The not-so-great outdoors.

Holy shit, I haven't blogged for two weeks.

Did you miss me?!

So it's the end of the May Long Weekend.  Yes, it needs to be Capitalized.  This weekend is a big ol' deal to a whole lot of peeps.  It's kinda like the official start of summer.  People do all sorts of summery things like start their gardens, and get their swimming pools up and running, and have BBQ parties, and in our case, make their husbands do three days worth of slave labor, busting out a giant planter box and turning it into a patio instead, which equals 6 trips to Home Depot and 4 trips to the dump and 15 changes-of-plans and 3 marital fights and the consumption half a Costco-sized bottle of Advil and a case of beer.

You know what else people do over the May Long Weekend?

They camp.

I have very fond memories of camping with my family when I was little, at all sorts of places throughout the Okanagan, and Washington state, and around Kamloops.  And I have fond memories of camping in high school, (though by "camping" I mean illegally stuffing 7 people into a 1987 Ford Escort, pitching a tent in some illegal spot between here and the Shuswap, lighting an illegal campfire in the same area, then illegally drinking pink lemonade vodka stingers til I barf in the creek and pass out.  So maybe the term "memory" is a little generous, you know, on account of the fact that I really don't remember much.)

Anyway, we've taken our kids camping a couple of times, and since we only have a tent, two nights is my max.  The kids love everything about it, while I just love drinking beer, walking around in my pajamas, eating my weight in potato chips, and swimming in lakes, so I can usually sort of tolerate it, at least for a small amount of time.

But here's my dirty little secret:

I think camping sucks.

It's dirty.  There are bugs.  It's super uncomfortable, and I'm always SO cold.  It takes forever to get us organized enough to actually get out of the house.  We always get stuck at the site next to the obnoxious idiots, you know who they are, every campsite has them.  I am convinced I'm going to get murdered and left in a ditch while en route to the bathroom when it's dark. Also, there are bugs.  And bats.  And spiders.  And ants.  And mosquitoes.  And BUGS.

Every May Long Weekend, as we watch our neighbors spend 5 hours getting ready to leave for camping, and 5 hours unloading when they get home, our kids ask if we can please please PLEASE go camping this summer.  And every time, I have to say, "no, kids, we can't, because Mommy is a giant asshole who would rather poke her own eyes out than spend one long, uncomfortable night in a tent, worrying about what type of creature is crawling across us as we sleep and whether or not the guy in the campsite next to us is the same one who just escaped from prison, and even though camping is the ONLY thing you REALLY want to do this summer, and you love it SO much, and DESPERATELY wish you could go, I'm sorry, forget it, it's just not going to happen."

Just another reason why I'm in the running for Mother of the Year.