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I am the luckiest woman alive.

When I bought The Little Cottage on Peach Tree Road, I had the great fortune to buy it from a couple who’s niece was a talented and fun-loving chef.

Her name is Elise.

She lives just around the corner from me, if country roads had corners, and we weren’t counting distance.

Elise Wendland.  Chef Elise Wendland.  Executive Chef Elise Wendland.

She’s won awards, she’s been invited to special cook-offs by politicians and other folks way more important than I will ever be.  And she stays real.  Kind.  Humble.  She’s the kind of Chef you would want to sit and talk food with for hours, literally.  She’s not an a**hole chef like so many you see.  She’s really an artist with edibles.

And I’ve seen some amazing things come out of her kitchen at The Comus Inn At Sugarloaf Mountain.

Of all the restaurants I’ve ever been to, this one has the best view I’ve ever seen.  It is of our beloved bump we call a mountain.

(This is the same mountain Critter runs on in Crocs.)

But tonight, when she posted her lunch special on Facebook, I went straight from feeling lucky for knowing such a fine person who is so good at what she does, to falling headlong into total admiration. In short, I want to be Elise when I grow up.

“What,” say you, “could possibly have pushed you into such a chef-crush, Mama? You’re no slouch, yourself, in the kitchen!”

(Gosh, that was kind of you to say, thank you!)

Well, I’ll tell you. But first, I’ll show you:

Holy Plaque Encrusted Artery, Batman!  Is that a  Fried Green Tomato, Pimento Cheese and Bacon topped, Hickory Smoked Burger?

Oh Hell yes, it is, my friends.

So the real question now is:  How fast can you get to The Comus Inn at Sugarloaf Mountain?

And tell Elise to drop one of those bad boys at The Little Cottage on her way home, will ya?

Today was a new personal best.

Critter, who loves to run up and over Sugarloaf Mountain from the East side overlook,

through rocky and treacherous trail,

to the West side overlook, beat all of his previous records.

Understand, it takes me about 30 to 40 minutes to walk this trail.   30 to 40 minutes, on a prosthetic knee, carrying way too much extra weight (I call it ‘Emergency Flesh’), with only my Synthroid and a smile to keep me moving.  (They don’t call me “Sea Slug” Boe, for nothing.)

Actually, they don’t call me “Sea Slug” Boe at all, but let’s not quibble over details.

Critter ran the mountain top today in just over 8 minutes.

8 freaking minutes.

But wait.  There’s more.

He did it…..get this….in CROCS shoes.  He always runs the mountain in his crocs.  (The “Flash” socks are optional).

That is an impressive time for those 12-year-old legs to accomplish that distance and elevation change.

I want VERY MUCH for him to join the cross country club at his middle school next fall…begged him to consider it…his response?

“It’d be too much work, Mom.”

The kid runs OVER a stinkin’ mountain top in crocs, and he’s afraid running around the grassy parts of a baseball field after school will be ‘too much work’.

I think there must be more to that.  Maybe he’s afraid they’ll make him wear sneakers or something.

All I know is that whenever I see him come barreling down that mountain at the speed of light, I can’t believe we’re even related.

Love,

‘Sea Slug’ Boe

I’ve already told you guys how bad My Captain is about staying down and resting when he’s sick.  And yes, even though he’s fighting Lyme’s Disease, he went to work his 24 hour shift yesterday…in fact, participated in a full day of extrication training with the Technical Rescue Team.  In the sun.   NOTE TO MY CAPTAIN:  Doxycycline and full sun most emphatically do NOT go together.  ADDITIONAL NOTE TO MY CAPTAIN: The aloe burn cream is in the hallway closet, wedged between the hemorrhoid cream and the bug spray.

I’m not entirely sure, and I’m no doctor, but I’m relatively certain that people who’s immune systems are fighting a nasty bacterial infection like Lyme’s probably won’t have the proper strength to work on collapse rescue situations involving winches,

and pulleys,

and come-alongs.

They probably ought not be working on shoring up several ton vehicles with air bags.

They may not want to do things involving taut wires and ropes that could snap and kill you in skinny minute, or metal struts that could fail.

Or maybe not be playing with precariously balanced wooden shoring.

But I’m no doctor. What the heck do I know?

Not much.  I can honestly say I don’t know squat about all of those things.  But one thing I DO know about is the fact that I came perilously close to joining my captain on the ‘Benched’ list today.  I woke up and found a wee little bug on my arm…

in the same exact place my captain’s tick bite/bulls-eye rash appeared!

Can you believe it?!  I went to pull the little sucker out, and he just fell out on his own. (This picture is SERIOUSLY magnified! Deer ticks are tiny!)

NOT good…it means he was completely engorged with my valuable blood, and that he’d been there long enough to transmit any disease he might be carrying.

I was at the doctor’s faster than you could say, “Hypochondriac,” and was administered my own prescription of Doxycycline, thank you very much.

So now I have to stay out of the sun for a while, too!  I tell you, the family who gets infected together, stays together!

And if you know me at all, you know that I think that My Captain and I having tick bites in the same exact place is yet another romantic sign that we were meant to be together.

That, and we probably ought to stop hanging out together in the deer-tick-infested tall grass…..

Don’t judge.

He wasn’t feeling well before he went to San Diego for the FEMA Urban Search and Rescue class.  He’d been feverish.  He had a bug bite that he insisted was merely a mosquito bite on his shoulder.  He had a headache that refused to abate.  I suggested he stay home and get tested for Lyme’s Disease.  But he grunted dismissively, and went anyways.  Why?  Because he’s stubborn.

He came home from San Diego, and felt even worse.  He sported a temperature of 102 that made his teeth chatter, and his handsome square jaw clench.  The bug bite site had grown uglier, and his headache had blossomed into all-over body aches.  He insisted he would be fine with some Motrin.  I suggested he go to the doctor and get tested for Lyme’s Disease. He grunted dismissively, because he’s stubborn.

He awoke groggily the next morning feeling like death, warmed over.  I put my hands on my ample hips, stomped my size 11wide foot, and insisted that he go to Urgent Care.  He was too weak to refuse.  Guess what the doctor there diagnosed?  That’s right, Lyme Disease.  My Captain grunted, and said, “Of course.  It all makes sense.”

I resisted the urge to smack his handsome face, and punch him on his bug bite.

He was given antibiotics and was told to rest.  So he went to Adam and Shana’s Damascus Day cook out, sat in his lawn chair, and felt miserable, while everyone else around him laughed and played, and Critter taunted a head trauma in an oversized inflated play ball.

He did call off of work the next day, but then he forced his poor shivering body out of bed and went to a 3 hour construction meeting about rural water supply that was not even in his station’s first due, that he was therefore NOT even responsible for, and he didn’t even get paid for it…why?  Because he “didn’t want to let anyone down”, and, well, because he’s stubborn.

The next day he lay in bed for a little while.  But then I made the mistake of going to the grocery store, while Critter and his best friend, Richard, played on a slip and slide at The Little Cottage.  When I came home, Critter and Richard were nowhere to be found, and My Captain was out in the heat wrestling with the Slip and Slide, to clean it and put it away.   Why couldn’t he wait for me and the boys to do it?  He was worried about the grass dying, and well, he’s stubborn.

So now I’m sitting on him.  No, seriously, all glorious, flabalanchousness of the me that is Mama Boe is holding him down.  And do you know what he is doing while he’s flat on his back in bed?  He’s got his laptop out, and is working on a line-up lecture for tomorrow….TOMORROW….because he is planning on going back to work tomorrow.

Why?

Because he is the most stubborn mule I’ve ever met.

No, scratch that.  He is stubborn-er than a mule.  MORE stubborner-er than a mule.

And I love him dearly.

Lord, I hope the guys go easy on him tomorrow.

What. The. Heck.

Is.  That???

Critter did not know.

But that little fact did not deter him from jumping into it headfirst.

Without even a “Mother, may I?”

I have a feeling I know what his college years are going to look like.

You see, we were at a get together at Adam’s house to watch the parade for Damascus Day.  You might remember Adam from the Fourth of July Parade last year (~ Parade Perspective~ ).

He was the one who had to continually receive kids hopping down from the firetruck.  Adam is not only a fireman, he is also in the Coast Guard.  He’s a true blue, great guy.  Well, that great guy, and his gorgeous wife, Shana, have an adorable tow-head of a boy named Jack.   And Jack has this enormous, inflated, trauma-guaranteeing ball.

We were at their house less than ten minutes when Critter had taken it over.  Little kids were violently thrown to the wayside, tears and wailing included…nothing could deter Critter from the challenge that was discovering this ball.  It was not a proud-mama moment.

Over and over again, he hurled himself into this huge rolling piece of petro-chemically-created, trauma initiating, ball of fun.

I couldn’t watch.  Not so much because I was frightened, as it was because I was frantically searching my wallet to make sure our insurance card was up to date.

Critter jumped in and out, rolled around, and beat this thing up from 5:30 until 10:00pm.  He did stop to eat 2.5 tater tots but seriously, he ate them running.

Amazingly, we didn’t end the evening in the trauma center.  Though God only knows how.

I would have loved to try it out, but there were babies to be held, and then dinner was served, and fireworks and laughter and clapping….I was too busy.

(That, and I’m fairly certain that it would have taken Vaseline and a spatula to get me into – or out of – that thing.  Kind of like Spanx, only bluer.)

And you can well believe that Critter SLEPT that night.  I’m thinking about getting one for myself to help my insomnia, except for that whole Vaseline/spatula thing……

Happy Damascus Day!!!!