by Phyllis McCrossin
It’s Sunday morning and the campground is a beehive of activity. People are sitting around their campfires for one last cup of coffee, joggers are getting one last run in before packing up and leaving and those wanting to get an early start are starting to unhook their trailers and RVs or take down their tents.
By this afternoon there will be about eight of us left in the campground for the week. Summers are busy, but by the time we leave for the winter we will be the only trailer here.
I’ve been watching the young people across the drive from us. A group of eight friends (I assume they are friends) in their mid-to-late 20s spent the weekend camping. They have been a quiet group, spending most of the time sitting around the campfire, playing football and generally just chilling.
There are two dogs with them – a golden retriever and a black lab. The lab must be older as he’s pretty sedate and goes with the flow. The Golden… is much younger and is quite insistent that everyone must love him for obvious reasons. They are well-behaved dogs. I got barked at when I came around the corner of our trailer with a huge hanging flower basket in my arms. It scared the poor lab to death to see a walking flower basket. He barked. Once.
Cindy couldn’t care less that there are other dogs around. She spends her days either sleeping in our bed or sleeping in the shade of the side of the trailer that faces the road. There is soft dirt there and she digs it up slightly for the coolness of the dirt under the surface. I’m not certain she even notices the people across the drive, or if she can see that far.
She definitely can’t hear them. She is at the stage in her life where naps are frequent. She stretches out and almost immediately starts snoring. Sometimes standing directly over her and calling her name is not enough to wake her and I have to physically touch her. I think it scares me as much as it does her.
Even my sweet Cindy could wake up snapping if startled. She never has… but the possibility is always there. I’m always cognizant of that fact. I practice touch and jump back.
King and I normally park our home in more remote locations and often find our nearest neighbor to be a quarter-mile or further away. This campground is very nice, clean and modern. But it reminds me of our early marriage years when we lived in married student housing. That’s ok. A bit of nostalgia is good for the soul.
In our early days together I was the more gregarious one. I spent a lot of time outside with the other mothers watching our children and talking about classes. King only ventured out when there was a pickup basketball game.
I’m not so gregarious any more. I prefer isolation. I could say it’s the pandemic, but I honestly think things would be the same with or without social distancing. People wear me out.
Something happened this week that has me scratching my head and saying to myself, “Really, Phyllis?”
We got satellite TV.
For the first time in 43 years I can honestly say I am really excited about having almost unlimited TV channels. I think it is a further excuse to stay away from people. A complete satellite system was among the things given to us by our friend two weeks ago. It only took our son (a former cable installer) and 50 calls to the service to get it working.
I guess I REALLY missed cable news shows. I didn’t realize it until I spent that first morning with satellite binge watching news shows.
And yes… they are news SHOWS. Please people. Learn the difference between news reporting and opinion giving. That said, I do enjoy watching them. Except for one news network, but since I neither endorse nor pan anything in my blog, that show shall remain nameless.
But I don’t watch news 24/7. And King likes his sitcom re-runs (before we got satellite I bought him the first five seasons of Andy Griffith on DVD and he now has the shows memorized).
The other night, however, I fell asleep while reading and woke to King swearing at the TV. I listened for a while and realized he was swearing at a news show host. “He’s just giving his opinion. He’s entitled,” I told him.
“Not when his opinion is wrong.“OK then. I have a nice teen paranormal romance here. Why don’t you take a break and learn about werewolves and Dijons?”
We are worlds apart.
