I missed you so much it's like an ache in my heart. Or tooth. Or ear.

I missed you!

Evidently not enough to get online, but I did.

This was a pretty good weekend, even if I did have more than my share of moments where I sat in the car by myself going, "I really, really, REALLY fucking hate everyone."  I'm not exactly sure why, and I can't even blame PMS, but there it is.  Maybe this UNRELENTING STUPID HEAT.  Maybe.  From 60 to 90 in 3 days is not right.  Is there a complaint box? Because I have some stuff to say about this ridiculousness.  This is NOT how you run things.  It's just not.

We saw a family and friends and had fun and also lots of tasty food and snacks PLUS I got a ridiculous sunburn on one side of my neck and half my chest.  I look like a before and after ad for sunblock.

We also went to Greenfield Village, thanks to the good auspices of Unmitigated Me, and saw the Civil War Remembrance activities.

I'm sweating just remembering them.

At which point I realized that I have become an old lady because:

1.  I immediately had to go the bathroom.
2.  I wanted my sun hat.
3.  I struck up conversations with EVERYONE. The ladies in the Temperance camp, the woman sitting next to me at the fashion show [fancy! but HOT!], the young men at the Civil War pavilion.
4.  I made the husband wear a badge identifying him as a veteran.
5.  I routed our day so that we were near bathrooms AND buildings where we could go in and cool off.
6.  I made the husband go and get the car.

It was a lot of fun.  I highly recommend going.  And taking the husband, because he will get the car AND turn on the AC full blast.

We also took part in our annual Family Water Balloon Fight on Memorial Day.  My cousin filled over 600 water balloons and we went nuts.  Well, mostly everyone else went nuts while I took pictures with my sister's camera and tried to stay out of the line of fire, like a good war correspondent.

The younger kids are now old enough where they are wily and plan out their attacks.  The husband was bombed mercilessly.  I was hit by friendly fire RIGHT IN THE STOMACH while I was trying to take pictures.  That hurt A LOT.

Next year, I'm bringing a supersoaker.  Or a hose.

That Time I Stayed in the Canadian Version of the Bates Motel. I Hate You, Niagara Falls.

Many years ago, our family was invited to a destination wedding.  Not somewhere magical like the Bahamas. Nope.

Niagara Falls. 

Where we ended up staying in:

The Bates Motel

Not the ACTUAL Bates Motel. No.  That one was drier and far less disgusting.

We were given instructions to make reservations at this hotel or, more accurately, House of Creepiness, by the family having the wedding.

WHO DID NOT STAY THERE.

Which we didn't find out until the end of the weekend.  Nice, right?  Did they get a look and go running?  Did they get a cut of the rental rates?  I don't know, but I don't really talk to them anymore.  Had you been there, you wouldn't blame me.

We get to this place and are skeeved out.  Seriously.  It smelled like dank.  My parent's room? Had damp carpeting.  Our room? Had the sink that wouldn't stop running.  Some cousins were in the room that had super-scary noises. 

I ask for extra pillows and am informed that there are none.  How is that possible?  Are they being used to smother and bury guests from times past?

We spent a LOT of time not in the room.  Hotel sex? Yeah, not happening.

I think the icing on the cake was that at the nice hotel across the street, where there was a party for the wedding guests the night before, the room rates were the same.  Why didn't we switch hotels? I have no idea - I was for it, but everyone else had been beaten down by the sadness and despair clouding Bates Motel Niagara and figured one more night wouldn't hurt. 

Except it did.  It hurt my soul.  It also hurt my ability to stay in any cheap ass hotel, making our trips way more expensive.  But then so was the therapy and the 8,000 loads of laundry I did to wash the stink of that trip out of our clothing.

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This is a Studio 30 Plus writing prompt.  Yeah, boy. [You have to say that like Flavor Flav.  Trust me.  It's fun.]