Last week Bob and I whisked away from sunny Orlando to see New York City at Christmastime. I’m not a huge fan of that city’s large crowds, but there are things there that you can’t find anywhere else, especially at Christmas. They know how to do it up right and bright.
We had a few things booked, and it’s a good thing they were not too highbrow, because I forgot my eyebrow pencil. The last decade has realized a drastic decrease in my use of makeup – I guess, for me, that’s part getting older and part chronically dry eyes. The plus side, over the last several years, I’ve saved so much money on make-up that we could take this trip.
My one make-up hold-out is eyebrow pencil. I’m a pale, white woman. I tell Bob that I wear eyebrow pencil so I can be seen (not in the woke way). If it snowed while we were there, I was concerned that I’d get lost in white-out conditions and Bob wouldn’t be able to find me, especially since I wore a white coat. I mean, what was I thinking?
It didn’t snow, but it did rain. That did not stop us from doing all the things. Uber was meant for rainy days, and we took one to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Walking in the rain around Ground Zero fit the mood.
There is a somberness there that I have only felt a few times before – once while going through the Holocaust Museum in D.C. and once while we visited Dachau concentration camp in Germany. Ground Zero is a place that, if possible, you must see for yourself as it cannot be adequately explained. As we walked through the museum there was a respectful silence despite the thousands of people passing the memorials, displays, pictures, and stories. I’m glad this was an early stop on our trip.
I confess that we had a few highbrow activities planned, and that was concerning due to my lack of eyebrow pencil. But I was determined not to buy any. So, I went bare faced and they let me in!
Radio City Music Hall orchestra before the show
We had tickets to see the Rockettes for their 100th anniversary and Christmas show. I loved it! The music, the costumes, dozens of Santa Clauses, high-kicking ladies, the Christmas story complete with live camels. Glorious! It’s a special thing for me as a Christian when I see and hear Bible stories presented in non-church settings. That’ll preach! The Bible says in Isaiah 55:11 “so also is my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It shall accomplish all I want it to and prosper everywhere I send it.”
There is a thing in NYC called the Broadway Direct Lottery. You enter online between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM for cheap tickets for the next day. I won twice. I know! We went to a matinee of Aladdin and an evening performance of Six (six wives of Henry VIII).
Aladdin curtain call
I especially loved Aladdin. It has that classical Broadway musical thing going strong, and it’s a great family show. Again, eyebrow pencil was not required to go into these relatively highbrow functions.
We brought DOWN AND OUT AND READY FOR A MIRACLE to see Operation Mincemeat. No binoculars required. Our seats were fine.
Honestly, going to a show is not the dress-up event that it once was, and I like that fine. It’s more than shoes and shirts are required, but you see all manner of dress – anything from jeans to semi-formal wear. Nobody cares, so I quickly recovered from forgetting my eyebrow pencil, and Bob never lost me!
Valentine’s Day. These are words that challenge me. Bob and I don’t make a big deal over the day, but we do recognize it. You don’t stay happily married for almost 50 years by ignoring the day designated especially for romantic love.
Most years we try to pull away to have time for ourselves. That’s challenging. A lot of married folks our age can simply stay home and celebrate together, but we do not live alone, so that can be awkward. I don’t like to go to crowded restaurants on that day either. We go out to dinner frequently, so it’s not that unique, though I love to go out to dinner, so it’s not a bad choice. Any excuse not to cook it great by me.
This year we decided to go to one of our favorite places – the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive. This is my birding happy place. The views are expanses of blue and shades of green, which are enhanced by the lovely sounds of birdsong. The drive can take as little as two hours, but it usually takes us closer to three as we stop and take a walk along Lake Apopka and pull over at multiple places to pause and bird watch. It’s relaxing. At least it usually is.
For Valentine’s Day we packed a picnic lunch before we headed to the drive. We had never done that before, so we thought it would be special. We also made reservations for a movie later that night. Captain America: Brave New World would not qualify as a rom/com, but we enjoy the franchise, so why not! Because we didn’t know how long we’d be on the drive, we decided to wing it when it came to dinner. We knew restaurants would be packed, so we’d just let it play out.
The opening road on the drive this time of year is always packed with alligators, ducks, coots, and gallinules. Lake Apopka is a prime migratory spot, so we knew we’d have lots to see. I have a trusty bird guide to help identify the ducks. There are so many species! Every year I say I’m going to brush up on my duck knowledge, but by the end of migration season, I’m still weak as a duckling in my identification skills. It was a good thing I have a birding guide. It would have been an even better thing if I had taken it off the dining room table and put it in the car.
The drive in was lovely. We even spotted a couple of Wilson’s Snipes with their extremely long bill, so if you want to trick someone into going on a snipe hunt, this is not the place.
At the end of the road, we walked along the lake trying to spot alligators. We hadn’t seen a single one all the way in and that is strange. I reminded myself that they don’t take them in at night as I pictured Florida cowboys herding them into pens. Nope, that isn’t the way it works. Finally, I spotted a big daddy lurking by the shore with another gator swimming in the current passing him by.
We returned to our car and encountered a road closure that forced all the vehicles to take the same road – the road along the lakeshore, our least favorite way to go. That is when the tides turned. You don’t see as much on that part of the drive, and there is only one pull-out to bird watch. We were out for a relaxing day, so we figured this was a mere bump in the dirt road. We didn’t care. Until we did.
The speed limit along the drive is about 10 mph. It’s a bumpy, dirt road, and it’s made for watching wildlife from your vehicle, so that’s about right. The car leading the pack along the lakeshore that day must have been new or totally self-absorbed or possibly fascinated by the lack of wildlife that day (it was the worst day for bird watching we have ever experienced there) or maybe cruel and sadistic. I don’t know, but I do know that he drove 2-3 mph the entire way. By halfway down this long, boring road, there were at least 25 vehicles behind him, each with a driver ready to strangle somebody. When we approached the pull-out, I was hopeful that he would do just that and let us pass. Nope.
I should point out that there is no passing. On one side of the road is a drop-off to a canal and swamp area. The other side is Lake Apopka. It was brutal, and I think at one point a turtle passed us by. As we approached the sharp right turn of the road, there was another opportunity for this driver to pull over and let our growing line of cars pass. Nope again.
By now the car behind us was getting antsy. He pulled up close to our rear bumper on the driver’s side, signaling that he wanted to pass. He kept on us like a heron after a snake. Then he decided to honk his horn. I know he was desperate. We all were! But seriously! We were at least ten cars from the beginning of the line. Perhaps he wanted to start a procession of honking to alert the driver at the start.
At long last we reached the picnic area. Once again there were few birds to be seen, but we could tell they had been there by the splattering of bird poop on the tables. Ambiance at its best for a bird watcher? Uh, no, but we made do. From our perch on the poopified picnic table, we had the opportunity to people watch as another long parade of cars was inching along the road towards us at a snail’s pace. One oblivious driver got out of his truck, not 15 feet from the parking area, to view a baby gator. This blocked the entire road full of unhappy birders. As another man got out of his truck to approach the clueless gator gawker, Bob and I decided to skedaddle and get ahead of whatever wildlife was about to be on display. (Reminder: It’s illegal to feed alligators, especially to feed them people.)
At the end of the drive, we discovered that we would have plenty of time to go to a relaxing dinner before the movie, except we didn’t have reservations. We got in the car around 5:00 to get a jump on the Valentine crowd, but we made the mistake of choosing Longhorn Steak House, which is a favorite of the over sixty crowd, so they were packed. Five in the evening is regular dinnertime for them, so down the road we went.
I called Miller’s Ale House and they said it was only a ten minute wait and we should come ahead, no need to leave our name. When we got there, it was a twenty minute wait and the receptionist said we should have called ahead and left our name. We looked at each other and shrugged it off. Twenty minutes wasn’t going to be a problem. That is until it turned into 45 minutes, and we still had names ahead of us. Captain American was getting closer and closer, but we really needed Doctor Who or some other time traveler to help us achieve our plan.
Well, Chipotle had no line at all. Go figure! We weren’t too disappointed because we do eat out often, but it was kind of amusing that the place where we could enjoy a meal alone together was fast food. The rest of the world was waiting at Miller’s Ale House and Longhorn.
Buying tickets to go to the movies is so great now. You don’t have to wait in line or worry about your seat selection. You can get that empty seat buffer between you and the next group. It’s easily done on your smartphone. We settled in with plenty of time.
Minutes before the show started, a young man with a big tray full of food plopped down right beside me in our buffer zone. I should mention that the theater was only about a third full. I thought maybe he was joining the group to his right, but no, he was there to watch the movie with me.
It didn’t take but a minute to surmise that this young man with the welcoming smile and friendly manner had some special needs and that he was a huge Marvel fan. He was so excited that when the movie began, he clapped and informed me that Captain America is not Steve Rogers anymore, but it’s now Sam Wilson who was the Falcon. He didn’t want me to miss a thing. He chatted right up to the start of the movie, and I wondered if he was going to disturb anyone, but he kept his voice low while informing me of who was who each time a new character appeared. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was familiar with the storylines. It was a privilege to watch the movie with this fellow, and I have to say a highlight of a very weird Valentine’s Day. Of course, Bob was there, but my new friend kept his voice low enough that even Bob was unaware of his comments. I’m glad he chose the buffer seat next to me.
One of the many ways that I’ve probably damaged my kids has to do with Halloween. When I was a kid growing up in Maryland, I liked it quite a lot, unless it was cold, and my mom made me wear a jacket over my costume. I would have rather frozen to death than wear a coat. What was she thinking?
In those days, Halloween involved going through our own neighborhood and knocking on the doors of people we knew. Mrs. Harrington was my favorite as she would give out home-made, hand-decorated cookies. You could not get away with that kind of love in today’s climate. One time as I went through my bounty, I discovered that, like Charlie Brown, I had received a rock – and not the kind of rock that I enjoy today. Unlike him, though, I had plenty of candy. Sometimes it even lasted until Christmas!
Fast forward to having children of my own. By this time, I had become a Christian and was increasingly sensitive to the darkness of Halloween. It seemed the days of mostly cute and fun costumes had shifted to an abundance of costumes and billboards that emphasized evil and scariness. I hated taking our kids out to restaurants and stores where the decorations were scary. I didn’t like subjecting them to that.
When our oldest two were little, we took them trick or treating (one time, as far as I can remember). They donned store-bought costumes and those horrible plastic masks that make your face sweat, and we hit a few houses. It didn’t seem like a big deal, but every year I grew more uncomfortable with it. I didn’t like frightening creatures coming to our front door either. How does one protect their children from all of this darkness? That was our dilemma, and let me tell you, we didn’t handle it particularly well.
Who are those masked children?
We couldn’t take the kids out of the house to avoid the unknown quantities arriving at our front door, because there were so many everywhere. In my head, it was like a zombie apocalypse married Freddy Krueger – a regular nightmare for me. Of course, I may have been a tad over dramatic. I knew that the Bible taught to abstain from all forms of evil, but parts of Halloween were cute – though those parts weren’t as prevalent anymore, plus I wasn’t sure that should matter. So, every year we wrestled in our minds with what to do. One year we even turned on the sprinklers thinking that would keep things quiet, but our neighbor called and told us they were on. She thought it was by accident instead of by design. Sigh.
My best-ever Halloween involved our small group from our church gathering at our house for an evangelistic outreach for our neighborhood. We shoved all our furniture to one side of the house and invited the neighborhood in for a magic show. My dad, who was a magician, came and performed for the kids (and their parents). He had a unique way of weaving the gospel story into his show. Also, that night it rained, so we were packed to the gills.
So, sorry kids. I hope this is the worst way we’ve messed you up. Some of you have pointed out that it was okay for us to take grandchildren around, but you were denied the pleasure. Yep, you are not wrong; that’s inconsistent, too. Though, that’s really on the parents, not the grandparents. We were simply serving while remaining wishy-washy on our Halloween stance.
This was the year that our daughter and her family were briefly living with us while getting ready to move out-of-state. Bob and I had purchased a Hashtag the Bear costume for a church program and Bob put it to use to hang out with the grandkids as they wandered our neighborhood on what may have been the hottest October 31st ever.
I know that most, if not all our kids and their families, like to participate in Halloween trick-or-treating. Even though I have no credibility in this area, I’ll still offer advice to try to keep the kids more focused on Jesus every day and less influenced by the things of this world, including Halloween. And do what your conscience allows. No guilt.
To sum things up: I don’t like Halloween. I was sometimes an inconsistent though well-meaning parent who in a lot of ways was growing right alongside our children. Grandparenting is easier. Now I can buy all the candy we want and get it 70 percent off the day after Halloween. The prices are much less scary.
It had been ages since we left Florida for Christmas but missing our grandchildren in Virginia was a force we could not fight. They are eight and four—more perfect ages of Christmas wonderment cannot be found. When Bob and I realized that the window of Christmas morning amazement through their young eyes is not going to be open much longer, we decided to venture north. North to the cold. North to the potential of snow. North to where you need socks every day. That is the pull of grandchildren.
Our other grands all lived close-by when they were young, so holidays were easy. This year we would celebrate four different days in order to encompass our whole family, beginning with the youngest grands and their parents on Christmas morning.
We headed north on I-95, which is always a treat. We chose to leave on the Wednesday before Christmas and take two days to drive there. We quickly discovered that we weren’t the only ones hitting the road. It was crazy crowded with a lot of stop-and-go. We reminisced about making the trip from Orlando to Maryland when we were raising our four kids. We would do it in one long shot just to avoid checking into a hotel. We have concluded that not only were we younger then, but there were less cars on the road – or is that our age talking? We can’t be sure.
We had a hotel reservation in Florence, SC, which should have been about a seven-hour trip. It took us ten. Side note: What is wrong with the South Carolina interstate road system? Everyone else has more than two lanes. Get with the program!
You never know what you will encounter on a road trip. We sure didn’t expect to find a Quincy’s Family Steakhouse across the highway from our South Carolina hotel. The last one in the Orlando area closed in the 1990s. Our memories of taking our children there were as sweet as honey butter, so resistance was futile. (Plus, they were the only open restaurant on the strip.) The big draw was their yeast rolls. I swear mouth memory clicked in as soon as I saw their sign. As we parked our car, I began to salivate. Would they still have those fluffy sweet rolls and honey butter? Are the steaks still mediocre? Does my mouth have a memory? Enquiring minds and hungry tummies had to know.
It looked exactly like the Florida ones of 30 years ago.
Quincy’s was a welcome beacon in Florence, which we guessed was a city that was on nobody’s foodie travel list. It was a restaurant that time and HGTV had forgotten. I was giddy with nostalgic delight.
The crowd was light, and technically not a crowd.
They advertised a Wednesday special, steak strips and peppers and onions, but they were out of it. The only steak they had was a ribeye, so that’s what I got. It was the skinniest ribeye that I had ever seen, but you pour A-1 Sauce on it, and you’ve really got something. A mouth full of memories. I haven’t poured sauce on a steak in years, but here in Florence, it was the right thing to do. So when in Rome, or Florence, ask for the A-1.
Yummy yeast rolls – worth it!
I think we beat the crowd or perhaps the crowd had come and gone and eaten most of the steaks before we arrived. Either way, we had a blast—a blast from the past—and great yeast rolls and a skinny steak. The staff was friendly in that Southern way that you can’t help but love, no matter how much you had to smother your steak in A-1.
That night as we slept in our warm hotel bed, the sky opened up and rain came down in torrents, which continued for the first five hours of our drive. We were grateful when it gave way to a light rain, but it turned our 5.5 hour trip into 8 hours. But four or five hours along the way came another restaurant surprise just in time for lunch.
We got off the road at Colonial Heights, VA, ready for fast food and needing to get out of the car. Chick-fil-A was out of the question. The line was looped around the building and intersecting in three different points with Walmart pre-Christmas crowds. This was far more dangerous than driving the interstate in rain.
We exited that line fast, and that’s when we saw it—another beacon of light in the form of fast-food delight. Arby’s. And not just your regular, run-of-the-mill Arby’s—the world’s largest Arby’s!
There was plenty of parking and practically no line inside, begging the question, why is everyone at Chick-fil-A when you can sit in a ski lodge setting with a hot roast beef sandwich? Granted, we waited in the short line nearly as long as we usually wait at the Chick-fil-A, but why wouldn’t we?
Check out the size of the dining room. This is only part of it.
Bob waiting in a short line that probably took as long as the Chick-fil-A line. But the roast beef and curly fries were yummy.
Yes, they even have a fire place. All us chilly Floridians wished it was burning.
Finally we reached our destination and were reunited with our son and his family. Warm hugs were all we needed at that point, that is until the temperatures plummeted and the pipes froze and I remembered why we moved to Florida. I had not experienced single digit temperatures in a very long time, not to mention the -15-degree wind-chill factor, which kept me from entertaining the idea of leaving their house. I’m pretty sure I went into a hibernation stupor that was only relieved by my son and sweet daughter-in-law providing me with a wearable blanket for the day and an electric blanket for night.
But it was worth it to see those faces Christmas morning.
We are so blessed with our children and their excellent choices for spouses and amazing children, but maybe next Christmas they can come to Florida.
I did not handle it well when I saw Joe Theisman’s head roll on the ground and settle under my car. I was reminded of the Redskin’s game back in 1985 where Joe had his career-ending injury. As Bob has always been a Redskin fan, I was subjected to watching them play whenever they were televised. (I’m not sure if he worked that into our vows, but I was okay with it.) I wish I had gone out for a walk that day. I vividly remember seeing the bone break in Joe’s leg. It was horrific. Lawrence Taylor, who tackled him, was the first on his feet to vehemently jester for help. I’ve never seen a player as distraught as LT.
But this isn’t about the human Joe Theisman; it’s about my Hallmark ornament Joe Theisman.
It all began on a rare Monday full of motivation to get a few things done around the house – specifically, window washing. The end of Hurricane season was nearing but all eyes remained on the tropics as Hurricane Nicole was eying Florida. The skies were cloudy, so Bob and I adjusted our plans from working in the yard (probably a waste of time with a storm approaching) to the windows. I was inside and he was outside. Side note: I love him being retired!
We started out together but his job takes longer, moving the hose around and such. When I finished I kept on going to my mom’s bedroom and deep-cleaned it. Shoving furniture around and wiping baseboards, vacuuming as far underneath things as I could reach, and finishing up with damp mopping the floor. As I wandered through the house fetching the things I needed, I could hear the water running outside as Bob was finishing up. I went into the laundry room and noticed the floor was wet. “Oh, Bob,” I muttered to myself, figuring he had blasted the door with the hose in an effort to clean it. I threw a towel down and went into the garage, which was also wet. At that point I found Bob and told him we had a problem. He was in the middle of something and would be with me in a minute.
I went back down the hall to the laundry room, which by then had a small current of water flowing in it. I ran and told Bob he needed to shut off the water NOW, all the while not remembering that I know how to shut off the water. That’s how used to Bob taking care of things that I am. Anyway, I walked through the puddle of the guest bathroom into the adjoining bedroom, which was very wet, and into the walk-in closet which had become a lake. Of course, lakes in Florida are not like lakes up north. A big puddle might be referred to as a lake down here. Whatever we chose to call it, there was a lot of water to deal with.
The clean-up effort began just as I was ready to stop doing chores and put my feet up. I will forever be leery of motivation to clean! As it turned out, we had a leak under our slab so we spent a lot of time with our plumber that week.
All that being said, it was the clean-up process that led to the trickle-down effect of putting up our Christmas tree two weeks before Thanksgiving. The tree was in a box standing in our garage in an area that was now a small pond. I moved it away and laid it on its side to dry out. It hadn’t been in water long, but when it was time to put things back in their rightful place, we had the decision to stand it back up and wonder if it was completely dry or put it up in our living room, thus giving the box adequate time to really dry out. So, there you go – I began decorating the tree as Hurricane Nicole made landfall on our poor East Coast. Weirdest hurricane watch ever!
As per usual, Bob climbed the ladder and handed down the boxes full of decorations which are stored on a high shelf in our garage. I guess he thought he had a good grip on one as he dangled it from the ladder for me to retrieve. The only problem was I wasn’t there and his grip was waning. The box came crashing down and popped open spilling some of the contents onto the floor, including Joe Theisman, who was at one beheaded.
I’d like to tell you that I was gracious to Bob, but that would be a lie. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that Joe wasn’t the only one who was in trouble that day. The irony of my anger while decorating for the celebration of the birth of The Prince of Peace did not escape me. The pettiness of it was humbling. I’m thankful for forgiveness.
I was able to pop Joe’s head back on and once again he has a special place on our Christmas tree. Plus, Bob and I moved past the beheading and happily went about our day a little more aware of how fragile life can be – in more ways than one.
Be on the lookout for those things that can rob you of your joy during this time where Joy to the World is practically the theme song! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas! I’ll be back in 2023.
It was morning on Christmas Eve. I had my act fairly together. Bob and I had everything wrapped and under the tree. This was a luxury we didn’t have when we were raising our children. We would always wait until they went to bed to bring out the presents, which was more and more challenging the older our children got.
As is our “tradition,” Bob and I reminisced about former Christmas Eves. Sometimes we were wrapping gifts late into the night. Bob might have been found assembling a bicycle or one time pouring cement at the side of our driveway to install a new basketball hoop. These are things you can do when you live in Florida!
I also reminded Bob that our daughter and her family would be arriving late that night, probably around 10 pm, so he may want to consider a nap. Bob, who 364 days of the year has more energy than I could hope for, almost always hits the wall early on Christmas Eve night. The only thing that kept him going was assembling something, so if that wasn’t needed, he was ready to start dreaming of sugarplums dancing in his head. It usually would happen right after the children had hung the stockings by the chimney with care and shuffled off to bed. This was my time to take them all down, lay them across our bed and stuff them (the stockings, not the children). I always tried to get things evened out, which I don’t recommend because it can make you crazy. Often, before I could even get started, Bob was half asleep on the bed. It always has baffled me. Why, this one night, couldn’t he stay awake? It remains a a perplexing role reversal for us.
But on this particular Christmas Eve morning, all those thoughts about getting things even were stopped in their tracks. We received a text that a dear friend of ours had passed away unexpectedly that very morning. I gasped so loudly that my mom came in from the other room to see if I was okay. It was a shock made worse by the fact that it was Christmas Eve. I looked down on my bed. The stockings were laid out with their loot above them. I was in the process of counting and evening things out. And then it didn’t matter.
As tears flowed down my cheeks, all I could think about was my friends. We’ve known this family for decades. Christmas wouldn’t be the same for them. And with a flash I realized that my children never compared what they had in their stockings. Nobody cared if someone got a little more or less than their siblings. It was a blinding moment of clarity of what mattered.
What mattered was the people. What mattered was that our friend was now with Jesus. We know that with total assurance. What mattered was grieving with our friends, but not without hope. What mattered was sharing Christmas with our family – hugging them and being together. I hope I never try to make things even again and that every Christmas Eve I will think about Andy and Emily and the lessons that God taught me on that day when he went to meet Jesus.
‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house
Things were breaking.
I know, that doesn’t rhyme, but there was nothing poetic about it! It all started with the dishwasher, just two days before our daughter and her family were to arrive. I told Bob that it wasn’t working. It’s a very quiet dishwasher – so quiet that you have to incline your ear to hear it. Bob said he thought he heard it. He did not.
He tried to assure me that it wasn’t broken, but somehow, I knew that this was wishful thinking. He thought I must have forgotten to start it, or it was some other operator error. That could have been the case, but washing dishes is my life. I’m kind of fanatical about keeping my kitchen clean. You might say that I’m simpatico with my kitchen appliances. I know when something is wrong.
Bob came up to me with great understanding in his eyes. He took my hand, squeezed it, and said, “Does that hurt?”
“No,” I replied. Then he took the other hand and repeated the gesture. When I replied “no” again, he said, “Then the dishwasher isn’t broken.”
I suggested that he leave the funny to me and see if it was still under warranty.
Wonder of wonders, it was just three weeks shy of being out of warranty. Thank you, Jesus! This was Wednesday, and Lowe’s said they’d have a repairman out on Thursday between 8 and 12. Hooray!
Except my hooray was misplaced. He was a no-show. After a long time on hold, Bob secured another repairman for Monday, sadly we’d have the busy Christmas weekend without my number one kitchen appliance. Still, we decided to let nothing us dismay.
On Monday, a repairman breezed in an out of our house faster than Santa can consume milk and cookies. Bob ran his own diagnostic along with him, and it looked like a communication board problem. He told Lowe’s, who managed to keep it a secret from the future repairman. He said we’d need a certified GE repairman since it appeared to be an electrical issue. So here we are, nine days later, and I get to meet a new repairman. He has no knowledge of any of the above, but eventually he made the same diagnosis. We should have a new control board by the 21st – a month after our first call.
It could be worse. Bob was right. My hands can still wash dishes. Plus, we had an inordinately large supply of plastic spoons, which I thought we would have until Jesus returns. I guess that could still be true, but unless Jesus is coming back in the next two weeks, probably not.
At first realization that we were a man down, so to speak, in the kitchen. I stocked paper and plastic stuff in the cabinets to encourage everyone not to use the real stuff, which must be washed. I think the entire household is now afraid of my wrath if they circumvent that plan. And rightly so.
Also, that first night, Bob said he’d fix dinner on the grill so as not to mess up the kitchen. (He really is a good guy.) He went to start the grill and one side would not work. He managed to fix it, so that’s a point for Bob.
My baking day was the next day, and I managed to make a huge pile of dishes, but the family was coming over, and I love baking cookies for them. I did make a mess of crumbs on the floor, so I got out the vacuum cleaner to suck them up.
The noise that came out when I turned the thing on was deafening. It sounded like a plane was crashing in the kitchen. The one thing in your house that you really want to suck, did not.
Bob took it apart and got it to suck dirt, but the noise makes it unusable for me. It didn’t bother him, but then again, he thought the dishwasher was running, so you can draw your own conclusions.
That pretty much sums up our last two weeks, except for the part where we had a wonderful Christmas with our family. We are blessed and we know it. Here’s to a Happy New Year to you all!
Christmastime is here. Our halls are decked. The shopping is almost done. The baking will happen next week. (Any sooner and I would just have to do it again.)
We have four Christmas trees. Last year we added a tree just for the White House ornaments. This year we added 2 four-foot trees – one with a bird theme in my mom’s family room, and one with McDonald’s Happy Meal toys in the dining room. It might just be a one-of-a-kind!
You may remember the Pursuit of Happy Meals post. I decided with Disney World’s 50th anniversary, I should decorate a tree with my hard-sought-after toys, complete with Lumiere on top. I can’t wait to see what nine-year-old Layna thinks of it.
Speaking of grandchildren, mine are getting older, which is the natural progression. This year we will have the six oldest grandchildren around for Christmas. Only Layna has not yet entered her teens, and we will sorely miss our youngest two.
Getting Christmas lists out of the kids is interesting. Some of the things on their lists I’ve never heard of. Some of the things are way too expensive. Some are just plain dangerous, which brings me to my 13-year-old grandson, Jett.
Jett is well on his way to being some kind of an engineer or maybe a mad scientist. I’m not sure there is a big difference between the two. When I watch Jett, I think that is what my husband must have been like when he was a kid. That mind is always going, and creativity is often on overdrive. Bob turned out great, so I’m hopeful for Jett’s future.
Following are some of the highlights from Jett’s Christmas List. (Don’t worry, he has parental supervision, so he likely won’t blow anything up. I would make sure to take regular inventory of what is in that shed he wants to build.)
K.A.T. – Per google, this is a knife ability test – a player-vs-player death Roblox game. No need to research what Roblox is; we won’t be getting him anything that has to do with knife ability.
Nerf guns
A thin metal plate (makes me wonder)
Clay
100’ x 100’ tarp
Super Mario Odyssey
Tons of Jello mix
Wood, nails, hammers, screws, and tools to build a shed
A brother (adopted is okay)
Bagpipes
Five ounces of gunpower and four ounces of sand
Our 16-year-old granddaughter, Ella, has my favorite list – mainly because she has the collecting gene that I have worked so hard to suppress. She loves Sherlock Holmes, Funko Pops, and all things Marvel. Since I have stopped collecting, I now support my grandchildren in their pursuit of entire collections of things, which you can imagine makes me popular with my kids. It’s fun, and I know I need to seize the moment while I have it; because it won’t be long, and these precious items will seem like kid stuff. Although, I still like these things, I have Groot and Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy on my Christmas tree. Maybe when this phase is past for her, she can save these treasures for her own grandchildren. They’ll be vintage!
I do wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you for reading my blog, and I hope your holiday season is full of love and happiness.
As I wandered the Altamonte Mall on the day before Thanksgiving, I wondered if Black Friday was coming off life support. There were definite signs that customers were being wooed back to the brick-and-mortar shops. I even spotted this team stocking the stores with goodies to sustain the merchants through the “big day.”
When my children were young, I looked forward to shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. I didn’t even mind getting up pre-dawn to do so. I have wonderful memories of picking up my mom and heading out for the Black Friday Shopping Expedition. We would use the newspaper to map out our path. (By the way, that is my favorite type of mapping.) You would need two hands to hold that massive issue with its dozens of Black Friday ads.
There were always bargains to be found. JC Penney would give away ornaments like this one from 1996. There would be scratch-offs for prizes and discounts. The jewelry shops often gave away goodie bags with little “gold” charms inside them. Target and Home Depot gave great incentives for stopping in early. Early meant around 5 am. That was doable.
Eventually my mom lost interest in the adventure and my daughter was only too interested in stepping into this grown-up outing. We always hit the mall, especially Penney’s, and Target and Bealls. I do admit to going to Walmart a time or two, but for me, it just wasn’t worth the crazy.
Confession: Over the past five years I have been losing interest in Black Friday. Probably because as I have gotten older, and I’d rather not exhaust myself in the pursuit of bargains. My daughter, however, has not reached that point. I dedicate this post to her. She is in mourning over Black Friday, which by all accounts from the last two years has gone from life-support to flatlining.
She loved going out at midnight on Thanksgiving and staying out for 12 hours was not uncommon for her. I drew the line on that one, but I have joined her for a few hours during a more civilized time on that Friday. Mainly, I’d do this out of guilt. You know the power your adult children can wield – especially if they throw in the word tradition. It was a tradition, but like so many traditions, it changes through the years and generations.
Even though I was fairly certain of my Black Friday plans, I picked up the local Orlando Sentinel. It was so skinny! I also had sticker shock as it cost $5.35!
Bob and I have one all-important stop on Black Friday, and we don’t have to be there until 9 am. If you read me at all regularly, you can probably guess it’s Costco. Who can resist $8 off a pork loin or $10 off a Butterball turkey? Not me. And as of this year, not my daughter either. She sadly admitted to me over the phone that Costco had the best Black Friday deals. I couldn’t see her face, but I think there was a little catch in her voice. At least her family of six will be eating pork and turkey for the next few months.
We will tell our grandchildren of those days of old. The days when Black Friday meant something. The days of people being trampled in hot pursuit of a bargain. The days of people camping out in front of Best Buy to snag that new mega-TV or gaming system. The days before Black Friday became a joke that lasted all the way through November. Sigh. Those were the days. How did we get here? I’m putting a lot of the blame on COVID. I’m reminiscing about the song, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” by Peter Seeger.
Here’s my rendition.
Ode to Black Friday
(Where Have all the Sales Gone)
Where have all the sale ads gone
Long time passing
Where have all the sale ads gone
Long time ago
Where have all the sale ads gone
COVID took them one by one
When will they please return?
Oh when will they, return?
Where have all the papers gone
Long time passing
Where have all the papers gone
Long time ago
Where have all the papers gone?
Gone to online every one.
Oh when will they return?
When will they ever return?
Where have all the shoppers gone
Long time passing
Where have all the shoppers gone
Long time ago
Where have all the shoppers gone
Buying on Amazon every one
They never leave their home
They never leave their home.
A classic for you – Joan Baez singing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”
Tuesday was May the 4th, which is a nostalgic day for me. I miss the days of Star Wars frenzied kids fighting it out with light sabers and building death stars out of Legos. I miss stepping on Star Wars Micro-Machines hidden in the carpet. Well, probably not that, but you know what I mean. I miss my kids and grandkids.
I loved the time of my life when watching them play and seeing the delight on their faces as they watch a story that happened “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” was part of my day-to-day. I longed to see them and say, “May the 4th be with you!”
As days go, this one wasn’t totally uneventful. I did go to the Post Office. Everyone knows a trip to the Post Office is right up there with seeing a Star Wars movie with your grandsons. As I waited in line in that impersonal, government building, I read the rolling advertisements on the screen at the end of the counter.
Did they just tell me to ask about the Stamp of the Day?
Charles greeted me with a warm smile. I first met Charles at the Lockhart, Florida, Post Office back in the late 80s. I was a new Tupperware Lady and back then we mailed out a lot of party invitations. Six years ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see his cheerful face at, what is now, my local PO.
Charles told me that they do indeed have a stamp of the day. “Where are those May the 4th stamps,” he muttered to himself as he rifled through the drawer.
My heart skipped a beat. “May the 4th be with you, Charles! You have Star Wars stamps? You just made my day!”
The Post Office really does deliver! He plopped a fresh sheet of forever stamps on the counter and to my delight 20 droids were looking up at me. I would say the possibility of successfully finding a way to celebrate May the 4th at the Post Office is approximately three-thousand, seven-hundred and twenty to one! Thank the Maker (to borrow a quote from good-old C3PO)!
Life on the Lighter Side 