Sleeping With the Enemy and Other Fun Vacation Tales

Dateline: South Haven. I went to sleep on my side, with my arm lying near the edge of the bed. About a half-hour after I dozed off, I felt a tiny but definitely discernible pinch on the inside of my arm, just above my wrist. I brushed my arm off and turned on the light.

There was a PINCHBUG, otherwise known as an EARWIG, strolling across the hardwood floor where I had flicked it after it BIT ME while I was SLEEPING in my BED! I am not even kidding. I am still so grossed out and horrified that I must go and pour myself a glass of wine right this minute.

...

OK, I'm back. When I spotted that bugger, I flung the covers off and leaped out of bed, straight toward the ceiling.

"THAT IS NOT RIGHT!" I almost hollered, waking up poor Mr. Peevie who groggily said, "Whu-wha?"

I grabbed Mr. Peevie's sandal and started whacking at the earwig, who was scuttling, earwig-like, across the floor. It took me three or four whaps before I was confident that he was not going to be creating any additional post-midnight insect drama.

This unsettling event was the low-light of my week-long beach-and-pool slice of vacation heaven last month.

Remember last year, when I wrote a poem called 80 Steps, about the long, arduous climb that faced us every time we left the beach?

Well, this year the steps were just as arduous. Maybe more arduous.

But it's totally worth it. One morning my SIL and I stood at the top of the steps, looking out over the lake. It was like glass: smooth, waveless, twinkling in the sun. It took my breath away.

The kids were already down on the beach, starting to build sand castles and chasing minnows in the shallow water. When we joined them, we relaxed on beach chairs, sipped beverages, and I started on one of the four books I tackled during my vacation reading frenzy.

"Mom!" our little cousin hollered, "When are the really big waves coming?!" He was ready for some wild wave action. As the day went on, the breeze started to pick up, and the lake started producing waves, which made R-Cuz and the rest of the kids happy.

Jump to the last day of vacation. We were back at the beach, and the lake waves were like Jersey-Shore-wannabe-waves, too rough to let the smaller kids go out too far by themselves. So we went out there with them, with the kids hanging on to inner tubes, letting the waves carry us effortlessly up and drop us down again. We laughed, we floated, we splashed, we bobbed. Life was perfect.

"Mommy," M. Peevie said, "This is the best last day in the history of last days."