The Enroute Saga

Doesn't that bed look inviting? Imagine how inviting it looked after a day like this:

10-16-07: Up at 6:30 with a short laundry list of things to do. Packing is about finished, but there are always those few odds and ends to wrap up, either with the packing or with the house or the food or anything else that might suffer if it wasn't handled pre-vacation.

Our flight is scheduled to leave at 6:40 the following morning. From OKC we'd fly to Denver and after a short layover, on to Seattle, where we'd arrive a little after 10 in the morning and have the rest of the day to play. Therefore the finalized plan was for my sisters and my mom to come by and pick me up at 4:15 in the morning to head to Will Rogers World Airport. 4:15. AM.

10-17-07: When I hit midnight I figured there really wasn't much point in sleeping. I could do that on the plane and not force my sister to pound on the door and wake the entire house when I slept through my alarm. An alarm at 4:15 in the morning is, to my mind, a nightmare--something to sleep through.

Ds#2 thinks this is a grand idea. It's been a long time since we've shared a stay-up night. So we watched TV until there was nothing worth watching, then played dueling computers especially when I started to fade big time. I logged on on the home line, he on the computer line and whenever my typing slowed he'd nudge me on the live messenger and wake me up and laugh.

Finally it was time. My ride arrived, my luggage was stowed, final hugs and yes, we are really truly embarking on our great adventure.

We didn't know how much of an adventure.

Security wasn't a problem, though there were many more people there than I thought would be at that hour of the morning. We patted ourselves on the back for not listening to all the people who told us we didn't have to get there as early as we did, because we weren't the ones panicking at the back of the line. We sat at the gate for awhile, debated about whether or not we were hungry, laughed and watched the people come and go. Then we boarded and yay! we're all in the same row. Everything is grand. We didn't even mind that little announcement that said there was a small mechanical problem with the plane and as soon as it was taken care of we'd be on our way.

The small mechanical problem required another apologetic announcement or two before they told us ever so kindly that we were welcome to get off and have some breakfast, please stay near the boarding area for further announcements, and oh--take your luggage with you. At which point my sister became a prophet. "We're not getting back on this plane," she said.

We got some breakfast and went back to the boarding area to talk with a rather harried, but still amazingly good-natured employee who informed us that the mechanic wouldn't arrive until that afternoon, and we were welcome to wait and see if the plane took off then, but if we wanted to work with the airline to make alternate travel arrangements, then we'd have to go pick up our checked bags and then go to the ticket counter and they'd do what they could.

What they could do was an hour and a half wait in line. We started getting punchy at this point, especially the three of us girls, and you have to keep in mind that I have now been awake for over 24 hours. Lordy.

We get to the counter--literally the next to be helped--and the computers go down. Thankfully that was a short-term glitch. Every flight out of Oklahoma City is full because it is fall break. Which means the next best thing is being shuttled to Dallas--a 3 1/2 hour drive--and then flown out on a different airline on a non-stop flight to Seattle. Yay. The flight would take off at 7:30 that evening. From Dallas. To Seattle. Yay. Hey we were losing an entire day, but not an entire trip, so in the interests of keeping things upbeat, we packed in a blue airport shuttle and smiled.

We found ourselves grateful for the cell phone, so that we could call relatives and they could sit and wait at home instead of at the airport all day. We squished into the shuttle van with a businessman who talked on his phone most of the time through his headphones. I don't know if I'll ever get used to people looking straight ahead and carrying on a conversation with what looks like nothing. And we had another little lady passenger who sounded like she was from the Philippines, who was rather disgruntled with the whole process and didn't mind saying so. As if none of the rest of us were.

I think I fell asleep mid-complaint, because next thing I know we're getting off near Gainesville so the driver can fill up. Next stop is the airport. The headphoned businessman in the front seat had to tell the driver where to go; he'd never been to the Dallas airport before.

Finally! We find our way to the ticket counter. Of course they can't seat us together, but other than that, the bags get dropped off and we get in the security line and voila! Another adventure. Mind you we've changed airlines and there are after all four of us, probably wholly capable of taking out the airline crew and pilot, and by this stage in the game I'm sure we looked like terrorized terrorists. How many hours has it been now since I've been horizontal? I don't think I can count that high. Oh, wait, maybe I can while they pat me down and search every individual thing in every carry-on item I have. Times four to get all of us through.

In the interests of time, let's say we helped my sister get rid of a nasty headache, ate dinner at TGIF, and got on our plane, made it to Seattle in one piece. Out comes the trusty cell phone, and we're told to look for a blue Suburban circling the airport. On the ground of course. Oh, how good it was to see a familiar face.

The familiar face got us lost on the way home in the dark. By the time we got our luggage inside and up the stairs, and said goodnight, changed clothes, it was 2:00 AM Pacific Time. Translating to 4:00 AM our time. Which means it's been 24 hours since I started the travel part of the ordeal, 25 hours for them, and add to that my brilliant idea to stay up the night before. We laughed at dark, we were so fried.

My sisters elected to sleep on the two cots that were tucked into the room with the bed pictured above, which left the two oldest ladies, Mom and me, with the bed. Aren't they the sweetest sisters you'd ever want? Of course they are.

They just wanted comfortable seats for the show.

The bed--now go look again at how inviting that bed looks even when you're well rested--was too high off the ground for me to get into! It's tough to see in this picture, but the storage under the bed raises that thing close to four feet off the ground. Far too tall for me to swing a leg up onto then push off with the other. It was torture--inches away from blissful horizontal sleep, and yet so, so far away. Collapsing in giggles that made me weak wasn't helping much.

Mom wasn't faring any better. Our hostess had long since joined her spouse in a room somewhere in the house that we had no idea where it was. I finally used my suitcase to stand on, praying I didn't crush the thing and took a less-than-grateful leap, while my sisters helped Mom from behind, chanting, "Tuck and roll, Mom!"

There you have the most recent time I've laughed myself into a coughing fit. Every time I'd start to get control, I'd look over and see my mom shaking with laughter, and it would start up again. I fell asleep hiccupping. And praying I wouldn't need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Trying to Save a Fleeting Funny Moment....

These are the times I wish I could write our little family episodes down and have them come out like Karen McQuestion's do. But before this little moment is lost in all the other little ones to come, I have to try my hand at this.

The Players
Student-of-the-Quarter-award goldfish named Darlin'
One-for-sissy-too goldfish named Rainbow
Student of the Quarter: 7-year-old named GG
Sissy: GG's almost-four-year-old sister, BK
Nana: Grandma
Pop-Pop: Great grandpa

Note: Darlin' and Rainbow stay at Aunt K's house where they are more likely to live as long and healthy lives as possible, and where the girls can visit them often.

At this time, GG and BK are visiting Nana who lets them call Pop-Pop on the phone.

GG: So, how are our fish?
Pop-Pop: Those were the BEST little fish I ever had.
Pop-Pop hears a huge inhale and GG yelling (thankfully away from the phone speaker): NANA! Pop-Pop ATE our fish!!!
Pop-pop hears a tussle over the telephone receiver; BK wants a turn to talk to him. She finally wins. Pop-Pop waits anxiously to see what BK has to say about this fish episode.
BK's burning question: "Pop-Pop, did you fry them?"

Maybe you just have to hear the story first hand.

Hairspray and a Fly Swatter

This might be one of those things that you just had to be there to appreciate.

However, I'll set up the background a bit, which should help.

My youngest and I have a healthy fear of wasps. Especially large red ones. For those of you who are familiar with my story about our family canoe trip on which we spent four hours on the side of the road trouble shooting the diesel engine in our Suburban, when all that was wrong was someone at the shop where it had spent the last week had hit the switch to put it on the auxiliary gas tank (which didn't register on the gas gauge) and we were out of gas.

When we arrived late afternoon, my unstoppable mate decided we'd canoe anyway, so I made a trek to the bathroom and as I was walking the path, minding my own business, a red wasp fell out of the sky, landed on my right pinky finger and stung me. My paddling hand instantly ballooned (did I mention I had a cold too?) and all our ice was in plastic containers (hubby freezes milk jugs to keep the coolers chilled) that were soundly bungeed into the canoes. So I paddled as long as I could, then dragged my throbbing hand in the cold water for awhile till we needed to steer around something.

I don't like wasps.

The next time we went canoeing in this area, we stayed at one of their cabins over night on our two-day canoe trip. This time we watched one of those nasty red buggers land on my husband's glasses and try to sting them. Eyeglasses. Before we left, one of them chased down and stung my youngest.

He doesn't like wasps either.

So yesterday I happened to be in the living room doing paperwork and looked up to find we had an unwelcome visitor in the house. I hollered, "Wasp!" at which point the defender of the castle (my youngest) sprung into action.

I read a long, long time ago, that if you don't have bug spray to kill a wasp, the next best thing is hair spray because is stiffens their wings and they can't fly. So in flies my little knight armed with a bottle of hairspray. Every time he sprays it, the wasp flies out of range of the hairspray and to another part of the house. But not after it flew right at me, and sent every paper I had in my hand flying while I ducked for cover. (Did I mention I HATE wasps!?) Naturally, my knight follows spewing hairspray everywhere, until finally the wasp isn't flying so high anymore. Ahh. Time for a good dowsing. I'm telling you, that wasp finally wore enough hairspray to keep a bee-hive hairdo in place for at least a week, if not two.

It's final landing spot was on top of the mini-blind that hangs at the kitchen door window. At this point, the wasp disappeared! Daring Knight jiggles the blinds, open and closes the door quickly, and finally grabs a trust fly swatter and is determined to hunt down his foe. He looked behind the stove, which is right by the door. Nope. He looks where the kitchen door hinges, because it's been closed on a couple spiders who still remain pressed in the door jamb. No wasp. He checks every slat on the blinds. No success. Finally he climbs up on a chair, looks down on the horizontal post that holds the mini-blind in place and finds it's a U-shape. The wasp had fallen inside.

Good enough? Nope. He pushes it out with the flyswatter, pounds it soundly and scoops it up on the flyswatter. He then presents it to me, holding the flyswatter bearing his dead foe out at arm's length and raising his can of hairspray in victory.

What would I do without my fearless son, hairspray and a fly swatter?

Drop to Shop

I had the most beautiful afternoon with my oldest son.

He heard that there was a men's clothing store going out of business and he wanted a new suit. He called me an hour early and said he could get off work and wanted to know if I had the time to drive out to Barry's so he could check things out.

Well, it wasn't convenient. But it could have been less convenient. I really had no where to be tonight, and so I told him sure. Even though the kitchen floor was still wet and I was finally sitting down for a bit of R & R before tackling the laundry, emptying the dishwasher, and vacuuming carpets. Instead I hunted for shoes and a purse and figured people would just have to deal with me in my fish dress, and I went to pick him up.

The first sign he was in a good mood--I'm sitting quietly in the car, finally getting a chance to crack the cover on Women's Day and all of the sudden with one terrific thud, his lunchbox lands on the hood of the car just in front of my windshield. Then his face is plastered on the passenger side window, his huge grin pressed against the glass. Lordy, he makes me laugh.

It was 1:30 PM when we set off on our adventure. I brought stuff to do because I know my son. Decisions take him FOREVER. But I left it all in the car. I browsed the racks with him even though I hate shopping. He was looking for "something tan." Never found it. But he did find a light gray suit in a fabric that drapes so beautifully that I couldn't help letting it fall through my fingers again and again. While he looked for another. (They were less than half price, and he's quit putting on the inches.) He found dark brown double-breasted suit. Yay! We're finished. It's only 3:00. Wrong. But he makes me smile.

There were shirts and ties to coordinate. Now my ds has been an artist since he was little. His delight in mixing and matching colors is contagious. Up until this year I have taken him with me when I buy flowers because he can mix and match the most lovely combinations of colors and textures, flowers and foliage. At any rate, we were there for quite some time deciding on shirts to go with the suits and then there were ties to match the shirts. He got it all coordinated and then decided that perhaps he should make sure the shirts were the right size. One was--the pale yellow with white color and white French cuffs. It looked so snazzy just resting underneath the suitcoat on the table. We found the second cream colored shirt for the gray suit in the right size, but not the mauve one. So the third tie didn't work with anything, but it was a cool tie. Couldn't leave that behind! And can we stop at Best Buy while we're next door so I can get a camera for my trip. And since Men's Warehouse is on the way I can look for a mauve shirt in there.

The mauve shirt in Men's Warehouse was too expensive for his taste. We found the camera he needed in Best Buy in record time. Then we headed for WalMart--would rather finish chewing up today then spend part of tomorrow shopping when he should be doing school, and can we go by the house because he needs to get his watch which needs a battery.

WalMart was a bust. No shirt and they couldn't get the back off the watch to provide a battery. Head to Heritage Park Mall where no one carries that color except Dilliards and they don't carry his size. The sales woman suggested we try the store at Crossroads (which happens to be right across from BEST BUY). I'm out of energy. That will have to come sometime when he's floating about with his buds.

Even Zales can't get the back off his watch to deal with the battery; there's some question that it belonged on that watch to start with. But they have a watch man who does their batteries, it will be in next Tuesday when his watch is back--can he be there at 10:00 AM in case the battery doesn't take care of the problem and they need to send it off with the repair man who shows up soon after opening on Tuesdays. He can't--he'll be at work. I will.

We got home at 7:30 PM. SEVEN HOURS! And he tried on the suits at home and I wondered why I let him buy them. I'm already swatting girls away that want to come see me. Uh-hem. Right! :) I just make sure he's not going to be here and then tell 'em come on over.

Oh but he and I had a glorious afternoon. Talking and laughing and his lovely smile and "thank you" with wide sparkling blue eyes when we got home. I am so excited for him about this trip--feeling that thread of a zing along my veins and I'm not even going. He gave notice at work yesterday and had half the store management collected, wanting to know what they had to do to have him come back. He's smart, he's quick, he's punctual and he knows how to work.

Long story short--I know, TOO LATE! It was worth it to leave the kitchen in the middle of mopping and let the laundry stack for another afternoon.

Spend time with your kids. I live for days like this, and I can't believe I was tempted to talk him out of it. Start early. Drop the dishes to rock them to sleep. Play in the sandbox when you should be vacuuming. And then you can have days like these when you're enjoying the personality of a person that has changed from an infant to a young adult before your very eyes but still wants you to take him shopping when he could go instead with his unending stream of buddies.

G'night from a doting mama. :)