Backwoods

So again I’m experiencing the afternoon ennui of Perfunctory Friday. Matt and I have no specific plans for the weekend, except dragging all of my furniture back into the basement where brand new carpeting is settling. I never thought I’d smile so toothily about such things as new carpeting and where to hang art work, but domesticity has taken its place in my heart.

Matt and I went to Bloomington last weekend for a little IU tour, bluegrass concert and camping in the rain. We stayed at the IU Union on Friday and Matt, a Charlottesville snob of sorts, was most impressed with campus. You know you’re an adult when you book a room at the Union.

I took him to the Bluebird, my college home-away-from-home, and we watched Del McCoury belt it out with his boys for over two hours. We were afraid old Del might suffer a tenor’s aneurism right there in the middle of Travelin’ Teardrop Blues, but he made it through unscathed. Matt said I should take up banjo, and I’m considering it.

Saturday, after much ado about Urban Outfitters, we groceried in town and headed to Yellowwood State Park…where we assembled our tent (Jason’s tent, actually) and tarp kitchen in the bleak welcoming of a rain storm – it was fantastic.

A chocolate lab found her way to us, and Matt suggested we dognap her and take her home with us the following day. I was in, but she escaped our blindfold, gag and burlap bag and headed back to her owners after downing a couple of hotdogs.

We drank some wine and headed to the tent around midnight, where a host of mosquitoes awaited our entry. As we unzipped the tent, the leader of the swarm stood on one knee helping push the others inside quickly. We didn’t, unfortunately, discover this until we were climbing into our sleeping bags. Matt announced, “I feel itchy!” And with this began a twenty-minute mosquito massacre. I frantically maneuvered the flashlight and Matt’s job was to finesse, i.e. smash, the mosquitoes against the wall of the tent, which, as you can imagine, was no easy task. Matt was cussing and shouting (and drunk) and finally pronounced that he would soon be entertaining a COMPLETE FREAK OUT if we didn’t kill those monsters immediately.

Oh, I died laughing. And I’m still laughing on the inside. Matt had about 12 large, red, swollen bites all over him and all week I called him “Lumpy.”