The sun is exploding, the sky sparkles blue
More adventures with my favorite boys this past weekend. I started the festivities on Friday by giving Syrus his first bath because he stunk to high heaven of something dead and no one wanted to be confined in close quarters (the camper) with him over the weekend. He wasn’t thrilled with the bath; he kept running away when I loosened my grip to reach for the shampoo, and I think the smell really warranted two baths, but I could only get through one with our relationship intact. Next time, I’m going to have backup.
The bath loosened up a lot of his dead/shedding fur, so I gave him a good brushing down at the campground. And now, his coat gleams like the straw Rumplestiltskin spun to gold! Since dogs are so much more forgiving (and less dangerous) than cats when it comes to bathing, I think I might do it again even when he doesn’t stink just to bring out how incredibly beautiful he is. God, I love that dog.
Ivan came to the campground later, and the three of us went to the drive-in to see Shrek and Robin Hood. Another fantasy checked off my list (the fantasy didn’t include Ivan getting lost on the way and arriving half an hour late, but luckily, the movies also started late and it wasn’t full, so we got front row “seats,” er, parking spots.)
But the best part of the weekend was probably at the end, when Ivan missed the turn to the campground (he actually would have made it but I told him it was the wrong road . . . the two of us trying to figure out directions is about as funny as watching a team of editors do math). The missed turn brought us by the tiny town of Hardwick. Ivan said, “That’s a town? It looks like a big farm.” When we went back for the missed turn, he turned into the road leading to Hardwick instead. I said, “This isn’t the turn for the campground,” and he said, “I know - I want to check out Hardwick.”
It was a tiny town of what looked like mostly low income homes, but it didn’t feel slummy or trashy in any way - just simple and unassuming. We went to the bar, which had a surprising amount of traffic for a Sunday afternoon, and I went to the bathroom and Ivan ordered a Pepsi. We circled the whole town in about fifteen minutes, and then headed for the main attraction - this crazy Frankenstein house that had caught my attention from the road:
The photos may not do it justice; Ivan thought it looked like someone had taken pieces of several different houses and cobbled them together. One side had siding, one had brick, and another had wood. I thought it looked like something someone would have built on the SIMS, adding on indefinitely as the family or income grew, and then decided to make into a reality. We almost hoped the owners would catch us gawking so that we could ask about the house, and Ivan was tempted to knock on the door when no one did come out. We didn’t.
As we drove away, I thought about how much it reminded me of something my parents would do, how we were always exploring little oddities like that on family camping trips. I thought about how exciting it was to share that curiosity with someone. I thought about that 72% match rating that always haunts me, and realized it was the moments like this that were most important, these moments that OKcupid can never predict for you.