there's no place like gnome.

You may know that my high school friends and I call ourselves the Dancing Bananas.  If this is new to you, it stems back to our early high school days when performing in a talent show, and we needed a group name for the program.  Don’t ask me how we arrived at a yellow fruit getting jiggy with it, but we did.  It’s stuck ever since.

It’s been 14 years since we graduated and we are pretty great at staying in touch via email.  But it was time for an in-person gathering.  After months of saving the weekend, weeks of planning, five of the seven Dancing Bananas arrived at the Wilderness at the Lake in Wisconsin Dells this past Friday.  And it was all things a gathering of dancing fruit should be.

We laughed until we cried.  We laughed all weekend about frickin’ gourds, ticking me with feet, and Moroccan carrot.  (You had to have been there.)  We shared our favorite things. (We each bought something that is our favorite to give to each in the group.  I gave Method kitchen spray and paper straws.  I received makeup, hair product, appetizer plates, and a banana necklace.).  We played in the wave pool and lazy river.  We ate bananas.  We tried to finish the timed challenges at Wizard Quest (and failed).  We walked the WI Dells strip, sat on a patio for a drink, and later played laser tag.  We shopped at the outlet mall and ate cold, leftover pizza in the parking lot before driving our separate ways.

And it was all the best.  It was simply good for the soul to be with friends that date back to high school and earlier.  (I’ve been friends with Kim and Krissy since kindergarten!)  We talked about life, work, relationships, dreams.  We were silly, serious, and everything in between.  Good for the soul indeed.

Like I mentioned earlier, the bunch wasn’t complete.  We were missing two of our friends who we hope will join us next year or the year after.  This weekend-away-with-girlfriends must become a tradition.

Well done. 

I looked at Pinterest this morning to find they suggested this pin for me. Sew your own snakes. 

Well played. 

It’s as if Pinterest knew that I walked home from church yesterday to find a snake on my sidewalk. It’s as if Pinterest knew snakes make me scream/jump/shake thirty times more than mice. It’s as if Pinterest knew that snakes are one of my greatest fears ever since I mowed over one a couple summers ago.  It’s as if Pinterest wanted to rub it in that I’m now scared to walk in the grass around my house. 

I walked home yesterday after a kind of long morning. Baptism, communion, ANNUAL MEETING, brunch. As I left church and walked across the parking lot, I called The Boyfriend to solidify later plans. I was on the phone with him when I saw it. The snake. On the sidewalk outside my back door. 

I screamed. I could barely get out the words to tell him there was a snake ten feet from me. I finally explained what was happening. One guess what he did on the other end while I screamed, shivered, and was bent over in fear: he laughed.  He laughed. Are you surprised?  I’m not.  I said/yelled, THIS IS NOT FUNNY. He continued to laugh. 

He then suggested I take a shovel to it. (Yeah, right.) Or run over it with the lawn mower. Nope.  I walked quickly to the front door and then watched out the window as the snake slithered off into the grass. And then I shivered for the rest of the day. And all day today as I thought about it. 

Be proud of me, though. I mowed the lawn tonight. And then I walked on the grass to the garden to grab a handful of ripe cherry tomatoes.  It’s all about the baby steps as I learn to be outside again. 

Baby steps. 

(Do you think there is enough time for enough baby steps before I spend next week tent-camping and state-park-hiking?  I sure hope so.)