Milking the spider

Hello, day two of Woodloch!  You feel like day 25, and that's a good thing!

I am spending these wee hours of the morning blogging, knowing that I'll pay the price later this evening, when the zoo is alive and I'm asleep in the nightclub at 8:00.

The crew is fast asleep..I'm pretty sure I heard the gang from Maryland come in after midnight.  It's been two years since I saw my nephew and his wife, but his children came to see us a few weeks ago, where my three year old great nephew Eli's first question was:  "Does your dog poop in the living room?" followed by, "if he isn't using his cage right now, can I go in there?"

This is why I prefer the company of children to adults who talk about returning things to Target.

Oh..when they wake up and realize they're in Woodloch!  You ALL need to wake up!..and go to Woodloch!

The Woodloch that is almost back to normal..it's..seventy percent??Don't make me do math this early in the morning..I can't even do it when I'm wide awake.

It's Woodloch..without the staff pairing you up with random people to form a team for competitive games(we have to find people on our own.  Which I did yesterday. When asked, "what are the only two mammals known to lay eggs?" I was too intimidated to answer what I thought was at least one correct answer--the platypus(a fact I learned from crossword puzzles) so I let my team captain write down on the dry erase board an answer she positively KNEW was the right one.  She wrote "spider, because they give milk"

I let my team captain convince me that spiders were milk bearing mammals and I did not care, because I am high on Woodloch, so nothing has to make sense.

I did want to describe my great first full day yesterday, and share with you that I am amazed that I didn't get a hernia from carrying my beach bag, which I thinned out for today's adventurers.

Know what was in there?

Three HEAVY boxes of batteries.

Six full cans of sunscreen.

Heavy metals won from Woodloch past, when I was teamed up with folks who wouldn't let me second guess myself with questions like.."wait..a spider..IS that a mammal?"

What was I thinking with that bag??  Did I really need 20 tablets full of incoherent ramblings for the blogs of the past?

I'm surprised there wasn't a platypus in there.

I'm getting distracted again, and if I don't stick to the topic the gang will wake up and I'll have to talk and be sociable instead of being crazy which my blog readers allow  and expect me to be.

I miss my bidet.  I miss my grab bar.  I miss my dignity and self respect, the kind I show in my non-vacation related blogs, the kind where new readers to this blog won't ask, "she can't be ninety two years old, can she be?"Okay..back to old Woodloch vs. New Woodloch..

New Woodloch takes precautions:  there is no pretzels on the nightclub tables, no indoor ice skating rink, no toddler room which was always a petri dish for germs anyway, if you ask me..

But it's still a magical place.  Only this time, when you try to join a team for the Silver Screen Challenge game, you don't asks things like, "Can I join you folks?  I'm Karen from New Jersey--long time guest!" but, "can I join you? Did you have Pfizer or Moderna?  You're not one of those J&J folks, are you?"

We did win a medal at that game..we being Jim and me. We had to name the film by the IMBD description only, or quotes, but not the obvious ones, which explained why I should legally be prevented from calling myself a film fan, having missed Robert Shaw's improvised classic four-page speech in the wee hours of the morning abpard the Orca, fascinating Richard Dreyfuss's "Hooper" with every scary sound he made.  (See?  I remembered the character "Hooper" without using Google)

We had quality lake time, and some relaxing pool and hot tub time, and a cookout with great corn on the cob, and Jim has wonderful pictures of milking cows and and imitating Rocky and his punching bag and pulling Hershey products out of a bucket in what's called "A Salute to Pennsylvania" game.  (Attended by Jim, Evan, Todd, and Phebe...the real team players in our group)

I don't know what I'm seeing more of..people from Long Island, or the Long Island Iced Teas downed by my future nephew Todd.

I am not complaining!

He is "Mr. Woodloch!"

He sounds just like Seth Rogan when he talks!

He has the enthusiasm of a puppy dog, and the humor of..well..any character ever played by Seth Rogan.

And he's the type that will tell all the cookout guests to cheer for the kitchen staff..because he's that good!

Our night entertainment was superb.  I was a little worried that the theme show was a Covid casuality, but they had a boy band that had Evan and Phebe dancing in their seats, and Steven..my quiet, wonderful, sweet brother Steven belting out the Motown songs like he was the Fifth Top.

The band was called Larger Than Life and they truly were!

Steven!  My considerate brother who carries your tote bag full of batteries,,hands you towels when you come out of the lake--clears your garbage from the cookout that he didn't even go to.

He is so considerate, but seeing him get his Motown groove on made Evan ask:  "Who are you and what did you do with my Uncle Steven?"

This is Woodloch..this is what it does for families!

We played once last trivia game as a group.  (Our team name was "Karen, Calm Down!") and did really poorly but we laughed a lot.

The game room was packed with Long Islanders, and none of them had our collective warped sense of humor, like when the emcee asked, "how many viruses are typically found in the ocean?" and we whispered in unison:  "not as many as there are in this room."

We've got a great forecast and a full agenda..once the zoo wakes up, I will have a LOT to discuss

OMG!! Eli just woke up!  And said to me.."this is not your house.  Where is Luke?!!!"

Followed by:  "Why are your arms so big?"

This is going to be ..wowzer!