Thursday nights around my place are pretty benign. My three oldest go to their dad’s and my youngest and I party…okay we don’t party and, yes, I’m one of those screwed up homes with kids from two fathers. Yes, it is a screwed up mess, but which of the kids do I throw back now that they’re all here? Hmmmmm????
Anyway, like I said, Thursday night I usually spend with Little Bear exclusively. Tonight, we had to attend a meeting for the parent group of a theatre group Briggs, my 2nd oldest is in. So an hour and a half of our evening was taken up being elsewhere with others.
Once we got home, though, she was feeling pretty sad since she’d had a discouraging day at school and she didn’t quite understand why she couldn’t be in the same performance her older sister was in (translation, older sister’s dad put up the bucks, Little Bear’s mom-me- is paying off debt and can’t spend an extra dime outside the already very tight budget, and Little Bear’s dad would not only NOT pay the money, he would NOT do anything to get her to practices when she needed to be there if she was with him). Like I said earlier…the whole thing is an “effing” mess. Due to the really sad state of affairs, I suggested to Little Bear that we take a dip in the hot tub.
Well, so much for the tears!!!
I’m telling you a hot tub is simply good therapy. I spent some time this summer planting the kind of plants that would shroud our backyard from neighbors, putting up screens that I can drop down around the spa and fixing up the back deck so there is a great deal more privacy. Yep, Little Bear and I went in there…well…you know. It seems we’d “forgotten” our swimwear.
Have you ever tried to peel off a swimsuit in sub 40 degree temperatures? No, it is simply much easier to grab a towel off the hook then wrap up in your cozy, fluffy towel. So…that is what we did. We went nekked in the H.T. And we loved it…for about six minutes. I’ve got to adjust the timer settings.
Little Bear is now sound alseep and has been for a couple of hours. The hot tub was wonderful. If you can imagine a hot tub shrouded in complete darkness, except for the moonlight with steam rising up from the surface of the water you are seeing what we saw tonight. If you can imagine hot water that you must ease your way into but which warms you to your core, sheeding all of the world’s anxieties with the steam that evaporates, then you know what we felt. If you can imagine how someone like me should not even be considering such a wonderful home “toy” as a Hot Tub but who still has one at the gracious generosity of friends then maybe you understand how really wonderful this H.T. is and has been over the last year to my family and I.
Not only that, it is just really beautiful to sit out in the dark, look up through the mist to the moon and think…
I really am so incredibly fortunate…in so many really wonderful ways.
