Vacation Highlights!

As some of you know, I was on "vacation" last week. The quotes mean I didn't travel anywhere, really. I took a day trip. But really, this was a stay-cation. That's okay.

1. I drank a bubble tea in Saugatuck, Michigan! It was delicious but it contained mango so the day ended with me projectile vomiting in a Menard's bathroom because I am allergic to mango.*

My mum and her sister by the lake.

This is my face before mango was in everything, back when there was beauty in the world.

2. I bought shoes. They are adorable and yes, I can walk in them. The soles are ORANGE.

Obsessed.

3. I got the air conditioning in my car mended! And then I found out my rear brakes need replaced, so now that is happening. I will be poor for such a long time.

4. We scraped the house to prep for painting, and I was attacked by a swarm of wasps. I got stung (obviously) and my sting-sites became MASSIVELY swollen and really red and hot and scary, so I had to go to QuickMed.

Day one, when it looked sort-of normal-ish.

5. I was given a temporary tattoo by a doctor and a lot of steroids. A lot a lot. Plus I have to take antihistamines three times a day. And now I have to get tested for allergy to wasp stings, making me the female version of Richard Gansey III from The Raven Cycle. (I would rather be Calla.) That test is on Wednesday. Hooray.

Hard to tell, but this is a 4cm swollen blob of evil. And it BURNS.

I have opted not to show you the other stings, which are on the back of my leg. Not only would photography be next to impossible, I am so not photographing my thigh. Better luck next time, creepy internet people. We are sticking to Victorian-level scandal on this blog. Ankles only.

* Don't worry, I cleaned. I thought I was going to pass out and die, but I scrubbed that bathroom stall until it shone. That bathroom was nicer when I left it than it was when I walked inside.

In Which Laura Is Viciously Attacked.

I took a week off from work to help Mum with some things she's been working on around the house. Also I wanted to be free of work, since the summer reading program has ended, and now is a good time to detox from the crazy schedule we keep during summer activities and settle back into the normal library year, school visits, ordering books, preparing story hours, and so forth.

The first official day of my vacation, I got the air conditioning fixed in my car. This was brilliant. Now I can drive all over...except I can't because my rear brakes are making a clicking noise. Why all the noise, car? Why so much clicking? Mum and I spent the afternoon picking up color samples for paint and laminate to go on the top of the new bathroom vanity/sink thingy. Also we scheduled someone to come measure for said vanity/sink thingy.

Then yesterday we decided we would scrape one side of the house, prime, and paint it. This was an easy job because our house is only one story. So we set to work. The Brother and I did awesome. We laughed. We had a good time. The cabinet man came to measure. We kept working. Darcy came out and sniffed a plant. We kept scraping. She avoided crossing the line of plants to come see me, but we kept scraping. Then I took a step to the right and felt something stab me.

And then I was covered with wasps.

There were at least twenty just on my leg, and a cloud of them surrounded me. I took off screaming a high-pitched soprano scream, running like mad, using all the speed training I did during the miserable winter on the treadmill.

I was very lucky.

I did not stand ON the nest. Our work must have disturbed the wasps, but it did not involve us putting a foot into their hole in the ground. It was still early morning and quite cool, so they were more sedate. Only part of the hive came out, and most did not pursue me in my mad dash across the yard.

I was wearing long pants. The wasp stinger had to get through dense Lucky Brand denim with NO STRETCH. This meant they didn't hit me quite so hard as they could have, if I'd worn shorts to work on the house.

I, while covered in wasps, was only stung three times. THREE. That is so lucky. They were all over my legs, on my shirt, in my hair, and I only got hit three times with their nasty butt-daggers. I am allergic to everything and the last wasp sting I got made me long for the hospital and a Benadryl drip, but I got one minor sting, one medium sting, and one severe. Just one.

We were also at home, so I could strip, jump into a bathtub filled with baking soda, take Benadryl, use my inhaler, and make a baking soda paste to stick on the stings when I got back out of the water. By the afternoon, I was doing okay. By dinner time, I was back to normal. After dinner, I went on a long bike ride with Mum and Dad.

It could have been so much worse. Even if now I'm afraid of everything that makes a buzzing noise, including small electronics.

Benadryl The Gilmore Girls and Lizzie Bennet

I found out last night that Netflix will have The Gilmore Girls available for streaming starting on October 1st. Clear your calendars, everyone. It doesn't matter that I have the series already, I am still excited. For two reasons: 1. More people will be willing to talk about The Gilmore Girls with me at length and 2. I won't have to stand up and change discs in my DVD player anymore.

That is how lazy I am.

I could use all the help I can get right now, because my wasp-stung finger now feels like a piece of overripe fruit, about to break open and be devoured by insects. It itches. It burns. It will not go away.

Yesterday I bought myself a chocolate shake just to make myself feel better.

Today I am taking Benadryl at work and trying to stay conscious while sitting at the circulation desk. I feel weird and floaty. I think I bought lots of tea. I can't remember how much.

It's also possible that we have a drug dealer who has set up shop outside the library.

So instead of writing you a real blog post, I am going to distract you by giving you this:

It is The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a contemporary re-imagining of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. My friend Kate told me to watch it, and it is hilarious. Usually I ignore modern-day (or any) Austen-inspired offering, but this is so well written that I adored it. You must all watch it.

To get the full story, go here. The characters talked to each other on Twitter, Lydia made videos, and the story got so much bigger than what's in that playlist. Enjoy. While you watch that, I'll be over here trying to convince acquaintances, friends, and loved ones to remove my finger using various household implements. I'll also be watching Emma Approved.

Sadistic Little Winged Hate-Filled Buzzing Chunks of Crap

Sometimes nature is pretty. There are butterflies. Birds. Flowers and junk. Stuff looks nice, and you walk around and breathe in the fresh air and think, "This doesn't suck."

Is that just me? No. Of course it isn't.

Monday I was walking through a parking lot. And parking lots aren't pretty or anything. There are even songs about how not-pretty parking lots are. But you walk through them, usually at least once a day, unless you didn't bother to leave your house that day. Who knows. Maybe you're a recluse. Maybe you've been marathoning the Lizzie Bennet Diaries and it was way more important to watch that then go outside and see sunlight and interact with other human beings. Trust me, I get it. I have been there.

Me. Parking lot. Book in my hand, because that's what lunch is about. Lunch is for reading. But my book felt like something weird was on it. I thought it was a straw wrapper, because I was just in my car and I swear straw wrappers replicate in my car, like every time I turn around they double. And then I close my eyes and they double again. And again. And now I have a batch of self-replicating straw wrappers that will eventually fill the car and take it over, leaving me with no recourse other than to start biking 20 miles to work everyday.

The second I felt my hand brush against it, before the thought "straw wrapper" could fully form into words in my brain, the straw wrapper was actively stabbing into my hand with its stinger, because it wasn't a straw wrapper it was a FREAKING SOUL-SUCKING WASP.

That flipping bug of Satan, the spawn of the unholy, wasted no time after seeing movement, because wasps believe in nothing but screwing humans over the second they see you or come near you. They see you walking and they think, "RUIN DAY OF HUMAN" and "DIE DIE DIE DIE." Actually wasps probably only think the latter thing, because they are wasps.

It stung me on the pinkie finger, right at the top joint, where the finger is really narrow and so blood vessels and nerves and stuff are right there, easy to reach. I quickly killed the thing dead (or scared the freaking crap out of it) by exercising the Laura Maneuver, which is sort of a combination jump, swap, and flail. It usually results in insect death, but wasps aren't insects, they are the spawn of the beast, risen up from the pit. They don't die like other things die. They carry on, intent on ending their victim (me) and our entire species.

By the time I'd entered the restaurant (Pizza Hut), my finger was numb and yet somehow managed to hurt worse than the pain I experienced after I paid some guy I'd just met thousands of dollars to use a combination vacuum / leaf-blower, tweezers, and a camera to rip out one of my less-vital organs through my belly-button.*

I have a lot of minor aches and pains, but few ever make me just want to cry. This did.

The last time a wasp noticed stung me, I was in gym class and ended up with a living insectoid hypodermic needle stuck in my arm and ended up traumatized for life. It still didn't hurt like this sting did, and I didn't even have to run the mile after being stung this time.

At one point Monday, I could not bend my entire hand because it was so swollen.

Wasps SUCK. They are like suck on wings, except that implies a certain level of cool that wasps can't have, because they are literally manufactured out hate and misery siphoned off of society and condensed into something living. They are evil incarnate. At least bees have a use. Wasps just exist to ruin peoples lives, taking as many victims as they can before they eventually are absorbed back into the dark forces lurking in our universe.

The way I see it, bees have a gun with one bullet, so they use it to protect the hive or themselves if they HAVE to. They die if they strike, so they don't do it lightly. Meanwhile, wasps are like Jeffery Dahmer, they kill for fun because they like it. They are sadistic little winged hate-filled buzzing chunks of crap. And they are everywhere.

* AKA, gallbladder surgery

A Story About a Wasp

My app now has me running over 20 minutes without stopping.

I cannot run 20 minutes without stopping. I keep trying. I can make it 11 minutes. Sometimes I can make it 13 minutes. But I cannot run 20 minutes. Or 25, like I was supposed to run today.

It ended up working out just fine, because this morning I took Darcy with me, and she was not at all interested in running. She wanted to sit on the ground and watch me run, resulting in my running away from her. Then I had to stop and coax her to join me. And I'd run again, and we would repeat the process. Darcy is not used to going out and running at 8:00 AM. She is used to walking around with Mum and being able to sniff everything. It is a leisure walk. More of a stroll than anything.

Poor Darcy. It was even misting, meaning she was getting wet, and she hates being wet.

By the time I was halfway done, I was exhausted, but Darcy was so happy to be going home that she finally decided to run without any begging or pleading. She used her Shetland Sheepdog herding skills to get me home. It was probably good that she did, as I was dying by then.

It's a good thing that I'm about two weeks ahead of where I SHOULD be. That makes it okay that I'm not running 20 straight minutes. But I can't help but worry that I WON'T do any better, and that on race day I'll be gasping my way along, then stopping to walk for the second half. It would be just like the president's physical fitness tests we used to have to take in gym class, only with me all grown up and with more asthma. There will be just as many people staring at me, so I'll get that added humiliation and possible flashbacks.

The last time I ran a mile with people watching, I had been stretching in gym and had no idea I would soon be subject to such torment. I felt a slight tickle on my arm and, thinking it was a strand of my own hair, I brushed it away. Except it was not a hair, it was a wasp.

The wasp, believing I was about to murder it, stung me as my hand approached. When I touched the wasp half a second later (discovering as I did so that the stabby thing was a giant angry wasp), it became lodged in my arm like an insectoid hypodermic needle.

Did I mention it was in the crook of my elbow, right where they always draw blood at the doctor's office? It was there.

One of my fellow students had to remove the wasp for me, as it was stuck and its attempts to walk away or fly were resulting in nothing. Meanwhile, it was still mid-sting, with more and more wasp venom entering what could only have been my veins, since all my blood vessels are right at the surface and easily accessible to wasps and medical staff alike.

The wasp, once freed, flew away. It was probably out of venom by then. It did not come back, meaning it was probably as traumatized as I was after the whole experience.

My arm began to blow up like a balloon.

As I wondered if this counted as an excuse to go to the nurse's office, our teacher led us out of the gym for...the track. Yes, we were running a mile that day. For the stupid fitness test they made us do every year. Spoiler alert: None of us were ever fit.

I asked the teacher if I could go to the nurse's office. He said no. So as I walked out of the building toward the track, I noticed a room I'd never seen before. It was unmarked, and it contained a washing machine, a dryer, and a big ice machine like they have at hotels. This was the best thing I'd ever seen up to that point.

I ducked into the room, grabbed a paper towel from the holder above the ice chest, wrapped a handful of ice up in the paper towling, and went back to join my class.

holding the ice to my arm, I stepped into the hallway again, only to be turned on by the teacher at once. "WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN THE BOY'S VARSITY LOCKER ROOM?!" He bellowed.

"That's the boy's locker room?" I asked. "I was getting ice!"

"Oh." He replied, mollified. "Come on then."

And then I ran a mile while I felt progressively sicker. My forearm was the size of my thigh by the time I was finished. I ran the whole mile clutching the rapidly-melting ice to the spot where I'd been stung.

When I finished (I think at 12-14 minutes), I walked over to where the class was waiting for me and the other two asthmatic runners. I may not have known I had asthma then, but my pace matched the other asthmatics. Tell me that's not a clue.

The teacher wrote down my time and then noticed my arm, which, I reiterate, was THE SIZE OF MY THIGH.

"What is wrong with your arm?" My teacher asked.

"A wasp got stuck in it. It was in there for two minutes or so. And now I have a balloon arm. It feels like fire and my heartbeat."

I was sent to the nurse's office at once. Only, the nurse had already left for the day, as she was only in the school until noon or so. She had also left the elementary school and gone home. She was really, really gone. The secretary, who was also my drama coach, was freaked. But the buses were also leaving, so I was given more ice and strict instructions to make a baking soda poultice of some kind to pack over the sting-mark.

And then I went home. That was the last official mile-time I have on record.

Who had this great idea to sign up for a 5K anyway? Was it me? I don't think I would have done anything that foolish.

Moral support would be greatly appreciated. Either that or chocolate. Or maybe mozzarella sticks. Also wasp repellent, if you have any.