Saturday Morning Memories: Injury Edition

Yep.



So we're going to Yellowstone next week.  And I'm pretty freakin' excited.  Luke's never been, and the last time I was there was 2006.  And there is the tiny little thing of this is the first vacation we've had since forever.  Yay!!

Since IF is only, like, 2.2 hours away from Yellowstone we went all the time when I was growing up.  Six or seven times a year, every year.

(full disclosure: it's not that close . . . but pretty close.  And we didn't go that often . . . but pretty often.  More than once a year, generally.)

We did a lot of things in IF that stopped abruptly when we moved to TremonTon.  Camping . . . hiking . . . fishing . . . chopping our own Christmas trees.  Mostly a lot of outdoors-y stuff.  It all kind of disappeared and instead of enjoying nature I spent my high school years being attacked by evil demon-possessed roosters (true story . . . I'll have to tell it sometime . . . ).

But I guess the summer after I graduated from college and before I left for Florida (obviously, lol) I think it suddenly occurred to my parents that, hey, we haven't done any of the cool things we used to do all the time in, like, forever, and this is, like, the last chance to do them, like, ever.

(side note: can't you totally hear my dad saying that?  using exactly those words? HA!!)

Anyway.  So we hit both Yellowstone and Dinosaur parks that summer.  Sans Ashli, who was nanny-ing in . . . one of those middle states that starts with "I" . . . so there were only three of us crammed into the back seat of the pickup and no one complaining about how dirty dirt is.

This is the part of the story where I mention that bugs - especially mosquitoes -  have always found me particularly tasty, no matter how much bug spray I put on.  Was that plot point as painfully obvious as high school emo poetry? Great.  Moving on.

It was a lovely trip, going from something like the 30th of June to the 3rd of July.  I am painfully aware of those (semi)precise dates on multiple levels.  The morning that we left I noticed that I had multiple bug bites on/around my right ankle.  We did a little bit of geyser trail walking, nothing much on our way out and it was a little uncomfortable, but no big deal.  Then we drove home . . . and it's a little bit longer than 2.2 hours when home is TremonTon and not IF.  So when we finally got home and I got out of the car . . . I nearly collapsed.  After limp-hopping into the house and almost crawling to the couch to get my shoe off I discovered that my ankle was as big as my knee . . . and possibly bigger.  I counted at one point, and there were 16 bug bites in my ankular area for sure . . . and at least half a dozen more that I couldn't tell if they were additional bites or just general puffiness in reaction to what was there for sure.  If they had West Nile in Yellowstone, I'm pretty sure I would have died on the drive home.

So out of this little story comes a crazy thing and a tragic thing.  The crazy thing is I actually had very few bites anywhere else, especially compared to what I usually get camping . . . or even just being outside at dusk.  It's like they all zeroed in on that one spot - but the even crazier thing is that it was, like, the most covered spot of all.  I haven't worn shorts since I was 14 so I had your typically heavy denim jeans on, and tall, tolerably thick funky socks on under that.  But did those stupid parasites go for the easy access bare skin on my arms?  Nope - they went for the ankles.  Mostly the right ankle.  Almost every last one of them.  Gah!

And now the tragic thing.  Remember how I said we came home on the 3rd of July?  That was because Shayla and I had a concert.  You see, the Lincoln Youth Symphony goes on hiatus for the summer so the Lake Bonneville Community Symphony does the fourth of July concert in Brigham City.  Of course, the LBCS is mostly made up of LYS alumni who are still around/home for the summer . . . or at least they were half a decade ago (man, it is so wrong to be able to say that!).  So as usual, Shay and I were playing and we had to be home for the fourth.

But then, after propping my foot up for a few hours and drinking a couple of gallons of benedryl I tried to go to bed . . . and I could. Not. Walk.  At all.  My dad had to literally carry me from the family room to my bedroom because I just could not put any weight on my foot.  Not exactly conducive to cello playing.  It's not impossible . . . but it also wouldn't be pleasant.  So I missed my last concert.  And there have few things more disappointing in my life.  For one thing, I'd finally had the genius idea to copy the sheet music onto heavy card stock (it's an outdoor concert) and the only card stock we had in the house was Easter-y pastel colors, which I found kind of awesome.  And it was some pretty sweet music too . . . Star Wars and Pirates and Lord of the Rings - the Fourth concert is all about the crowd pleasers rahter than the "serious" music.  And of course the patriotic stuff - pretty sure I could play Sousa's S&SF from memory to this day.  And then it was tradition to play the most epically awesome arranged-for-full-symphony-and-I-can't-find-a-version-on-youtube-for-the-life-of-me-and-it-makes-me-want-to-cry version of Lord of the Dance known to man.  Seriously, this arrangement was clearly done by a cellist.  It's one of the few times you can get away with playing forti-ssissi-ssissi-ssissi-ssissi-ssissi-ssissi-ssissimo and the conductor can't say anything because you're SUPPOSED to be pretty much drowning everyone else out.  It is awesome to the trillionth power.  And it was my last time performing it, and I knew that . . . and I missed it.  It was tragic.  It still is.

Luke's pretty certain we're all going to be eaten by bears or trampled by buffalo in our sleep.  Me, I'm just worried about the mosquitoes.   I'm pretty sure that means it's the chipmunks who'll actually do us in.  Or maybe the bunnies.



P. ost  S. cript

Stumbled across this . . . and my year has been made.