Alas, No Vampire Bears

So my stepmom and my dad took the kids up to Camp Grandma’s this week (it’s what we call it–swear!) and Chicken couldn’t leave on Thursday with everyone else. She had referee class, and Mate and I told her we’d take her up Friday morning and stay and play with everyone.

And we did.

Now those of you who’ve read Rampant will remember Sugarpine. It’s where the vampire bear came from, and Gretchen the freaky-creepy little vampire girl-zombie, and a lovely sex scene and talks around the campfire and… well, it was fun to write. And obviously, I wrote from experience.

What I didn’t write about (but I added it to the part about Lake Shasta, because I’ve been there too) was the part about how cool it was to swim across the lake–and how frightening. This lake doesn’t have the red silt that Shasta does, or at least not the intensity of it in the water, but it IS a dark, impenetrable green. Mate and I swam across, and I thought I was being foolish and freaked out, until Mate admitted that it sort of creeped him out too. No, there is no fabled “Lake Sugarpine” monster or anything–but… *shudder* You can’t see what’s swimming under your feet. Trust me. It’s skeery. Really.

But it’s also exhilarating, and Mate and I enjoyed our swim–and then came back and were starving. My mom fed us (eventually) and we left–but not before mom obsessed about her babies running off with strangers in the woods or going down to play in the water without an adult or not calling for help (as Zoomboy proved he would not do when he sat in a kayak and zoomed off stage right when the adults were talking) when they needed it. I looked at Chicken as I was telling the little kids goodbye, and she nodded encouragingly. She knows I trust her with them–but still. It was hard to go.

But you’ve got to trust the universe sometime, right?

And this morning, Mate is off fixing the soccer field for the beginning of the year, and I’m alone in the house.

It is SOOO quiet.