Goodbye

When I told Audrey yesterday that yesterday would be the last time I would see her, she said, "And then you're gonna die?"

That was my laugh for yesterday. Actually, as soon as I find out from "All About Eyes" if my new glasses came in, I'm leaving for Indiana where I will spend the night with my sister before driving to Florida with my youngest sister, Kathy. I will also meet Chris, my pen pal since I was in grammar school. We have NEVER met.




I am looking forward to this trip for so many reasons. So to my family, I say good-bye and I love you, and to my Associated Content friends I say, CLICK HERE.

We're Gonna See Penguins?

  

I took Nolan, my three-year-old grandson, to the part the other day and when I started getting bored because our "park" has only a merry-go-round (which I can't go on because it makes me sick), a teeter-totter, and four swings, I said, "Why don't we go find the peacocks?"

Well, that's what I intended to say. What I said, and what I ALWAYS say, was, "Why don't we go find the penguins?"

I don't know why I CONSISTENTLY make this same mistake. I didn't realize I had said penguins (AGAIN) until my grandson's eyes lit up. Surprised and happy, Nolan asked, "We're gonna see PENGUINS?"

I feel as if I should belong to one of those anonymous groups that meet for problems they can't control. Maybe, like alcoholism, my problem would be considered a disease, and I'm wondering if "ITIA", which I know sounds curiously close to idiot, is a disease that exists. (ITIA stands for Inability To Identify Animals.)

Maybe I'm the only one afflicted with this malady. Or maybe the synapses in my brain are hay-wired due to LACK OF SLEEP, INSOMNIA, and EXCESSIVE STRESS.

ITIA has been problematic for me for as long as I can remember. When my children were growing up, we sometimes visited the zoo and, peering into various cages, they would ask, as children usually do, "What is that?" I would have to run for the sign, because I might have warped their little minds if I had accidentally called a muskrat a giraffe.

As usual, when Nolan brought to my attention ONCE AGAIN my error in calling a peacock a penguin, my shoulders dropped as I let out a heavy sigh. And then I burst into tears, laughing at the absurdity of how I ALWAYS – EVERY SINGLE TIME – when I try to say peacocks, say penguins instead.

And now I'm afraid my poor grandson has caught my disease, because while we were looking for the peacocks, we saw the same white cat we always see when we search for the penguins. (I can NOT believe I just did it again – I meant peacocks.)

"Oh, look, Nolan, there's that white cat," I said.

"It's not a cat," Nolan told me, "It's a pig."

What defective gene did I inadvertently pass on to my grandson?

Maybe I should look into getting the National Geographic Encyclopedia of Animals.

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Her First Kiss

Audrey was ecstatic yesterday. "Guess what, Grandma!"

Uh-oh. (Brittney already warned me.)

"I kissed Mason today."

Audrey met Mason at t-ball over the summer. Apparently it was love at first sight, because he has been her best friend ever since.

We knew she liked him, but hearing about the two of them kissing took us all totally by surprise. And I want you to notice – she said that she kissed Mason; not that Mason kissed her.

Audrey told me that she had said to Mason, "I want to kiss you," so Mason did what any red-blooded boy would do when asked that question by a beautiful little girl – he kissed her.

What's funny is that after he kissed her, he said, "I wanna do that again!" at which time his mother said, "I think that's enough kissing for today."

When we later discussed the events of the day at the dinner table, Audrey's daddy said, "Well, she's not going to Mason's house again."

We then had to remind him that Audrey was the one who initiated the kiss. Watch out, World – Audrey's coming (and she's not even 6 yet).

Just Down The Road Right Around The Corner

Seems everybody in my family (excluding my son) has a problem with calculating distances. This morning Brittney asked me to accompany her to Audrey's doctor appointment because Brittney had to go to work and she wasn't sure how long the appointment would last.

"Where is it?" I asked her.

"Just follow me," she said.

The reason she wouldn't tell me was because she had previously told me (or so she says) that it was "just down the road" from where her husband played ball.

So we left, drove for several blocks and then she turned around. Oh, I get it, it's a game. OK. I followed her back to the house where she retrieved Audrey's forgotten lunch and backpack. Ah, I get it.

And away we went again.

Mile after mile, with me following behind her, we passed her husband's softball field and drove another mile, and another mile, and another mile. Still driving. Wondering how she might have felt to see my headlights drift slowly away when I ran out of gas.

I started thinking, it's gotta be close, right? It was "just down the road" after all. The ride was beautiful though. The sun was shining. I should have brought a tape recorder (note to self: buy a tape recorder) so I could have WRITTEN A BOOK in the time it took to get "just down the road," which turned out to be TEN MILES past her husband's softball field.

Oh, the memories that surfaced as a result of this morning's trip –

My sisters, Cindy and Kathy, my mother, my sister-friend, Nancy, and I –
A Las Vegas vacation –
Nancy high-fiving every unsuspecting tourist who walked past her –
My sister, Kathy, wanting us to walk to some bar she thought would be fun –
My happiness, because I had "all my sisters with me" AND my son (who was stationed in Camp Pendleton at the time). He had driven up to spend the night with us, driving through Los Angeles fires to get to us.

With the exception of the fires, who could ask for more?

Mom decided not to accompany us on our trip to the bar that was "right around the corner," because Mom discovered that just because you like cable car drinks doesn't mean you have to drink thousands of them, and she was feeling, shall we say, a little queasy. (Smile, Mom.)

So we headed out to a bar that my sister promised was "right around the corner". I want you to know, before I go any further, that I have a bad back, and even when I wear my back brace, walking for even a block causes pain. Walking for several blocks causes excruciating pain.

After a couple of hours, as we were crossing a bridge, I collapsed (we had been walking uphill for quite a while) as my sister sprinted ahead singing and dancing, "it's right around the corner."

"Right around the corner" turned out to be about five miles. I was dying.

After we spent a couple of hours at the bar, and after I got lost looking for a chiropractor, we found each other and took a cab back to the hotel.

And now I'm going on a trip to Florida with my sister, Kathy. I should probably discuss the driving/walking agenda before we leave.

Our Relatives

My Uncle Jack always told me that these were our relatives. I've been looking for them for a long time. And I finally found them!
DES SINGES QUI FONT DES CLAQUETTES !...

Mannish Boy | MySpace Video

Bored? Sad? Have I Got News For You!

Amanda & Sarah, two of my beautiful grandchildren

We all experience moments of sadness or boredom. Even my own grandchildren will look droopy or sad because maybe Mom or Dad yelled at them for throwing the roller coaster at each other.

While one of them is crying from the pain, the other, sent to the corner for a time-out, screams out in fear of being tortured by spiders who camp out in that corner of the house. Amazing how quickly those little arachnids can build a home.

But I digress. A couple of my other grandchildren will Facebook things like, "I'm so bored," or "I hate people," or, "Oh, poor me. I'm going out to the garden to eat worms."

Wait. Sorry, that last one was a flashback to my childhood when my parents, who had no empathy whatsoever for my own sad feelings, would make fun of me by repeating that mantra every time I pouted about being unable to breathe as I lay dying from an asthma attack. Oh-oh, my exaggeration gene just sprouted wings again.

Anyway,  along came a spider – oops, I still have spiders in my head, or is that cobwebs on my brain (what is happening to me today?) – oh, I know, I'm just being me, and today is one of those erratic-silly-thoughts-in-my-head kind of day. And I wasn't even drinking.

I think it's because I'm getting kind of giddy knowing that soon one of my sisters and I will be taking a road trip to Florida together (wish my other sister could join us), and that after that I'll be taking another road trip to visit my son and his family.

What happens in my head is that my happiness excites the neurons in my brain and I feel, well, HAPPY!

Oh, YAY! Somehow I managed to get back to the point of this blog, which is to tell everybody who feels sad, morose, lethargic, or sobby (yes, I just made up that word and I like it) to read, 10 Ways to Feel Happy in 5 Minutes or Less by Joan Haines.

So I will leave you with the song and video, Don't Worry – Be Happy, released in September 1988 by Bobby McFerrin, starring Robin Williams and Bill Irwin. Embedding was disabled (I would have liked to have had it right here in my blog), so I can only provide the link. I invite you to watch the video and listen to it HERE.

Love and a Marriage Proposal

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

When she hopped into my car after I picked her up from the bus stop yesterday, Audrey announced, "I have some great news!"

I couldn't wait to hear, "I'm the smartest kid in the class," or "My teacher said I could go straight to college."

But instead, she said, smiling and proud, "I have a boyfriend."

Oh, OK. Who?

"Mason. He asked me to marry him."

Mason and Audrey were on the same t-ball team over the summer and instantly became best friends. Whenever they see each other, they practically run in slow motion to jump in each others' arms.

So now we're talking about weddings. Hmm...

This actually works in Audrey's favor and to her benefit, because her mom owns Briella's Boutique, an upscale baby, children, and bridal boutique, so Audrey can get beautiful inexpensive clothes the whole time she's growing up to save up for the wedding gown that her mom will probably sell her at a discount. It's a win-win!

I Crap Myself

Oh, the things kids say. They're so cute and funny and they crack us up.

When they are toddlers, as they are learning how to pronounce words, without benefit of actually reading the word and being able to figure out the sounds each letter makes, they rely on their own memories.

And so it happened that, surrounded by strangers, Zac blurted out, "I crap myself."

I'm sure lots of prim and proper parents were appalled by the outburst. I mean, wouldn't, "I pooped myself" sound so much better? Or how about, "Mother, father, I believe I just defecated." But, "I crap myself?" Are you kidding me?

Let's examine this outburst. Most likely, if you have children, you will understand that what kids say and what they are trying to say are two different things, and you will understand why Zac (pictured with his older brother Kaden) was actually saying, "I crack myself up."

(photo above is of two of my grandchildren: Zac on the left and Kaden on the right)

P.S. Aren't they adorable? They're funny too. They crap me up. I mean, crack me up.