I went for a jog Sunday morning, and I went much farther than I normally do. I made it all the way to the Champions subdivision, which is situated on a golf course a few miles from our house. As if it isn’t enough for these people to live in beautiful houses, they get to be called champions too. So if they’re champions, that would make me … but I digress.

One of the houses in the subdision is for sale, and they had a box with fliers out by the curb, so I stopped to look. After glancing at the pictures and seeing the $729,000 price tag, I decided Greg and I weren’t ready to relocate. I jumped back onto the sideway, and that’s when I felt my left ankle start to burn. I looked down and saw a little army of fire ants crawling up my leg. “Spit!” I yelled. OK, so I didn’t yell “spit,” but I did yell something similar and started slapping at my ankle, trying to kill all the ants and still keep my balance as I wobbled on my right foot.

Six bites later, all the ants were dead. The run home wasn’t bad because the endorphins made me feel happy, but the days that have followed haven’t been as good. My ankle swelled to twice its normal size, and I have several blisters. Even Greg gets squeamish when he looks at the wounds.

The amazing thing is that the flier for the house didn’t even advertise the turbo-charged fire ant security system. It’s much more effective than those annoying alarms.

Greg plays on the Nvidia softball team, and I watched the game last Sunday night. The nForcers (as they call themselves) got off to a sour start. A strong wind caused problems, and they had some bobbles in the field, so after the first inning, they were down 11-2.

A few innings later, with the chances of a comeback looking incredibly thin, Greg came up to bat. He drove the ball into center field and took off running. He decided to go for second base, but by that point the ball was being thrown to the second baseman. Greg slid. This wasn’t your typical head-first, mouth-full-of-dust slide. Instead, he bent his left knee and slid on his shin. Safe! But in the stands, I had my hands over my eyes. Greg has had two surgeries on his right knee, so I constantly worry about him injuring it, and sliding seems like a great way to hurt your knees.

The next batter strolled to the plate and smacked the ball toward the pitcher. Greg bolted for third base, but it was another close call, so again, he slid. And again, it was on his left shin. Safe! One of the fellow wives in the stands commented to me that it seemed irrational to put so much effort into a game that was already lost.
Greg ended up making it to home plate, and as he ran to the dugout, everyone cheered for him. Except me.

“Stop sliding!” I shouted as he smiled over at me. “Stop sliding!”

Well, of course a man will not listen to his wife. But when he gets home and has to clean sand out of a gaping four-inch tear in his leg, his wife starts to sound like a very smart lady. After a week of pain, Greg is finally starting to grow some new skin on his left shin, but no new hair there yet. I think he might have a bald patch for a while. At least I don’t think I have to worry about him sliding at tonight’s game.

A conversation while Sarah and I were driving up Highway 95 in Maine on our way to Bar Harbor:

“I wonder how these trips are going to be when we’ve been married twenty years, or even ten years.” I said.

“Oh, we will never last that long.” She quickly and casually responded.

Silence.

Sarah looked over at me, confused, “What?” Then after a slight pause, “Oh, oh, no. I meant with the trips, not with us. The trips aren’t going to last that long. Our marriage will though. Don’t make that face. Oh, no. The trips, not us. I simply meant that we’ll have kids at some point and then we won’t be able to take these trips for awhile. Not us. Stop making that face.”

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, but things just don’t seem quite as sure now.