Ticked

(Written sleepily on Tuesday, 5/17)

In the literal sense.

Day 30 SUCKED.  I plan to insert as many parasitic references as possible into this entry.

Yes, I missed one.  I thought I had done a good job checking myself for ticks.  But late last night I was in the shower and using my loofah on the backs of my arms.  It hurt, and I decided to stop ignoring the fact that the back of my arm had been stinging a little for a couple of days.  So I looked at the soft, inner part of my upper arm and there he was. Bastard.

I'd love to say that I'm not going to gross you out, but... well... I plan to.  Part of the fun.  I don't gross out easily, and I was saying, "Eeewww".  I had been beating up on this tick with my loofah, which caused his bite to start bleeding.  So when I first laid eyes on my passenger, he was covered in blood with his nasty little feet scrabbling madly, but with his head buried stubbornly (and completely) in my arm.  Shit!  How could I have not seen it!  I have never missed one before.  I have removed lots of ticks, but always with a casual flick because they hadn't really dug in, yet.  I was mad at the thought that this fucking FREELOADER had been sucking my bodily fluids for two or three days!  And catching a ride to Utah as well.  I took a pest across state lines.

OK, time for the chorus to chime in about all the ways to neatly dislodge a tick...  At work today, I heard them all (most of which I have already heard many times before).  The hot match trick...  the Vaseline trick... the nail polish trick...  But my logical, let's-try-a-hot-match self had left the building.  There was just a wet, naked dumb person  staring at this bleeding parasite.  Hatred boiled within me.  I grabbed a tweezers and pulled...HARD... (those guys are tough!) until he came off.  Leaving his head behind.  Of course.  On close examination, I can see how these little geniuses do it:  they grab on with hook-like outward-pointing pincers, essentially stapling themselves to their host. 

I was reduced to knocking at the door of Si's "apartment" in the wee hours, asking him to "Check my scalp!  Check my scalp!"  I also presented him with a needle and invited him to excise the tick-head.  He tried while I bit my lip, to no avail.

I'm thinkin' it will work its way out on its own, if I'm careful not to let it get infected.  I will leave it for a little while and we'll see.  I called the doctor to see if he had any thoughts.  The nurse said, "Well, as long as it doesn't get red and sore, it should be OK to leave it."  I looked at my red, sore arm and said, "OK!"  That's mostly from Si's excavations, anyway.  So now I can say to all of my friends, "Wanna see the tick-head buried in my arm?"  That is the up-side...

Today remained (shall we say) draining, throughout.  Nathan woke up with a tummy ache and needed to stay home.  I had overdue library books.  I bumped my thigh on a metal chair arm at the airport yesterday and it shaped up to a big, nasty bruise.  I got my first bill for counseling and, since I haven't used any of my deductible this year, counseling is very expensive.  I have a session with her tomorrow, but then I think I will need to stop.

I told Mark that our prospective replacement for him had fallen through.  He told me that he still had to leave, anyway.  In two weeks. 

I did not linger at work, as I often do.  I want to try to get more sleep!  I walked in and Si expressed mock concern at my prompt arrival.  I was SO EARLY!  Was everything all right!?  Had my boyfriend dumped me? 

Does he really think that I'm hooking up with guys every night after work?  I thought, but did not say, that staying late at work spared me these late night "conversations".  THAT is what I'm hiding from.  I do frequently date this blog on Tuesday and Thursday nights... 

After tonight's conversation, I wish that I had just stayed in the shelter of my office until late.  Instead, I am snuffling and feeling guilty, selfish, self-centered, and all the usual adjectives.  I don't mind the little jabs at me personally very much.  It's the stuff about my parenting that really hurts. In fifteen minutes, I can go from feeling like a fairly good parent to feeling like I neglect them and am ruining their lives forever.  Then I come upstairs and sit on the edge of the bed and feel the truth of this; and I think, "He is right.  I have been a bad, negligent parent."  When I tell Si that I feel bad and that I have taken his words to heart, he gets mad. 

Turns out that this isn't about the day-to-day stuff of parenting.  When he was telling me that I fail to put the children first, that I am being selfish, he was really talking about the financial settlement.  If, at our next meeting with the mediator, I'm not willing to accept the deal he's putting together for me (which is the best he can manage), he might not be able to keep the house, which he is trying to do for the sake of the kids.  THAT'S how I'm a bad parent.  Or I will be?  If I don't accept his offer?

Mmmph.  So the parenting conversation is really meant to set the stage?  Am I being psychologically primed to accept a bad deal? This is good strategy:  nothing will hurt me more than feeling like an incompetent mother.  If I can see it for what it is, can I resist it?  Or is it true?  Am I going to force Si into selling the house?  Perhaps I am the evil, bloodsucking parasite.  I should tell Si:  just burn my butt with a match end or smear me in Vaseline.  But puh-leeze cut it with the bad mother stuff. 

Slow-Blooming Spring

Oshkosh

Sunday, May 15 

 I woke this morning after eight hours of perfect sleep, to a somewhat better frame of mind and an upgraded forecast.  It was sunny, but with a hard, icy wind.  Leapt out of bed and into my clothes, dancing my bare feet across the floor.  Waited for my tea water to boil while frantically chafing my hands.

I found Dad's work gloves where he had left them, laid across the wood stack in the toolshed; I did some more raking.  The cold weather has delayed the leaves and undergrowth, so treasures were revealed to me when I hauled my burlap bundle back into the woods.

 My grandmother would spend her entire summer here and had gardens.  The fact that her forsythia is just now getting around to blooming goes to show how late spring has come to Wisconsin this year.  I found a rhubarb patch sitting randomly in the woods as well. I vaguely remember that she had a couple of raised beds.  One was in a wooden rowboat - must have composted itself years ago!

My old friend Lisa came to see me.  We took her two little girls down to the beach, but had to hunker down in the sun-warmed sand on the sheltered leeward side of the sandy point, which we laughingly called Ploody Peninsula.

After they left, I unchained the canoe and launched it into the bay.  Despite the relative shelter afforded the bay by Ploody Peninsula, the wind was a real problem.  I worked hard between gusts, wishing for a bad-ass, extra-long stern paddle instead of the regular one I had.  But, with just small me in a 17-foot canoe?  The wind simply picked me up and danced me over to the neighbor's landing across the bay!  No amount of sweep and jay could save me from the inevitability of the neighbor's landing.  I was wishing for ballast!

I was a little bummed because I have a canoe trip coming up in September and I would have enjoyed brushing up my skills a bit. 

Back in Oshkosh tonight, we were hanging out at Charlie's place, and I was laughing about my predicament.  Mom said, "Pffft!  Don't let it bother you!  Once, your dad and I canoed across Lake Moriah to Buzzell's Woods and a storm blew in as we were coming back.  We could not get back to the landing! Kept getting blown off to the side of the lake!  Dad tried everything, but he couldn't manage it.  It was funny!  We ended up walking the canoe around to the landing.  That was your Dad; and there were two people in the canoe!"

Charles chimed in that he and Dad had developed a theory, as yet untested:  when alone in a wind-blown canoe, turn around so that the stern is in the front  and then sit on the bow thwart.  That would have you up high enough for optimum paddling and still in the back half of the canoe, but farther forward than before, for better weight distribution. 

We'll test it next time I come home, Charlie.  But we'll tie a long cord to the bow.  You can stand on the shore, and when I fetch up at the neighbor's landing, you can reel me in!

Solitude

Near Wautoma

Saturday, May 14

Mom didn’t seem keen to have me come up to the cottage all on my own

This may be because she hates saying here alone.  It gives her the willies.  This doesn’t bother me at all, since I spent all those years in our old cabin, which was a lot more isolated than this.  In the right frame of mind, I could happily spend a week or two here on my own. "Spooky" woods at night don’t bother me.      

Or she may have been concerned about the cold.  Today’s high was 46 degrees. 

 This was a bit dampening, but I got busy as soon as she left and found all the useful bedding, including this Hudson’s Bay blanket.

I brought in firewood.  And then I drove into Wautoma for stuff like soup!  To keep me warm.  I didn’t take the canoe out today.  The wind over the lake was cutting little whitecaps and it didn’t look like much fun.  We’ll see what tomorrow brings.  The cold doesn’t bother me. 

Today, I raked last year’s oak leaves from the yard onto a big piece of burlap and hauled it into the woods to dump it.  I got about half done with that. Blistered my hands, but that doesn’t bother me, either.  Watched egret, heron and a big wild turkey while I was raking. 

There were only a few pesky critters.  Ticks are an issue here.  I had kind of forgotten.  I was reminded when I felt something tickling my thigh in a bug-like way and just sort of squashed it absently against my leg with my hand, thinking that would kill whatever it was, y’know?  But it wouldn’t die and kept on tickling until I finally pulled down my pants and found the tick busily burrowing under my skin.  I’ll have to do a tick-check before I go to bed tonight.  A few mice as well.  I watched one bound across the floor just now. Charles has these little plug-ins that make a soft buzzing, supposedly driving mice nuts and keeping them out of your home. It will hurt his feelings if I tell him that they don’t work.  Besides it is just one mouse.  Mice and ticks are no bother. 

I am rocking in my grandmother’s rocking chair, toasting my shins in the heat from the fire.  I am drinking tea mixed with cognac, from a tin cowboy mug.  The kids have just called me to say goodnight.  I asked to speak to Simon, to see how things were going in my absence.  He would only stay on for about 20 seconds before he passed the phone off to Sara.  I should go to bed myself, but that means undressing in the cold, and I’m stalling, putting off the inevitable.  However, sleep is part of my therapy, so I’ll just strip off here by the fire and then nose dive into my nest.

All in all, the only thing bothering me right now is my frame of mind.