Jellyfish

Day 6 of our vacation and everything has been even better than expected. It's been bright and sunny, and there hasn't been a drop of rain in the sky. The beach has been gorgeous and quiet. No one has gotten sunburned. The kids haven't seriously hurt each other (yet). Ahhh, paradise. And just when I thought that things were absolutely perfect.....JELLYFISH STRIKE! The ironic thing is that I've spent the whole vacation worrying about one of the kids falling into a sand hole on the beach (did you know that holes in the sand cause more deaths than shark bites?), and it turns out that the real danger was quietly lurking in the clear waters just off shore.

It was one of the few times this week that I was swimming without one of the little kids, and I was just sort of riding little waves back and forth when all of a sudden - AAAAGH! Searing pain on my calf and ankle! Since I didn't have a child with me, I went into full histrionics of screaming and flailing, which I am more than a little embarrassed about today. I limped my way back to shore fully prepared to see that all the skin on my leg had been completely flayed (this is what it felt like), only to see.....nothing. Well, maybe some slight redness, but pretty much nothing. A jellyfish sting is quite painful, but it sure doesn't leave much of a battle wound to brag about. After an hour or two, you could see about five red lashes across my calf, but frankly it is so unimpressive in the picture that I took of it that I am not even going to embarrass myself by posting it. You'll just have to trust me that it was quite painful. I got no sympathy from the rest of my group, who made comments like, "did you see him coming?" and "weren't you looking out for them?" and best of all "yeah, I'm not surprised; I saw tons of them swimming around us this morning." Gee, thanks. I limped my way back to the house, and applied rubbing alcohol (which didn't help at all) and vinegar (which helped a lot) and looked on the Internet to find out if I was going to die (not unless I'm in Australia).

The pain subsided within about four hours, but the red lash marks are still visible today. I promised Matt that I'll go back into the ocean today, but the thing is, I've got all this blogging to do...and dishes...and someone needs to watch the babies.... Besides, I can see the beach perfectly well from the safety of the deck.