Okay so I have SO much to blog about still! Our trip was non-stop, not a second to breathe....it was amazing, over-the-top, INTENSE! Every single thing we experienced was "the most"....if it was a funny moment it was HILARIOUS, if it was a scary moment it was TERRIFYING, every single experience was just the most intense it could be.... I wanted so badly to journal or blog about all of the things while they were happening so they were still fresh in my mind, but I literally had NO time to do so. Therefore, here we go...memories a little dimmed by time, but still hopefully fresh enough to record them for posterity.
So.... the whole inspiration for this trip to Florida was my Great Aunt Marge. My mom had not seen her in several years, and I had not seen her for even longer. She (and a company shutdown for the Thanksgiving holiday) was what led my mother to dream up this fantastic vacation.
During the drive to Florida, my mom had asked me, "Do you think the kids will be scared of Auntie Marge?"
I had said, "I'm sure initially they will be shy because she is someone new to them, but they will most likely recover quickly and be just fine."
Well that is kinda how it happened, but in a HILARIOUS fashion.
To put it mildly, my Aunt does not live in the best neighborhood. So after being stuck in several miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic which resulted from the highway being down to one lane after a rollover accident, we arrived in her not so great part of town well after dark (around 8 p.m.)....the drug dealers on the corner had already taken their posts for the night, and things were looking appropriately scary. In order to park, you approach her house from the back alley (which is even scarier than the front of the house). We had parked the car, and my mom and the other children headed for the back of her house while I tried to wake Elijah and get him out of the van. By the time I got to the house, I had heard my mother shout, "Hello" about 7 times....
When I got to them, she said, "The back door was open, and she's not answering."
The house was pitch black, and my mother was letting Noah go in first! I was thinking, What the heck! Anything could be going on in there.... a home invasion, a robbery. She could have had a heart attack, and Noah would have walked in and found her dead body lying on the ground. I grabbed Noah and said, "Get out of there! You are not going in first!"
So I stepped into the pitch black hallway (does everyone know how TERRIFIED I am of the dark? does everyone know that I had to stop watching CSI, Law & Order, and Without a Trace so I would stop seeing chalk drawings and children disappearing everywhere I looked???) So here I am NOT at all brave, walking into her PITCH black house in an unsafe neighborhood....
Now I am the one shouting, "Hello... Hello..." I get into the kitchen and out of the pitch black living room she emerges into the light (she has lost a TON of weight and is 87 years old.... to Hannah's credit she did look slightly alarming).... Hannah caught one look of her and started SCREAMING this blood curdling, terrified, high pitched at the top of her lungs SCREAMING.... the boys were just frozen in their tracks with petrified looks on their faces.... I think they were as scared as Hannah, but somehow they knew not to scream.... I swooped Hannah into my arms, and she instantly stopped crying.... I don't think my Aunt caught on to the terror of the moment (did I mention age and isolation have made her a little loopy?) my mother had to leave the room because she was laughing so hysterically.... I was trying to hold it together but not doing so great (although better than my mother). But that was not the end of the hilarity...
So now the lights are on... the frightening moment has passed (although not altogether because when the lights came on the realization of how NOT clean the place was started dawning on me).... We start to enter the living room... Jeremiah is first and I hear him say, "Why is it so hot in here?!?!" Well if you know Jeremiah you know he can be a little "obsessive" so saying it once wasn't good enough. He kept repeating it over and over again... "Why is it so hot in here?!?! Why is it so hot in here?!?!" I was still in the kitchen, and I started to say, "Jeremiah, quiet it can't be that...." right before the word bad escaped my lips I entered the living room and was struck by a wall of heat. "Ohmigosh! Why is it so hot in here?!?!" flew into my mind. I swear on everything holy I am not exaggerating, she had the heat set on at least 85... it was like a sauna in there.
The rest of that first night was filled with humor.... the back bedroom (where we were to sleep) had been shut up for God only knows how long and there was dirt and bugs and such all over (please keep in mind....if you've ever been to the Kastner house you know that Jami Kastner is not nearly as OCD as Jami Haugh was.... it is typical to find let's just gently say, "a mess" when you come to visit the Kastners....therefore when I say they house was a mess you can imagine that it was pretty bad.) The roof must have leaked into the living room because there was a huge water stain on the ceiling, and the kids kept looking at it and saying, "What is that on the wall?" I think they were a little scared of it.... It was just creepy and kinda gross and thoroughly HYSTERICAL! When we lay down to sleep that night, I kept trying to tell myself, "Missionaries in the jungle sleep in less than desirable conditions too... if they can, I can." Keep in mind that running through my head was the contrast between sleeping in the lap of luxury the night previous at the Stancils (see Florida Trip Installment 1) and tonight's adventure residing in the armpit of Satan. As we drifted off to sleep, my mother and I intermittently would just start laughing uncontrollably.... we couldn't help ourselves.... it was just TOO funny.
In the middle of the night, I awoke to the sound of a child crying quietly.... I tried to get my bearings... figure out where I was... what that noise was... I finally came to the conclusion that the noise was coming from outside the bedroom window. However, I still sat up to check heads and make sure it wasn't my children making the noise. I wasn't sure what to do.... why was that child crying? did it just sound like it was coming from the vacant lot next door or was it a nearby bedroom? what should I do? I got up from the air mattress I was sleeping on planning to find the phone and dial 911. Every single Law & Order SVU I had ever seen was racing through my head, and my pulse was out of control. All of a sudden I heard a second "child" and then a third.... it was then that I realized I was hearing cats in the vacant lot mewling.... I felt relieved and stupid at the same time. Thank God I didn't call 911.... I can see the headlines now.... Crazy vacationing WI woman calls 911 for stray cats....
What a hysterical, terrifying, filthy, and memorable experience.
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