The Baby

Sunday evening the grands and their parents came over for supper.  After the meal was done, the boys went outside to play with their Dad and Grampy.  Jessica tagged along to watch.  

This was the opportunity I'd been waiting for!  I scooped up the baby and asked permission to take him to our next-door neighbor Mary Ann's.  She, of course, was delighted to have a six-week-old visitor and I was in "Grammy Heaven" showing him off.  He's sooooo cute!  

We were having a blast with the little guy when Jerry arrived and told us it was time for the kids to go home.  We helped get them all strapped into their car seats and they left.

Later Jer told me that when Jessica and Brent began gathering up their things to leave - baby paraphernalia, left-overs, kids' crocks, and so on - Brent asked her, "Do we have everything? ...Have we forgotten anything?"  Jessica, whose arms were overflowing, said, "I've got OUR stuff, have YOU forgotten anything?" 

At this point, the two-year-old chimed in. "THE BABY!"

Brody, who had been quietly observing in the background said nonchalantly, "I already told them that."

Lucky Parker!  Both his older brothers have "got his back."

Baby Parker on the go

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Liquor Lightweight



The vacation martini and me:  BEFORE

I'm a liquor light-weight.  I know it but I don't care.  I'm not gonna say that I never drink because I can be persuaded to have a refreshing mojito on a hot summer's day. I also have had an occasional drink on vacation and Lord knows I loved that Nutty Irishman that Martin made me five years ago in February.  (I've tried to replicate it in my own kitchen more than once, with limited success.)   


  ... and AFTER

Wine doesn't call to me at all either.  The only wines that I'll even consent to try are either sugarier than Kool-Aid or ice wines (made from frozen grapes) which are a bit too pricey for cheap little me.  Beer?  Why even go there? The point here is I can take or leave alcohol and mostly I choose to leave it.  Knowing this about me, you'd think that I'd be a shoe-in for designated driver, wouldn't you?

You'd be wrong.  Today when I started my car, the air conditioning came roaring to life, that's how rarely I drive.  I'm the least-experienced driver in almost every group I'm ever in.  Some family members are even afraid to ride with me.  And, if they've had even one drink, I am afraid to ride with them, too.  (After all, I know how I feel after "just one!")

To remedy this sticky situation, we choose to host lots of functions at our house. Mostly neighbors will come to these affairs and if they get so drunk that  they wake up the next morning not knowing how they got home, well for all they know I could have been their designated walker. 
 

The Perfect Couple

When Jerry gets up in the morning, he's like a ninja.  He silently slides out of bed while I remain deep in slumber.  He could be dressing an inch away from my face and I'd never know it, he's that quiet.

When I get up, I'm like a baby elephant.  With every step I take, the house shakes on its foundation.  Pictures rattle as I bump into walls and doors.  It's hard to believe I can make this much noise when I'm trying to be so quiet.  Not only do I wake Jerry (and anyone else who might happen to be sleeping in our house,) I'm pretty sure I wake up the neighbors too.

It's true what they say:  Opposites DO attract.

Movie Night

Although we don't own a tv, once or twice a week we get a movie, take it to our friend Mary Ann's and watch it there.  We could just as easily stay home and pop it into our computer but all three of us enjoy movie night. It's a social thing, which is lucky because we've watched a run of bad movies lately, all chosen by me.

The worst one came from our neighbor Doug.  One morning I saw him painting his garage floor and went over to check it out.  He said he was doing half in Michigan blue and half in MSU green, that he is an equal opportunity Michigander.  While he was telling me this, I was scanning through a stack of DVDs.  It's a habit that seasoned garage-salers adopt - almost a reflex, really. 

I'm picky about what I watch.  I don't like gore, horror, violence, car chases or sad stories.  I gravitate toward the inspirational, romantic comedies, intrigue or dramas with happy endings.  I want to be entertained, not depressed.

A lot of the films in Doug's movie stash were family classics already but when I picked up a title that I'd never seen, he said, "It's good.  You'll like.  Take it."  It seemed like we had similar taste in movies, so I did.  I figured if it was in his garage, he probably wouldn't be needing it any time soon anyway. 

There was a decapitated body in the movie we watched that night and the head turned up in a cooler, too.  No need to say more.

The next evening we ran into Doug at the grocery store.  I told him he is never, ever allowed to recommend a movie to me again.  "What movie did you watch?" he asked.  "Shipping News."  "Oh.  I never saw that one.  I heard it got good reviews though."  As Mary Ann succinctly put it, "Well, that was an hour and a half of my life that I'll never get back."

For the entire month of December, all we're going to watch is Christmas Classics.  You can't go wrong watching Clark bumbling around trying to untangle his Christmas lights and no matter how many times we see Ralphie walk down the stairs in his bunny suit, we still laugh out loud.

Sneaking around in the woods

I was sitting at my desk looking out the window when I saw a neighbor from the top of the hill scurrying down into the woods that surround our house. He was dressed in blue jeans, a blue hoodie and he had a white plastic bag in his hand. I couldn't see what he was doing, but he was moving rapidly, bending down every so often and putting something in his bag.

I was about to call out when the thought occurred to me that I don't really know him all that well and perhaps he was harvesting a crop of weed that he had planted in the spring. I have read about people doing that in National Forests. Who would notice here?

Did I really want him to know that I was observing him? I decided to just keep quiet. (I did wonder why he wasn't wearing camos though. They seem like a better choice if you are going to engage in risky business. Women really do think differently than men do, don't they?)

He ran around in the woods for fifteen to twenty minutes and then, like a Cullen, he vanished as mysteriously as he had arrived.

Later that evening I was walking with a mutual friend and entertaining her with this very story. At the exact moment she was belly laughing, whom should appear but Mr. Woods Walker himself? "Hey, Doug," she said, "Chris was wondering if you were harvesting pot in the woods this afternoon?"

"One hundred and seventy-seven." He replied cryptically. Then, before I could ask any questions, he was gone once again.

One hundred and seventy-seven? My mind rushed. "Should I rush home, pack a quick bag and get out of town?" I thought. Overactive imagination? Guilty!

On the other side of the woods, there is a golf course. He had picked up one hundred seventy-seven golf balls.