Hiking the Fjallraven Classic: Sweden!

The best thing about the Fjallraven Classic is everyone being excited about hiking and hiking together. We met people from Korea, the Philippines, South Africa, Iowa, Finland, and a bunch of other places. We only met two people who didn't like us because Brad and Nando were too loud(?).

The worst thing about the Fjallraven Classic is it being over. I miss going to REI and Midwest Mountaineering every week and telling every sales representative about it while trying on every pair of hiking boots. Before going to Sweden, I purchased and returned 11 pairs of boots. That's an actual count. I purchased and returned the same pair twice before keeping them the third time. And that isn't even the pair I took on the hike.

 

Here is the overall schedule

8 months out - purchase ticket the second they go on sale

Until departure - visit outdoors stores weekly. obsess about gear. go on some practice hikes. revise gear. tell everyone about everything.

Arrive - hike for 70 miles. remember to stop and look around. some people will be appalled by your offer to share whiskey while hiking. others will have their own and everyone can enjoy talking about their respective whiskeys. we had three different kinds: fireball, screwball, and pendleton. one guy had some very specific, collector's scottish whiskey. we did not mention any of our whiskeys during that conversation.

Finish - attend party. be sure to finish hiking in time for the party.

Sweden is beautiful. Exceptionally beautiful, unexpectedly mountainously beautiful, more dramatically beautiful than it looks in the Fjallraven Classic promotional videos on YouTube.

 

 

I got roses from my dentist

Here is a charming little episode. 

 

I was eating dinner and all of a sudden was missing part of a tooth. After gasping and racing to a mirror for confirmation I calmly called my dentist's emergency line. They don't actually have one, but I left an emphatic voicemail at the normal number.

It was spring 2020, COVID had just started. And I didn't own a car. So I rode my bike to the office. The dentist confirmed the tooth was chipped. Giving thanks for this verification required so much sarcasm suppression I nearly died.

My anxiousness is already through the roof. Did I have to BIKE to the office for this. Did my dentist need to go to dentist school for this. Could not a photo have been evaluated by e-mail or text. Could not some lower level of training be provided to a medical representative at, for example, the Walgreens near my apartment - a line could form out the door for such a person to decree the wholeness, or lack thereof, of any teeth in question?

Anyway, another appointment was made for drilling and mold taking. The dentist recommended gold for longevity and really insisted on calling the new tooth 'jewelry', but I was too anxious to laugh at this whimsical jesting.

Then it was time for the Tooth Installation. Out came the bike. On arrival at the dentist's office, no one was there. I called, I wrote, no answer. I biked home. 

Scheduling snafu! The dentist was out with back pain. Is this not too much? It is too much. Should I get a new dentist? No. I'm in too deep.

On the fourth trip to the office, the bike ride was sunny, and the dentist is there. The gold 'jewelry' is ON THE VERGE of being placed when the dentist drops it.

No problem. It's fine. 

Except it's not. 

We cannot find it.

Four of us crawl around on the floor examining every inch of space and Ikea cabinetry. We make helpful statements about things having to be somewhere and scientific laws regarding the impossibility of physical objects vanishing into thin air. The dentist's enthusiastic assistant gets out a tool kit and starts disassembling the dentist chair. I wanted to protest this extraneous effort, but could not due to hunger and fatigue induced resignation.

At one point I look up from the floor search to see a bouquet of red roses thrust in my face. The bouquet is decently large, but not excessive. A respectable and appropriate size to convey regret for the aforementioned cancelled appointment. Yes. This saga is now complete with the Dickensian charm too long missing from modern dentist appointments.

We give up the search. I've been at the dentist office for 3 hours. The rose bouquet mostly fits in my backpack with a lot of the top sticking out and I bike home hoping someone will ask about it.

The fifth appointment is the final one. I now have mouth jewelry. I also bought a car.

There's a tea/tattoo for that

These days it's essential to engage in some form of self-care. Failure to do so invokes panicked concern from those tapped into today's meditative, detoxative, restorative, curative practices. You might as well run for the caves or fly with birds.

Seriously.  

Have you ever tried hopping on a Zoom call and up and saying something like, "I'm not into self-care".

No way. No one is doing that.

 

 

 

 

 

 
Lately I've been afternoon tea drinking. 

Not interesting loose leaf tea studied by tea masters pondering brewing impacts of various water temperatures. 

I collect those little medicinal, herbal tea packets.

After lunch I sit down and think about what could be better. How is my throat? Am I breathing with optimal ease? How comfortable is my belly? Am I digesting well? Might my vitality or Echinacea levels be improved? 

Are there expectations of stress? Ha! Organic Stress Ease - for a relief of tension, and promotion of relaxation.

 

Apparently there's a muscle detox tea, so hopefully I don't have any muscle toxicity (can you even imagine) between now and getting that one. 

I select a tea and drink it, forgetting entirely about the condition it was purported to address. I'm not even sure the teas are that good or if there's a discernible taste difference. I return to my desk comforted.

 

Awhile back I asked the Kowalski's clerk for the break-up tea, a single tear trailing dramatically down my face. You can imagine the response. It was a difficult moment.*

Fortunately, there's a fake tattoo for that. More specifically a series of them, outlined as follows.

 

 

 


FIRST: profanity.
Place over gutted heart with massive amounts of drama and pathos, to be appreciated by you and a few close friends who've been preemptively assured the missive is not permanent.

 

 

SECOND: sharks.
More abstract - represents submerged wandering through oceanic emotional abyss, unprovoked saltiness with others, salty tears in public places, enjoyment of animal stuff.

(Do we like sharks because they're so Machiavellian and super dramatic about eating? They're so angsty. Always looking this way and that, never settling down. They're cool and serve their purpose and all, but this is no way to live.)

 

THIRD: wise words.
Directive to chill out, do 'still' things. Book 90 instead of 60 minute massage with total entitlement. Take dating book recommendations and try to avoid reading entirely through lens of ended relationship. Shift focus to personal development because growth is neat, plus, oh were you getting ready for a date? LOL. sit down and learn something.

 

 

 

FOURTH: #flyforth

Bury remaining feelings and run away. 

HAHAHA. jk. 

Symbolic of moving forward + wheels up approach to activities like Sweeneys and Glacier National Park. So, sort of normal life but with more abandon and bald eagle-level freedom of saying yes to things. Not in an overbooking it kind of way, but also not underbooking it. Just a more than normal amount of booking.

In conclusion, I sort of liked having tattoos. We'll see where this leads.

*fictitious scenario.

News Bulletin 862

Calabria's Mancuso clan was having a real heyday selling tons of drugs. Now their leader’s nephew is telling on them and they’re the main spectacle in a 325-mobster trial - the biggest since the roaring antimafia 1980s! Projected to take two years, the action will occur in a big old converted call center led by lead mafia prosecutor Nicola Gratteri (who the mob definitely does not like).

 

Last week Kim Jong Un mentioned the U.S. is North Korea's greatest enemy and he doesn't expect to like Biden. Then he premiered some weapons including military drones, a nuclear-powered submarine, and a hypersonic warhead. Observers pointed out North Korea traditionally welcomes new U.S. presidents with weapony demonstrations, unveilings, and tests of various natures.

 

 

Camping: What are we doing. What, what, what are we doing.

This summer I went to Tuscarora Lake in the Boundary Waters for a weekend. Like all moments without Netflix, the trip fostered space for meaningful pause and reflection. Namely, camping is pretty funny.

Consider woodland critters scampering about the forest.

Hang on I'm right behind you, dear animals! Please wait whilst I rage walk this portage, steer the canoe in a precise ‘S’ pattern*, fall in mud, kill bugs, burn myself, and sweat like a horse.

This is the Boundary Waters for people. We spend hours carrying like 60 pounds of gear PER PERSON to spend 2.5 days outdoors in a moderate degree of comfort enjoying the view and illusions of self-sufficiency.

Wait, you might say, I have tons of wilderness skills like navigating by stars and skinning buffalo and making clotheslines out of fishing string. Isn’t that cool.

Absolutely. I’m 100%, unreservedly impressed by all such accomplishments. Take me camping with you.

But here is an abbreviated version of Jack London's Call of the Wild**.

-          Wolf: Hi, I'm a little wolf running around with some friends. We're going to catch a rabbit with no tools or assistance. It’s fine if there’s rain, snow, or someone falls in a lake because we have fur automatically. We're all like 1 years old.

Person: Hi, I'm 37, here with a professional guide and a bunch of friends who loaned me a tent, sleeping bag, and coat. I'm nervous about the little propane cooker things.

-          Moose baby: I’m a moose born an hour ago. Watch me race like the wind!

Person baby: Let me get back to you in like ten years.

Humans are the most helpless beings on earth. Thank heavens for top notch brains or we would’ve died out in hours.

The trip was fun! Here are pictures.

 

We saw the northern lights!!
Photo credit: not me. Used without permission.

Photo credit: still not me.
It's not like I was going to get up early enough to take this.

Photo credit: Can we just agree what's important is appreciating the Boundary Waters.

I didn't take any of these either.

 

*I actually did sort of learn how to steer a canoe!!

**this abbreviated version is completely made up and has nothing to do with Call of the Wild.