50 tracks and a bite on the back

before we get to the story today here's a last ditch attempt to alert people that the cbc is choosing their next pick to be a part of the essential songs for the past 15 years (usually it's a decade but they lumped in 2000-05). the nominees this week are...

'Angel' by Sarah McLachlan
'Basement Apartment' by Sarah Harmer
'I Will Give You Everything' by Skydiggers
'Spastik' by Plastikman

i've never heard of the last one and the first one is probably gonna win (because posession was knocked out last week by courage by the hip) i'm more than partial to the two middle songs. i have to admit though that my heart lies with the skydiggers and one of my absolute favourites with i will give you everything. therefore i'm asking that you visit the following website and make your pick - http://www.cbc.ca/50tracks/vote/index.html

voting only continues until tuesday (tomorrow when i'm writing) at midnight and they annouce the winner on thursday.

ok... now, on with today's story.

today we went to puerto hondo to lead a clean up of the area around the environmental centre. the leader of the kids - gladys - couldn't make it so it was just jane, nora the german (she's started volunteering as well) and me leading about 25 rabid little jackels. from the get go they were excitable - barely keeping the audible level below 7 and often ramping it up to a ear-shattering 12 - tugging at arms and flinging themselves around us (mostly me) as if we were trees to be scaled. things started out ok, we took them outside and played a little game although those who lost refused to really quit the game but that wasn't a problem. then we handed out the plastic bags (gotta make trash to get rid of trash is what i always say) and divided them into teams. they then spread out in a semi-organized way snaking across the landscape and dropping item after item into their bags. for a while they would take the liberty to point out every piece of garbage to us before adding it to the pile, and a few had trouble differentiating what was garbage and what was organic matter. filling the bags with coconut husk and leaves would have meant a very quick end to our game as we would have run out of bags. bringing out the camera also slowed things down a bit. we're starting to put together our year-end reports and have been told that the more pictures of us actually doing work the better. however the kids see cameras as a spectral force beyond their control and gather like lemmings whenever i set up a shot. a million chubby hands asking to take the picture quickly becomes tedious but i did allow a few to make some snaps, as long as i was in the frame. this went on for a good hour and a quarter and the mosquitoes must have been in heaven cause my arms and legs were riddled with bites. after a quick wash up we went inside for snacks.

jane prepared the snacks - tuna fish sandwiches (the word tuna reminds me of the time i did the promo spot for tuan's radio show - the "big tuna" - that's classic...) and this weird glop of chocolate and gummi worms that didn't set right and ended up resembling an unapetizing soup but tasted chocolately so the kids didn't complain at all. i skipped the sandwich (you think?) but had a smidgen of the chocolate thing, just to prove to one of the kids that it was indeed edible, and made a quick trip to the store to buy some pop when we ran out of lemonade.

about this time one of the younger girls decided to try and get a piggyback ride. this had happened a few times and each time i simply walked backwards into a wall, not hard but enough to make them make a silly oomph noise and then i would tickle them and they'd let go. this one girl thought, however, that it'd be the bomb to dig her fingernails into my shoulders and get a good hunk of my back in her mouth and bite down. how she managed to do this i don't know but while she wasn't out for blood she did leave a mark and made me totally reconsider ever having children or speaking with them ever again.