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this weekend, i took a 16 hour wilderness first aid course with remote medical international at discovery park in seattle. so from 845 – 545 on saturday and sunday, i listened, learned, and practiced every aspect of wilderness first aid training that i could have ever imagined. and now, i have all the necessary training to help, treat, and possibly save injured, sick, and wounded patients in wilderness settings. oh man. what a trip.

on saturday morning i took the bus over to discovery park. i had never been there before and really had no idea of its enormity. i mean, geezus this place is big. i took what turned out to be the wrong bus, and ended up on the wrong side of the park, with 15 minutes to spare. so i wondered around for a bit, asking people if they knew where the education center was. i got a few points and people telling me “oh yeah, just follow this trail.” but as it turns out, being on the completely opposite side of the park, it took me the better part of an hour to get there. so, an hour late and a little nervous, i walked into a packed classroom and sat down. the two instructors (kate earle and steve guthrie) were exceptional. they were great teachers, relatable funny people in general, and above all worked tremendously well as a team. this was kate’s first time instructing a course, but steve has been leading these classes since 2001. since i was signed up for the course by one of their colleagues tom, my “boss” (i nanny for his kids), they were told to pick on me. as soon as they found out who i was (“you’re the nanny!”) they used me for many demonstrations from there on out; first announcing to the class who i was and explaining that they planned on giving me shit, they encouraged everyone else to feel free to do so as well. i responded accordingly, assuring the class that i could hang.

over the course of the two days, with the aid of our instructors and this colorful text book, we learned and practiced everything from complete patient assessment to taking vital signs; the signs and symptoms of shock to recognizing and stabilizing spinal injuries; head injuries to wound management; burns to the treatment of athletic injuries of all types (sprains, strains, fractures, dislocations); hypothermia to heat stroke, animal bites to anaphylaxis (aka bee stings… sounds like im medically trained when i say it like that), and acute abdominal illness. we were put in sample scenarios (with fake blood and amateur acting) where half the class would be lead into the woods and given a set of symptoms or injuries and the other half would have to find them, assess the sitch, and treat the patient. one scenario that we were given involved a patient that had been climbing a tree, fell, and was stuck in the tree with a possilbe broken spine. our group had to CAREFULLY remove the patient from his tangled position in the tree, all the while stabilizing his head, neck, and back. our group did really well and successfully got him to the ground without causing further damage. it was awesome!

the class was very diverse and full of people from all walks of life. an older couple in their late 60s or early 70s. a handful of 50-somethings. several 40 and 30-somethings. and a good number of 20-somethings. people who lead boyscout camps and summer day camps. people who took yearly camping trips with their families. people who planned to pursue a further career in wilderness training. and silly kids like me who just wanted the personal knowledge (and had their boss pay for the course).

after the course was over, i talked to the instructors for a while about other courses that i could take if i wanted (and planned to get a beer with steve really soon). and i think i do want. there is a wilderness EMT course coming up in may (and maybe at other times as well) that i think i am really interested in. the only problem is that the course (i think it is 10 days) costs almost $3000. but the up side is that if i can front the money for the course, it would totally open up tons of opportunities for jobs in the pacific north west. there are always teams of wilderness guides that need an EMT aboard and especially in this part of the country there would be lots of opportunies for work in that field. so we will see what happens…

i had such a blast doing this… and i really hope that i can do something similar (or at least use some of my new learned skills) really soon. rock n roll.

last weekend, rhino came up to visit (if you read the pervios blog, you’d already know this) and us bi-sexual girls went to Girl4Girl, a giant lesbian dance party. i have some bad vibes about Girl4Girl because the last time that i got all dressed up and ready to go grind on some lesbians was the night that slater died. but its been quite some time and i convinced myself that if i didn’t wear that same dress it would be alright (yeah, i’m kind of superstitious about things of that nature i guess). so we played a couple games of beer pong at the hotbox and drove downtown to the showbox (not the one on 1st, but the one over by safeco field). when we got there, it was pretty dead, but we decided that we’d have a couple drinks, and then get the dance party started ourselves if we had to. so we sat down, watched the (1) sexxy and (1) stripperesque dancers… and 1 Long Island Iced Tea, 1 Amaretto Sour, and 1 silly named shot later we were on the dance floor. jess, rhino, and i danced circles around each other and worked our asses off. so we grabbed our coats and went out for a breath of fresh air and a few more of carbon monoxide.

standing in the “smoking section” outside, blocked off by portable gates, we spotted a backpacker coming down the road toward us. as he passed we stopped him: “hey, where ya headed? what’s your name?” (it’s josh) and almost immediately after, jess and i looked at each other and asked in unison, “need a place to stay?” he was absolutely taken aback by our forwardness, but exceptionally grateful. we explained that we had just returned from backpacking europe and that if there was one thing we understood, it was the need for a warm couch, some friendly people, and a bowl or two to smoke. so jess and i went back inside to dance for another hour or so while rhino and josh chilled in the car a block away.

BACK IN THE SHOWBOX: + 1 JagerBomb. jess and i danced and danced and made out for a good… what? like 5 minutes. oh jessica… if you’re reading this, when you said “it had been too long” on my fb wall, i thought you meant it had been too long since we had made out. how long has it been? rome? sounds like i’m talking about the last time we ate brownies or something. anyways, love you.

at 1am (lame) the lights came up in the club and we stumbled to the car, all the while jess insisting that she’d “rather not, but can totally drive.” i didn’t believe it for a second. so when we got back to the car i asked josh if he could drive a stick. yes. and if he had a driver’s license. yes. so he drove us home. perfect. when we got back to the box we smoked a could bowls, talked about josh’s plans to make it up to alaska in the spring to work on a fishing boat, his previous travels, and whatever else struck our fancy. then we (josh, rhino, bookis, and i) played a few rousing rounds of my favorite game Catch Phrase.

in the morning, we all went to Beth’s for breakfast before rhino headed back to tacoma. i told josh that he could stay as long as he needed, that he was welcome to crash another night or whatever he wanted. in the end he asked for some help figuring out the buses to get down to the greyhound station. he has some family in portland and was heading there for a few days. so we took a group photo, hugged, and parted ways.

he was really an interesting, cool kid. and having him kickin’ it at the hotbox was totally chill. we’d be happy to have him back anytime… really. i hope that i see him again some day, and that his travels are safe, his feet don’t fail him, and his days are filled with fun in life on the road. gl, josh.

i’ve lived in seattle for going on 4 years now, and the best part about it is that i am still learning and seeing things in this city that i have never seen before… things that surprise and excite me. and this weekend i was surprised and excited by something really cool that i discovered: last week i was on my way to work on the 66 bus (i was leaving for work from the honeybucket and taking a bus that i dont normally take, a new route for me) that goes down eastlake and into downtown. with my forehead resting lazily on the window, bouncing along with the bumps of the university bridge, i stared blankly out the window, waiting for something… anything to catch my attention. and then, all of a sudden, there it was! the biggest, coolest treehouse that i have ever seen. and as the bus drove on down the road, i promised myself that i was going to check this place out, and explore it as soon as i could.on saturday, our dear friend steph (aka rhino) took the bus up from tacoma to spend Groundhog Day ‘08 with us and go to Girl4Girl. after a delicious breakfast at wayward jess, bookis, and i drove downtown to pick up steph. jess decided to take the scenic route down eastlake, giving me the PERFECT opportunity to do a quick investigation of the treehouse. driving down road i spotted it again, “there it is! STOP, jess!” SKIRT. we skidded into an abandoned parking lot under the freeway, pulled up infront of the treehouse, and got out. it was more perfect than i even imagined. from the pavement there were six or eight steps leading down to a small bridge across a muddy little impasse. this lead to a well constructed, 14 rung ladder that lead up to the treehouse. the treehouse itself is amazing. it is built into a wide spreading, branchy tree with plenty of limb coverage. in the center was a domed enclosure about the size of the inside of your average 4 door sedan, surrounded by a wrap-around deck, complete with lawn chairs, paper grocery bags, and plastic milk crates that clearly read “use by persons other than owner is punishable by law.”so i yelled up. “heelllllooo? is anyone hoooome??” there was no answer, but i still felt pretty weird about just climbing up. i mean, what would have happened if an angry little old woman came out with a sawed off shotgun and had no mercy on my intruding soul? so we looked around on the ground level a bit and discovered (you wont believe this) a MAILBOX. it was nailed to a nearby tree. it had a letter in it! and was labeled with stickers that spelled out “tui tui,” which i think is the cute way of saying “tree tree,” the obvious nickname for a place like this. so after seeing all we thought we could see, we made our way back to the car. and just before we shut the doors to drive away, he came out. a man emerged from the depths of tui tui. he must have been 40ish but was weathered beyond his years; sunken cheeks, skin the color of the seattle winter sky, and worn clothing that i can only imagine smelled of mildew and un-wed mothers. and THIS is how the conversation went:TreeHouse Man: “were yew yellin up here?”Me: “yeah. i just wanted to say hi.”THM: “you got a cigarette?”ME: “no, i dont. jess, do you have a cigarette?”(she shook her head, a little apprehensive about me talking to him)Me: “how long have you lived here?”THM: “about a year and a half.”Me: “wow, really? cool. is that part an enclosure? does it go inside?”THM: “yeah…”Me: “cool. okay, well, see ya later.”THM: “yeah. now get outa here before i call the cops… or worse.”we jumped in the car, and sped off (with delivery driver jess behind the wheel), leaving TreeHouse Man and Tui Tui far behind us in a matter of second. i was scared, but only momentarily… and now more than ever i want to get a tumbleweed tiny home. [if you've never seen these, please check them out. awesome.]