Real life has given me a swift kick to the face and it’s back to “life as we know it.” I’m exhausted. Literally, exhausted.
Exhaustion Example 1: I went to remove my eyeliner tonight, only to find myself reaching for the toothpaste. And it took me several moments to figure out why this wouldn’t work.
Exhaustion Example 2: Honestly, I’ve already forgotten example two. This isn’t lazy writing, I honestly forgot from one paragraph to the next where I was going with this.
Anyway.
Antietam is over. Three months of anticipation and boom. Done.
Sunday was our last day. Saturday, in fact, was quite nearly our last day when at approximately 10pm, The Toddler had a quasi-meltdown and began screaming for The Baby. It was awful. Luckily he fell asleep. No harm, no foul.
In the morning, the first thing he did was pee on a chair. It wasn’t just pee. It was a monsoon of pee.
The Hubs thoughtfully looked at the seat cushion. “Is this noticeable?”
The wet spot was the size of a basketball. Yes. Noticeable would be putting it mildly.
“Noticeable to the point we need to do something about it?” he looked at the chair again. “I mean, it could dry.”
Yes. Yes it could, excellent point. However, seeing as how we were planning on checking out of the hotel within the next hour/hour and a half, this was highly unlikely.
So, instead of applying entirely too thick eyeliner, I found myself using the crappy hotel hair dryer to blow dry pee off a chair. Yeah, gross you say. But I watch CSI (read that as used to watch CSI before it sucked). I know what kind of fluids are in a hotel room. Sperm is everywhere. Not even kidding.
So, pee stain dried, we left and headed over to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia to check out their 150th festivities.
I still don’t really know what happened, but somehow half a container of apple juice got dumped down my back. Sticky, warm, gross apple juice.
Pee and apple juice. My day is complete.
At least I didn’t fall in the river while trying to take pictures. Because, honestly, I’m not sure I could have worn shoes with worse traction if I’d tried.
The first and second novels I wrote and promptly banished the the bottom of my “needs edited” (and what I mean by edited is totally rewritten) drawer took place in Harpers Ferry. The Hubs and I lived there for 8 months after college.
It holds a special place in my heart.
Oddly enough the above is my favorite picture of all the ones I took. I don’t know why. But it makes me happy.
Long story short, Harpers Ferry was the site of the US Armory and Arsenal prior to the Civil War. John Brown raided it in 1859 in a futile attempt to start a slave revolt. Eventually, during the war, the arsenals are blown up, the armory is burned down, and martial law runs the town. What the war didn’t kill, a flood in 1936 destroyed and basically wiped off the face of the earth. What’s left today is a minuscule glimpse of what the town was. The rest is just gone.
Back in the day, I even participated in an archeological dig at the site of a two story armory workers house. Cleaning off bits of broken glass and porcelain was strange. It was one of those weird times when history pokes you in the eye. Someone, at sometime, had held this plate until it shattered. Then they threw it away and it was lost…until I found it.
This is why I write. I love the what ifs, the who weres. Ah, magical Antietam weekend. You bring the sap out in me.
And, before I fall asleep writing (cough cough again), I’ll leave you with two of my three boys scaling Harpers Ferry’s stone steps:
Seriously. Go to Harpers Ferry. You won’t regret it!