Shack Nasty Day

So, maybe I am not your mother. I do not want or even like most jewerly. If I am drawn to shiny objects, it would be the sparkle of stainless steal for my kitchen or the gleam of chrome for my Harley. I do love flowers, but I have un endless hook up at Sis's flower shop. Food is always a good bet, but I have come to expect that daily. But that does not mean I am unpleasable come mothers day. A weekend at Shack Nasty is all I want.

When I first met my darling Hubby, he told me about his favorite place, his cabin. His faced glowed with an erethral love as he spoke of the wonderful retreat he had built, three hours north of the cities, on the iron range. With much anticipation, as young lovers, we threw the bare essentials into a bag and hit the road for a weekend there.

It off an old highway, then a county road, then a low maintenance seasonal road. Slinging our packs over our shoulders, we trekked the last half mile up an old logging road that was reverting back to it's original shape, due to the growing underbrush. The dank little hovel he took me too, I thought, was just an abandoned logging camp. No electricity, no plumbing, lots of critters. It was with great pride he gave me the tour of the one room little abode. "Look! Windows!", he would point out excitedly, "Bunk beds and a table!" All this I could of seen from the door.

Don't take me wrong now, I am not a snob. I grew up in the backwoods. We did not always have plumbing or much electricity. And I am all about nature, I really am. But when my Hubby had spoke of this place, I had expected more. Comfort perhalps. But this was the boy who grew up in south Minneapolis and would bike twenty miles one way to be able to fish in good fishing lake. This was his retreat. He had probley dreamed of such a place constantly was he was growing up in his rough inner city neibhorhood. And it was well made, he had created it with his own hands. He proclaimed it our "love shack". (Go ahead, in your mind sing the B-52's song in your head.) I immediately renamed it more appropriately, Shack Nasty.

Over the years, we have made many memorable times there. When our kids were born, it did not stop our pilgrimage every spring opening fishing season to Shack Nasty. We just learned to just pack more things. It did not make my husband hesitate one heart beat to take an infant along. His reasoning, one more in the boat, one more limit of northern were were allowed to keep. Years I had to work opening weekend, Hubby took the babies, diapers and all, by himself.

The only addition or repair we have ever made is the out house we added a few years back.
I go less up there now, choosing to leave it a primal male bonding experience for my men. It is the place were they can be themselves, and let it all hang out. No matter how nasty and unwashed it is.

Around Febuary, in the pitch of spring fever, the boys start making preparations for their yearly ritual. They sit on the couch, watching fishing shows on TV, putting new line on their rods and practice casting at the fish on the screen. Large plastic containers are bought and stocked with survival food. The kind I would never buy for them. Canned puddings, chilli, sugar laden sodas, bags of licorice, sunflower seeds. Months are counted.

March they pack duffel bags full of clothes. Swim suits to snow suits and everything inbetween. You never know what the temperature will be opening weekend. New fishing lures are scouted and bought before packing away. Weekends are counted.

April they are out cleaning the boat for the year. It is vacuumed, cleaned and polished. Fillet knives are sharpened. Days are counted.

Opening day falls on Mothers day weekend every year in our state. This upsets many women, as a lot of them don't want to share any time or attention on "their" day. And many do not fish. Not me. As much as I used to enjoy the fishing trip with my men. I now lookforward to my precious time alone. I count the hours.

I will eagerly pack them off. I will walk outside and help them load everything into the truck. I will even walk as far as the end of the drive way as a few tears slip out and roll down my cheek's, as I wave at the back of the truce cram packed full of sports parafinallia, as they pull out of my sight down the road. Then I skip back to the house.

I will walk around my now too empty house and adjust to it's silence. Sometimes I wait a full twenty minutes before I call someone. I have, in the past just shown up at my sisters house with a lonely forlorn look and spent the weekend. Or I will rent the chick movies I never have the chance to watch and walk around in my underwear, eating ice cream by the gallon straight out of the container. For breakfast. I will talk to the cat and dance with the dog. Yes, I do those things anyway but now I really mean it. Sometimes I will cook myself a wonderful gourmet dinner and eat of my good china and drink from my crystal. I have tackled big projects, like washing all my windows, or I will remain in my bead and read until I can no longer see the blurry words in front of me. For fourty-eight hours, life is good. Life is mine.

This year, however, evil is in the air. Hubby's job responsibilities may wreck havoc on our plans. I am trying hard not to scream and wail on the inside. I need my time. That short, not often enough time when I am not a wife or a mother.

If it has to be this way, I will be alone. Even if it is in my mind. I will revert back to primal woman on my inside, with or without them here. I will stroll around here covered only in an exfoliating mask and salsa with what ever four legged creature dares look in my direction. I will sing my own bad rendition of Gwen Stefani's "Holla Back Girl", while eating a brownie as big as my head, followed by a salad. And I will bawl unabashed at the sappy part of what ever I am whatching with out letting any taunts affect me. I will have my day. I have many others ones to worry about therapy for my men. I will have my own Shack Nasty Day, with or without them.