Catolympics

Over the weekend, on our way home from running errands, I posed the following question to my family: Can Clorox swim? My vote was no. He's never had the opportunity to try the cat paddle without his little water wings. Davis and Stephen, however, disagreed. Swimming is instinctive, they said (even though Stephen's instinctive swimming ability developed when he was ten years old, and Clorox is only fourteen). So when we got home, we put the question to the test.

I manned the camera. Stephen conducted the experiment. Lawson served as lifeguard, and Davis...What did Davis do? Oh, yeah. He stood around and said "I told you so." He's good at that.

Although Clorox proved his swimming skills, he's not yet ready for the Feline Olympic Games. That spot goes to Catfish, the kitty owned by one of Stephen's clients. She was out boating in Turner Creek one day, when she spied a kitten, swimming for his life after some heathen had tossed it in. She scooped the kitten up with a fish net and took it home, naming it Catfish. Now, Catfish loves the water. He jumps in the sprinkler and splashes in puddles. I'm sure he'd be happy to swim laps across the pool and show Clorox up.

When he does, perhaps Davis will stand by to do the "Told Ya So" dance.

20

Stephen and I got married on August 18, 1990. It was his sister Laurie's birthday. It was his parents' 36th (I think) anniversary. And it was David and Ethel Rosenzweig's golden anniversary. August 18th was a good date for so many people that we thought it would be good to us as well.

It was.


And it was a fun wedding too. As I flipped through my wedding photos, I remembered some of the highlights:

• Harley refused to cut his hair for the, oh, six to eight months prior to the big day. So at zero hour I found him in the bathroom trying to make it look halfway decent without employing a pair of scissors. Instead, he resorted to a comb, water and hair spray. The result was more befitting lunch at the Georgia Pig.
  
• I lost my voice because my sisters, sisters in-law and girl friends took me out on the town for a bachelorette party that included too much tequila and apparently a lot of yelling.
• Stephen was a wee bit hung over from his bachelor party, which took place at the Gold Club, which he immediately deemed a gold mine: "We've got to open one of these in Savannah!"
• As the youngest of five kids, Stephen was the last to marry. As his older siblings tied the knot, Stephen considered it his duty to play pranks on them. For instance, at Laurie's wedding, Stephen put her car on top of ice blocks (Fortunately, she married in warm weather). So when our big day came, Stephen's brothers and sisters were ready for payback. Long story short: I still have birdseed in my suit case, and thank God in 1990 we could get away with taking bolt cutters into the Atlanta airport or Stephen would still have that cowbell chained around his neck.
• Our wedding began at 5:00. It was over by 5:07. I'd never heard a Methodist minister talk so fast. Stephen figured he had a tee time.

After it was all over, we got in our rented Chrysler LeBaron convertible, covered with shaving cream and condoms, and rode off into the sunset. We've never looked back. Here's to the next 20 years.

Poison Ivy

I've managed to go 44 years without ever contracting poison ivy. This week I suffered my first case. As luck would have it, I got it on my butt (photo not available).

By my calculations, I contracted said poison ivy last weekend while I was at Laurie's Luxury Lake weekend at Clark Hill. I never sat on anything green, and I was clothed the entire time. So the best I can determine is that I contracted the poison ivy while in the shower at the Country Inn and Suites in Martinez, GA.

At first I thought I just had a bug bite or two. There were, after all, several dogs at the Luxury Lake weekend, and I thought perhaps a flea had found its way into my shorts and had lunch. But over the next couple of days, the itching persisted. And by Tuesday, when I went with my writing group to Lake Jackson for our annual writing retreat, I was scratching my behind with fury.

Of course, the rash is in just such a position that I can't see it well, not even in the mirror. And that's why I'm thankful for my dear friends, Pat, Lois, Donna, and Jan, with whom I have become even closer in the past four days. Someone who is willing to inspect a blistery rash on my buttocks is a friend worth keeping.

Fortunately, they were more experienced with poison ivy treatments. In fact, Donna had the miracle cure, which I will share with my loyal readers: Bleach.

That's right. Chlorine bleach.

Donna recommended that I scrub (yes, scrub) bleach onto my rash until the blisters popped and the bleach seeped into them. "It'll hurt," she said (Donna's not one to sugar coat things), "but the bleach will dry out the sores, and by morning, you'll feel much better."

So off we drove to Jackson, Georgia (home of the Fresh Air Barbecue and Georgia's electric chair) to the CVS to buy my poison ivy cure. Back at the lake house, kindly administered the treatment because I couldn't reach the affected area. The initial application of the bleach didn't feel so bad. But an hour later, it felt like Donna had spilled acid on it. Still, I was not about to forgo a midnight swim, so I put a big-ole patch on it and dove into Jackson Lake.

Donna was right. The bleach hurt, but by the next morning, the sores had dried out, and with a little cortisone cream, the itch was controllable. Today, the poison ivy is still visible, but it bothers me no more.

Lake Weekend 2010

My faithful readers (all two of them) might recall that during the 2009 Remler Luxury Lake Weekend, occurring regularly at the end of July at Laurie's lake house, Stephen Remler developed a penchant for vandalism.





Well, apparently that hankering for graffiti has grown over the last twelve months, because before anyone could stop him, Stephen had taken a hammer and a stake from a game of horse shoes and carved my name in a rock. Stephen's no dummy. Now when the DNR passes by that beach and sees the carving, they'll come looking for me.

I guess it's comeuppance. When I was about six years old, I once carved my brother's initials in my great-grandmother's grand piano. Payback's tough, even if it is a little romantic.

We had blazing hot weather for the first part of the weekend, but by Saturday, the cold front had come through, bringing us some rain but also cooler temperatures. I spent the morning out in the boat watching my boys demonstrate their wakeboarding skills as well as another water sport I'd never before seen. Is it called surfboarding? Not sure. But it's when one rides on a surf board behind a boat holding onto a short rope.

Lawson demonstrates in the video below (Note: Turn your volume down. The boat engine in the video is quite loud): One thing that amazes me about this video (other than the fact that Lawson can perform this feat) is how long Lawson's legs are. Watch him when he stands up. That boy is all leg.



I can't show off one son's talents without recognizing the other. Here's some footage of Davis catching some air on the wake board (Again, turn down the volume on your computer). When I was his age, I thought I was pretty impressive just crossing the wake. It never occurred to me to try crossing it in mid air:



Many thanks to Laurie and her family for hosting another fun-filled luxury lake weekend! She deserves her name carved in stone.