miss cayce

A holiday wish

On my last field trip, my mosquito net was swarmed by semut api (fire ants). If you haven’t heard of them, consider yourself lucky. They have the worst bite ever – it feels like a sharp needle stabbing your skin and the pain just increases from the initial bite. These ants only come out in the dark and we have to be careful around the campsite because the ground then is swarming with fire ants and an innocent loo break could lead to a lot of pain and yowling. I hate these ants!

One night, I was awoken by sharp pains on my left side. When I flicked on the torchlight, I had the heebies-jeebies. There were fire ants crawling on me and all over my mosquito net! More pain ensued when I shifted in my army hammock for they didn’t like that. With the help of my field assistants, we took off the mosquito net and shook it until all the ants fell off. Have you ever seen ants fall? It's icky - they climb over each other, creating this.. large icky black moving column. Yeah, ants are not my Save the Animals List!! right now.

After we had successfully shaken all the ants off the mosquito net, I had to use it again(!!) for the night. I couldn’t NOT use it because I would be in the mercy of other insects, etc.. Much to my surprise, after an hour of worry that the ants would come marching back, I did fall asleep until 6 a.m. when it was time to get up and work.

The thing about fire ant bites is that I swell up mightily. So there I was, nursing my swollen fingers and arm for a couple of days, before the swelling subsided. I still worked in the field however. No way was I going to relax in the field just because I got bitten by fire ants and that my left side was now larger than my right side.

That’s when I realized that I truly needed a holiday.

I want to go to the beach and just relax. Be pampered in a hotel/spa. Relax in a hot bath with aromatherapeutic candles/oils.. and soft music. A massage would be really nice too. I’d like to have good seafood dinner while watching the sunset over the ocean. I want to relax on a lounge chair with a good book or a mag and not think about work. Ooo.. a romantic beach holiday would also be very very nice.

Mmmm… the beach.

posted by Cayce @ 12:04 PM