Sibling-Less-Than-Rivalry

My brother and I had a fairly peaceful relationship growing up - we didn't ever really argue extensively, though we would squabble like any siblings. When we were growing up, we didn't have TV, so my brother and I used our imaginations to invent entertaining scenarios for ourselves. This included a "hand parrot" named, Polly, of course. Always being a "word-a-holic" (Please here see my post on Why I Can't Read Dictionaries at http://sirensecho.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-reason-i-cant-read-dictionaries.html) I had stumbled across the word "polypropylene" (a thermoplastic polymer) and thus Polly, the Hand Parrot had a stock phrase which was "Polly wants a polypropylene pea, please."

For some reason, and I'm QUITE sure, much to the eternal annoyance of everyone around us, this phrase entertained my brother and I endlessly.

But we did argue. Mostly about the line in the backseat which COULD NOT BE CROSSED, yet we crossed repeatedly anyway. And of course, "He's breathing MY AIR!"

However, most of our tiffs were relatively minor, with no major injuries on either side. Mostly.

So... we had figured out how darts worked, and had taken a set of them to go play in the backyard, throwing them into a hula hoop (or attempting - the hula hoop was fairly safe from our juvenile efforts as our aim was remarkably poor.) For some reason, my brother went racing across the yard, just as I loosed the dart. It was one of those moments of horrified slow-motion as the dart had already left my hand, and my brother went zipping in front of me. The trajectory was like a cartoon with dotted lines leading directly to... the... top... of... his... foot.

Both of us were frozen in horror as the dart stuck directly into the top of his foot, quivered for a moment, and came to rest perfectly vertical.

When he was a kid, my brother had a signature habit of gasping a couple times before he started crying in earnest. The first gasp came out, and I panicked, racing toward him and grabbing the dart, yanking it out while yelling "Don't tell Mom!!!" A little upwelling of blood rose up, a second gasp, and my repeated plea, "PLEASE don't tell Mom!"

Of course, I did get in huge trouble. I'm just thankful we weren't allowed to play with lawn darts!

And then there was the time my brother and his friend shot me out of the tree with a BB gun. Of course, they were rubber BB's, but the effect as it impacted my gluteus, was the reaction of instant surprise and me letting go of the tree branch I was using for support, successively hitting just about each one below me on the way down. I lay there in the dirt, gasping for the wind that was knocked out of me with my brother and his friend looking down at me laughing. And what is that reflex anyway, where when someone is injured you have the nearly irrepressible urge to laugh? I realize that people have emotional responses under stress, but when you experience it yourself, it's rather unnerving!

Thankfully, my childhood was relatively trauma-free, though I did end up at the hospital after dumping a huge pot of boiling water on myself at eight, and may be one of the reasons that I despise cooking. I was trying to help cook noodles, and as I was wheeled on the gurney through the hospital corridor, the light strips overhead flashed by just like in a movie. This was not the traumatic part, however, as I was pretty thoroughly in shock by that point. The trauma originated when they were going to apply "Silvadene" (Silver Sulfadiazine) and I absolutely freaked out, thinking that they were applying liquid silver to my chest and I was going to become some android/human amalgamation with Terminator-esque metallic skin beneath my actual flesh.

Yeah, my imagination works like that.

So I absolutely panicked, without having the adequate vocabulary (particularly in my shock state) and just began screaming that I didn't want to turn into a Terminator. Thankfully, my Mom somehow understood that it was the ointment that I was afraid of, and calmed me down by letting me know that it was simply a cream they were rubbing in and would not, in fact, turn me to liquid silver. In retrospect, that would've been pretty cool, but at the time being eight years old, I was completely panicked!

Thankfully, afterward I got my favorite treat of frozen yogurt! And my little brother was pretty awesome, sitting with me and reading to me while I recovered, or watching TV while I held down the couch in my Hawaiian shirt wardrobe (so that medication could be easily applied...)

But mostly our sibling relationship was peaceful, and mostly we just invented trouble to get into together. For instance, one of our favorite tricks was hiding the paddles that Mom would use to spank us. These were the plastic ones that have a small rubber ball on an elastic attached to them... though they inevitably snapped the elastic and became implements of torture instead. So my brother and I became QUITE inventive as to places to hide them to attempt to avoid spankings. However, we were relatively unsuccessful, because in a pinch a wooden spoon, a breadboard or even bare hands would suffice. Still, we ninja'd these weapons, which were fairly thin, into places including under the refrigerator, between the washer and dryer, and behind the water heater. 

We got into food that we weren't supposed to be eating, and we broke stuff sometimes... including my head once... We were engaged in an activity that we called "Couch surfing" and we'd pile the giant beanbag on top of the couch, jump on top of it, and "surf" down the two levels, the seat and then the floor. However, having very little understanding of inertia, momentum and the fact that we'd hit the floor, launch me into the VERY pointy edge of the coffee table. With my forehead.  I didn't actually crack my skull, but if you felt my forehead in just the right spot, you can still feel an indentation. AND BOY DO HEAD WOUNDS BLEED!!!

My older brother went through a phase where to discipline us two younger kids he would smack our heads together, but unfortunately I picked up this trend, and would randomly grab my younger brother and smash our foreheads together. It's a wonder we didn't suffer concussions and that he can still do math. (My arithmetical abilities were hampered much earlier on... such as apparently from birth.)

Today I'm very fortunate that I have excellent relationships with both my older and younger brothers, with MUCH less forehead smashing and foot dartboards. However, if the beanbag hadn't ruptured and spilled the polypropylene beads everywhere, you might still have found us attempting "couch surfing" - this time moving the coffee table first... 

The "V" Incident

Hi all my Blog-o-philes!
Exciting changes around here! I've got confirmed INTERNATIONAL audiences including Russia, China and even a smattering from South Korea! How they all got to my little blog defies imagination, but WELCOME! I'm glad you're here!

So for all you True Blood fans out there, no, my title "The "V" Incident" is not referring to the drug from the show, but rather to a rather unfortunate sunburn in my backside acquired on our Honeymoon. (And if you haven't read Parts 1 & 2 of "Happy Honeymooners... sort of" please go to:  http://sirensecho.blogspot.com/2013/07/happy-honeymooners-sort-of.html)

So on our Honeymoon, (as described  in my prior Honeymoon post above) I had suffered a malady (or two) of epic proportions, though I was determined not to let it get me down. Following my epic challenges of both upper and lower GI, to put it mildly, we had booked a snorkeling trip - an activity which seemed to me to be both safer than scuba diving and not requiring certification. I had never been snorkeling prior to this, and after hefty doses of Tums, Immodium, and Bonine for the motion sickness, we headed out in a Zodiac raft, the same kind that the Navy Seals use, which was tremendously exciting, terribly fast, and terrifically bouncy.

The harbor where we were going is a protected reef area, so the guide advised that we would not be able to re-apply sunscreen following our initial smearing in the office, so I had my husband smudge sunscreen  all over my back and shoulders, (thoroughly this time, unlike the time he left a handprint on my back and I spent an entire day on the river crisping a bright red background around stark-white fingers....) and I made sure to apply thoroughly to my legs - front, back and sides. We headed out of the marina and picked up speed on the raft. Our guide cruised out to the reef area, hearing a bit of information on Captain Cook, the history of the area, and we were given brief instructions, masks and fins to get ready. My husband hopped in and off he went, an old pro at this, apparently.

I leapt in and immediately started flailing around, doing exactly what the guide told us NOT to do. I swished my fins frantically and scrabbled for the surface, sucking seawater and coughing like a toddler thrown in a pool sans water wings. I flailed and floundered over, gripped the side of the raft desperately, and ripped the mask off my face. "No, no, no!" the guide admonished me, "you just put your face into the water and just paddle around a bit." I cough, choke, spray spittle elegantly on the side of the raft, and exclaim "This mask tried to drown me! It's working like a vacuum and sucking water INTO my face."
He told me to press it against my face to make a better seal, but when I tried that and (while holding to the raft like a lifeline) it did the same thing when I demonstrated by just putting my face barely into the water, a vortex of salty water rushed into my mask. Pulling the mask off with eyebrows quirked at him, he chuckled and gave me a smaller size, which when appropriately cinched down to my face worked like a charm and off I went, happily snorkeling around. In fact, I snorkeled longer than anyone else once I had functioning equipment that wasn't aggressively trying to drown me. And my efforts were rewarded as I saw a giant puffer fish, a ribbon of a Moray eel out swimming (which is apparently a relatively rare sight as they typically stay in hiding in the reef itself), a tremendous pink sea star with impossibly long arms, schools of translucent ghost fish, and more darting in and out of the reef.

However, in the midst of my happy snorkeling, my equally happy bikini bottoms were beginning a process of slow, but inevitable migration. And being in a prone position, face down and ... *ahem* derriere skyward, gave some rather sensitive areas rather more Vitamin D exposure than they'd previously experienced since I was a toddler with a propensity for removing my garments.

In a word, I was burnt. Which I realized only AFTER climbing back into the raft. And without any application of sunscreen in the protected reef area, I would have to  just wait it out until I got back to "civilization." (Not that it could've mitigated the damage already done.) So I pulled my sundress on over my suit, ate my lunch rather uncomfortably sitting on the hot side of the rubber raft, which while squishy, was incredibly hot, and I was already feeling quite heated right about there anyway. But I had no idea what pain was... yet!

We headed back to the marina, and the guide seemed to take particular pleasure crashing cross-ways to the wakes left by the other sea-faring vessels, and the wind had come up as well, leading to far choppier seas than on the way out. My husband, loving the adventure, had wanted to sit in the very front (and hence, BUMPIEST part) of the raft. I held on for dear life - not because I was frightened, far from it in fact, but for the sheer fact of trying to reduce the friction between my backside and the rubber raft - which the thin material of my sundress was doing nothing to protect from increasing abrasion.

When we headed out, my husband had really wanted to see a shark, but I had a deep-burning desire to see a whale. (Also, a dolphin and a sea turtle, but I really really really wanted to see a whale.) Well, I got my wish, and a quick cut of the motor as our guide saw the tall dorsal fins of a pod of whales. It was absolutely indescribable - the whales passed so close to us, that had I reached out fully, I could nearly have stroked their sleek sides! It was beyond description! I was absolutely in awe, but Mother Nature had more in store for us that day! Shortly after picking up speed again after the whales passed by, a pod of spinner dolphins with hundreds of dolphins came flipping and leaping. They churned the water to a white-topped froth, so many that they leapt in graceful arcs - and one young playful male was literally leaping across the front of our raft over and over again. He had a lamprey stuck under his belly, which may have accounted for his excessive behavior, but even our guide was astonished as he circled under the raft and leapt repeatedly.

I was absolutely floored! Two of my three animals I'd wanted to see, though no sea turtles or sharks. But as we pulled into the marina, there sunning on the rocks was a SEA TURTLE! So while my husband didn't get his wish, I DID get mine!

We clambered off the raft, and I gingerly went to our rental car, easing myself into the seat. My husband, ever vigilant, looks over at me with a quizzical look on his face. "What's wrong with you? "

I grimace, and shake my head, hoping to divert his attention. We drive back, talking about everything we got to see on our journey, and me, eager to wash the saltwater out of my hair and put some lotion on.  I shower, come out wrapped in a towel and very carefully begin dressing. My husband looks over at me and begins to GUFFAW.

"What... what... what happened to your ... your ...  you have a big red "V" on your BUTT!!!!?!"

If it were possible to turn even more red, I accomplished this feat.

"I got sunburnt." I mumble.

My husband is in fits at this point, while I carefully cover my blistering (literally, there were blisters!) very abraded backside and get ready for dinner. Typically each night we'd walk the waterfront, looking for a likely place that wasn't TOO exclusive and had no wait. Tonight, I asked if we could just eat in the hotel's restaurant. My husband accommodates my request, pulls himself together, and we (me very tentatively!) walk down for dinner.
The host, a very proper and well-dressed gentleman, seats us and pulls the chair out for me to be seated. The restaurant is quite full with a whole cruise ship full of German-speaking tourists, and we luck out to get a lovely table by the waterfront. I cannot help but exclaim a little in pain as I sit in the chair, and our host worriedly asks if I'm quite alright.

Before I can assure him otherwise, my husband loudly blurts out to the whole restaurant "She sunburned her BUTT!"

I gasp, once again turning brighter than the sunset over the Pacific. Other patrons turn around, gazing in amusement. I can't hide. I can't help but to suddenly become completely absorbed in the menu. 

Eventually everyone goes back to their dinners, conversations resuming (hopefully not only about the state of my backside) and normal dinner hubbub resumes - except my husband's occasional chuckles.

The "V" stayed red for several more days before the blisters popped, the skin sloughed... and I had a lovely browned strip of "V" as a momento of our Honeymoon. I'd love to go snorkeling again sometime, but this time I think I'll wear shorts...