This is How We Vacation
The Bear sliced off a couple of vacation days to throw out the junk bazaar in the basement and spruce up some paint, siding/gutter repair, mailbox, etc. outside the cracker box.
I am very grateful.
Meanwhile, the cats do their own share of re-destroying whatever I happen to clean up during the week. Or Crackers paws at the glass and stares down the neighbor’s dog on the other side of the ivy-fence sandwich. It’s like she doesn’t really know she’s supposed to be afraid of dogs. I have also noticed lately that Crackers has sort of a pinkish undertone, like parts of her had been shaded with a shell-pink pencil, because she always reminds me of a creature sketched with this particular writing instrument anyway.
First, though, we picked up the Puck, who had just uncovered a rusted dog-bone-shaped tin in the backyard. Carrie helped him hose it down.
“Oh, that thing?” Francis said shortly later, unaffected. “Yeah, I found that in the ground awhile ago and buried it again. There was a dead animal in it. Bird bones.”
Wishbone.
The family parakeet. Or maybe Barney. The blue and green semi-precious-jeweled feathers of bright tunes, ending life in a lightening storm while we vacationed in Arizona back in 1994… At least for poor old Wishbone. Heart attack. With suggestion of “the curse of the mummy bird” from Sun… the tin was reluctantly replaced.
By the way, you know things are back to normal when Joe waves you off at the front porch again at every minor departure.
Until two, the Bear swept up junk and unclogged the corners of the basement with aid of Sharpie, broom, and vinegar?… I think. These were the items ferreted to him by Puck anyway, who was looking for all sorts of excuses to avoid Quiet Hour.
And… nothing like a yearly doctor’s appointment at the hospital to make you feel happy and full of life and energy. It’s like going in for an annual grade. You’re hoping for maybe not even an A+, just an A- even, but you’re pretty sure you’ll land up somewhere around a C because no one gave you the textbook to study.
Well.
Sort of. We’re all told the same thing though, aren’t we? Diet and exercise. Diet and exercise. Diet and exercise. And yet somehow I cleared all the hurdles. Hey, I choke down those salads. I take long walks to no place when I have the blue-moon opportunity. I even celebrated with a pure pressed apple juice.
The Bear couldn’t abandon his buddies on a Thursday night, but before packing up and heading out, he treated us to some sweet Atlanta-good Chick-fil-A. With their eighty-five cent cheese sauce for the waffle fries.
Good stuff.
While we drove out for these culinary treasures, Puck tried to snap his fingers…
“I’ve been trying to get sounds coming out of my flicks.”
In the drive-through, Puck inquired of the Bear one of his latest interests – our dreams…
“What dreams have you been having?” the Bear asked in return.
“Um… It might be a little creepy, Dad.”
“I like creepy dreams.”
“I don’t think so… a ghost!”
In the evening, I made my plans for all the plans that I plan or plan on planning.
And a little more bizarre lost in translation Korean drama.