Reflection on the Boston Harbor Islands--7 Days until THE MOVE

So Cat started this blog last night, which I think is a rather swell idea, if for no other reason, it keeps us distracted from the bursting poison ivy sores that we both contracted last weekend camping on the Boston Harbor Islands.

Camping on the Harbor Islands has become a sort of tradition for us the past two years in Boston, ever since my friends Sean and Stacy came down for a visit with a list of cheap fun things we could do in the city. Since I know Sean and Stacy from our days of sharing residency on a lobstering island off the coast of Maine, island-hopping in the Harbor seemed like a natural excursion. I invited my school-friend Cat to come along on this first camping trip because, being a city girl, I knew she had never experienced the juices of a hot dog sweating from the stick on which its roasting over the campfire. So we packed our gallons of water (one gallon per person per day), food (instant mashed potatoes, oatmeal, instant coffee, fresh veggies, s'more fixings), tents, sleeping bags, and water bottle full of rum. The first night on the island, Cat was like a jabbering 8-year-old, too scared to sleep in the island's rustle (note: there had only ever been one deer spotted on the island, and no animal any bigger). I kissed her then in the tent, partly to shut her up, but mostly because I felt this need that was verified by my sweaty palms and stomach butterflies. From that point on, I was hooked on the Harbor Islands.

Until last weekend. Our third camping trip, our first being just the two of us. We decided to try a different island and do just one night--a short trip and escape from the growing mountain of boxes that has become our shoe-box-sized bedroom. The whole trip was kind of miserable, so we should have suspected disaster from the beginning. We barely slept because our bodies ached from the ground. Neither of us could focus on enjoying our bisquick dough boys over our bech campfire because the list of things to do before the big cross-country move (continuing job search for Cat, class sign up for myself, internet installation? do we need a modem and a router or do those things come together?) We came home a little grumpy, a little restless, a little itchy.

Two days later, I realized that the two bug bites on my arm that I had been itching nonchalantly why chatting over a glass of wine with our friend Candace had grown into a monstrous blistering rash. My left eye was swollen near shut. The ER doctor even called my poison ivy "impressive" and that's without even seeing the purple blisters on my stomach and in my bikini line.

So now I'm on steroids. And benedryl. Cat's got some blisters on her arms and stomach. We are going to Ikea for bookshelves today, bearing the 94 degree heat so that we can unpack our 1,000 plus book collection as soon as we arrive in CBus. And I'm wondering, in my misery, looking on at Cat's misery, if this poison ivy is just one way of Boston to say, "Get the hell out already!" And I wonder, too, how much I'll miss our ritual island-hopping once we are landlocked?