Sarah's Battle Scars

This picture is the most perfect metaphor for the unicorn/book/horse-loving girl I'm talking about.  I mean, it is so perfect it is impossible to really put it in words.  The Spiky Unicorn says all I could ever want to.

     Because I feel guilty about not writing anything, as per usual, I have decided to grace you with the Slightly Gory Odd and Disturbing Guide to Sarah's Battle Scars.  Prepare yourselves.  Find the nearest set of dragonskin armor (these can be bought from people who were bred for war.  And believe me, these people are more common than you may think.  The one I know disguises herself as a horse-loving, book-enjoying, band-participator.)  and suit up for a ride of epic battles and loss of blood.  Although I probably only lost a milliliter of blood...

Battle Numero Uno

Fourscore and seven years ago,  

     Two years and a couple months ago, I was swimming around in my pool, enjoying myself immensely, if I remember correctly.  Julia joined me in my water-related activities, and we made a whirlpool, played an awful game of two-person Categories, screamed when we saw bugs that we thought were bugs but were actually smallish leaves, and rescued each other from fake drowning.  We got tired of that pretty soon, as we were but wee things and had the attention spans of squirrels, so we invented a new game.  We called this amazing game "The Surfing Game".  It involves two people, namely, Julia and I.  One person (I) holds her breath and lays down on the bottom of the pool.  The second person (Julia) stands on top of Person One and tries to remain balanced for as long as Person One can hold her breath (Therefore, Person two is "surfing").  When Person One (me) runs out of breath, she arches her back to get Person Two (Julia) to fall off.  When I arched my back and simultaneously blew the last of my lung air into the grass speckled water, Julia stepped on my collarbone instead of falling off, leaving me with a scar at the base of my  neck.  It is an almost imperceptible white toenail-shaped mark, which, to the delight of my mother and I, has almost (but not quite) faded to the normal color of my skin.  And so began my habit of wearing a necklace every single day, because they are of just the right length to hide the tiny disfigurement.

Battle Numero Dos

     This battle story is a lot shorter than the previous one.  Partly because my eyes are already burning, and partly because I don't like this one as much because it's not as cool.  This summer we (mi familia) journeyed to the Cape Cod.  About a week before we left, Nick concocted a bad case of poison ivy.  It started on the back of his knees and spread to his legs and other various limbs.  So, as we should have figured out sooner, the backs of Nick's knees come in contact with

• the edges of couches
•  the edge of this here computer chair
• rugs, if he sits with his legs straight out
• and my foot, if I kick him behind the knees to make him fall

     So, of course his poison ivy germs had to travel from the backsides of his knees to the backsides of mine, and from there to my various limbs and feets.  So that was a major downer on the Cape Cod trip.  It's not particularly enjoyable lying in your bed, unable to sleep because you don't want to smear Calamine lotion all over the Tigger sheets you brought.  Anyways, after the poison ivy vacated my system, and the awful itchy bumps disappeared from my skin, they left behind little white scars the right side of my right knee, which thankfully have disappeared.  So I guess I can't really call them scars if they only remained there for a couple of weeks.  

     Now do you realize why I didn't want to tell that one?  It's hideously boring compared to the first one.

Battle Numero Tres

     I like this story even more than the first one, because it makes me seem all heroic and dignified and stuff.  Which believe it or not doesn't happen to me all that often.  (The heroic part.  When is Sarah ever not dignified and stuff?  Pssssh.)  We were camping in summah 2009 with the same pack of kids from this summer.  (Haven't read that post?  What's your problem?  Clicketh these here italicized words!  CLICKETH!-------> PSSST.  RIGHT HERE!)  So the whole lot of us were up in New Hampshire somewhere doing camping things like making s'mores, applying liberal amounts of bugspray, and stinking.  (Whole lot of us= Mom, Julia, Nick, me, Mom's friend Karen and her four children.)  We had traversed down to a pretty lake on the campground and were swimming contentedly for awhile.  Julia, one of Karen's boys who is Julia's age, and I were the oldest ones there, and we made a game of swimming out to the floating buoys and back to shore.  It wasn't even a race, it was just to see who would chicken out over the deep, dark water with swirling muck.  Needless to say, we all did it with relative ease.  We managed to swim that length of 50 yards a couple of times before all the little boys wanted to do it.  Julia managed to keep the three-year-old content by chasing him in the shallow water, but James and I couldn't stop Nick, Jonathan, or Benjamin, who were very determined to swim out there.  

     Knowing what you know about me and my lack of luck when it comes to camping, whose brother do you think got stuck out in the water that was probably two or three times as deep as he was?

That's right.  Mine.

If you ignore the fact that we're sideways, this is a really good picture, from the actual day of the loss of my toenail.  From top to bottom, James, Jonathan, Nick, Benjamin, me doing a funny lip thing, Devan, and Julia who is WAY too excited.

     I remember sitting on the sand next to Mom, drawing in the sand, when all of a sudden Julia's screaming "NICK'S DROWNING!  NICK'S DROWNING!"  Looking back on it, I think "Gosh he's so annoying.  Let him figure out how to swim back here on his own."  But I remember thinking "Holy CRAP I gotta get him gotta get him gotta get him!"  Here's where the heroic part comes in:  I swam out to the buoys faster than I ever wish to swim again and grabbed him under his armpit.  To reward me for my effort, he gripped me like I was the last taco at the Mexican buffet and made me sink like a stone.  Somehow I managed to keep both me and him afloat by holding his arm above my head and using my other arm to do a spasmy dog paddle thing.  I don't really remember what the other two kids were doing; I think they were swimming back to where their feet could touch the ground so they could stare at me in my moment of triumph as I half pulled, half dragged a spluttering Nick to the sand.  This is the moment where I remember feeling angry.  Like "What the cheesebiscuits do you think you were DOING out there?!?!??!?!"  angry.  I had been contentedly defrosting myself from the frigid pond water when he had to go and drown himself.  It was so unfair.  And the battle scar I got for saving my non-buoyant brother?  My toenail FELL OFF.  I don't know how or why, but I sat down on the towel to dry off for good, still feeling ticked at Nick, and noticed that I didn't have a left pinky toenail, which I knew had been there that morning, because I had thought "I should really remove that tiny speck of pink nailpolish", just that morning.  There wasn't any blood, so I didn't feel all that grossed out about it.  I could rub sand on it without feeling anything, and could wade in lake-muck too, so I figured was in an okay position to lay down and try to nap. 

     All is well now.  The toenail grew back, and is fully paintable.  

     I hope I've disgusted you to a level you never thought possible.  Especially with that last one.

     My current favorite song?  Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri

~Sarah~