365 Random Days Of Team Zybko

Day # 190

July 27st, 2012

Sweet Tea Sweet Tea Everywhere And Not A Drop To Drink

It's about 5:45pm on a weekday and I am still many hours away from darkness and bedtime. Here in Northern Minnesota is stays light out approximately 19 hours a day. No joke. I have always begged for more sunshine and longer days. Any opportunity to squeeze more activities into fun waking hours. A million times in my grown up years I have fussed at the kids to hurry up.

Hurry here, hurry there.... hurry everywhere 

C'mon guys we are burning DAYLIGHT.

Well let's just say I won't be using that term for a while.

 At least until our gig here is up and the sun has set for good on our 6 month stay. Approximately 10:08pm.

With Baby Daddy working hard and out of the house before the sun comes up well I mean in a normal sunrising state. That leaves me and the 3 little ones, left to our own devices all day long with nothing mandatory on the schedule. The taped U Haul boxes rigged haphazardly to the windows help keep the early light out and the kids asleep. Way later than they ever would back in Flo-town on our regular routine.

The front door closes and my solitary time begins. My Walmart "smoke" break I crave and need before I clock in for my double shifts.The only breathing time I will get window magically

and simultaneously opens as I re lock the handle behind Baby Daddy. 

Using the quiet time to rev up for my Julie the Camp Counselor activities that will inevitably will be in store.

What to do, what to do. Anything we want to do, anything at all. I check the Tuesday square on my fridge calendar just to be sure. Yep, not a sharpied mark to do anywhere close to the day or even month we are currently living in. I am far far away from the booked world from where I cometh from. A place a million people would enjoy living right now. I do get that. I'm not complaining, promise. I am working hard though no doubt. A little bratty I admit to working hard at getting used to a nothingness mentality here in this vacation postcard in the woods. Harder than one may think. I double check my schedule just for kicks and giggles, it was a little dark in the room the first time I looked. My eyes have adjusted and yes nothing but nothing is written down. Alright I can do this. I own this day. The next 6,000 minutes or so is open, wide open. I will in fact use it wisely.    

We discover a new playground, meet some wacky talking kids, hold a pretend Olympic diving competition, grill hot dogs, swim a little, hit up a new small town post office, create an indoor obstacle course for cold weather to come, walk through the edge of yet a different lake, get a few non-southern stares, draw hopscotch in pink sidewalk and play with the rules I remember from 1979, jump from huge perfectly placed boulders, answer South Carolina Y'all kinda questions about chicken bog and what it really is, buy $1 airplane gliders that worked only about 50 cents worth, make a non-sew pillow at the library, find the recycling center and giggle for minutes the bin is the size of  a kitchen trash can, turn off our brain and laugh out loud while watching Good Luck Charlie, walk a new creepy secluded trail with Scooby Doo type noises all around us, write a letter to BFF pen pals, look up the population and history of the crazy small town we passed though in a quick nano second, hold our nose and run from the smell of decaying washed up creatures, make signs for BD's return later in the evening, break up a useless fight, explain and preach to them we are all we have right now so lets be sweet, ok?, kayak and finally....make s'mores without the chocolate. 

Sorry kids, mommy had a weak moment last night around midnight. I whisper quietly to my ten and a half year old.

I know it doesn't seem fair but you will completely understand in a few years honey. I promise. Work with me.

Many energy burning and mental quality hours later I take a break on the sand. I use the word sand loosely cause to this beach bum who dreams of retiring on the beach one day I really would like to publicly call this sand.....dirt. Thick, heavy, dark mud like substance anyone other than a lake person would call exactly what it really is....dirt. I don't want to offend anyone especially the locals. I'm smarter than that. In the short amount of time we have been here I've come to realize some accurate stereotypes indigenous to this region. Not sure why but there appears to be a serious lack of eye contact and genuine happiness. No understanding of how to properly merge and say pardon me in crowded places too. Polite small talk seems to be outdated. Perhaps because of the whole non contact with humans experience thing, several places we have traveled to I have inadvertently and silently counted  more canoes than actual people. PLUS and this calls for a really big PLUS.... I'm pretty positive most adults here are packing some sort of heat. So....because of the above mentioned I don't bring up the fact that this sand  has stained several articles of clothing and pretty much smells like doo doo when asked in the grocery store.

I am innocently questioned about how MN beaches compare to SC beaches.

 Instead of what I really think I smartly force a nice smile and nod my head up and down slowly.

Oh yes ma'am, y'alls lake beach areas are definitely beautiful.

Really nice. Just a bit different. Ya know like apples and oranges.

They are something else I think. Something alright. Something other than soft white and comfortable. Bite your tongue Victoria she looks like she has a Girl Scout sharp shooter ninja patch at home and you aren't as fast as you used to be.

        

I haven't been shot yet or trampled by a moose so here I

sit lakeside without a complaint in the world.

Watching the kids make sand castles and look for frogs.

Amazing clear blue skies and the slightest of breeze. 

The sun is so sparkly, dancing playfully, just as content and warm as the young ones. Happy to be outside shoulder to shoulder experiencing  nature with the last of my red solo cups from the cooler. Toby Keith I think you would approve.

  

Feeling a little parched from the constant loss of sweat today I begin to day dream a bit about a favorite southern refreshment. Sweet tea poured gently over the perfect sized turd ice in a Styrofoam white cup. Throw in a few fresh lemons if you are feeling sassy. Mouth is so dry at this point I'd sell my wedding band for a five gallon Igloo filled with the sweet stuff. Looking out to the water my eyes play some dirty tricks on me. Am I that tired or does the water color at the shore look exactly the same color as sweet tea. I rub my face, desperately trying to wipe the hallucination from my eyes. Nope I'm not crazy, it also seems to be getting closer, inching it's way toward my worn out feet. Teasing and taunting me. I consider leaving my post to find some but I know deep in my heart that wouldn't be right. Oh and sweet tea done right is not a big seller and never on the menu , only pop. More than likely I couldn't score any in the family run restaurant close by anyway. Whoops, redo...I meant I would never leave my young children unattended next to an unfamiliar body of sweet tea. No, no no it's not sweet tea it's not sweet tea it is not copious amounts of chilled sweet delicious tea...it's a lake it's a lake.

 Just water. Getting back to my senses I yell out to the kids a 5 minute warning. Against my normal loosey goosey mom rule #23;

Don't rock the boat if things are going well.

I shout out two and half more minutes anyway.

 They have found quite a few interesting crustaceans under some turned over mossy rocks so far. I don't feel bad breaking my own rule. It's go time.

Time for my second smokeless smoke break of the day.

Hey don't judge, I do legally get 3 ya know.