Various Dysfunctions

 I was just going to read my friends' blogs and not post today because I have just been limping along being sleepless and cranky and dumb lately, and who wants to read about that? But I promised myself I was going to try really hard to post every week no matter what, so here we are. 

Eve has her first bladder infection - I didn't specifically check that I could blog that, but she's pretty chill about her bodily functions being discussed, so she probably won't sue me. It's been miserable - she got one round of antibiotics and they didn't kill it, so we called the clinic and the after-hours doctor called her again and gave her a stronger antibiotic and asked us to come in so she could give a urine sample - also a first for her. 

So it was a weird morning. I slept like absolute garbage again and she woke me up from a dead sleep to leave - I'm not sure if my alarm didn't go off or I slept through it. It was fine, we didn't have a firm appointment, just a suggestion to show up around a time. I don't enjoy driving with the state of my brain right now. I can follow the rules of the road okay, but I can't remember where I'm going. Last night I was driving Eve to hang out in one friend's backyard and we were supposed to drive another friend. I got almost to the first friend's house when Eve reminded me to pick up the other friend (it wasn't far away, but I was going in the wrong direction). I turned around and drove to the second friend's house, and as I approached their driveway I suddenly thought "what the hell am I doing driving to Marianna's house? We're going to Davis's!" So. Yeah.

So we made it to the doctor's office, which is in a big plaza with a giant parking lot, which is currently half torn up (this is relevant, unfortunately). I drove one way thinking I could get around to the end and get near the office we needed, but there was no exit. Eve said "just park here and we'll walk over". Which you'd think would be fine. So we did, and everything went fine except, well, if you remember the first time you tried to give a urine sample as a woman, or any time trying to give a urine sample as a woman, or maybe Eve and I are just clumsy and not in tune with our bodies, whatever, shut up - it was difficult, but she managed to present enough urine to dip whatever they needed to dip in it. 

We walked back across the parking lot and as we approached the car - which would have been in a WHOLE-ASS DIFFERENT LOCATION if not for the torn-up parking lot, THANKS A LOT, CONSTRUCTION -  I saw Eve kind of duck and felt something hit the back of my head. I turned and saw a giant flock of birds and felt the back of my head and Eve said "omg, I'm so sorry!" and yes, a motherfucking bird SHIT ON THE BACK OF MY HEAD. Fortunately, because of Covid, we have Lysol wipes in every vehicle so Eve helped me clean up. On the drive home she giggled and said "I was going to wait until you washed it off to say this, but it kind of fits the theme of the day - first I got pee all over myself and then you got shat on". And honestly, even before I showered, that is funny.

We're doing an appetizers-and-group-drink night at a friend's tonight since we didn't get to do our traditional gourmet-meal-and-group-drink at camp. I am mixing a pitcher of palomas and making some kind of grilled-corn-black-bean-jalapeno-cheddar salad with avocado crema and homemade tortillas. I just keep throwing more lime juice and garlic and olive oil and coarse salt in various dishes and hoping for the best. Supposedly a bird crapping on you is good luck so everything I touch in the kitchen should be gold today, right? I'll just make sure everything has a lid on it for transport. 

Eve just came down to tell me something and I said "can I have a hug and can I tell my blog readers you have a bladder infection?" and she said yes to both, so we're cool. 

Camping and the Kindness of Strangers

 I've always felt like campgrounds were a tiny bit like Disneyworld, in that you drive through the entrance and it sort of feels like you're in a semi-magical place where nothing bad can happen. We camped a lot when I was a kid, and we always had the run of the place, and I remember my parents meeting and conversing with people who were set up near us, holding babies we didn't know, sharing food. I still have vivid memories of a Greek woman and a man with a stutter, which I had never heard before. I asked my dad about it later and he said it was good that I hadn't asked in front of the man. 

Even before I started camping overnight, when I would take the kids to Sandbanks to hang with our camping friends, I let them run around the park with the other kids and paid less attention than I would have at home. I'm not really defending this as intelligent or safe, but nothing bad did happen, so it's a moot point. Camping there has generally been a convivial experience. People catch floating  toys that have been taken by the wind (at one point there was a distressing tableau that should have been captioned "Losing Nemo" before a kind stranger intervened). People tell you if you left something in the shower that you just vacated as they're entering (when the showers are in use). This year, people told other bathroom users which dispensers had soap in them so they didn't have to touch all of them (leaving aside the questionable detail of empty soap dispensers at this particular point in time - the bathrooms were pretty clean aside from that). 

One year Eve and I got there the day before Matt and Angus, and while we were deciding where to put up the tent a man passing by stopped and told us that it would be better to put it on the higher ground so we wouldn't get flooded if it rained. Another year there was a group of young people camping next to us that looked like a traveling theater troupe from a Barry Unsworth novel. They asked to borrow mustard for their veggie dogs and were effusively grateful. They were gone when we woke up the next morning. I know they were probably just hipsters, but we suspected they might be time travelers. 

This year didn't feel terribly different. The website said there would probably be more empty sites, but we were in the most popular section, and there weren't a whole lot, which is fine - the sites are not too close together. The bathrooms were never crowded - it was actually rare to be in there with other people. We always try to get a site in the same general area, because it's close to the beach and the comfort station and, full disclosure, because Eve and I have the same appalling sense of direction and it makes it less likely that we will set off and never be seen again. We did get a site in the same area, but it was in an inner loop instead of in the same row where we usually are. This was fine - it was actually a little closer to the bathroom - except at night we had to remember to turn right sooner than we usually did. 

I love walking along the camp roads. In the daytime the pavement is warm and the sun flickers down through the trees making a light that you don't see anywhere else. At night it's quiet and dark except for low voices and firelight from the odd site, and when it's clear you can look up and the stars are dazzling. I usually leave my flashlight off when I'm on the long straight part or walking along the beach, and just use it to figure out where to turn. The first campfire this year, though, my flashlight disappeared. I had my phone, but the battery was low so I was trying not to use it too much. I got back to our site once, but I wanted to wash my face and brush my teeth at the comfort station (I usually do it at our picnic table with a lantern, but the bugs were insane this year and I was tired of inhaling them). So I gathered my stuff and set out again. On my way back, I turned into the really dark part, and suddenly realized that 1) I had no idea where the right turn to get to our site was and 2) I had no idea if my phone was in my overstuffed beach bag or if I had left it back on the picnic table.

I stopped for a moment to gather my thoughts and see if my eyes would adjust enough to see the road. They did not. Just as i was about to set down my bag and start digging through it blind to see if I could find my phone, I looked back and saw a flashlight bobbing along a ways back coming towards me. So I just stood there until it drew level and said "sorry, but could you just help me find the turn here?" 

He looked surprised (which is fair - if someone had done this to me I probably would have screamed and thrown a right hook). He looked like he might not speak English (there are a lot of French people who camp there), but was agreeable enough. He shone the light to the right and I found the turn-off and thanked him. He kept it shining for a bit for me to start walking so I thanked him again. He kept going and I kept walking, and I had forgotten that the road bows out sharply to the right before curving back left. I realized I was walking on grass and not pavement and stopped a split second before walking into a tree. I corrected and sighted the light Matt had left on the picnic table for me. The next day the person who had mistakenly taken my flashlight returned it. 

Now that I type it out it sounds kind of dumb, but it was a lovely moment, and I am adding my time with Flashlight Guy to my collection of nice camping moments. Is this some kind of metaphor for how, just when it's too dark to see your way forward, a light will appear to guide you? Or maybe a flashlight is just a flashlight. 

Everything is Fine

HA ha,  no, of course it isn't, I never promised not to lie to you, Radical Honesty is bunk, lies are the WD-40 that grease the machinery of human interaction. Among other things, my blog interface suddenly looks totally different. Do I LOOK like I need a fun new challenge right now, Blogger? DO I? Lucy just scratched at the back door and when I opened it she snatched my gardening gloves off the table and ran outside with them, wtf? The whole world is against me. 

You know which very important movie I totally forgot about when I made my sort-of list of my sort-of top ten favourite movies? The Nightmare Before Christmas. I'm a fake fan. *hides head in shame*

Angus left. We were all so stressed about whether he'd be able to get over the border that we went next door and got totally trashed with our neighbours. Angus - who, over the course of the summer, has had A beer with us, sometimes two - drank most of a bottle of red wine by himself, among other drinks, and was very funny. At once point he was talking about driving on a U.S. highway and said the phrase "portable homes" many, many times until someone figured out that he meant mobile homes. He came inside to go to bed a half hour before us, and when I came in I went to find his clothes and wash them so he could leave with everything clean. I couldn't find them anywhere. I tried to get him to tell me where he'd put them, but, well, if you've ever tried to quiz a drunk person half an hour after they went to bed, you know how successful that was. This might be a mystery for the ages.

He left the next day an hour or two later than originally intended. Our friends had been trying to reassure him that he was going to pull up to the border and some border guard would be snoozing on a chair having had nothing to do for four months and would be happy as hell to see someone. This, as it turns out, is very nearly what transpired. Not even an hour after he left, we got this text:

The guard asked him where he was going, what sport he played, then asked him what he wanted to do after college and when Angus said med school the guard said "you should do it in the Caribbean, it's cheap!" Does that not sound like someone who has been starved for conversation? Or maybe owns shares in a Caribbean med school, idk. 

After that, Matt and I sat around catatonic for a couple of days due to a severe adrenaline withdrawal. Then my sister and her family came for a few days, which was off-the-charts wonderful. We ate some and drank some, but mostly we just talked and laughed at my parents' house, then at our house, then in our backyard, then in my parents' backyard. Somebody tweeted a Ram Dass quote about how spending a week with our nearest and dearest sometimes causes the realization that they are neither nearest nor dearest, which made me realize how lucky we are that we never run out of things to talk about, that we all generally share the same twisted sense of humour, and that we're never ready for the people who have to leave to leave. Also, we got to hear my niece's story about finishing her first university exam at home and then deciding to have her own little party, which involved a bottle of Kraken, some tunes, a Zoom chat and the phrase "I remember getting into my banana costume". 

My smartass niece was taking our picture and we told her to hold the camera higher because older people need help not having multiple chins. 

We haven't done a whole ton of "Summer" stuff, because, well, it's hot as fuck and I hate heat. But we do our weekly bar night in one of the two biggest backyards so we can social distance (two words I have grown to hate and may soon spit on the floor every time they are uttered, wait no, that would be irresponsible, I will only spit metaphorically), and this week-end we're going camping, for less time than we usually do because the showers are closed. It will be strange, because Angus won't be there, and Collette won't be there because she basically gets poison ivy if a gentle breeze brushes past the poison ivy and then brushes past her, and camping with no showers is a no-go. We're also not doing the big communal dinners for obvious reasons, and is camping even camping if you're not roasting a giant hunk of meat on a spit over the fire? So this might be a feeble attempt to say Screw You, Covid, but I love the parts of camping I love slightly more than I hate the parts of camping I hate, so marshmallows ahoy.