Color Me Happy

I love my siblings.  I really do.   I know that sounds hokey but I don’t care.  I can’t get enough of being around them.  Recently we all went on vacation together and it was one of the best weeks of my life.

It’s not just the love we share and the bond of blood ties.  It’s the laughter.  You see, we think we are all incredibly witty and highly entertaining.  Fortunately for us it’s true.  And every time together almost immediately the one-liner of the weekend or the trip develops.  On our vacation the witty remark that we all used through the week was from a movie, and we each found ways to work it into the conversation at just the right time.  Every time someone said “Here’s an idea…” we broke out into hysterical laughter.   Our timing with humor is pretty much amazing.

Shawn is the one with a heart as big and generous as Texas, so thoughtful and considerate he could have been a girl.  But he’s definitely not.  A firefighter, with his Z71 truck and Harley he’s as manly as they come.  And  funny.  Incredibly  funny.  Definitely  funny.  Here’s an idea…

Marie is the styling one of the bunch, earrings and shoes to match every outfit.  She’s always been cute as a button, with eyelashes from here to Dallas and perfectly placed dimples.  Her smile lights up the room, and her Marie-isms – both verbal and gestures – are legendary.  And if she needs you to trade seats with her on an airplane, she Will ask.  Here’s an idea … please move to Seat D!

Tracy is the glamorous, talented, cosmopolitan one.  With her lovely sleek hairstyle, trendy wardrobe and gift for dance at first glance you think she doesn’t belong with us.  But she does, she definitely does.  She is the quietest one of us but when she says something it’s classic.  And when she gets ill, it’s a doozy.

I’m the bossy old broad, although I’ve quit trying to tell my siblings what to do, they just don’t mind me like they did when we were little.  I’m the least coordinated of the group, but don’t tell me I can’t ride a Segway because I can and I did.  All over St. John’s Antigua, with my siblings, who I really enjoy.

At the Coconuts in St. Croix, hanging out in the beautiful water with $2 Dos Equis, Nancy and Tommy treating us like royalty because they know Shawn and he sent them a new Texas flag.  Which is flying outside their establishment right now.  With Rufus in St. Maartens, cruising about town and watching planes fly in for a landing, right over your head.  Learning to Segway in St. John’s, over rough terrain around an ancient fort and on the beach right up to the water.  Dodging Jellyfish and stray children in the water there.  Visiting Tracy in the ship’s hospital before doing a little souvenir shopping in beautiful St. Lucia.  Submarine diving in Barbados.  Pool time on our day at sea.  Music trivia (we are pretty bad).  Music trivia with Amy and Leonard (we almost won).  Sports trivia (we suck).  Karaoke (I chickened out).  Fine dining (best lobster ever).  Towel folding demonstrations.  Casino for half an hour (I won $32).  Breakfast – with grits - overlooking the ports of call.  Drink of the day.  Getting gussied up for a formal picture.  We clean up well.

Color me Happy from that Trip.  Thank you siblings for being you, and for wanting to be with me.  Here’s an idea … Let’s do it again next year!

Take my Husband. Please

I’ll be the first to admit I’m a horrible patient.  I hate being sick, and when I feel bad I want to be left alone.  I don’t  want to talk or be touched, and I especially  don’t want to argue.

Recently I had to leave work early.  Nausea and fatigue turned into a headache, a backache and a general feeling that things were not good.  By the time I got home the aches were so severe all I could do was crawl into bed, pull on an extra blanket and hope to fall asleep.

 

Which I did until my well-meaning husband came home early to take care of me.  Bless his heart, he doesn’t have a quiet bone in his body, so I woke to the sound of him opening and closing dresser drawers for a change of clothes.  Even though his tshirts, jeans, shorts, socks and underwear are always in the same drawers he likes to rummage around each time in hopes he’ll be surprised.  

I turned over, moaning at the pain in my back.  “Is it 5;30 already?” I ask.  “No, I came home early to take care of you.”  Great.  Just what I didn’t want to hear.  He means well but I really need to be left alone when I’m ill or I get pretty snarly.  He had stopped on the way home to get a new thermometer and naturally he purchased a digital one instead of the old school mercury one I’d asked for.  After pressing the metal tip hard against my aching forehead we heard the beep and he removed it to take a look.  “Oh, that’s bad, you have 97.8”.  “That’s not even a fever,” I say.  But I feel feverish and have chills so he decides to take his temperature to make sure the device is working.  “Dang, 36!” he exclaims.  Somehow in the process he has managed to change the measurement to Celsius.  

I ask for some Tylenol.  “Are you sure that’s the best thing for you to take?” he asks.  Growling, I tell him I don’t want to debate pain medicines I’d just like to have some Tylenol.  He finds a bottle in the bathroom cabinet and asks, “How many?”  It would be too easy to look at the dose on the bottle I suppose.  I drink the last sips of my 7up with the pill and slide back under the covers.  He tries to pat me or arrange the blankets, and I ask as nicely as I can (which isn’t nice at all, it sounds more like yelling “don’t touch me!”) for him to leave.  I tell him I’ll call him if I need anything.

Not much later I realize I’m hungry.  I press the intercom button on the upstairs handset and listen to it ring.  No answer.  A few minutes later I try again and I hear my husband pick up and say loudly, “Hello?  Hello?”  Unfortunately I can’t hear him through the handset, only hear his voice floating up the stairs.  Finally I give up, call the home number from my cell phone and he answers.  I ask if he can make me some rice with butter and salt, that sounds good to me since all I’ve had is a few crackers.  “Brown or white rice?” he asks.  I sigh and hang up.  When he appears in the door he is holding the downstairs handset.  “Let’s try that intercom again, I think we just need to wait a bit longer after we speak then we can hear each other.”  I am not in the mood to play walkie talkie.  “How about this,” I interject.  “When the intercom rings you just come upstairs.  There is no one else in the house to call you so you can safely assume it’s me when it rings.”  He considers this then agrees.  I am exhausted.

For the next 40 minutes I try to sleep but it is impossible.  I answer some work emails then put the phone down and close my eyes.  Finally I press the intercom again, hoping my food is ready.  This time he doesn’t answer but comes up the stairs.  Progress!  I ask about the rice, and he says, “It’s probably ready.”  “Can I have some, and some 7 up too please?”  “We don’t have any 7up.”  “Could you get me some?”  “You want me to go the store?” he asks.  I reply sarcastically, “Unless you have a manufacturing machine I would say yes”.  He turns to go, then turns back and says, “Would you like your rice before I go?”  “Yes please.”

A few minutes later he appears with a nice bowl  of warm rice.  “Could you bring the butter and salt please?  That’s really how I like my rice.”  “Taste it first.  I already put some olive oil on it.”  I grit my teeth.  “Could you PLEASE bring the butter and salt?  If not, I’ll just go down and get it while you are at the store.”  “Just be sure not to put too much salt on it,” he says.  If I had the energy I’d throw something at him.  He returns in a few minutes with the butter dish and salt shaker, wordlessly leaving to get 7up.

While he is gone I hungrily wolf down my rice, adding butter and salt as often as I please.  I hadn’t realized that part of my problem was I was “hangry”, which is the annoyance you feel when you are hungry.  Thanks to my friend Amanda for this gem of a term.  Scraping the empty bowl for the last grains, I set it aside and lean back to try and sleep.

Before I can drift off my kind husband walks in with a big bottle of 7up for me.  He hands it over and turns to go back downstairs.  Poor guy, he has decided it’s not safe to even speak to me at this point.  I don’t have the heart to ask him to take my cup and fill it with ice.  I wait until he has gone and drag myself out of bed, cup in hand.  Surely I have energy for this.  As I head down stairs I hear him open the door to let the dog in.  “Did you give Duke a good brushing before you bring him in?”  He turns to walk back outside, the dog slowly following.  “Come on, Duke, I have to brush you…….”  

I know I should give him a break, he’s been so sweet to want to take care of me and try to make me feel better.  But like I said, I’m a horrible patient and I’m not feeling sweet or generous or anything but cranky.  Walking back upstairs with a cup full of ice, I reach the bedside and open the 7up.  Taking several long gulps I consider what my boss suggested.  Maybe I’ll fire him as my nurse.  After all, he fired one of his at the hospital post-surgery.  Hmmmmm.

Party Dresses and Cowboy Boots

The first thing I noticed when I picked up Emily and Molly this year for their annual week at Grandpa & Grandma’s was that neither girl travels light (which they get naturally from me) except for shoes (which they do not get from me).

Molly always wears a party dress to every event – preschool, birthday parties, jumping on the trampoline at home and camping in a tent – so it shouldn’t have surprised me to see her pull out an entire china tea set.  You never know when you may need to set up a tea party on short notice, right?  Emily always wears her cowboy boots; in Texas of course that is perfectly stylish and appropriate for everything from shorts to swimsuits to your party dress.  Her bag included a doll-sized wooden chair.  I suppose if you are going to have a tea party you need the perfect chair for your doll.

Emily’s vocabulary belies the fact that she is not yet in second grade.  She and Great Gran had a brief conversation about her horse riding lessons, whether she rides Western or English saddle, and how she has learned to walk, trot and canter the horse.  Molly does her best to keep up, mostly be starting every sentence with “actually….”

The second half of the girls’ drive that day was in the back seat of Grandma’s car with no electronics and only conversation or music to pass the time.  Which works just fine, for all of you parents out there who think games on a phone or an ipad are required to make a car trip with kids.  Of course, by the end of the week I had changed my tune on that, but that’s another blog.

At home Grandpa weathered the flurry of hugs, kisses and “Where’s Duke?”, telling us he had supper ready.  Hot dogs and macaroni & cheese, what more could little girls want?  Except that you have to watch Grandpa, whose definition of those basic foods is broader than most.  Emily immediately rejected the hot dog, not fooled by buffalo meat in the shape of a wiener.  Molly was fine with the meat, but the mac & cheese had different noodles than she was used to so it didn’t get much attention. 

After supper they ran through the house checking to make sure all the things they remembered were still there.  Then it was bath time.  We love bubbles at bath time.  The girls made the traditional bubble-beards and bubble hair followed by diving for sea creatures, the unique assortment of … well, plastic sea creatures I have for them.  Everything from a miniature scuba diver to various whales, dolphins, turtles, squid, octopus, angel fish, and a tiny ship to sink.

Ah, bed time.  At least for me and Grandpa - for some reason the girls couldn’t sleep.  Excited and in a bedroom not their own, they spent some sleepless hours until eventually, the house was quiet.  As I drifted off to sleep I did what I always do when they visit, count my blessings and make no attempt to wipe the happy smile off my face.  Life is good.

Monday with the Mays

So I just got back from spending Monday evening with the Mays.  It was Magical.   I arrived with supper, including Mac & cheese and a Medley of vegetables with a side of baked chicken.  Molly and eMily both said beautiful prayers over the Meal.  For dessert eMily made homeMade snowcones – mmmm delicious.  

After supper in eMily’s room there was a book fair.  I purchased three books for the bargain price of $3.  

We Managed to play Most of a game of Mousetrap before discovering one of the pieces was Missing.  Molly is even learning to wait her turn and count her spaces to Move, but her idea of rolling the dice is throwing it across the floor.

Then eMily found a Miniature bag of M&M Minis in My purse.  I had her distribute them evenly aMongst the three of us but I’m pretty sure I didn’t get to eat all of Mine.

Their Mom was busy Making lunches for tomorrow while their aMazing Dad cleaned up the kitchen, including eMily’s snow cone Machine.  Most parents of young children are this kind of busy.

Music was the next order of entertainment.  eMily asked her dad to put on the Music; he cued up Hall of the Mountain King, then pressed play.  eMily proceeded to perform a graceful and well-choreographed dance, with fluid and graceful Movements using arms, legs and head.  Her timing was perfect as the Music picked up speed, and her exquisitely timed finish to the sudden ending was Majestic.

I am humbled and pleased that my presence is still Motivating for them to get PJs on, teeth brushed and clothes picked out for tomorrow so we can have a little More time together saying goodbye.  With the two pajaMa’ed girls in my lap, we quieted down as I recalled special Memories of each of them.  First eMily and the Rollaway cart Memory from when she was 4.  For Molly, it was a More recent recollection of My driving her to her new school.  I used My navigation system, or “navigator” as eMily calls it, and after Making a couple of wrong turns assured her we would get there and she would know it when the checkered flag appeared on my nav screen.  Finally we arrived at Molly’s school.  From her carseat in the back, Molly said with relief as we pulled into a parking spot, “Oh, the beautiful checkered flag.”

A Monday with the Mays.  Most excellent.