Got back from camping with my sister and brother and my sister’s boyfriend. We arrived under sunny skies, with lovely warm weather; went wading in the pond and hiking through the woods and I spent a lovely hour or two reading magazines in the shade. But by nightfall, the rain began to tumble down, and then not only did our fire go out but the thunderstorms rolled through and scared the shit out of me.

Despite being terrified of death by tent-enveloped electrocution, I had a really good time. It was kind of weird.

Also, I’m the dolt who left the camera at home, so imagine I took lovely photos of the setting sun slicing through the old-growth trees and glinting off the rusty gas wells hidden deep in the woods and put them right

here.

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.