We spent last week up in North Carolina on a little private beach development community called Figure 8. Clint and Susie booked the beach vacation for the whole EisenEars family; Brett, Jeff, August, Julian, and Big Lue. The seven of us did all the things you do on a beach vacation. We made sandcastles, got beat up by waves, read books, made peach ice cream, and grilled burgers in the rain. Our house was one row back from the beach on a tidal creek and a few of us preferred the calm waters out back to the bustling beach environment; that said the beach was delightfully uncrowded.
We had a good mix of blazing sunny days and soothing rainy days. As a sluggish person with a fear of hot weather, I enjoyed many rainy afternoon naps followed by Clint's "cocktail of the day." He always had big plans and faulty ingredients so Clint's "concoction" of the day would be more accurate.
The night before we left Brett shaved a mustache onto is face, and proceeded to take "icky cliche beach pictures" that he would spring on me when I least expected it. One of these included shoving me onto the sand in time for a wave to break over us as he held me in his arms. I don't know how Jeff always knew to be there to take photos but he never let Brett down. This happened many times and there was always a stranger witnessing my embarrassment.
We all rotated cooking dinner each night, so I treated the family to one of my favorite vegetarian dishes... that they topped with shrimp. On Brett's burger grilling night, a torrential downpour blew sideways into his grill, forcing him to remove the patties, hike them upstairs and finish cooking them on the stove. The mix of storm panic, soggy patties, and unfamiliar cooktop meant that the burgers weren't quit cooked when the family bit in. It turned into a real scene, which I got to calmly witness while enjoying my veggie burger. "Doesn't seem so silly now, does it?" I said to my naysaying family members.
Jeff took quite an interest in my veggie ways and it caused his children to ask me lots of questions about why I don't eat my animal friends. I did lots of sugarcoating until Jeff told me to give it to them straight. Just as I prepared my spiel, opening the eyes of the country's next wave of consumers, spurring positive change for their health, environment ethics, and the rights of animals, Susan gave the boys popsicles and they ran into the next room to use them as frozen swords.
So I'm still weird Aunt Lue that "only eats rice."
Julian (the littlest one - he just turned 6) all of a sudden took to me like white on that rice I eat. He barnacled onto me and only let go for eating, swimming, and sleeping. But if I dared swim anywhere near him, he just climbed up onto my shoulders and sat there. He was touching me constantly. If I sat down, he sat in my lap. I ate most of my meals with him sitting on my legs, facing me and rubbing my arms. He's never shown much interest in me before, so I was unnerved by our sudden friendship. Brett seemed to get a little jealous of the incessant touching. "Dude, you knows she's my wife, right?" he said to Juju one evening as he played with my hair.
On the last night, Brett got frustrated for me and forbade Juju from touching me. This only excited both Julian and August to "see who can get to Aunt Lue first." So Brett's plan really backfired for both of us. We all ran up and down the street trying to get away from each other. I think the boys saw it a some kind of fun game.
It did make me remember the times when I was little, and Ellen and I would go visit aunt Dene in Mississippi without Mom and Dad. I remember latching on to Dene even though I didn't know her that well because she was the closest thing to a comforting mom figure. She used to call me a barnacle. On this occasion I was Juju's comforting mom figure which felt very strange and made me realize that I do not know how to talk to children. I did lots of things wrong; I laughed when one burped, which encouraged even more disgusting burping directly in my face. I made up a song about snot (it was for Brett, not the boys) but they heard it and sang it much too loudly in a restaurant. Things like that. A real mother would have known not to engage but I've never been host to a barnacle before. When Juju was 2 and 3 he would mistake me for his mother from a distance (she and I have the same color scheme) and come grab onto my legs. Then he'd look up at me, realize I wasn't mom, and he'd scream. Let's go back to that time.
Here's the whole gang just before the burger rain rolled in.
