Exploration Recreation: May 22, 2009

In which I am going outside and may be some time — but not very much time, because it is freezing out there.

Categorized

Miscellaneous

Looks like Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the British explorer, finally made it to the summit of Mount Everest on his third try. Normally I do not give a crap about Mount Everest and who is crawling up it, because there is nothing stupider than being the 5,475th person to scale a big hill and pretend it’s a noteworthy achievement you accomplished all on your own (pay no attention to the sherpas, they’ve only reached the summit nineteen times or so). But I will spare old Ranulph the snark, because it is actually fairly impressive to make the summit at age 65. He is a badass dude, and has done so many foolhardy-slash-impressive things that I would not be surprised if he goes up Everest again, this time without bottled oxygen or sherpas or clothes and walking backwards. He once had such bad frostbite that his fingers had to be amputated, but his doctor wanted to wait several months to allow the flesh to heal a bit. Explorers get bored easily, though, so he started to amputate them himself in his garden shed with a saw, but the blade wasn’t sharp enough, so he stopped in the middle of the operation and went down to the local hardware store to get a microblade Black & Decker and then went back home and finished the job. BAD. ASS.

I, on the other hand, am the opposite of badass (goodass?) when it comes to anything physical, particularly when it involves the cold. I’ve spent the past two weeks huddled under blankets, snivelling pathetically, because it is the time of year between the heat being shut off and the temperature reaching the 80s, and I am from Florida and not equipped to handle this well (mentally or physically). Imagine how much worse it would be if I actually had to move my body or share my blankets or go without kittens to keep my lap warm. Send me up a mountain, and I’d carve out a cave and refuse to move. Drop me off in the middle of Antarctica, and I’d cut open a penguin and crawl inside for warmth. Give me a team, I’d eat them all within the first week. Anything involving physical challenge and/or outdoorsiness inevitably ends with me half-naked and covered in my companions’ blood, shaking my fist at the sky and howling, “I WILL SURVIVE!” I’m a one-woman Lord of the Flies.

Sir Ernest Shackleton, arms akimbo, looking BRITISHLY BADASS (source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ernest_Shackleton.jpg) This is why, if there is any kind of expedition to be led, you should pass me over and instead rescuscitate Sir Ernest Shackleton, whom I have been reading about lately. (Yes, I read about cold things when I am already freezing my ass off. Masochism, thy name is Romy.) He is a shining example of what you should do in an emergency. When life gave him lemons, he would cut up those lemons and give them to his men as an anti-scorbutic, and then he would take the peels and build a boat and sail hundreds of miles through the South Atlantic to get help. He didn’t cut and run like Stefansson, but neither did he get cocky and push himself and his team too far like Scott (who, according to Rimmer, probably ate Captain Oates). He had the perfect combination of bravado and common sense, and always paid more attention to his team’s safety than to his mission’s goal.

It is kind of a crime that I, who collect survivor stories and tales of polar exploration, have taken this long to get around to reading any in-depth studies of Shackleton and his adventures. I plowed through Alfred Lansing’s Endurance, polished off Frank Worsley’s account of his boat journeys with Shackleton, and topped it all off with a helping of Kenneth Branagh’s Shackletonian A&E miniseries. I have two of Shackleton’s books on hold at the library, I slept on the floor in a reindeer-hide bag last night, I’ve eaten nothing but hoosh for the past three days, and I’m training the cats to pull a sled.

There is a possibility that I am taking this too far. But then, there is also a possibility that I may wake up one day and find my apartment building stuck in the ice and drifting out to sea, and I will be the only one who knows enough about sledging and scurvy to lead the other tenants to safety. So maybe I am not taking this far enough! Quickly, to the Shackmobile!