Barking Mad

Peenut Butter and Jellyfish

It's my sincere hope that this post doesn't turn any visitors to the beautiful shores of the Chesapeake Bay, off, of wanting to take a dip into the tepid waters of this gorgeous part of the country. 

Now, having said that, there ain't no way in hell I'm ever getting more than knee deep in the water the next time I go back.   As big as I am, I make an awfully tempting target for whatever might be floating around in the water.   Well, find me a floatie big enough, one in which I can tuck my legs into so that they aren't dangling in the water acting like so much bait (It's kinda like that same way I have to sleep at night - completely tucked in with no visible bits hanging over the edge of the bed or peering out from under the covers.  I just can't risk anything tempting the Under the Bed Monster. Just sayin'!), then I might be persuaded.  And I reckon if you ply me with enough booze beforehand, I probably won't care.

That was not the case last weekend down at BlogFest for Megawatt.  Number 1, she's underage and Number 2, she's young and will do just about anything once which includes tempting fate.  Keep in mind though, we're from Maine.  Jellyfish don't much enjoy our arctic waters.  If we can survive taking a dip in the ocean (I reckon it's usually warm enough by the last week in August.), 'round these parts; jellyfish are the least of our concerns.  We're more likely to encounter a wayward lobster than we are anything remotely poisonous.  Of course, now that I've said that, someone is going to come along and leave me a comment about all the nasties that lurk in our local waters.  Just don't.  OK?  I have enough phobias and issues as it is.  Just let me live in my blissful little bubble of ignorance.

We had been warned that chances were about 50/50 if we were going to be lollygagging about in the water down there, that we'd get stung by one of those suckers.  So of course, being the Nervous Nancy that I am, when Foolery nudged me out of my comfy beach chair and told me we were getting in the water, I tried to make excuses.  Alas, it didn't work with Foolery.  I was going into the water.  Period.

So I went in as far as my thighs and then stepped on something and that was the end of my excursion into the water.  I told you, I am a Nervous Nancy.  All someone had to do was merely whisper "jellyfish" and little else would have been on my mind.

Megawatt on the other hand...? Yeah, not a care in the world!

click to enlarge all images

She happily bobbed away on her floatie for the longest time and then when she got bored with that she waded out the farthest of anyone in our group.  I was rapidly succumbing to the warmth of the sun, something we haven't seen much of here in Maine, and the alcohol, so I was, to say the least, pretty hammered by that point.  For someone who rarely drinks, it really doesn't take me much to begin with.  I know that I was "live tweeting" the experience and I'll apologize now for the pictures that were sent along with some of those tweets.  Good Lord, my arms are white enough to blind an albino!

After a while, Megawatt ambled back up to the shore with 3 swim noodles she'd "rescued" from the Chesapeake Bay.  OK so maybe we were egging her on a bit.   They weren't our noodles, but they were out there and we dared her.  Of course she couldn't resist a dare. 

So far so good.  No one's been stung by this point. 

A while later as the tide starts to come back in Megawatt decides to go back into the water.

*cue the music from Jaws*

Not 5 minutes later she's sprinting out of the water, running for the condiment table where the fixins' were being set out for burgers and dogs and she's yelling, "Oh hey, I've been stung, I need some pickle juice!"  Someone had mentioned earlier to us that pickle juice helped take the sting out, should we end up getting stung by a jellyfish.

Dammit dammit dammit I just knew this was going to happen!  Megawatt comes running back down the hill, legs shaking, face red, and in obvious pain.  Noe Noe Girl is the first on the scene and sits her back down along the shore and starts rubbing sand on her legs.  Megawatt's legs are shaking violently and it looks like she's been whipped with an electrical cord. Country Girl Kate and Meg were standing nearby and helping out as well when Noe Noe Girl turns to me and says that she needs me to...are ya'll ready for this?

She needs me to pee.

Pardon me?  You need me to do what?  I don't think I can pee on my daughter.  Don't get me wrong, I'd take a bullet in my bum for this kid, walk through fire for her and give her my last breath.  But pee on her?  Nuh uh...it's not gonna happen. 

Meg grabs a cup and tells me I can pee in the cup.  Noe Noe Girl says that would work but to just be quick about it.

I'd sobered up by this point and truth be told, had to pee wicked-bad.  But just where the hell was I going to pee, with no loo in sight, and surrounded by a few dudes and lots of women?  Oiy vey!

Long story short, Meg provided a make-shift loo (a large blanket which I hid my ginormous squatted ass behind), and after having to be my "cheeleader" of sorts, I finally managed to (as someone who shall remain nameless later said), "make some magic happen."  What can I say, I had performance anxiety.  To any of the residents of the homes which were behind me... I am so very sorry you had to see that.  Seriously.  Just know that I was doing what any other mother would have done. 

Cup in hand we rushed over to where Noe Noe Girl and Megawatt were and handed it to her.  Holding an almost full cup of urine didn't phase Noe Noe Girl one little bit.  I can't say the same for Megawatt...

I can't blame Megawatt one little bit.  I might have been hurling my guts out if someone were rubbing pee all over me.  Although I sure as hell hope I never have to find out, first hand.

Once it was all said and done, "the cure" seemed to do the trick.  She had some residual pain, redness and swelling, but she was no worse for the wear.   At one point, Megawatt turned around and said to me, "Yo mom, it's cool, I'm in the Air Force now.  I can take it!"   That's my girl.

Moral of the story?  If you are going to be romping around in jellyfish-infested waters, make sure to take your mama with you and be sure she's good and liquored up because you never know when you might need her to accept the call of duty!

I Came Home from BlogFest with Far More Than I Took Down with Me

Images from four days spent with women from the blogosphere that I didn't know, are now co-mingled with memories of four days spent with some of the most amazing women I have ever been fortunate enough to meet and now call friends.

People who know me and in particular,  know my own personal situation, were hesitant to believe that something good could come from something so foreign...to them.  While blogs and blogging aren't unknowns to these people, the fact that someone would drive 800 miles one way to spend almost four days with people she'd gotten to know via the cyber-world, seemed, I dare say, a little unusual to them.  To those individuals, the wonderful people I have spent the last several days with, are little more than "the people who live in the computer."  

However, my husband, daughter and therapist;  my own personal cheer leading squad, knew better.  Granted, I wasn't sure I had enough Xanax to get through the initial face-to-face meeting (although on the drive down, and especially once we crossed the VA state line, I was so anxious and filled with nerves that I had to pull over three times so I could throw up...), with the women who turned out to be amongst some of the most beautiful people I've ever had the privilege of meeting; it didn't end up being an issue at all.

Here I sit, six days after my journey began, with my fur babies curled around my feet (well except for Griffy, who decided he was either so pissed off that I'd left in the first place, or overjoyed that I had finally returned - that he brought me a squirrel.  Um, a metabolically challenged squirrel if you get my drift!), the Little Imp sacked out on the sofa with what we hope is only a nasty summer cold (fever of 102F, cough and general yuckiness has enveloped my little curly haired angel.), and the whir of a fan gently blowing behind me; trying to absorb everything and put into words how much this experience meant to me and how much it moved me.

How does one begin to convey images, faces, laughter, experiences, new friendships and the excitement and lingering sense of bliss from those things that are swirling around in her head in a hazy mixture of happiness and exhaustion?

In the next couple of days I hope to do that...to try and share with you some of what made this past weekend so memorable and given me a glimps into a life that I didn't think ever had a chance in hell of existing for me again.  A life filled with smiles, laughter, silliness; a life filled with new friends and new experiences and most of all, a life lived outside of the confines of my own home and the shackles that have kept me chained inside myself for far too long.

I can also tell you that we will be returning to Mathews, VA in the very near future.  Why is that you ask?  I think this photograph answers that question pretty succinctly.

Any young man that offers to move a little closer to you in order to be the first to be stung by the jellyfish in order to keep you from being stung, well, he's worth visiting again, especially since the beautiful young lady (Megawatt) had already been stung pretty severely, earlier in the afternoon.  More about that over the next few days.

BlogFest and the memories it gifted me with are an indelible reminder of life and how very worth living it is! Thank you Chesapeake Bay Woman, Big Hair Envy, and everyone else who attended and made this experience so memorable and such an extraordinary reminder that there are still beautiful people left in the world.

On the Road Again...

...I can't wait to get on the road again.

OK now that I've stuck you all with that lovely little Willie Nelson earworm, if you're reading this then that means that I am indeed in the Jeep headed due south and I didn't come down with Ebola virus, ear mites, whole-body paralysis, or whooping cough which would have prevented me from leaving.  Although I do still have cheese-grater foot and at this point I'm beginning to think Ebola would have been preferable.

I've got this bad boy scheduled to publish around 8AM this morning and by that time we should be around the Boston area, so if you're in the vicinity, wave. I'll try and wave back.  I might live-tweet the whole thing or would that be tacky?  Hey wait, "tacky" is my middle name.  And just so we're clear on this, I will not be tweeting whilst driving, OK?  So don't get your knickers in a knot over that.

As I type this, I am staring at the sleeping Godiva next to me and taking time to be grateful for my clean kitchen.  Megawatt had Zack and Paul over for dinner and she cooked a veritable seafood feast.  Lobster, salmon, crayfish, and all the fixins!  And despite the mess afterward, she and the two young men cleaned EVERYTHING up, and I do mean everything. 

They cleared the counters, washed every single dish, ran the dishwasher, and then swept and sharked (steam mopped) the kitchen floors...

 

...and fought over who got to shark the floors next!  Yeah,all that foggy stuff?  That's steam.  I can personally vouch for The Shark.  It's awesome.  Even a couple of 19 year olds agree. 

I can't even begin to tell you how huge a weight that is off of my shoulders.  I have been stressing all day long about every little detail of this trip, succumbing to the weight of the mommy-guilt for leaving the Little Imp for six days, and not wanting to leave a messy house.  I was so touched that these three young adults took the time to take care of this so it was one less thing I had to worry about.  Now I can get on with obsessing about meeting the total strangers who live in my computer that I "talk" to on a regular basis.  I can obsess about my weight, my hair, my fat cheese-grated feet which, I've just noticed, happen to be sporting two entirely different shades of nail polish on my toes.  But ya know what?  I don't care. 

One thing I will NOT be obsessing about is my fingernails.  Whilst not gorgeous, I haven't bitten them in TWO ENTIRE WEEKS!  Go me!   I know it might seem inconsequential, but in my world, if I can conquer one demon (I realize it's only been two weeks), no matter how small, then maybe there's some hope of conquering the bigger ones that threaten to overwhelm me and drag me down.

Before I close this I wanted to let you know that the beloved New England Mamas is returning to the interwebs and yours truly is going to be among the editors.  I have loved NEM since I first discovered the little "community" we have out here and was crushed when they went on hiatus.  Not only are they coming back, bigger and better (and hey, there's going to be some testosterone thrown into the mix for fun!), I will be a regular contributor as well as one of the editors.  I'm looking forward to being amongst some very talented writers in this here blogosphere...women I've admired for some time.  And I get to be part of it!   I am so excited about the relaunch of NEM that I decided to go ahead and post something over there, because you know, even though I live in Maine, it's not all about the lobsters!