My weekend climbing schedule is looking a little light here, people, and yet I cannot find it in my heart to blame. One climber is out with a sore back, two climbers have run merrily off into the sunshine somewhere and thus only one has been roped into (ha!) getting up and at 'em first thing Saturday morning. There is also yet another Climbing Crone who is awol this weeked because, and I am being serious, she is hijacking trees. Treejacking, if you will.

It's official: I know the most awesome people ever.

To be fair, she is simply making use of trees that would otherwise perhaps be not as used. The lot next to her house is being developed, she has a woodstove, and a + b = a great big fuckoff axe.

But I suggest she take it one step further: this is a fundraising opportunity waiting to happen. For a modest donation, allow contributors to take a whack at the tree, until their childhood traumas/mother issues/insomnia-caused-solely-by-the-current-political-administration is assuaged. Donate money to charity. The lot is cleared, a cord of firewood appears for our heroine's woodstove, and funds are shuttled back into the community. Added bonus: we know where the mentally unstable people with the axes are this Saturday. Everybody wins!

Also this past week, our basement tried to kill me, so that's been fun. One day this past winter we went downstairs to find the whole thing flooded, and while we did eventually get the waters to recede, and clean up all suspicions of them, I am firmly of the belief that the mold never left. It in fact might be down there incubating and mutating and planning to run for office in 2008. All I know for sure is that Sunday afternoon I sat down there watching a couple episodes of Simon and Simon (the basement is our teevee room) and some Good Eats, finishing knitting up the hood on my new purple sweater, and by Monday morning I couldn't take two breaths in a row without coughing up something cheerful. You make the connection.

Note that this has only stopped me from climbing on one occasion this week. I have issues. Last night I went bouldering and wound up getting sucked into a discussion of finger strength (!) and am now trying to figure out how to hang from many of the doorframes in our home. I'm sure I've recovered. If not, maybe I'll go lay down and watch some teev---hey, wait a minute.