Saturday, May 11, 2013

How Shark Week turned into Girls Night Out!

Last week I was miserable and apparently my family agreed and was ready to vote me off our family Island. I started on my rant of that I work and I have 3 kids, a husband and a blind diabetic dog that I do everything for everyone..blah blah blah!! I should have known that my meltdown over spilled orange juice was a bit off the charts and even surpassed my Exorcist, head spinning and pea soup vomit flying moments. Yikes! All of a sudden it hit me and I realized I was heading into full blown Shark Week! That explains it! I felt so much better and such relief , but my husband was still looking at me like I was crazy and was not going to make any sudden movements around me. One would think ever since I read "Are you there God? It's Me, Margaret" by Judy Blume when I was 11, I would always be prepared, but apparently not. So as I am feeling better with the knowledge that my craziness is temporary and will pass my family is not so sure and are not thrilled with the effects of my crazy moods and giving me strange looks. As my 8 year old son is asking my husband what Shark Week is I chuckle and wonder why we couldn't go back to the good old days of women being banished from their villages during Shark Week. Oh those must have been the days.

Imagine being told that you were banished from your house once a month during Shark week with all the other women and we all headed off to Shark retreat and hung out drinking wine and relaxing. I am convinced   this is how Girls Night out evolved over the years. A long time ago women were forced to leave their villages and families during the week of "Red Death" :) The men could not understand how women could bleed for a week straight and not die and rant and rave like they were possessed, there had to be some kind of voodoo involved and this was bad luck for their crops and cattle. So women were banished! It was a scary time at first being forced to leave their homes and head out alone to sit over a dirt hole, but as the women were sitting alone they realized it wasn't so bad. No chores, no cooking and no tending to children. Shark week was starting to evolve into something kind of fun. As the women were banished each month and they started to congregate they formed nice groups and bonded over conversations. They also gathered berries for food while they were gone and realized that berries could be turned into some great juice and when left from week to week and it fermented...enter wine!    Of course as years went by and people realized that Shark week was not voodoo but a fact of life the women were no longer banished from their homes but women missed those banished times and started to schedule their own self imposed banishment with their girlfriends. Enter Girls Night Out!

So maybe my family won't officially banish me from my home (a girl can dream), and I might not kill a crop season,  when Shark week hits I need to grab a bottle of wine and banish myself:)