Namaste Y'all

Swing heil! Jake Shepherd recently taught me a single step in swing dancing and now I really want to learn it all, but I leave for college soon and I’m working this summer so who knows when I’ll have time. The last time I took a dance class was sophomore year when mom signed her and I up for a dance class at the Winter Park Farmer’s Market. Here’s the thing, I wasn’t totally okay with having mother-son dance lessons, but when we got there we quickly learned that we would be switching partners throughout the hour-long class. ‘Wow!’ you may be thinking, ‘Jacob actually got to dance with a cute girl instead of his mom?? What a fortunate turn of events! How lucky! Just goes to show that-’ No. I’m gonna stop you right there. Everyone in that dance class, except me, was at least 40 years old, and then there was the group being bussed in from the nursing home, so I ended up dancing with mom to grandma aged women. My mom had it worse off because she had to dance with thirsty single old men with bad breath. We went back for another two lessons before mom finally quit on me, and she was my ride there, so that was the end of my dance lessons. Unfortunately, we only learned the Waltz and Rumba, but not swing.

We’re only in North Carolina for a week but I’ve already hiked 12 miles on the Appalachian trail, so that is pretty lit. The first day I did it, Friday, I went up by myself and passed the time singing and practicing my IB English Oral. It was also raining pretty hard so I was pretty much full on King Lear just out in the storm. I could imagine the newspaper headline if someone found me out there: “Deranged 17-year-old Spouting Off Themes of King Lear.” The main reason I hike is because I can take pictures for Instagram, but the second main reason is that we have no WiFi in the house, but my cell service is actually pretty good on the trail.

The American South may not be a great place for equality, but the food is fantastic (does not make up for the rampant racism)!! On Friday night, aka Christmas, we went to this little diner in the town of Hot Springs where we were staying. They gave us some Christmas Dinner menus where you could pick a meat and a few sides, but since my parents are vegetarians, we got some real menus, and it’s a good thing we did because I got some pulled pork and it was twelve times better than any salad, I’ll tell you that.

Happy Jewish Christmas! As we were eating, my mom told us that she had bought us dream catchers to make. “Sorry I can’t do that,” I told her, “that’s cultural appropriation.” We walked outside and it was still pouring, harder than before, and there were puddles in the parking lot. We all walked through the rain to the car, Sophie hobbling behind everyone with her boot, and as each of us jumped the big puddle next to the sidewalk, Sophie, who was almost there, decided it was all too much and turned back to the restaurant. We drove around to pick her up and she ended up getting more rained on that way. She’s an enigma.

In addition to hiking and eating, I’ve also been hammocking outside because there are a ton of trees (Surprise, surprise) but I lost my hammock Friday morning, found it, and then lost it again this morning. It is still lost. I spent the better part of the day looking for it, but it’s one of those small pack away ones and it’s dark green so it’s not easy to spot. It got me to clean my room, so if that’s what you wanted mom, you can give it back now. I looked in all the rooms of this house and outside and in the car and in the hot tub. I looked on top of the armouir and found something even better, a WiFi router! My dad told me when we got there that the WiFi didn’t work, but online it said it did. He pulled out the binder that came with the house and it had a little note saying the router was old and gonna be replaced “ :( “ My thought when I found the router was that it WAS the replacement, so I was excited as heck and connected to the WiFi on my phone. Things were looking up! I tried it on my laptop and NOPE. That is also the reason I am posting this not on Saturday, when it was written.

While all of the hiking and hammock losing where happening, Sophie had been spending most of her days sleeping and complaining that she can’t do anything here, with a boot on her foot. “Can I just hike without it and then wear it longer?” she asked. I went on a 6-mile hike on Saturday with dad, and we passed a bunch of people walking the entire 15-mile stretch of the trail. I was most certainly dehydrated and a little out of it because I hadn’t drank anything all day, so when we passed by the first group we said hi, and I was going to wish them luck by telling them ‘break a leg’ but then I realized that doesn’t mean the same thing when you’re hiking on a mountain at 21,000 feet above sea-level. We got back in the late afternoon and Sophie was still asleep in our parents’ bed. I showered and got changed out of my gross hiking clothes and Sophie walks into our room and asks where everyone has been. “Did you just wake up?” I asked incredulously. “Yeah, where were you all?” she replies. “Well I just hiked six miles, and you slept all day, and now we’re going to Asheville,” I told her. It was a 45-minute drive so nothing like the way here, and we listened to music so it was a pretty good time. At one point, mom said, “If we see a puppy on the side of the road I want you to stop. STOP! And we’re taking it home.” Then she felt bad for thinking about other dogs so she asked, “did anyone tell Rosie we’ll be right back?” “I did,” replied Joseph. Earlier in the week Joseph, Mom and I were standing around in the kitchen and Rosebud was chilling with Joseph. I said something about how she was an old lady and Joseph told me, “she’s not a regular dog.” “Oh yeah?” I asked, “then what is she?” “My best friend,” he replied. If she were really his best friend I think he’d stop playing Camptown Ladies on the recorder all day.

We got to Asheville and looked around at all of the culturally diverse things. Sophie was upset because she still had her boot on and couldn’t move as fast as the rest of us. We went from store to store and stopped in front of this band of wild looking folk with long beards, tattoos, and a sign in front that said ‘Carolina Catskins.’ No, they weren’t selling cat skins. They were actually a really fun band and I encourage everyone to like them on Facebook. Granted, I didn’t understand any words they sang, but the combination clarinet, violin, bass, guitar, and washboard made some great music.

At the end, everyone applauded and some did stepped in front of the crowd and made us aware of all of Jesus’s sacrifices. “The Carolina Catskins have no affiliation with that man,” said the violin player. Sophie was hungry so she was bought a grilled cheese sandwich. The next thing we tried to do was find a music store so Joseph could get a new recorder book and stop playing Christmas songs. I suggested he just stop playing the recorder. After searching fruitlessly and winding up in an Urban Outfitters, we found this great little Indian restaurant and got in line for a table. We split a whole bunch of non-spicy foods, but Sophie didn’t feel well so she just kinda sat there moaning. We were next to the bathroom but Sophie also didn’t feel well enough to stand in line for that, so she just sat there. We ordered some rice pudding stuff for dessert, and everyone was surprised when it had the texture of rice. I took the tiny bowl it came in and decided to have the last bite. “You aren’t going to ask if anyone else wants any,” mom asked in a way that suggested I have no regard for other people whatsoever. “Umm, everyone else said they hated it?” I said, confused. We walked back to our car and were about twenty feet away when Sophie just couldn’t walk anymore so dad and I got the car. I tried getting in the front seat but he told me it was for Sophie. Ok. I got in the back, we pulled up to Sophie, mom and Joseph, and Sophie got in the front. She immediately put her chair back and then told me that it bugged her when my legs were hitting the chair. WHAT. We started talking and Sophie told us to shut up, because her head hurt. Joseph and I, who had not been getting along, now had a common enemy, so we kept talking. Then dad told us to stop talking and we shut up. We pulled over to get Sophie water, and then dad drove us home. We were maybe 15 minutes away and going down a mountain and Sophie started to complain that we were going too fast, so I said that we should just stop and spend the night on the side of the road. We finally got home, Sophie went to bed, and i beat my dad and brother at poker. I went to the room I originally shared with Sophie and Joseph, but Joseph had decided to sleep on a futon, so it was just me in the twin bed, and Sophie in the queen bed. I started to make a sweet new acapella video to ‘Blister in the Sun,’ by the Violent Femmes, but Sophie yelled at me. Najat and Tendai called me and we started talking in a conference call, but then mom busted in the room, mad. “Didn’t you hear Sophie telling you to be quiet and get off the phone??” she asked. “No,” I said, “I had headphones in.” “Hang up now,” she demanded. Instead I went outside, after just lying in my bed silently. When I talked again, Najat called me a peeping Tom because she didn’t even realize I was there, so I explained the entire story of Sophie not feeling well and me not being allowed to talk, and concluded with, “so no, I’m not a peeping Tom.” The entire story took like 10 minutes and I spent the ten minutes walking around outside on the back porch. When I was finished I told them how frustrated I was that I lost my hammock, and right as I was walking by the table outside, I look down, and there’s my hammock, hanging from a chair. It was a christmas miracle. I guess all that can be said is that I don’t give Sophie enough credit, because if she hadn’t complained all day and ended up making me talk on the phone outside, I never would have found my hammock.