it's summer. we work in the garden every sunday in the summer. and in all my free time. i don't do much else. so today, like all sundays, we watered the flowers, deadheaded plants, picked tomatoes, drank beer, and enjoyed the day. we'll be outside by noon and stay out till midnight, bbqing for dinner and getting far too much sun. every sunday i plant a few new flowers, plant a few seeds for flowers, weed the garden, and watch the bees.
oh my friends the bees! the big fluffy ones are my favorites - they buzz so loudly and have those wonderful fat yellow pouches of pollen on their legs. they are responsible for all the beautiful things growing in our yard, and all of our vegetables growing and ripening all over.
i love the bees. i paint pictures of them. i sing to them. i do not swat them and i pull them out of the dog water bowl when they fall in. i think of them as my friends.
as we all know, friendships can fall on hard times.
today, after weeding, watering, watching birds, and getting ready to start the grill, i, the lover of bees, got stung. barefoot in the grass, like every sunday all warm year long, i stepped on a bee.
oh god - it is that immediate whole body instinct that something is extremely wrong. my foot landed on it and it stung me on the bottom of my left foot baby toe, causing my entire foot to clench up and me to scream. really scream - out in the yard. i knew what it was - in a high pitched frightened and injured voice i told carl i had been stung by a bee. he replied that he saw one come up out of the grass as soon as i lifted my foot.
i hobbled to the house - carl was right next to me and opened the door. he said he'd get the tweezers and pull out the stinger for me. i sat down in the bathroom and tried to let him look at my foot, but i felt as if i could not uncurl my toes. the pain was intense. it made the bone in my toe feel like it was on fire. i was instantly sick to my stomach and crying. carl pulled my toes away from my foot, looked all over, and saw no stinger. he got me an ice cube. i cried like a baby. the pain was awful, and i was scared. i have not been stung by a bee since i was 5 years old. my mom and i were in the truck going through the drive through at the bank when it happened - the bee had landed on the seat and i set my leg on it. she, too, had rushed to get me an ice cube for it. i was not allergic at 5 years old, but that was a long time ago.
after i dried my tears and put some hydrocortisone cream on my toe, i went back outside. the whole side of my foot ached - the bone still felt as if it were on fire. it did not swell up, and i'm glad about that. it's been more than 3 hours now, and i can walk, but i am still sick to my stomach. maybe from that adrenaline rush, from that few seconds of intense fear and pain.
i guess i'll have to wear shoes from now on in the yard, although i mostly feel that in a few weeks i will have forgotten and i'll just take my chances again, hoping no more bees sting me in the future. but i also think that is kind of a lesson in life about friends - you can hurt each other on accident, and you can sting back in retalliation - on accident. we're all just trying to live our lives.
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