I stepped on a bee Saturday afternoon. As soon as the stinger entered my foot, I knew exactly what had happened, but when I turned my foot over to see for myself, the little bee was still attached. I sunk to the ground and watched it struggle to free itself and as it did I saw the separation of the tiny end of its fuzzy abdomen which remained attached to the stinger and was twitching back and forth still in my foot. Loukas ran for the tweezers, and I stared at my foot's intruder trying to decide just what to do. I thought, 'this hurts very badly' and tried to separate myself from the my foot for a moment, recognize the pain but look past the discomfort enough that I could act. Before Loukas returned with the tweezers I had removed the stinger with my forefinger and thumb.
The only precedent I can recall for a bee stepping upon, occurred back in 1995 in a common yard shared with many families in the same housing area on the military base where my step father was stationed. I was visiting the family with the trampoline when I felt the sting- I can't recall what my reaction was but I remember the Dad of the family slathering the wound with baking soda and water- probably what I should have done immediately on Saturday. But alas, I paced around the house on my stung foot trying to decide what to do next, eventually applying a drawing salve, followed by a good washing followed by another salve and then essential oils and eventually poking around the wound to be sure the stinger was free. And. Of course, I am a mother (solo for much of the weekend while my husband worked hard.) So there was no resting with my foot elevated. All and all I'd say I probably over did it and that perhaps caused the bee venom to spread throughout my foot, because as I sit here now with my foot propped up upon the table beside me, my sting is about the shape of a medium sweet potato and has a sharpie-dash perimeter drawn around by the walk-in clinic doctor that I saw this evening. I am having an allergic reaction to a bee sting and it is rather uncomfortable.
So that's the story about how I ruined Summer Soltice weekend. Just kidding.
I did not ruin the weekend, but I ruined that poor bee's weekend for sure, sorry bee. The sting did slow me down, though, which was probably a good thing, as the night before, I stayed up entirely too late. Howling at the waxing quarter moon with my Ozark Babe friends at a bunk house camp by the river in Newton County, it was an evening/night/morning I will long be grateful to have had with these friends- some old, some new, all with a connection- all beautiful, strong women. We had big plans to spend the evening with friends around a bon fire on the last night of Spring, but instead, I managed to build the boys and I our own little fire outside- which was quite comical- I thought many times that I was glad that no one was there to see me trouble shooting fire starting, and the boys were over zealous with their fire poking sticks and eager to "help," while I limped around on my swelling foot. Eventually we got the fire going, I put the boys to bed and had a nice sip of wine by my Summer Welcome Fire after chasing the fireflies with my lens from a blanket in the yard. The solstice then came and went with little effort made on my part to celebrate, which was disappointing in a way, but I was fortunate that my father in law was able to come stay the evening with us so I could stay off my foot. I usually like to pay tribute to the longest day of the year, and the first day of the summer- but I suppose having a once in 20 years bee sting is special, too.
My sons were quite disappointed that I was not up for much, but I was able to hobble around here and there and I snapped some photos to share. I'm also really trying to get better at materializing my photography- one of my major goals for the new house is to print my photos for the walls, something that I'm ashamed to admit I've done very little of, but I'm hoping to get some prints ordered while my little bee sting heals. One of my favorite sites for prints, though, is
Artifact Uprising- do you have any favorite printing or photo display ideas to share? I'd love to hear!
Thanks for stopping in.
Nic
