I absolutely love the fact that I am surrounded by nature. I am so happy being among trees and birds, deer and wild turkeys. A short walk takes me to the bridge where I find myself lost in the familiarity of the twists and turns of the river. Everything about this place is family and home to me, making it the perfect place to write stories about Polly.
Now … as much as I love to be surrounded by nature, I am NOT an outdoorsy girl. Snakes, mice, bugs and other flying thingies make me nuts. I kill flowers with no effort. The poor things don’t stand a chance around me. If you tell me hostas are hardy, I’ll show you the dead plants that I gave an early death. Taking long walks under beautiful, tree-covered canopies is not my idea of fun. I wouldn’t mind a hammock, if it weren’t for the mosquitoes.
TB used to bring little bits and pieces of the outdoors inside. I hated gathering dead mice, snakes, frogs and birds and giving them a final resting place. Even more, I hated it when he released live mice into the cabin and we’d spend the next year entertaining them.
Did I tell you about having to call my A/C guy to come out because there was a terrible sound in the system? Yeah. They found a dead mouse in the fan. Bet that was gory! Yikes. It took Earl and Grey coming into our space to finally rid it of the last mouse. And with their arrival, I decided that everyone was staying inside. I worried desperately when TB stayed out all day and late into the evening, crying more often than not when he was really late. He always came home to me, but it nearly killed me. There was no way I could do that with three cats. Everybody is an inside cat. I have a very nice screened-in porch for them to observe … not participate in … nature.
As entertaining as all of the stories about TB’s escapades with tiny little fauna from the out of doors were, I’m glad to be done with them.
However, it really never ends for me. And this time, the cats had nothing to do with it.
A bee stung me in the butt when I went to the bathroom this morning. Go ahead, laugh. There’s nothing really traumatic about it. Just another day at the cabin for me.
Y’all know that I write until the wee hours of the morning, right? So while you’re well into your workday, I’m sound asleep (unless of course I have to go to the bathroom or one of the cats needs attention). This morning, I woke up because of the latter, but once an old gal wakes up, it’s better to just go to the bathroom. Right? Of course.
I stumbled in my bleary-eyed, thunky-brained, shuffle (you know, the cat shuffle, so you don’t trip on anything low to the ground) to the bathroom and sat down.
There was immediate pain. I was confused. Really confused. My first unclear thought was that the toilet seat had broken. I’ve had a pinched bum from a broken toilet seat before. That was a real possibility. I felt around and decided that had to be the answer, then stumbled back to bed and tried to go to sleep. But, wowza, that pinch really hurt and the pain wasn’t going away. You gotta know, I checked my cheek to make sure there wasn’t a wound. Nah. Nothing.
Two and half hours later, I finally woke up for the day. The pain was pretty much gone, but it still hurt a little. Weird. I went to the bathroom again and looked at the seat. Nothing was broken.
Holy smokes, was I just delusional? Did I imagine all of it? Seriously – that’s the only thing that made any sense to me.
Until fifteen hours later. Guess what? Now the bite has finally come alive and it itches.
I have to tell you that I was so glad when it finally started to itch, I laughed out loud. Thank goodness I hadn’t lost my mind.
But I will reiterate. For as much as I love nature, the outdoors needs to stay where it belongs. Indoors is for air conditioning and happy Diane. Outdoors is for the bugs and bees and all that other stuff.
Now I have to finish writing this chapter. Back to work, Diane.