My Bathroom Walls

                                     

Today I smelled pee when I walked into our guest bathroom.  I guess the technical term is "urine" but I always think of horses when I hear that word. Who knows why?  Oh, I do because when I was 19, I worked in a pharmacy and the drug Premarin is made of pregnant mare's urine.  Weird the things you remember, right?

And now, back to the bathroom.  I found a diaper in the trash and so I emptied that and washed out the wastebasket.  But, even then, there was an odor in the room that I found less than appealing.  Granted, we are not receiving visitors during this season of Covid19, but still a stinky room is a stinky room.  

I cleaned out the toilet bowl, washed the ceramic exterior and, just for good measure, I also washed off the floor.  I was pretty cocky about my great cleaning skills and my wise use of my time ~ after all, I could have been indulging in my secret obsession: Dragon City (my video game of choice that's rated for ages 4+).  Then I looked up at our wall. Sometimes, when the sun is shining just right, you see things in your house that you were never meant to see.  This was one of those times.

The entire purple wall, up higher than my waist, was shimmery with little dried golden droplets. I washed them off immediately which left behind a gajillion little white spots.  Apparently pee is a potent color remover.  [Note to self, if I ever run out of nail polish remover and I'm in a real pinch for time ...]

My first impulse is to repaint the wall but two-thirds of my grandsons (whom I am finding guilty as being the culprits without benefit of a trial) have yet to obtain double digit age status, so, as they say, "What's the point?"

  

Shoes

While I was on my recent vacation up north, my sister and I were cruising through the store everybody shops at but nobody admits going to. (Don't pretend you don't know where I was.  If I hadn't been out of town, I probably would have run into you there.) 

When we got to the children's section, there was an aisle display of tiny shoes with heels on them.  As an adult, I am appalled that they sell these to children. They are not being sold as "dress up," they are being marketed as shoes - and by a manufacturer that I used to buy baby shoes from.  It horrifies me. 

As a child, my reaction would have been different. I'm certain I would have thrown a tantrum worthy of prime-time television right on the floor in front of that display in an effort to secure a pair of these babies for my very own.  (It might have just worked, too.)  

Decades ago, I recall begging my mother to buy little high heels for me that were sold with the cheap toys in the grocery store.  They had high black heels, silver soles and black elastic over the top.  When I was lucky enough to finally score a pair, the heel broke off the first time that I put weight on it.  That was not enough to keep me from coveting a new pair next time, but it was enough to keep my mother from buying me them.  

My mother had an entire closet devoted to shoes alone, so I come by my love of footwear honestly.  (Yes, Kate, I am aware that I wore only Crocs for a decade, but that was because I broke my foot and only Crocs were comfortable.)

When I was a preschooler, Mom took me to get a new pair of summer shoes. We went all over town trying on different pairs, and each time I told her that they hurt my feet.  Mom drove to a neighboring town and experienced more of the same results, a crabby Chris with sore feet.  After I'd complained bitterly over and over that all the shoes I'd tried on hurt, we arrived at the final store and the clerk brought out one last pair for me to try on.

When I saw him approaching me, I couldn't contain my delight.  "That's what I wanted," I exclaimed, "RED shoes!" 

I'd be wearing these today if only they were my size!

www.StillSwimmingUpstream.com

The Night Text

Whenever I get a text from a kid of mine that starts out with the words, "Don't freak out but..." I know the next few words are not going to be something pleasant, especially when I receive the aforementioned communication at 3:21 a.m.  Just waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of a text coming is scary enough for me.

The bad news was that I did, in fact, freak out. The good news was, well I couldn't think of any good news right then.  The rest of the message read, "A tsunami is going to hit us on Oahu in an hour or so."  My teeth began to chatter uncontrollably.  Most mothers will understand that, I think.

Josh and Susan were staying at Turtle Bay, one of "the most spectacularly beautiful places on earth, where every room has an ocean view."  I'm not sure how much of a plus having a window facing a tsunami is, but I can say that I prayed to God in Heaven that everyone would be okay and I believe he heard my prayer because about the time the tsunami hit, my lights flickered off, just once.  I took it as a sign from Heaven and calmed down a bit.

The second text, that the tsunami - which had roared in at a mere three feet -had been downgraded, arrived at 5:23 am.  It was the longest two hours and two minutes of my life. 



My ardor to visit our 50th state has cooled considerably. Most mothers will understand that, too.

Amen

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness"

I'd always heard that cleanliness is next to Godliness but I never realized how serious God was about this until my Sunday School teacher told our class the shortest sentence in the Bible, "Jesus swept."

Cowboy Haircuts

My first five years of childhood were spent in a gang of two, my brother and I as partners in crime unwittingly terrorizing our parents.  Some of our best work occurred while Mom was grocery shopping and Dad was supposed to be watching us but was actually napping.  We dragged the mattress to the stairs then rode it down like it was a sled; we tunneled through bales of hay in the barn; we stuck knives in outlets. 

One day we added baby lotion to the fish bowl.  The reasoning escapes me, but maybe it was as simple as we thought it might make it smell pretty.  Mom was fairly put out at us for that one.  (I don't remember which one of us had the bright idea to add the lotion to the water but I do remember that the fish died.)  We wanted to get back on Mom's good side, so decided to entertain ourselves in the bedroom while she cooled down.


During this unsupervised portion of the evening, my brother -- a creative thinker even at five -- struck entertainment gold when he announced that he would be opening a Cowboy Barbershop and I would be his first customer.  I had way more hair than he did and he had a cowboy hat, so this arrangement made perfect sense to both of us.  After elaborate preparations including the sheet around my neck, shop opened.  By the time Mom discovered us, all the hair below my ear on one side of my head had been meticulously shorn.  She burst into tears.  We were scheduled to have our pictures taken at Olan Mills the next day. 

The years roll by.  Now I'm the mom and little Kate is in the bathroom a long, long, long time.  That she's in there too long should have registered with me, but it didn't.  Suddenly, she bursts through the door, glowing with pride!  She had taken her little safety scissors and scalped herself.  She said, "Now I look like my cousin Levi!"  And she did.


I was laughing so hard I couldn't catch my breath as I dialed Mom's phone number.  "You cried, didn't you?' she asked. 

Same story, two different responses.  That's what makes life so sweet.