It's Raining Wine

I should have known that it would be quite a day after this morning's experience.  Today is the day of my nephew's wedding reception.  He and his wife were married in Texas but returned to Michigan to have a reception with family and friends.  The Commander and I drove out from PA so that we could attend and were really looking forward to helping him celebrate.  I REALLY should have known that things would not turn out quite as planned.

The day started out beautiful but frantic.  My sister-in-law and I spent the morning running around doing last minute errands and picking up things for the party.  At our first stop, we were waiting in line for the cashier when a man standing behind us said something like "Boy, I guess you guys are quite the party animals."  I imagine he got that impression because our cart was piled quite high with libations for the reception.


"Oh, no, " my sister-in-law laughed, "This is all for my son's wedding reception."

"Ah, well, I've been married 50 years," he replied,"and I still haven't had any luck getting my wife to release me."

"Congratulations," I chuckled.  "We've been married over 30 years," I said as I gestured to my sister-in-law and myself.  Then I suddenly realized what that sounded like.

"Oh," I stuttered, "I don't mean that WE'VE been married to each other.  No, she's married to her brother and I'm married to my husband." 


By now several more people in the line were suddenly very interested in our conversation.

I thought a moment and realized what I had said.  "Oh, no...I don't mean she is married to her brother.  She's actually married to my brother," I clarified. "I'd probably better just be quiet now, shouldn't I?" I laughed.

By the time we finished checking out, we had attracted quite a group who were all swapping wedding stories.

We stopped at the bride's father's home to drop off the refreshments on our way back to our house to change.  I had never met her father or any of her relatives but had been told that the father was dating someone.  When I walked in and saw an attractive lady in the kitchen, I walked over and introduced myself, expecting to hear that she was the girlfriend.  Wrong!  It was the bride's grandmother.  Later, in the car, I said to my sister-in-law, "I'm just not used to a grandmother whose diaper you don't have to change."

Speaking of changing, our clan got into our party outfits and headed over to the bride's father's home, where the reception was to be held.  So far, so good.  Guests started arriving and it was quite evident that the bride has a lot of relatives while we are a pretty small family.  But things were progressing well.  The food was served and we had eaten.  Many were outside eating under the tent but we had opted to eat inside where it was cooler.

While we were waiting for dessert to be served, one of my nephew's relatives sat down at the table and we began talking about iPhones, iPads, and e-Readers, subjects which are all dear to my heart.  At some point in the conversation, she asked me what applications I particularly liked for my iPhone.  Well, you don't have to ask me twice to talk about apps.  I LOVE talking about iPhone technology and goodies.  I was waxing eloquently about my favorite things, and as I am wont to do when I'm excited about something, I was gesturing with my hands.  I gestured to make a point and heard a gasp.  Right about that point, I smelled wine.....lots of wine. Let me just stop right here to say that I had not been drinking anything stronger than a diet cola, just in case you were wondering.

It turns out that somebody had put their wine glass down on the edge of the table next to my elbow without me knowing as they talked to the person next to me.  When I gestured, my elbow hit the wine glass which flew off the table, drenching the groom's grandmother, the carpet, and catching my skirt, too.  My skirt was no big deal.  It is black and doesn't show anything.  The groom's grandmother was another story.  She had on white pants and this was RED wine.  To make matters worse, the carpet was a very light beige.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you just wish the floor would open up and swallow you?  I was mortified.  I was grabbing napkins and trying to soak up the wine on the floor and also on poor Mrs. Becker, while apologizing profusely and wondering where the heck that wine glass had come from. 

We ended up taking the grandma home and getting her out of the stained clothes and into some clean clothes from her daughter's wardrobe and then did our best to soak the stains out of the clothes.  The top will survive to be worn another day.  I doubt the pants will ever be the same.  We laughed about how we had created some memorable moments and how we had to drive home smelling like winos.  And then I sent the Commander and the groom's grandma back to the party and stayed behind and cried.   Frankly, I was too embarrassed to return.  It's not everyday that you take out a vital member of the wedding party, ruin their clothes, and destroy someone's newly-decorated home in less than 1 minute and before you've even had dessert.  I can only hope that the bride's family won't remember what I look like, should we ever cross paths again.

Fresh Off the Cob

It's Friday and time for a listing of five favorites from my week.  Can you guess from the title of my post what the majority of those favorites will be centered around?  If not, perhaps this will give you a clue:

1.  The niblet has landed.  Little Luke Evan P. made his debut yesterday afternoon and we couldn't be more thrilled to greet his appearance.  He's even more of a miracle because in order to carry a baby to term, his mom has to give herself daily injections of a certain type of blood thinner and take megadoses of particular vitamins as soon as she knows she is pregnant.  Plus Laura is one of those unfortunate ladies who suffers from morning sickness almost 24 hours a day for the majority of her pregnancy.  So little Luke is truly a labor of love.

2.  Our daughter-in-law was able to have a relatively easy labor and delivery.   Laura's first experience with labor and delivery (little Mika) was quite an ordeal lasting several days in hospital.  This time around, the expectant parents went into the hospital early yesterday for inducement and Laura delivered by 3:30 in the afternoon.  Jason tells me that Laura was an "awesome pusher." 

3.  Laura was able to have her sisters help as "doulas."  The hospital was very accommodating in letting both of Laura's sisters stay with her and Jason to act as her doulas.  When Mika was born, Laura had a doula assisting up in Canada and she found her to be very helpful.  I'm not sure what all a doula does but I think they are a birthing coach and do things like give back rubs, etc. during the labor. Poor Jason's back was giving him fits again (I know, he really doesn't deserve any sympathy when his wife is going through labor, right?) so he was so grateful that he had help to give those back rubs and run errands for Laura, too.  Plus Laura and her sisters are very close and I'm sure it was extra special to have them be part of this wonderful occasion.

 4.  I'm thankful for the miracle of technology that let us see pictures of Luke so soon after his birth.  Can you imagine the old days when grandparents and other relatives living halfway around the country from their children would have to wait for days to get pictures in the mail?  Last night, we were texting pics to relatives within seconds of receiving them.  And just look at that sweet little face!  He's a blonde, which I never imagined would happen although I don't know why I'm so surprised.  His mom IS a natural blonde.  I think he's too cute for words but I'm never at a loss for words so that won't stop me.

5.  I'm so thankful for a happy, healthy family and can't wait to get on that plane next month to see them all.  Well, ok...maybe "happy" and "plane" in the same sentence is kind of stretching it but the idea of being there to see them is definitely worth focusing on.  And speaking of focusing, every time I look at that little niblet's face, I just keep thinking he looks like a "Biff" or a "Griff."  Can't you just see this big, hulking blonde kid coming off a football field with a huge grin and walking over to his mom to give her a hug?  However big he gets, I am positive that he is going to be a cuddler who will always have a loving spirit.  After all, every family needs a cuddler and his daddy was one of the best.  And he has a loving family with a great big sister standing by to show him the ropes.  Blessed beyond measure are we all.

What have you been thankful for this past week?  Head over to Susanne's Living to Tell the Story site and join in the Fave Five Friday fun yourself.






 

Any Day Now

We're in the final countdown until our second grandbaby arrives.  It's the stage where we jump every time the phone rings.  Could this be it?  Are they on their way to the hospital? They don't have to worry about finding someone to watch little Mika since her Texas grandparents are right there, as are several aunts.  The crib is assembled and a bag is semi-packed.  We've reminded them to take a camera.  So now we wait!

While we wait, I've been going through some boxes of old photographs.  Today I found my old baby book.  I had not been able to remember exactly how much I weighed when I was born when my son asked me the other day but this cleared up the mystery.

I had to chuckle as I looked through the book because it was not indicative of my mother's over-achieving nature.  She had filled out very few pages.  In fact, I found some pages where it was pretty obvious that I had filled out my own pages back when I was about 12-years old.  How is this for an impressive life's ambition?

There are plenty of pages that I could still fill out in my "Log o' Life" book, which was cleverly designed to document a child's life from birth to the grave.  There's even a page set aside for "Old Age Photo."  Boy, you wouldn't dare market a baby book like this to Baby Boomers now.  I just read an article today that said we don't even like to be called "Seniors." 

Luckily, the newest little niblet due to arrive will have a Nana who loves to document life's events in pictures and commentary.  With any luck, neither child will complain about a lack of documented memories sixty years from now. 

Boys and Their Toys

It's so much fun having a brother who is as obsessive-compulsive as I am.  I just never know what new thing or project will have captured his attention when we touch base.  Case in point:

My brother and a friend of his recently purchased some hunting land up in northern Michigan.  Since then he has "had" to purchase a 3-wheeler to get around the property and various other toys for their hunting estate.

Now I use the term "estate" loosely because with their 20+ acres, they inherited a small, rusting trailer, a fire pit, an outhouse that was falling apart, and piles of rubbish scattered about the property.  Oh, and they have apparently also inherited swarms of mosquitoes and some fresh swamps after the recent heavy rains they've had in the area.

But the item which has given me the most chuckles has been the "Loveable Loo."  My brother was attempting to explain it to me the other day.

"So you basically go to the bathroom in this bucket, right?" I asked.

"Well, yeah, but it's a really neat set-up," he replied.

"And what do you do when the bucket's full," I asked.

"You dump it in the mulcher," he responded.

"I don't know, John," I said.  "That sounds an awful lot like the old slop bucket we used to use on the farm at night that we'd just dump in the woods in the morning."

"No, no, the waste from this turns into 'humanure' which you can then use in your garden.  It takes about a year," he explained.

"Heck, they were using 'humanure' in Morocco when we lived there back in the '80's but it didn't take a year.  They just squatted in the fields and had instant fertilizer.  Remember how we always had to wash our vegetables extra good," I asked.

"No, listen, this is a proven system and it's perfectly safe but you have to mulch it first.  It's ingenious, really.  And the best part is that there is no smell at all from the Loveable Loo," he maintained.

"So how's it working," I asked him.

"Well, we used it a lot this past weekend when we were up there but we had a bit of an odor problem," he replied.  "I think we were using the wrong kind of sawdust."

"Yeah," he continued, "We had some guys over building a storage shed for us and they wanted to use our outhouse but we didn't let them.  It was just too smelly."

"What did you have them do," I asked.

"I told them to just go out in the woods," he laughed.

"Shoulda had a slop bucket," I chuckled.

The Loveable Loo.....I'll let you decide.

Where's the Color?

The Commander and I were out driving the other day and I remarked that, if we judged our nation's personality by the color of our cars, we would be considered a very drab group of people.

"Honestly," I went on.  "Have you ever seen such an uninspired bunch of colors?  Everywhere you look, all you see are grays and white and the occasional drab burgundy."

"Sometimes you might see a blue car but it usually is a greyish blue or a Navy blue.  What's wrong with turquoise or teal?" I wondered.

"Everybody looks like they're driving somebody's government-issue car or a corporate car.  There isn't an ounce of personality in the bunch," I went on.

The Commander looked at me like I was nuts.  His last car was gray.  His current car is a slate blue and that was only because I insisted that he put a little color into his life.  My car, on the other hand, is fire engine red.  It would have been a wilder color if one had been offered.

"Why don't automakers come up with purples and chartreuse?  Why aren't there more oranges or how about fuschia?  How about some iridescent colors that fade from one color into another, like some of the custom hot rods have?" I asked.


Personally, I'm thrilled to discover that the Ford Fiesta comes in my favorite spring green color AND that Ford has a custom graphics option that can be dealer installed.  I have already picked out what graphic I'd like on my apple green Fiesta, when and if I get a new car.  It's a cityscape done in black.  Then I'd just need to add a few black flying bats scattered around the sides and voila....my own vampmobile!  Whee!


I say we should start a new campaign to say "no" to drab and "yes" to zest!  Are you with me?

Feel-Good Friday

It's Friday and time for another "Fave Five" highlights from my week.  I don't have to think very hard to come up with five blessings this week. How about you?  Here is my list of five:

1.  Great Biopsy Results - Topping the list (and I won't shock you with pictures) is the fact that I got my stitches removed from the site where they cut out the mole and I also finally got the results back from the tissue biopsy of the mole itself.  The mole was benign.  Yay!  That is such a relief and such an answer to prayer.  I'm glad to have the whole thing behind me now.  I even made it through the stitches removal on my own, without dragging the Commander with me.  I DID sing while the technician was taking the stitches out.  It was a "4-song" procedure WITH repeats but she finally got them all out.  Thank goodness because I was running out of songs and verses.

2.  Fresca the Wonder Dog got her summer clip.  She's feeling much perkier now and is no longer leaving clumps of fur rolling around the house like tumbleweeds.

3.  My Schacht Sidekick spinning wheel arrived.  Schacht has finally designed a travel wheel and it is great.  I even managed to set it up myself and have started spinning this colorful Corriedale fiber from Southern Cross Fibre which I specifically picked out of my stash because it was color-coordinated with the turquoise wheel.  Sometimes I amaze myself.

4.  I'm making progress on the Shadow Boxes Cardigan.  This is the back piece.  It is an example of "illusion knitting."  Using a mix of garter stitch and stockinette stitch, you can create patterns that appear when you view your garment from certain angles.

In this case, it is a "checkerboard" design that shows up along the bottom of the cardigan.  There will also be a different design on the sleeves. I'm using some very soft, heathery alpaca yarn which is so nice to work with that I have to remind myself that I have to keep knitting and NOT stop to fondle the fabric. 

5.  Our son posted some more pictures of little Mika this week for us on Facebook.  He also put up a little video of her running around "scaring" family members with a big stuffed snake toy and laughing uproariously.  It is so much fun to see her developing a sense of humor and to watch her begin to play "make-believe."  Babies are sweet but oh, how much fun when they reach the stage where their personalities really are developing and their creativity is emerging.  NOW we're getting into my area of expertise!  Whee!

So what have been the highlights of your week?  Why not go over to Living to Tell the Story, where you can find out the details on how you can join in the "Fave Five" blogging fun?

Of Parades and Picnics

When I was young, my mom would pack my brother and I up as soon as school was out and off we'd head to Minnesota and the farm.  We'd spend the whole summer there, visiting relatives, helping out on the farm, renewing friendships, and leading a very carefree life out on the prairie.  In the meantime, my poor dad, bless his heart, kept the home fires burning in Michigan, working away in the auto factory for General Motors and finally taking two weeks off towards the end of summer to take the train or bus out to join us to drive us all home.

Every Fourth of July, Mom, my brother, grandmother, and I had a set routine that we followed.  First we'd head over to Leota, Minnesota to see the big parade.  Grandma would pack lawn chairs in the car and a jug of cold water or kool-aid (if we were lucky) and we'd set out early so we could claim a good piece of territory along the main street of town.  Mom ALWAYS had to take a picture of every float, band, and horse that went by.  You'd think with all those years of taking pictures, I'd be able to find one now but I can't so they must be all over at my brother's house (lucky him!).

After the parade, we then had to make the rounds of the cemeteries to visit all the graves of our relatives who had passed on.  This was the part that I hated the most as a kid.  I will say that it got a heck of a lot more interesting as the years went by.  There was the time that my mom and my aunt were both in the early stages of dementia and were trying to direct me via rural back roads to the cemeteries.  Neither one could agree where I should turn off and finally I just pulled over and consulted a map and made the decision for them.  My aunt insisted I was wrong until I drove through the very town that she said shouldn't be there.  "Hmph, well then they must have moved the dang town," she declared.

Or there was the time that we were at one family cemetery out in the country and one of my aunts, looking down at another aunt's grave marker, said,  "She was an ornery SOB and a tightwad and I always said that one day I'd piss on her grave and I think today's the day."  At that point, she dropped her drawers and did just that.  Now we were WAY out in the country with no one else around but I was in shock and just standing there with my mouth open.  Mom and my aunt started to giggle, my aunt grabbed her drawers and they both walked off to the car.  I knew then that our relationship had moved on to a new level.  I was no longer the little kid tagging along.  Heck, maybe THEY were the little kids now.  Boy, I couldn't wait to tell my brother and my cousin THIS story!

After the cemetery rounds, we'd head back to the farm and wait for the relatives to trickle in.  By late afternoon, we'd usually have a picnic set up behind the farmhouse.  Aunt Louise usually brought fresh raspberries freshly picked from her bushes and someone would be churning ice cream.  Grandma always had some of her great potato salad made up along with deviled eggs.  Yummy!  There might be fried chicken or chicken salad sandwiches.  No matter what was outside, it was always a feast.  We cousins would hurry through our meal and then head over to the side yard for a game of baseball.  Some years, my Uncle Homer, a private pilot, would fly overhead and buzz the farm, much to the delight of all.

After the meal and cleanup, my mom would drag out her camera and set it up and the family photo session would begin.  As much as we protested, it was inevitable and the only one who escaped the tedium of posing in family groupings was my grandpa.

He'd find a nice shady spot under a tree and take a nap.  When I think of Grandpa, I either remember him napping outside, feeding the cows, or playing cards with his friends.

Eventually the coffee pot would be put on and folks would migrate around the kitchen table as the sun faded and the adults would start to swap stories.  My cousins and I would wander into the next room and flop down, too worn out to bicker but not too tired to hope that we might hear some juicy gossip before the adults realized we were within hearing distance.

Those are the memories I'll be returning to as we celebrate our nation's birthday tomorrow.  How will you be celebrating?