I think I'm finally beginning to recover from my family reunion in the woods of Mississippi last weekend. It was great to see all of my relatives, however, I can sum up the entire weekend in a mere nine letters:
HOT AS HELL.
Y'all, I can't remember when I've sweated so much. It was between 94 and 96 degrees and over 85% humidity from the time we arrived on Friday afternoon until we left on Monday. When we arrived on Friday, I opened up the back of my SUV, grabbed two bags and walked up the sidewalk to our cabin (a total of maybe 25 or 30 feet). When I walked in my niece said, "Aunt Beverly, are you okay?" My face was as red as an apple and I had sweat running down my face like I had just jumped out of the shower. All 50 of us at the reunion walked around for the next 3 days with a paper towel in hand to wipe our faces from time to time. No one wanted to hug anyone because it was simply too disgusting to get that close to each other. And we were outside from about 9:00 a.m. each morning until after 11:00 p.m. each night. I wore no makeup and had a baseball hat on my head the entire weekend. Add in the approximately 48 mosquito bites I now have covering my arms and legs and you can imagine I was thisclose to winning the Miss America pageant.
We also had a few adventures. Of course. Y'all should know by now I can't go through a period of several days without some sort of adventure. Here are a few of them:
1. My aunt was riding with me on the way. My mom had a couple of kids in her car with her. We had to take 2 SUV's because we all packed like we were going to the woods for a month. My brother wasn't coming until the next day so we then had 3 cars driving back to Atlanta. It turns out that the kids were the responsible ones in our group. I've made this trip by myself in the past and it takes me right around 5 hours to drive it. It took us 8.5 hours to get there on Friday because we had to stop at every other exit. One of those stops was because my mom wanted a peach milkshake from Chick-Fil-A in Meridian, MS. About 15 - 20 minutes down the road, my aunt said to me, "Beverly, where is my cell phone? I can't find it." She dug around in her purse for a minute and I told her I would call it so she could hear it ring. But that's not what happened. I called her phone, it rang, and then a man answered. Turns out she had dropped her phone in the parking lot of the Chick-Fil-A in Meridian, MS, someone turned it in, and the manager had her phone. I then called my mom and told her we needed to return to Meridian and why. She decided to keep on driving because she wanted to stop at a W almart she knew was about 30 minutes further up the road to stock up on groceries because then we would be at our destination less than 30 minutes past that. My aunt and I back tracked to get her phone which added an extra 45 minutes or so to our drive, and then met my mom and the kids at W almart.
2. On Friday night some sort of menacing Mississippi bug bit me on my finger. It itched like crazy. I didn't want to scratch it in case it was something that would spread, but then I rubbed it trying to make it stop itching without breaking the skin. When I rubbed it, all of the skin came off of my finger which sort of defeated the purpose of trying not to break the skin. And which, you know, is pretty gross. So now I have a totally disgusting scab covering up a knuckle on one of my fingers.
3. We had a cabin that sleeps four people. However, we had seven people in the cabin. With one bathroom. This was not a positive experience. On Sunday morning, I had to pee. Really bad. My mom was in the bathroom. I turned around to fold up my sheets and lean my air mattress up against the wall while I was waiting. My aunt snuck in the bathroom before I realized it. Then I turned around to do something else while I waited on her and my brother got in there before I realized it. Finally I was able to get in there. I was going to pee and then go ahead and take a shower while I could actually get in the bathroom. I walked in the bathroom, and the second I closed the door, I heard a knock. It was my cousin's 8-year-old son and he told me he needed to go to the bathroom really bad. I figured I had better let him go ahead of me since he's 8 and had to go bad, so I let him in and walked back out into the bedroom area still needing to pee. I was about to wet my pants by this time. And I waited. And I waited. And I waited. And then I waited some more. My aunt kept asking if he was still in the bathroom and I kept telling her that he was. Finally he walked out. He had a video game in his hands. He admitted he had been sitting on the toilet playing his video game the entire time I was out in the cabin doing my pee-pee dance. It's funny now because it's 5 days later. Not so much at the time.
Naturally we had some moments of family drama because, well, this is my family we're talking about. My brother got testy with me a couple of times, my niece tried to boss me around but then I reminded her that she is 11-years-old and I am 40-years-old, and my aunt snored like a truck driver all weekend which kept several of us awake a good part of each night and caused my mom to sigh loudly approximately every 45 seconds all night long. For three solid nights. Good times indeed.
We got back Monday night, I took about a two-hour long shower to remove the sweat and grime from my body, then crashed. I took a couple of days off after we got back but honestly, I had no energy on Tuesday (probably because I felt dehydrated after sweating non-stop and eating grilled and fried foods for almost 4 days and had to deal with my family in tight quarters for about 3.5 days too long). I didn't even get dressed that day, much less write a blog post. I did take a couple of naps and catch up on some stuff I had saved on my Tivo though. On Wednesday, I did laundry and ran about a thousand errands and then had to teach a class at the studio that night. Then I returned to work yesterday just in time for our monthly billing deadline (I have to process bills for approximately 70 client matters) and it was a time entry deadline. Plus I was several days behind on my regular work after being out. So that's why it's Friday and I'm just now posting for the first time in a week or two.
I can't wait to get around to your blogs and seeing what's been going on in your lives.
HOT AS HELL.
Y'all, I can't remember when I've sweated so much. It was between 94 and 96 degrees and over 85% humidity from the time we arrived on Friday afternoon until we left on Monday. When we arrived on Friday, I opened up the back of my SUV, grabbed two bags and walked up the sidewalk to our cabin (a total of maybe 25 or 30 feet). When I walked in my niece said, "Aunt Beverly, are you okay?" My face was as red as an apple and I had sweat running down my face like I had just jumped out of the shower. All 50 of us at the reunion walked around for the next 3 days with a paper towel in hand to wipe our faces from time to time. No one wanted to hug anyone because it was simply too disgusting to get that close to each other. And we were outside from about 9:00 a.m. each morning until after 11:00 p.m. each night. I wore no makeup and had a baseball hat on my head the entire weekend. Add in the approximately 48 mosquito bites I now have covering my arms and legs and you can imagine I was thisclose to winning the Miss America pageant.
We also had a few adventures. Of course. Y'all should know by now I can't go through a period of several days without some sort of adventure. Here are a few of them:
1. My aunt was riding with me on the way. My mom had a couple of kids in her car with her. We had to take 2 SUV's because we all packed like we were going to the woods for a month. My brother wasn't coming until the next day so we then had 3 cars driving back to Atlanta. It turns out that the kids were the responsible ones in our group. I've made this trip by myself in the past and it takes me right around 5 hours to drive it. It took us 8.5 hours to get there on Friday because we had to stop at every other exit. One of those stops was because my mom wanted a peach milkshake from Chick-Fil-A in Meridian, MS. About 15 - 20 minutes down the road, my aunt said to me, "Beverly, where is my cell phone? I can't find it." She dug around in her purse for a minute and I told her I would call it so she could hear it ring. But that's not what happened. I called her phone, it rang, and then a man answered. Turns out she had dropped her phone in the parking lot of the Chick-Fil-A in Meridian, MS, someone turned it in, and the manager had her phone. I then called my mom and told her we needed to return to Meridian and why. She decided to keep on driving because she wanted to stop at a W almart she knew was about 30 minutes further up the road to stock up on groceries because then we would be at our destination less than 30 minutes past that. My aunt and I back tracked to get her phone which added an extra 45 minutes or so to our drive, and then met my mom and the kids at W almart.
2. On Friday night some sort of menacing Mississippi bug bit me on my finger. It itched like crazy. I didn't want to scratch it in case it was something that would spread, but then I rubbed it trying to make it stop itching without breaking the skin. When I rubbed it, all of the skin came off of my finger which sort of defeated the purpose of trying not to break the skin. And which, you know, is pretty gross. So now I have a totally disgusting scab covering up a knuckle on one of my fingers.
3. We had a cabin that sleeps four people. However, we had seven people in the cabin. With one bathroom. This was not a positive experience. On Sunday morning, I had to pee. Really bad. My mom was in the bathroom. I turned around to fold up my sheets and lean my air mattress up against the wall while I was waiting. My aunt snuck in the bathroom before I realized it. Then I turned around to do something else while I waited on her and my brother got in there before I realized it. Finally I was able to get in there. I was going to pee and then go ahead and take a shower while I could actually get in the bathroom. I walked in the bathroom, and the second I closed the door, I heard a knock. It was my cousin's 8-year-old son and he told me he needed to go to the bathroom really bad. I figured I had better let him go ahead of me since he's 8 and had to go bad, so I let him in and walked back out into the bedroom area still needing to pee. I was about to wet my pants by this time. And I waited. And I waited. And I waited. And then I waited some more. My aunt kept asking if he was still in the bathroom and I kept telling her that he was. Finally he walked out. He had a video game in his hands. He admitted he had been sitting on the toilet playing his video game the entire time I was out in the cabin doing my pee-pee dance. It's funny now because it's 5 days later. Not so much at the time.
Naturally we had some moments of family drama because, well, this is my family we're talking about. My brother got testy with me a couple of times, my niece tried to boss me around but then I reminded her that she is 11-years-old and I am 40-years-old, and my aunt snored like a truck driver all weekend which kept several of us awake a good part of each night and caused my mom to sigh loudly approximately every 45 seconds all night long. For three solid nights. Good times indeed.
We got back Monday night, I took about a two-hour long shower to remove the sweat and grime from my body, then crashed. I took a couple of days off after we got back but honestly, I had no energy on Tuesday (probably because I felt dehydrated after sweating non-stop and eating grilled and fried foods for almost 4 days and had to deal with my family in tight quarters for about 3.5 days too long). I didn't even get dressed that day, much less write a blog post. I did take a couple of naps and catch up on some stuff I had saved on my Tivo though. On Wednesday, I did laundry and ran about a thousand errands and then had to teach a class at the studio that night. Then I returned to work yesterday just in time for our monthly billing deadline (I have to process bills for approximately 70 client matters) and it was a time entry deadline. Plus I was several days behind on my regular work after being out. So that's why it's Friday and I'm just now posting for the first time in a week or two.
I can't wait to get around to your blogs and seeing what's been going on in your lives.
6 comments:
I have to say...that doesn't sound fun to me at all. Heh.
You know what's a good way to get itch relief without scratching or rubbing? Hold the itchy area under the hottest running water you can stand. You'll get a rush of histamines (kind of feels like a sneeze...only not in your nose), and then the itching will stop for a few hours while your body replenishes its histamine supply.
Aren't family reunions great? We only have to drive 5 minutes to get to one, but it can be described about like that anyway (without the cabin sharing).
I hadn't heard Liz's trick about hot water to stop itching. That's a lot less gross than the trick I know, which is to pee on any bug bite or sting. Although, considering the bathroom situation at the cabin, that could have been two birds, one stone.
I miss your crazy stories. My son tries to take his Nintendo into the bathroom sometimes, but I take it from him if I catch him...we only have two bathrooms. And I'd suffer that heat gladly, if we could just depend on summer here for a while. We have a few nice days, then it's 60 and raining...IN JUNE.
I didn't know that hot water trick either, though Flurrious brings up a good (though disgusting) point, too. She's always full of good ideas, isn't she?
The heat would have killed me. I'm glad you survived!
Post a Comment