You're a trooper, MH

A little over a week ago, we had ourselves quite the adventure. Actually, we've already had quite a few, but this particular day was pretty extraordinary.

Our high school staff drove to San Diego for a little sailing/bonding time. I've never been sailing. I've been on a ferry during a terrible storm, traveling from the north to south island of New Zealand. I've slept on a ferry traveling the English Channel. I took a boat ride out to dive with sharks when visiting Hawaii. I've been on powerboats to waterski and canoes to paddle around lazily. But, alas, no sailing. Soooo, despite the fact that your momma has been known to get motion sick on a treadmill, I am very much of the mind that I must follow Eleanor Roosevelt's advice, and regularly do things that scare me.

We set out at 1 pm. My dorky chart above shows that although I'm a little anxious, I'm mostly pretty joyful at the start.

Here we go!!! Whee!!! So exciting. Until  . . .

So exciting, until, as Captain Greg was doing whatever it is one does to a sail to make it go up, I felt something fall from the sail and onto my chest, and from my chest, onto my thigh. I thought a bird pooped on me, and asked, "Did a bird poop on me?" when all of a sudden, my thigh was consumed with a critical amount of pain. I'd been stung. By a bee. On a boat. In the ocean. I do not think this type of scary thing is what Eleanor had in mind.

I'm apiphobic. Few things can make me run around squealing like a little piggy, but bees and wasps can, and do. The kicker of this misadventure is that my friend DeeDee told me that it's not the first sting I have to worry about, in terms of allergy, but the second. She then explained the scientific reasoning behind it, but I was too busy whimpering and sniveling to understand or care, much beyond thinking, "I still have to be nervous around these necessary-but-terrifying creatures???"

Co-captain DeeDee gave me a cleansing wipe, followed by a cold beer (used for cooling my inner thigh only, sadly), and then a generous swabbing of mustard. Yes, mustard.

Well, despite the spike in adrenalin, I did my best to get over it, and decided to explore the front of the boat. I clipped on a life jacket and scrambled to the bow, where my friend Tim grabbed some excellent pictures, like this one:

You'll notice on my handy-dandy chart that my levels of joy and pain have inverted at this point.

Then, another too-exciting adventure: Canada (yes, Canada) was conducting some underwater-sonar-submarine experiment that consisted of a military helicopter flying in place, dragging a line from the helicopter into the water. While I was sitting peacefully, having a moment, we came so close to said-Canadian-"warship" (as it was referred to on the radio) that the spray covered me, and the boat caught the wakes created by the helicopter. It was all very action movie-esque, and I made my way back with legs of jelly.

It was then that, perhaps, the Dramamine upon which I'd relied gave up on me and my adrenalin rushes, and I became ill. Very ill. Embarrassingly ill. I felt badly for my co-sailors, as I know how I react when I'm around someone who's yacking, and there I was, my body squished between the metal bars (sorry about that), miserable (another spike on the pain chart) and yacking.

They decided to turn the boat around and head onto calmer waters (which still didn't feel calm). Even land didn't feel calm for a while. Still, I'm glad we did it. I kept smiling, even through my embarrassment, and kept looking for the joy. Eleanor would have been proud, even if the bee sting now might have gone into Super Evil Phase II at this point and transitioned to an infection.