From the Nanny Files - Thursday, June 22, 1984

The girls and I are at the school playground. We have been outside all morning and I am hot. Susan is coming home early from work today. She is tired from her trip to New York.



Later -

Susan came home at 2pm and went to bed. I took the girls to Shirttail Lake. It is actually sort of a river but it gets wide at this bend and it is a really good place to swim. It is pretty deep and there are even a few boats out on it. We took an inner tube and rubber raft with us today. It was fun. Morgan and I sat in the raft and Chloe sat in the inner tube and hung onto my foot and I paddled us upstream with my hands and then we would float back down. In the deeper water there are waves and that was fun but I got scared for Morgan since and she didn't have a life jacket. If we would tip over it might have gotten messy. We put the boats up on the bank and swam a bit. I am trying to teach Chloe how to swim.



A wind came up and the girls were getting cold and it was almost 5pm so we decided to gather up and go home. I went to get the girls' towels and Chloe yelled for help because the rubber raft had blown into the water and was floating away really fast. Chloe started to run after it but there was a sharp drop off and she went under - I ran and drug her out and back to shore and the girls were both crying because their "boat" was lost forever.



So....I jumped into the lake and started swimming after the raft. It was getting out farther and farther. Finally I caught up to the dumb thing and then I had to try to get it back to shore. I couldn't touch bottom and we had gone downstream a long way and around a bend where the current was swifter and the wind was against me. I was getting pretty tired. I really had to swim hard to get back around the bend. I was hoping the girls would just stay put and not try to come out in the water. They did.



It all turned out ok and the boat was fine. I dragged it up on shore and plopped down beside it to catch my breath. I risked my life for a rubber raft and no one even said "Thanks"! Morgan did say she would have cried if I had drown. That's worth something I guess.



As we were loading up to go home, some older guys drove up. They were drinking and being obnoxious. I was not in the mood for that at all. I am pretty sure Grand Mariah would classify them as "undesirable influences" on her great-grandchildren - so we split.



Just as we were pulling out to head home, Jolene pulled in and was looking for me because we were supposed to go to Aerobics. AEROBICS! I felt like I had done a pretty good aerobic workout already! But we hurried home and changed and we went to our class. We ARE NOT going to any more though! It costs $3.50 each time or $50.00 for the summer. And....it KILLED me! I am not going to pay for that kind of treatment!



After aerobics we got cleaned up in my room because we were going to the show tonight, and Jolene tried to kill me. I am having a really rough day. The curling iron plugs into the mirror above the sink and usually I just lay it on the sink. She was using it while I was brushing my teeth and the sink doesn't drain right so it was pretty full of water and Jo THROWS the curling iron on the sink (carelessly I might add). It was really close to falling in and it could have been the end of me! Lucky for her it didn't fall in.....luckier for me!

We each took a car so I could come back in the morning. We stopped to gas up and as I was going in to pay for my gas, I caught my shoe on the step and almost fell into a neatly stacked display of Pennzoil. I felt like a fool but it was funny.

We planned on having supper in Rockland. We pretty much had our hearts set on lasagna but we couldn't find a restaurant that looked like a lasagna serving place. Carl had suggested a restaurant called the 'Salad Patch' so we went there. Talk about Ritzy! The menu was outlandish! The waiter asked if we would like before dinner drinks. I love it when they think I am old enough! Tammy told Jolene she could pass for 25 and that I could maybe pass for 20 ---with makeup. I don't think Tammy is all that impressed with me.....but I must have looked at least 21 tonight!

Anyway, we decided it was going to cost about $10.00 each to eat there and we didn't want to spend that much but we also didn't want to look dumb by walking out so we ordered Cheesecake and Coke. Then we went to the store and bought the stuff to make lasagna later tonight.

We went to the Rockland movie theatre and decided to go to the 9pm showing of 'The Gremlins'. It was very good. It was funny and at the same time, scary. I got pretty scared because the music was building up to what had to be a scary part.....but then it was a non-scary part and I jumped anyway and accidentally kicked the chair in front of me and the girl sitting there SCREAMED! Then the whole place SCREAMED!

I was pretty well spooked by the time we got out of there and we still had to drive to Tenants Harbour to an empty house! About 2 miles out of town I noticed a car getting closer and closer. Jolene was in front of me and this car was tailing me very closely and it followed us for a long time and we had to turns lots of times. I was getting pretty scared!

We turned into Frick and Tammy's drive and the car started flashing it's lights but I did not stop or pull over. The car pulled in but didn't follow us all the way in - the drive is pretty long. The drive is surrounded by trees....a great place to hide a body or at least that is what I kept thinking. I was just hoping that the body being hidden wasn't mine!

When we got to the house there were no lights on at all and Jolene's key wouldn't fit in the door! It fit in the side door but wouldn't unlock it. I was all for going back to Rockport! I was really spooked. Beyond spooked!

So we decided to climb on the deck (2nd story) and go through a patio door (Jolene's idea). But first she decided to try the key in the door in the garage and it didn't fit that one either. I was about to have a heart attack. It was dark and late and I kept waiting for little Gremlins to jump out and tear us to pieces!

Jolene was leaning against the door and she cussed and turned the knob and it OPENED!! (Cussing works every time!) It was unlocked the whole time! I was so glad to finally be inside and safe but then got to thinking about how the door was unlocked all night long and that maybe we weren't all that safe in this big monster of a house! We were there alone (hopefully) and I just had to tell myself to get over being spooked.

By now....it is midnight! We got into our PJ's and started to make our lasagna. We couldn't find a big pan for the lasagna noodles so we put water in a crock pot and turned it on high and stuck the noodles in that. We finally ate around 2:30am and the noodles were only about half way done. We were starving so we just crunched our way through. We watched MTV and a movie about a crazy man who kills "working ladies" then Jo turned the channel to 'Psycho II'. I can't take that much scary all in one night so we finally went to bed after 3:30 sometime.

I am surprised I survived my crazy near fatal day at all!