Ankle biters
One positive aspect of city living is the lack of nasty biting bugs. I tried to go for a walk in the woods behind the McPolack homestead on Friday and got dive-bombed by horseflies. While weeding PolackPappy's beets I ended up with bites that left me with wee itchy blisters on my ankles. This was despite wearing bug spray with deet in it. Of course I wasn't wearing Maxi-Deet, which is what I bring hiking. It's 95% deet and I think it melted off the lining of my raincoat. It's a little depressing wearing that kind of bug spray because black flies land on you anyway and almost immediately go into death throes. I took to yelling at them to stay away if they wanted to live.
I spent some time early in the evening on the fourth watching the munchkins -- a two-year-old, a four-year-old and two nearly two-year-olds -- race up and down the stone steps leading up to the McP homestead, and trying to hold their hands while they walked on a slab of granite between McMumsy's bee balm and daisies. Neither Dr. Moo nor Little Brother was at the party; they had other plans, and while I was happy to be there and see my family I couldn't help but wonder about when/if I will ever have a family of my own, or if I need to work more on being grateful for what I've got. It's strange. I would like to be married and have children but I have no idea how to go about doing that and besides, there's no guarantee my life would look anything like I want it too if I did. On the other hand I worry about how deep the well of regret will be if I don't. It frightens me a little. Mostly I don't think about this, because it's unproductive and maybe even foolish, but when I'm bouncing one of my cousin's grandchildren on my knee, it's hard to ignore.
Labels: Dr. Moo
posted by McPolack at 10:48 AM
2 Comments:
Reading the second paragraph of this post is like looking into my own past (when I lived in Seattle). At age 28 I had been single for years, lived in beautiful down town seattle, good job, had my bachelor pad, had a great group of friends etc. Went camping every weekend, skiing in winter, waterskiing the columbia river, concerts at the comumbia river gorge camping area, great coffee, culture, micro brews. I wanted more though, a wife, kids, something... So I decided to stop drop and roll. Lets just say large leaps only happen in unplanned fashion with off the wall choices. So I quit my job, drove 3 thousand miles, freaked out bunches, watched things not work out but by chance something did. Something worked based on not planning. It worked because I proceeded in a fashion different from my past. For me, I knew that by doing the same thing over and over would only produce the same results as the past. I never thought I'd marry, today I have three kids and a great wife. I long for my past life but I also love the present and knowing the two could never co-exist allows me to be happy in the now.
8:56 PM, July 07, 2008
Thank you for sharing that. I have given thought to pulling up stakes and moving, though it would be to the woods in New England. It's good to hear from someone whose story turned out so well.
4:35 PM, July 08, 2008
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