Lassitude

Posted on | June 28, 2009 5 Comments | e-mail | print

We went camping this weekend. My knees got sunburned. The children spent more hours than I have fingers throwing rocks into the pond. We ate meals cooked over a campfire. We all practiced peeing in the woods. The boys went hiking with their dad as I read Waiting For Godot and scratched my head.

My allergies kicked in almost immediately, causing my face to swell up and my nose to leak like our discount-store garden hose. I bore it as well as I could all morning and then took a specially-packed Benadryl, saying a short prayer for all the people born before Benadryl was invented. Then I fell asleep and got sunburned. Then I woke up to the noise of Iain’s relatives riding ATVs in the distance. Then I fell asleep and got further sunburned. Then I woke up to the sound of my father-in-law arriving and laughing at my sunburned knees. Then I fell asleep in the tent. Then I woke up to the sound of — well, drool doesn’t make a sound, but it still woke me up.

Finally, four-to-six hours passed and I was again alert, though sneezing.

We played frisbee. Owen pouted and threw a fit about not being able to catch it, and he gave up, and stormed off to have a good cry … and then later that evening came back and gave it another shot. Turns out he’s pretty good, for a little kid. Gave me some pointers. Caught 20 throws in a row. Like his mother, if he isn’t brilliant at it right off the bat he can’t handle it, doesn’t want to do it.

We caught fireflies. We sat around the fire, watched the stars come out. We saw the Milky Way and shooting stars. We ate smores. Cormac ran around with no pants on, and even used the “bathshume” — a jerry-rigged camp toilet that Iain built for me out of an Ikea folding chair and a toilet seat. (Funny what constitutes romance as you get older. But you have no idea how happy that chair made me.)

I caught some kind of plant-related rash. I slept next to a spider. It rained on our tents, but the seams held and we stayed dry. The kids slept in a tent by themselves — Owen stayed up until 11:30 the first night we were there. We were reading Spiderman stories by flashlight next to the fire when he stopped and said, “Oh my gosh! This is like being at home except I don’t have to go to bed right away!” His eyes said, “So THIS is what you do after you hustle us out of the picture!” I couldn’t bear to break it to him that we don’t usually hustle him out of the picture so we can read Spiderman stories. He will learn, in the fullness of time, that we stick them in bed so we can watch Arrested Development on Hulu.

Category: daily grind, family unit

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Comments

5 Responses to “Lassitude”

Bad Hippie
June 29th, 2009 @ 4:46 am

You. Are. A. TRIP!
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Crystal
June 29th, 2009 @ 10:15 am

But at least you made it out alive! Always a plus.
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kelly
June 30th, 2009 @ 9:42 pm

awesome. just awesome.
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Matt
July 2nd, 2009 @ 4:25 pm

I will buy several copies of your book.
Reply to this
supa
July 2nd, 2009 @ 7:51 pm

Matt wrote:

I will buy several copies of your book.

For you, signed copies.

thanks, guys! we had fun.
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