Friday night:
Hansosan, his daughter and I head down to Fontainebleau to catch up with P. The hansosan has decided to come along despite an extremely painful bursitis of the elbow. About a half hour past Paris I ask him to pull over so I can vomit copiously at a gas station. I’d forgotten my meds. Ten minutes back on the road, and his daughter faints in the car. This is not something unexpected, as she has spent the last year battling unexplained fainting fits that look a lot like epilepsy but haven’t been properly diagnosed. We finally roll into the campground around midnight, and the gates are locked. I call P and he helps us chuck all our packs and bags to the tents.
Saturday:
It is now day two without my meds. This was a bad idea. A very bad idea. It rains most of the day. P, of course, manages to climb anyhow. I spend the better part of the afternoon making moss-fairy boats.
The fairy’s name is Esmerelda, by the way, and if you can’t see her then you don’t believe.
I curl up with the dogs and pass out. I should have brought my meds.
When we get back to the campsite I notice a few ticks on Charlie. I pull them out. Then I notice a few ticks on Scapi. I pull them out. Then I realise that the lovely afternoon nap was had in a tickbed. I rush to the tent and call P in to do what true love requires. Luckily, no ticks in my ass. Unfortunately, one has embedded itself close enough to my hoo-ha to make me scream and yank it out before P can reach the tweezers. I burn the sonofabitch.
Saturday night:
I’m twitching and jerking all over the place. My brain feels something like fireworks if they could make them into a yo-yo. I hold myself together reasonably well and we have a lovely birthday dinner for the hansosan. His daughter faints again on the way home. This time, it’s a long episode. We sit up with her for an hour or so, until she feels well enough to go to the tent. We all go to bed.
I wake up in the tent and smell shit. I mean- I smell SHIT. Like somebody rubbed my nose in it. Since I feel a bit like a crackhead in withdrawal, I sense that smelling shit could just be another side effect. So I wake Paolo. He is blind without his glasses but finally finds a pile of puke in the tent and cleans it up. To Charlie’s credit, he actually tried to wake Paolo up several times before depositing the little pile of grass and bile neatly next to our heads.
About an hour later, I wake up in the tent and smell shit. Paolo’s glasses come out again, but we don’t see anything. Back to sleep.
You can repeat that last paragraph two more times.
Sunday:
I wake up in the morning to find that Charlie has projectile-liquid-shit all over my sleeping bag. And my backpack. And my clothes. And my side of the tent. Everything on Paolo’s side of the tent is perfectly clean. But I have been sleeping in diarrhea. I run out of the tent and vomit copiously. This is not the way to start day three without meds. Lovely P cleans everything while I writhe and moan in the car.
So, to sum up the weekend: bursitis, vomiting, fainting, tick near hoo-ha, projectile diarrhea, and no meds. Oh… and we may have climbed a wee bit as well, but I’ll have to let you know once I’m properly medicated again.
