Hot and Humid

The intense heat arrived here the other day, and now the humidity has come in at full-force as well. Literally overnight, my hair, which had been relatively normal and calm up to this point, suddenly turned into a mess of curls. Thus I knew, even before I went outside this morning, that the humidity was here. But, I won't complain because I have air conditioning in my house, my car, and at work, so it's all good.

Last night we rangers went to Bowie's for dinner--named in honor of the famous Jim Bowie who, legend as legend has it, had a knife fight on a sandbar across the river in Vidalia back in the day. After dinner, Sharon and Mary went with me to take care of the Wesselman's pets. We decided that maybe Cocoa hadn't tried to commit suicide by hanging himself in the living room blinds after all--it was probably a conspiracy of cats Milo and Shelly, who were both extremely attitudinal last night, to eliminate Cocoa from the household. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on them! Milo got out of the house just as we were leaving, but Sharon ran through the bushes and chased him down. After our pet adventures, we decided that we needed some ice cream, so we went to Dairy Queen. I discovered a new favorite treat! I ordered the French Vanilla Moolatte--without coffee--and it was awesome! On our way home, we saw some crazy lightning in the clouds across the sky. The flashes of lightning weren't necessarily big, but they were constant. It looked like some kind of battle going on up in the sky, but it never materialized into a storm. When I got home yesterday evening, there were all of these flying ants in my house, so I was going around spraying them with hairspray. They're nasty and they probably bite me while I'm asleep!

Today I'm holding down the fort at the Johnson House--it's been a pretty busy morning, and then of course some people came in right at 12:00 as I was closing for lunch, but I tossed them out. I had even turned the lights off already, but they still came in! Hopefully it will be a busy afternoon so I don't get too sleepy. We rangers are famous for falling asleep in the big, soft chair there at the desk. Oh! I almost forgot the funniest thing. This weekend here in Natchez they're having what's called Mud Mania. It's like a big tractor pull where people bring their trucks and have tug-o-wars over big mud pits, races in the mud, and other such things. The newspaper described it as "the biggest redneck party on earth!" Only in Mississippi.

Man in Wheelchair Takes Wild Ride

This was one of the headlines in the newspaper this morning. Apparently, somehow (I have no idea how this could even be possible) a man's wheelchair became lodged in the grill of a semi-truck--while the man was in the wheelchair. Then, the truck takes off and travels four miles at 50 mph before the driver notices that he's pushing something along with him. Only in Mississippi. The newspaper (this must be the same writer who covered the missing leg story) reported that the wheelchair guy "spilled his soda, but other than that, seemed quite happy after it was all over." This is a crazy place! Speaking of crazy, today was the last day of the first week of Jr. Ranger camp. Everyone is relieved to have survived it all. Today we had kids getting hit with baseballs, running into each other on the baseball field, and downing hot dogs like there's no tomorrow. Poor Ranger Angie had to deal with little Sydney who couldn't get her extremely tight pink camouflage pants unbuttoned when she needed to go to the bathroom. We decided that Sydney needs some slightly larger pants. We were a little short on staff at Melrose today, but only three of eight tours even went out, so it wasn't too bad. We're all going to go out to dinner tonight to celebrate one week down. Mary, one of the curatorial interns here for the summer, Sharon, and I are all going to go over to the Wesselman's after dinner to take care of the now "suicidal" animals. I think Cocoa tried to hang himself in the living room blinds yesterday--luckily he's okay, but we decided he might need a little extra attention this evening. Some people from Colorado told me that I kind of have a Southern accent . . . they obviously haven't been in town very long. They'll soon find out what a real Southern accent sounds like. I don't think I have one at all. Well, I'm off to pick up Mary and Sharon!

Ranger Reunion

Today Ranger Sharon and I had a reunion with Ranger Stacy (whom you may remember from last year)! She now works at Gulf Islands National Seashore down off the coast of Gulfport, Mississippi, but she came up to Natchez to finish moving all of her stuff down there. Her job specifically is to take people on tours of Fort Massachusetts out on Ship Island in the Gulf of Mexico. It sounds like a really cool place, but I just hope for her sake that no more bad hurricanes come up that way. Katrina did a number on the park there. In fact, their park headquarters is still in a temporary trailer, and there are 17,000 residents in the area still in FEMA trailers. If another hurricane does come along Katrina's route this summer, I don't think that the coast could handle it. Angie and I are thinking to take a road trip down to Gulf Islands later this summer, which would be super fun. Stacy brought Sharon and me pizza for lunch--yum!

It was a pretty slow day at Melrose today, but that was a good thing because Sharon and I were the only rangers there. Everybody else was up in Vicksburg with the little kiddies learning about the Civil War. Vicksburg is a fascinating place--I'm kind of captivated by the whole story of the place. The Confederate forces put up one heck of a fight against the Union troops--thus the two-month siege. In learning about this Union general named John McClernand, I have come to kind of question the military ethics of Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman. McClernand was supposed to lead the attack on Vicksburg, but Grant told him to go recruit soldiers in Illinois, and then Grant went ahead and attacked the city while McClernand was away. Grant and Sherman's tactics in taking the city were pretty crazy--they did some kind of weird stuff that got a lot of soldiers killed. But, that's easy for me to say in hindsight--they were probably just doing what they thought was best.

It is really hot here today, and has been for the last few days. Everything is starting to melt. Unfortunately that cool May weather we had a few weeks ago was short-lived. Welcome to summer in Mississippi!

The Bear Wrestler

All of the Junior Rangers are now officially afraid of me. Today was William Johnson day at Junior Ranger Camp, and I happened to be the ranger working down there all day. Tim told all of the kids that Ranger Tiffany is from Utah and she wrestles bears, panthers, and mountain lions, and also lives by herself in the mountains. Mississippi kids must be really gullible because some of them actually believed him. Do I really look like I could wrestle a bear? Come on kids, most of you are bigger than me.

After the kids left this afternoon, it got a little quiet there, so I started flipping through the new "10th Anniversary" phone books we received. All of the rangers were wondering what it is the 10th anniversary of--maybe when phones first appeared in Natchez? I was back in the yellow pages, and I happened to run across the "Churches" section. I don't think I've ever seen so many church categories in my life. Under "Churches" there were the African Methodist Episcopal, Apostolic, Assemblies of God, Baptist (which had the most listings of any church), Baptist Independent, Baptist-Missionary, Baptist-Southern, Bible Missionary, Catholic, Church of Christ, Church of God, Church of God-Anderson, Indiana (I don't get that one), Church of God in Christ, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hooray! although we were the only category that only had one listing under it), Episcopal, Full Gospel, Interdenominational, Jehovah's Witnesses, Lutheran, Methodist, Methodist-United, Missionary-Baptist, Non-denominational, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, and Seventh-day Adventist. Whew! That's a lot of different types of churches! It kind of makes me think of Palmyra, New York at the time of Joseph Smith's First Vision. I think it was called the "burned-over district." My favorite church name in the yellow pages was St. Peter Rock #1 Baptist Church. I also found it amusing that there were five separate "First Baptist" churches. Anyway, at least people around here are very religious. I was watching a show on the History channel the other night about Mississippi, and reportedly 57% of Mississippians say they go to some kind of church, and the largest Bible bindery in the world is located in Mississippi!

Mayhem at Melrose

If you had come to Melrose this morning, you would have found policemen at the back of the house, policemen driving on the grass in front of the house, kids running everywhere, and a large bus full of senior citizens--not to mention the Melrose Garden Friends in the garden and the park rangers dashing all over the place. How did this happen, you may ask. Well, it all started when the burglar alarm at the slave cabin was accidentally set off, then the alarm company tried calling the visitor center, but we didn't catch their call because we were madly trying to sell tickets for the large tour bus that arrived at 8:45 a.m. (we don't open up until 9:00), parents were dropping their junior rangers off, and the Garden Friends (who plant flowers in the gardens) were trying to get themselves together. So, when the alarm company can't reach us, they call the police. The police roll into the parking lot, and then everyone starts freaking out. Then we call the alarm people and tell the policemen that we are fine. Then, Kathleen (our park superintendent) was out in front of the house, when another police car rolls up the old driveway (where cars aren't supposed to go). I was afraid she was going to fire everyone when she came into the visitor center, but she said we'd have to try harder than that to get fired. Needless to say, by 8:57 this morning, I was pooped and felt like I'd put in a full day of work!

Other than the craziness this morning, today has been a good day. Here's a surprise--I got up and made breakfast for Angie and myself this morning (no, contrary to what you may be thinking, I did not fix cold cereal). I whipped up some eggs, hash browns, bacon, cantaloupe, and blueberry toast with cinnamon butter! I thought as long as Angie was having "Breakfast at Tiffany's," I ought to make it good. Angie and I had fun hanging out last night. We went to Magnolia Grill for dinner (the place that we park rangers named as having the best bread pudding in Natchez last year) and had some tasty food and, of course, bread pudding. Then we watched "Night at the Museum"--one of my latest favorite movies. Good times!

Things have been going well with taking care of the Wesselman's animals. Yesterday Cocoa got out right when I needed to leave, so I was chasing him all over the yard, but now I have discovered that the trick is to walk inside like you're locking him out, and then he wants to come in. Last night I discovered this poor little hummingbird who was stuck out by the geraniums. I picked him up with a towel and tried to help him, but I think he was really old. I set him down in the garden, surrounded by flowers, and then I think he died. I hope he was at least happy when he died. Poor little guy. At least he's in a better place now.

Invasion!

Natchez National Historical Park has officially been invaded by crazy kids! Today was the first day of the first of four weeks of Junior Ranger history camp for kids ages 8-12. It was my day off, but I went in and worked a little overtime since we were a little short on staff. There were kids getting poked by pencils, spilling water all over the visitor center, etc., etc.--typical Jr. Ranger activities. Sydney is back again this year--she's the one who poked herself in her eye with her water bottle last year. We'll have to keep a close eye on her (no pun intended). Today for lunch I went to this funny little place called Express Po-Boys. Po-boys are basically the Southern version of subway sandwiches. I had a Cajun steak po-boy, and it was awesome! The restaurant is run by these funny ladies. I could here them talking in the back and one of them said, "You don't know how to dance." The other replied, "I do too!" Then the first one said, "Yeah, the 'shake ya booty!'" Typical restaurant conversation in the South. The funniest thing about the restaurant, however, was that behind the cash register, they had this big Mormonad poster--one of the old New Era mormonads like you can buy at the Distribution Center. It was the one about frogs and princes. I was so surprised to see it! I wonder where they got it.

Tonight Angie is going to stay at my house because she has to go to a meeting this evening and be up early in the morning, so she figured that would be a lot easier than driving up to Vicksburg to sleep for a couple of hours and then drive back. We're going to go to dinner somewhere fun this evening, and I'm planning to whip up something for breakfast tomorrow. It will be fun to have her here tonight--much more enjoyable than just being here by myself. I got the house all cleaned up today. Catherine said that the sheets on the beds in the guest bedroom were clean, but I checked them out today, and if those are the clean sheets, I'd hate to see the dirty ones! I've got those in the washer right now. It's a good thing I checked!

Different Slugs for Different Bugs

Natchez is currently under a severe thunderstorm warning. It's pretty windy outside. The problem with wind is that a lot of the trees around here are super old, and it doesn't take much to cause their branches (sometimes really big branches) to come crashing to the ground. We'll just hope that they stick with falling to the ground--and not falling on the car or the house.

It was so fun to get to go to church today! After church I went over to the Wesselman's house--they are one of the cute families in the ward--to get the rundown on how to take care of their pets while they are out of town for the next ten days. They have numerous pets: Shelly and Milo, the cats; Gracie and Cocoa, the dogs; two turtles; and one fish. So it's quite the crowd there, but it will be fun to hang out with them for the next week and a half. After I got home this afternoon, I had a nice long nap . . . until the thunder woke me up!

I've been having quite the bug zapping adventures last night and today and have found that what will kill one bug won't necessarily kill another. My hairspray worked great on the cockroach in the bathtub a couple of weeks ago, but when I tried that on this flying cockroach thing I had in here last week, it didn't work, so I had to resort to using the Raid. Raid did the job really fast, but the problem was that even just a couple of sprays stunk up my room for quite a while. So, last night when this really weird beetle-horsefly-looking creature flew into my room, I decided to try to get it without Raid. I first tried hairspray, but it had no effect. Then I tried this really potent air freshener spray that was in the bathroom when I moved into the house--still no effect. Then I tried my Benadryl anti-itch spray, also to no avail. Then, I tried Windex. The Windex seemed to stun it to the point where I could then whip out the fly swatter and get it. I think my room probably smelled worse after all of that than it would have if I had just used the Raid. This morning I tried my hairspray on a spider, and the spider ran away, so I guess it kind of worked for that. Oooh, it's getting quite thundery outside. Yikes! Tomorrow is my second day off, but I'll go into work for a little while around lunch time to help out, as tomorrow is the first day of Junior Ranger Camp.