escape

Lots happened this weekend.  I took Friday off work to stay home and clean house.  I worked very hard because our house was a wreck!  It all looked presentable by the end of what would be my normal work day.  My young ladies had the afternoon off school to ready themselves for senior prom.  It’s a very big deal – they had their hair and nails professionally done.  Some girls have their makeup done as well, but my girls prefer to do their own.  After the dance (which was miserable from what I heard), they brought friends over for a party\get-together.  The girls instructed me to light candles throughout the house, pick up pizza at 11:45, and then disappear.   They got home just as I was unloading pizza.

  

Our high school has not had any good dances this year.  They’ve managed to botch every one.  The primary issues are drinking, drugs, and too much contact on the dance floor.  It seems they have made some headway thanks to drug-sniffing dogs checking all the cars on the parking lot and Breathalyzers at the entrance, so with this dance the kids were told up front there was to be no suggestive moving of any body parts and absolutely no touching on the dance floor.  Anything like a violation would result in immediate eviction from the dance.  Apparently the music was great, but nobody danced at all.  Even the adults who were chaperoning didn’t dance.  Sounds like a pretty lame dance with absolutely nobody dancing….ever. 

Saturday, because the girls had stayed up all night playing video games with friends, eating pizza and all sorts of trash food, and talking about people, they slept nearly all day.  I got up and took my kayak to Grayson Lake.  It was wonderful!!  The day was picture-perfect.  I had the feeling of paddling into a postcard or painting.  The lake was formed by damming several creeks so that valleys in that area of Carter County were flooded.  The edges of the lake are rock cliffs.  Dogwoods are blooming all over the hillsides this time of year.  In late June, mountain laurel will be blooming.  Pale pink blooms will be cascading over the cliffs then – it’s an unforgettable sight.

Grayson Lake

I used to have a speed boat in my younger days (before Sarah).  I rented a slip at Grayson Lake and that is primarily where we (my first husband and I) took it out.  I loved to waterski in those days, and that boat could fly!!  What fun to spend an entire day at the lake.  We oftentimes invited friends out.  We skied, had a picnic lunch, drank too much beer, and usually trolled back into a cove and dropped anchor for an afternoon of swimming and good times.  Very good times.  Those were good days.  But a boat is expensive.   It was an old boat and it needed work constantly.  My first husband was mechanically inclined and could fix it most of the time.

I feel a bit guilty (still) that when we parted company, I convinced him that having a boat would help him attract women.  What a manipulative, conniving bitch I was.  The truth is that boats are expensive and I wasn’t going to be going boating with a new baby to care for.  Poor ex-hubbie had no idea what he was getting into because I had taken care of all the financial aspects of the boat.  The boat and trailer had to be licensed and insured every year.  Slip rental wasn’t cheap, but it was a luxury that made using the boat exponentially more convenient.  Then there was gasoline, and maintenance costs for boat and trailer.  In my own defense, I sold it to him for an excellent price, but he sold it for less than that a year later.  It was too expensive and his girlfriend was afraid of deep water.  Oh well. 

Someone is nervous around deep water; he’s a barely competent swimmer.    A few times he has hinted that maybe he should try kayaking.  I haven’t offered to help him shop for or buy a kayak.  I like having something to do on my own, at least for now.  The quiet is so seductive, and he is a talker.  If he kayaks with me, he’ll want to control things and talk.  It won’t be anything like it is now; the magic will be gone. 

sheer magic