Yesterday Walter and I drove back from Gatlinburg, Tennessee in the beautiful sunshine.  It was a happy drive and a great way to end the best week ever.

Seriously.  Honeymoons are fun and everyone should have one.

Except for falling out of the hot tub.  You should skip that part.  I’ve got a nice bruise on my elbow and another on my side.

EXHIBIT A

EXHIBIT B

(pardon the poor quality of the images, the whiteness of my skin seems to blind even digital cameras and it lessens the actual beauty of the bruising)

I wish someone had warned ME to skip that part.  So now I’m warning all of you (don’t say I never did anything for you): not ALL of the advertised aspects of the Honeymoon are pain-free.

You see… the hot tub was one of those above ground/portable devices, and was a little taller than my legs (we can all see where this is going, right?  I wish I’d seen in time….) so when I was getting out of it I (stupidly) lifted my second leg out before my first foot was actually ON the porch.  And I nearly faceplanted into a metal deck chair and nearly broke my arm at the elbow.

Also Walter laughed at me mid-deathglide.  I guess I looked pretty ridiculous.  And I had a good long laugh about it (read: I WAS IN HYSTERICS) after the shock of almost breaking my arm wore off.

So we’re back, and I’m happy to be home – even with the bruises.  We’ve got some stuff to do today in Magee, but we’re taking our time about it.  (and when I say “we’re taking our time” it means we’re watching YouTube videos and playing Facebook games… OBVIOUSLY)  Eventually when I get my computer set up here at the house I’ll be able to share the pictures we took, but that won’t happen today.  Or even this week, probably, at the rate we’re going.

I have nothing else to say.

Also I can’t type.

What’s been going on around the Internets this past week while I was prancing about Pigeon Forge and falling out of high-tech swirly-pools?

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When I was in the 6th grade, one of my teachers – Mrs. Walsh – taught us about Ancient Egypt (and about building bridges with toothpicks, but that’s another story).  It was interesting to me back then, History was.  At least at first.  Because after 6th grade, Social Studies got very boring (Social Studies is what we called History up until high school).  After the 6th grade, actually, all I ever learned about in SS was what I will probably forever call ‘the boring stuff’.  It’s like my teachers didn’t want us to learn anything interesting.  We needed to know the basics, the outlines, but none of the details.  When and where wars were fought and who won, that kind of thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I just about aced the subjects in World Civ I & II but I wasn’t even remotely interested in History at all anymore.  I was in it for the grade, not the content I’d be learning.  Once I’d hit the 9th grade and I was able to choose my classes each year, I steered clear of History as much as I could.  You know, except for WC I (a class I thought I needed in order to take WC II, which ended up not being true but I couldn’t drop the class or I wouldn’t have enough credits to graduate) and WC II (which all 11th graders were required to take to get to 12th grade).  To put it bluntly: after the 6th grade History in any form sucked.

A lot.

We never touched on the subject of Ancient Egypt again in school.  And I forgot about it, for the most part (except eventually I downloaded that King Tut song by Steve Martin & the Toot Uncommons [get it???] that Mrs. Walsh had us dance to in the hall).  I assumed I’d learned all the interesting stuff I was ever going to learn already.  Over the years I told myself time and time again I’d read up on it some more but I always forgot again almost as soon as I remembered.

I can’t hide my love of 16th century England, and really all of England’s history from the 900’s and on.  I like to trace the monarchy and the lives of the royalty to one-another.  It’s like connect the dots, and the image you get in the end is pretty understanding.  We didn’t learn much about England in WC I or II.  My interest in the history started rather recently, actually.  Within the last 3 years.  Wikipedia in all it’s ready glory has only fueled my desire to learn more on that subject.

But with this new interest in History I still hardly ever think about Ancient Egypt.  At least I didn’t, not until I started watching Stargate SG1.

Srsly, guys.  It’s not just for the sci-fi nerd in me.  It’s for the 6th grader in me, too.  It’s rekindled my love for Osiris and Isis and mummification.  There are many gods I know nothing about and others I can remember reading their names but not learning anything about them.  I know the TV show is science fiction, which is very appealing to me (and a VERY good TV show), but it makes me hungry for learning again.  It makes me want to learn more, to know more.  And now that I’m old enough and I’m not in school anymore (it’s taken me this long?) I can pick and choose what I want to learn about.  I can search for my own reading material!

And I’m gonna.

For now it’ll be Wikipedia, but next time I go to the bookstore I’m going to hit up the History section.  I won’t forget this time.

Major Nerd over-and-out.

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I'm the one in blue.

One of the things I heard most often as a small child was “Take your sister and go play outside.  And stay out of The Gravel Pit.”

Of course that’s right where we headed.

In the way back of our backyard at The Gray House was a hill you could drive a car down that led straight to The Gravel Pit.  Almost at the bottom of the hill there was a little path through the woods that led to The Old Oak Tree (basically just an old tree that had fallen down that we claimed as a fort), so Alli and I would veer right down that path to go to The Old Oak Tree just in case.  I mean, you couldn’t see the path or The Old Oak Tree from the house but we were kids and being overcautious.  We didn’t want to get in trouble!  Alli and I usually climbed on the fallen tree (that wasn’t really an oak tree, but how were we supposed to know that?) and sat for what we deemed was an appropriate amount of time in case mommy came looking for us, then we’d sneak the remaining twenty feet or so to the edge of The Gravel Pit and run around the very edge to another path we’d discovered toward the very back.  It was a weird place we found, and we got in trouble one time because we definitely couldn’t hear anyone calling for us from there, but we liked it.  There was a discarded mattress we could jump on without getting in trouble.  There were some old baseball cards (my favorite was a Darryl Strawberry – I didn’t know anything about baseball at the time except that my dad said Rocket Roger was the best pitcher and Wade Boggs had a hole in his glove – and I really liked strawberries….) we’d look at and it was just our extra special secret place.

There was an unspoken code of honor when Alli and I were kids.  The I won’t tell if you won’t code.  And even then if one of us slipped up and told on the other, the offended party wouldn’t retaliate.  Because to retaliate would mean that we probably got into MORE trouble with the grownups, and if there was anything we understood as children it was that we had to stick together.  We understood what it meant to get in trouble, and we understood what we had to do to keep each other and ourselves OUT of trouble.

As we’ve gotten older that code has sort of dissolved.  I’m still the big sister, the protective one (the enabler).  But instead of being my partner in crime, Alli has taken another path through the woods so-to-speak.  She’s on some super secret path of her own that I can’t see ever going down, and our only interaction is when she reaches out because she wants something or needs something.  Do we adventure anymore?  No.  Not together, at least.  Our friendship, like our partnership, has started to dissolve over time.

The Old Oak Tree is crumbling and breaking and decayed.  The secret path to the discarded mattress and our super secret hideout is no longer discernible through the forest.  And Alli and I can’t rely on each other the way we used to.  Sometimes growing up is no fun.

But no matter what happens, I’ll always always always love my little sister.

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It seems like everyone is moving these days, doesn’t it?

Back in 2003 I moved to South Carolina to be with a boy I’d only known for 8 months.  A boy named Josh who, after less than five months together, asked me to marry him.  I’m pretty sure people in my family were taking bets on how long I’d stay down there.  The move lasted a whole 5 months before I called my dad and asked him to come get me, which he promptly did.  Needless to say, Josh and I never got married.

I was impetuous.  I didn’t think everything though before I said yes to moving 1′000 miles away.  I didn’t think anything through, for that matter.  I agreed as if I had nothing to tie me down, nothing to hold me back.  In all actuality I think I just wanted to run away, and he simply presented me with the opportunity.  I didn’t realize at the time how much I still needed my family.  I didn’t realize at the time that the things I did could have the kind of consequences they’ve had.  I only thought about what I was doing, and not about what would happen down the line.

It’s been nearly 6 years since I moved back home from South Carolina, and I’m going to be moving again.  But this time?  This time I’ve weighed all my options.  I’ve taken all of the important things into account (and a whole lot of unimportant things, too) in making my decision.  Sure, there are some loose ends to tie up but I know I’m moving this time for the right reasons.  I’m not running away from anyone or anything.  I’m running to someone.  And that makes all the difference in the world.

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I’m going to tell you this story about how I hijacked a van when I was a wee child, somewhere around ripe old the age of 5 or 6.

Not to be confused with the time that same year I had decided to see what smoking a cigarette was like when my mom left one burning in the ashtray of the old blue Chevette in the driveway at The Gray House to run back into the house to grab something, and thought I would die but hid my discomfort because I didn’t want to get in trouble as she came back out and got in the car to take me to I Don’t Remember Where.  Yeah.  Not to be confused with that day.

We were in the van – I don’t remember who’s van it was – in the driveway of my grandparents’ new house (( at least I’m pretty sure that’s where we were… I think… )) with both of my sisters, Alli and Sarah, and our cousin Jerin.  I don’t know how I got the notion in my head that pulling the lever next to the steering wheel was a good idea (( come to think of it now, there might have been a lit cigarette involved here, too )), but I did it and suddenly we were in what I now know to be ‘neutral’ and the van was slowly rolling backwards.

Toward the street.

I was crying in the front seat while Sarah and Jerin were panicking, and Alli was “reading” a Winnie The Pooh or Where’s Waldo? book – completely oblivious to what was going on the entire time.

Where were the grown ups, you ask?  And why were we children often left unattended in vehicles?  Well, I’ll tell you.

It was the late 80’s.  There were no rules about leaving children or pets unattended in vehicles for any period of time (( or wearing seat belts, for that matter )).  I mean really, how much trouble could 4 kids aged 11 and under get into while waiting in a van in the driveway?

Quite a bit, the grown ups learned, as my uncle ran around the back of the van to try and stop it from rolling into the road.  I’m pretty sure Sarah jumped out too and was trying to help him, but I was in full on panic mode by that point (( what can I say, I started early )) and all I remember from between fits of sobs is that a) Alli in all her 4 year old glory was still oblivious to what was going on, and 2) I was terrified that my sister and uncle were getting sucked under a gigantic moving vehicle and it was all my fault.

Oh, and I think the front driver side door was open beside me.

That’s a lot for a small child.

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