Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Tick...I mean..."Tis the Season.


In my mind, Memorial weekend always seems to kick off summer. We are pretty safe planting flowers and hooking up the hoses. The Grouchy Dog has been opened and the boat uncovered...and now we can really start to use them. Each year we make the trek up the "The Cabin" to start the summer festivities. It was a beautiful weekend filled with laughter, sunshine, fun and ticks (and yes for you die hards, the vodka was flowing...we-my two sidekicks and myself-even initiated the End Zone). But back to the ticks...the first one is gross and makes everyone a little more alert, but by numbers 12, 13...22 it's just not so bad any more. We picked them off in the weeds, the tall grass, the woods and even just sitting in the grass (ok I was actually laying in the grass...after getting beaned in the head with a soccer ball...I don't believe the big guy when he said he was aiming for the Wild One...his hands, not his head).  I found two crawling on me just before we left and a couple on the Wild Ones...and Miss Z. We did one last "once over" before we headed out...we were a little crammed in and didn't have room for any hitch hikers...and came up clean. We decided to catch a movie on the way home (leave it to the Fun Family to wedge one more thing in before the sun goes down) and right as the lights began to dim, I felt something on my hip. I was pretty sure it was nothing (after all I had triple checked) and I really didn't feel like pulling my pants down in the theater...so I tried to sit still and enjoy the movie. Fast forward about 3 seconds...I whippped my pants down over my right hip and there he was...a huge bugger making his way upward. I had to wait until there was enough light coming from the screen so that I could pick it off...and then sat there squishing it between my fingers thinking, "Now WTF am I going to do with it?" I ran to the end of the isle and flicked it onto the metal part of the step and then poked it...I figured if it was still moving it would never get past all the other people and make it back to me...I felt pretty safe...but, I sat through the rest of the movie squirming, flinching, gawking and scratching at every little flicker of dust that came near my body. We all arrived home safely and with no more tick attacks. We all lingered in hot showers and baths and  climbed in for a "OMG I am so happy to be sleeping in my own bed" good nights sleep. And we all slept like babies...including the little brown friend we found this morning burrowed in the side of the tallest Wild One.

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