Memorial Day Memories…

I awoke this morning with the sun glaring in the Arcadia Door, (That is a sliding glass door for us folk who grew up anywhere but AZ) no alarm, no crazy apt living noise from upstairs, just sunshine and Dakota (my 10 yr old lab/mutt dog) licking my face, to take her outside…( I of course was imagining/dreaming of the hot Vin Diesel kissing me…OH what breath you have Vin…I digress) That is when, I had one of those flashbacks to when I was 12. Memorial Day weekend with my family.

My sister and I would have to get all the food ready and the ice coolers out of the shed, so that we could go to the lake and “open” it up for the summer! WHOOO HOOOO! The smell of mist on the damp forest, the boys, Summer friends, the water skiing and plenty of water balloons, gadgets, and swimming to the neighbors house. ( That was up stream both was of course)….SUMMMER!!!

My sister and I would fight over who would ride on which side of the 1976 Ford camper, “I get Mom’s side” , “I get mom’s side” , I would say, knowing that I really wanted to ride behind Dad….But that was our ritual and we did it well. That would continue until the “she’s touching me” “I am not touching you, my finger is right here” fight started followed with the “are we there yet?”reteric…LOL I see now why my parents drank… OK So my sister and I had gone to the store with our Mom and knew EVERY little item that we had so carefully planned in regards to the menu. So of course it made perfect sense to our Mother to have us kids load up the ice chests, with the food. (I was 12 and my sister 81/2). We would all then load up our bags of clothing, makeup, food and then Mom and Dad would come home from work (Yep we were latch key kids and we turned out ok!) and freak out that we were taking WAY too much stuff for 4 days. (4 nights and 3 days but who is really keeping track) The excuse was the same every year. “DAAAAAAD, we will be up there every weekend. We might as well take it today so we don’t have to worry about it next time.” This somehow always persuaded my very logical and reasonable father. LOL He was gravely out numbered…(poor Fella, PMS in triplicate hadn’t even started at this point.)

Anyway, we would get to our family lake cabin (Small A frame house built by my grandparents, parents and friends) in Idaho. This required 2 hours in the family truck/Camper, 20 min on a barely paved road one lane mind you and another (what of course was an eternity to a 12 year old) 2 miles on a dirt road with the maximum speed of 15 mph….Then there it was…..*sigh* we are here…OMG pee your pants excited….This is what I always considered my first day of Summer!

The first thing my sister and I would be REQUIRED to do is un load the food, clothes and general “stuff” that we had packed in there earlier. (Again, I now understand the importance of my Dad drinking a beer when he arrived at the cabin…)

My sister and I would unload as much as we could and let Mom put all the food in the refrigerator and freezer, and pantry, while we got to go gather sticks and foliage for the bon fire that we would be creating later. Why how else do you eat Smores (for those of you who do not know what this is…they are graham crackers, heresy chocolate bars and a marshmallow cooked to just the right brown caramelized temperature all smashed together.) and hot dogs? You need a BIG AZZZ bonfire. FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! (Not that I was or am a pyromaniac or anything… LOL)

The remaining part of the weekend memories included sleeping on a cot, inside a goose down sleeping bag, in the loft of the A-Frame, with my grandfather snoring and my grandma nudging him all night. Drinking water out of a container and not the faucet, and yes I saved the best for last, until my 11th birthday, we had an “out house”…That is right, walk to the “shed” like bldg in the middle of the night to pee/poo. This is the most terrifying place for someone with arachnophobia like me… OMG I swore that BIG spiders would come eat me there.(Turns out Harry Potter had my imagined spider in the 2nd film, who knew spiders could talk? I mean Charlotte was always talking to other animals. That made sense, sure!). LOL I can laugh now, but I remember wanting to pee my pants rather than use that outhouse!! Very traumatic bathroom issues, and I swear that is why I dislike public restrooms to this day. GIANT SPIDERS! JK. Perhaps that is why my 12th year at the lake was so memorable. I got to use flushing toilet, inside the cabin…So here is my ode to what I think of as the first day of Summer! YEAHHHHHHH!!!