehow, this big swamp buck hunter will get home in one piece.  No fear.

All That Glitters Isn’t Gold

When my husband goes on a hunting trip, we have a deal.  Don’t call home from the bush unless something is wrong.  I’m confident that when my man is dressed in camouflage with pockets full of bullets and his tootsies are flanked in Sorel Conquest boots, that something is going to die.

He left Michigan two days ago.  Today my phone rang, his ID popped up, and my heart sunk.  I answered the phone with one question, “What’s wrong?”

He was out on the mountain range in British Columbia, about five hour’s drive north of Vancouver, hunting a lynx.  His guide noticed blue smoke on the horizon and left John to “go check it out.”  It was a warmer day and he was dressed lightly:  no need for the heavy parkas, the Kelty backpacking frame, or things like money and identification.  They were off grid, catching cats.  In the meantime, John spotted several sheep, a bobcat, and some wild horses.

When the guide returned, his face was ashen.  The entire outpost cabin had burned to the ground.  All they had left were the clothes on their backs and nightfall was coming.  Both men made it back somehow to the outfitter’s homestead in Lilliooet, where they lit a fire and started making calls.

My husband is very resourceful.

He will find clean underwear.

He will find or make all necessary outerwear.   He will come home with a lynx.

As long as he has a firearm and no broken bones, I’m good with it.

Tomorrow I will start calling his not-so-favorite entity: the federal government, to find out how to get him back into the country without a passport, any money, a driver’s license, or a credit card.    I sure hope they don’t look at his Facebook posts or this could be a very long process!

#totallyscrewed

As Good As It Gets

Had a hot date with a coupla 20 lb. King Salmons last weekend, river kings,  which were spawning in the Big Manistee River on the west side of the state.  These fish are about four years old and are returning up stream to spawn and die after having lived and matured in Lake Michigan.  They are silver and shiny (like Airstreams!) when they are growing but by the time they swim up river, they become dark speckled, splotched and blackish as their flesh rots away in the dying process.  The life cycle of salmon is gruesome.  Google it.

Lance, proprietor of Scout Trout Charters, just might be the best river man on the waters up there.  I say that, because he handled his boat and the waterway AND my meltdown with grace.  Yes, I had a full blown meltdown/breakdown.  These fish broke me.  They beat me up and  I cried like a little girl when I lost ANOTHER one of them after a good fight.  I tried not to let it happen.  I bit my lip.   I tried to think happy thoughts.  Then, flushed with humiliation, heat rising off my cheeks, the dam broke and the crocodile tears just kept rolling down.  Did I mention Leroy?  He fishes with Adam in the big Lake Michigan tournaments.  It was a “special” moment for him too.   I might be smiling in the pictures, but it was a rough day.

The guys tried to give me a “charity rod”–one where they had done the actual hooking and were willing to let me reel the fish in. You know, “just the tip, just for a minute, to see how it feels.”   I shot Lance “the look” and he backed right down.  Because no. Because hell no.   That’s way too lame for a grown woman who owns her own bass boat even if she is beet red, busted, and sniffling with snots.

The difference between pan fishing and salmon fishing is like the difference between a high school football player and an NFL player.  Salmon fishing is true sport fishing.  The rest is all practice.  The rods and reels are awkward and heavy.  River salmon fishing is a combination of catching a drift as one does with a fly rod but also casting using a bait caster.  For me, everything was on the wrong side of my body.  The reel was on top and needed to be cranked with the right hand–totally opposite of a spinning rod.  I lost more fish than I got.

In an act of conservation, we let all the ladies go to lay their eggs.  We kept three big males, each between 15 – 18 lbs.  That’s six sides which feeds 12 people and that’s as good as it gets on this trip.

I lied.  The best part was afterwards, when I climbed into the back seat of Lance’s truck, and saw this sticker.

Going Up?

Elevated English

Every now and again, using my honed and boned up arsenal of persuasion words, I ratchet it up notch just to get a little tingle up my leg.  It is a high to successfully use my brain in conjunction with my mouth.  I should do it more often.

Throw in a few practiced looks and the occasional wink, and watch how the receiver then ups his word game.  Keep it going and the unprepared will eventually falter (wherein all snickers must be retained).

Extrapolate, Excoriate, Exacerbate and Masticate…

Innocuous, Synergy, Visceral

Fluid or Fluctuate, not Change.  Change is a nickle word.

Heinous, Innocuous

Let’s be Pithy

Supercilious

ubiquitous

The eff word is abused, misused, over used and bastardized.  Any back door Santa, adept with a word arsenal,  knows dalliance or osculation will do.  You get more with a little sugar.  Enjoy the ride.