Category Archives: Whimsies

Thursday Thoughts

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Beautiful
Last weekend, while Bill was helping people put on helmets so they could drive around a racetrack, one of the things I did was go to see the movie Beauty and the Beast. I loved the movie so much. It was spectacular, totally riveting. I have seen the Disney animated version and I have seen the play on Broadway (literally!). The movie is a nice blend of the two versions. The acting and music were impressive. I couldn’t help but cry. Two particular things struck me that day. First, as I was paying for my movie, I noticed a couple about my age, and I heard the husband request, “Two seniors for Beauty and the Beast.” I couldn’t stop myself. I went up to the couple and said to the woman, “I can’t believe you were able to get your husband to come to this movie.” She laughed, and told me, “We take turns choosing the movie, and it was my turn.” The husband shrugged good-naturedly. The second thing that struck me is that I am very glad that circumstances resulted in me being unable to take Kaiya, Mylee, and Cole to that same movie during our recent trip back to Denver. There were scenes that were darnright scary. Snarling wolves. A very mean Beast until he mellowed out. I think Kaiya and Cole would have been fine. Mylee would have FREAKED OUT.

Slurp
Before Jen left to go back to Colorado during her last trip to AZ, she left a six-pack of little cans of Pepsi, and asked me to make sure there were always two cans in the refrigerator for whenever Lilly and Austin stopped by. They full-out know that the cans of soda are there waiting for them. Yesterday, I got a call from my niece Maggie who asked if I could watch the two kids for a couple of hours between the time she left for work and Mark would be able to pick them up. I had absolutely nothing to do, so I said yes. As soon as they walked in the door, they reminded me that they had cans of pop awaiting them. At the same time, their mom gave me a package of red vines that she was allowing the two kids to split as a treat. It didn’t take long before this happened……

Who knew that Red Vines could be straws as well as candy?

Writing More Better
I have been on hold for literally months for a book at the Mesa Public Library. A romance novel? No. A mystery? Uh-uh. A historical novel? Not a chance. It is called On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, by William Zinsser. I am in 7th heaven. It is a primer for writing and editing. I love to write, and it is my sincere hope that I write reasonably well. But I want to write even better. The first few chapters have been about tight writing and not cluttering up your writing with unnecessary words. I’ll bet if I read this post very carefully (which I won’t), I could remove dozens of unnecessary words. As French philosopher Blaise Pascal said: If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

Pretty Cars
I have mentioned on several occasions that we see lots of pretty refurbished cars around our area. I guess there are a lot of retired people who have spent a lot of time and money to make an old car purr like new car. I was shopping the other day, and there was a random car show taking place in the parking lot. I’m not particularly a car lover, but the cars were pretty enough to make me stop and look and shoot a few pictures…..

Guys just wanna have fun.

Ciao.

 

Fly the Friendly Skies

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So once again I find myself flummoxed. I find that I am flummoxed more and more often as I get older. There was a time when I was almost never flummoxed. In fact, there was a time when I didn’t even know what the word meant.

I was recently astounded when I learned that when Dave and Jll and the kids came to visit us late in February, they, and all of the passengers, had to change planes because it was discovered that someone had stuffed a dirty diaper down the plane’s toilet. See? Flummoxed. Because who thinks it is alright or makes any sense whatsoever to stuff a diaper down those tiny little toilets?

I was again bewildered the other day at our hotel when I was sitting down enjoying my free breakfast, and looked up to see a 20-something man wearing his PJs and barefoot walk into the public eating area intending to begin serving himself breakfast. He was stunned when the server told him he needed to be wearing shoes. And perhaps clothes, I thought to myself. Can you imagine? Can you even think of a reason that he would think it was okay to come into a public dining area dressed as though he was at his mom’s house?

But my state of confusion this time comes from the story that you have all probably seen or heard about United Airlines physically dragging a man off the plane after he refused to leave on his own. As you will recall, the man was perfectly entitled to his seat since he had paid for it. However, airlines routinely oversell their tickets. Having never worked for an airline, I can only imagine that it is because they often have no-shows. I have been sitting at the gate many times when I hear them ask people if they would give up their seats for some sort of compensation. They start with offering a pack of gum and move up from there.  I have never – not one single time – taken them up on their offer because when it’s time for me to fly, I want to get it over with.

What I can’t quite figure out is why airlines are allowed to do this. I began thinking about my dad when he owned the bakery. Let’s say Easter’s approaching.  He has made 25 dozen hot cross buns. But he accepts orders from 30 people who each order a dozen hot cross buns, because he assumes five people will forget to come in and pick up their buns. So when 30 people come in to pick up their order, he tells my mother to go grab a dozen rolls from five different people to give to five other people. These people would be extremely angry and would never again set foot in the bakery. If there had been a Yelp back then, he would have been BLASTED on Yelp.

So why are airlines allowed to do this?

I’m sure there are two sides to this story, but I frankly can’t think of a good one for United. Because the airline was trying to make room for four of their own employees. Let me say that one more time. This man was physically dragged down the aisle and left with a bleeding face because four United employees needed to get on the plane. Probably for a reason relating to their job. Which is why the man who was dragged off the plane insisted he needed to not be dragged off the plane. He needed to be at work the next day.

Now, it is entirely possible that this man was a total pain in the neck. As far as I’m concerned, it makes absolutely no difference. He purchased the seat. He chose not to accept the compensation for giving up his seat. So United simply needed to up their compensation offer until it’s tempting enough to get four people to volunteer to give up their seats. And – here’s an idea – NOT PHYSICALLY DRAG SOMEONE DOWN THE AISLE.

Fly the friendly skies, indeed. Glad I got that off my chest!

Cooking All Day

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Easter Sunday looms in the very near future, and that means a week of food preparation. Oh, and a celebration of the resurrection of our Lord, which often gets lost in the talk about ham and Easter bunnies.

This year, I am cooking Easter dinner for much of our Arizona family, but the meal will be served at the house of my brother and sister-in-law. You might recall that Sami broke her back just over a month ago, and while she’s doing remarkably well, she isn’t quite ready to prepare a big holiday dinner, or, frankly, even withstand the rigors of a holiday dinner at someone else’s house. Our answer is to provide her the comfort of her own home, but not require her to slaughter the fatted calf herself. I will do the slaughtering as it were, with help from others.

Yesterday morning I did my first last shop at Walmart, where, to my surprise, I was able to get most everything I needed except for Gruyere cheese for the cheesy scalloped potatoes. I will purchase the cheese when I do my second or third last shop somewhere that isn’t Walmart.

As I started planning out my week (just which day do I make my lemon pie and how long should I marinate my leg of lamb) I recalled an article I came across entitled 10 Tips for Cooking All Day Without Making a Mess. You know that I didn’t write the article, because if I did, it would be entitled 10 Tips for Cooking All Day and Making Such a Mess That You Can’t Even Find the First Thing You Cooked But It’s Probably Under the Soggy Lettuce Leaves.

Here are their suggestions….

  1. Start with a clean kitchen. So I’m in trouble right off the bat, because my kitchen is never really clean. There are either dirty dishes sitting on the counter or clean dishes draining in the sink that have not yet been (nor will probably ever be) put away. There is maybe a window of seven minutes in the evening when I have loaded the dishwasher with our dinner dishes that I would consider my kitchen to be clean, but by that time I’m looking longingly at my jammies.
  2. 2. Make a game plan before you start. Another fly ball. No game plan. I have been known to start preparation for a cake only to realize that I have no eggs. As for a recipe, if I haven’t pinned it on Pinterest, I’m unlikely to ever locate it.
  3. Use the right tools for the job. I almost have this one nailed. I have a tool for nearly every job you could possibly think of. I just don’t know where it is.
  4. Get canisters that are big enough to fit your measuring cups. Boom. A home run. My measuring cups all fit in my canisters. Of course, the measuring cup I covet is the one used by Ree Drummond on her Food Network television shoe that is a two-cup measuring cup which would fit in exactly none of my canisters. I actually have one sitting in my cart on Amazon just waiting for me to justify it in some way and therefore hit the purchase-this-with-one-click button. I’ve come thiiiiiiiiis close.
  5. Measure over the sink. This is a good tip, something it never occurred to me to do. Since reading it, I do it and it results in fairly easy cleanup. This is a good thing as I always, ALWAYS spill my flour all over my counter.
  6. Use a plate as a giant spoon rest. I can’t. They’re all in the dishwasher or stacked up in the sink.
  7. Make friends with aluminum foil. Oh man, Mr. Aluminum Foil is my besty. That, and Mrs. Parchment Paper, both of which I carefully crinkle up and throw away and give a passing thought to not even washing the pan. I mostly do wash it. Did I say that too quickly?
  8. Get rid of food scraps. You know, I find Rachael Ray to be one of the most annoying people on television (is she still on television?). Don’t call olive oil EVOO and don’t call thick soup stoup. It’s irritating. But while on the surface, her idea of having a garbage bowl seems dumb, it actually works really well for someone like me, who finds opening up the cupboard and throwing things in the garbage to be too much work. I mean, seriously? I can’t even write those words with a straight face. But reality is reality. Having a bowl in which to place all of my various scraps and other garbage as I’m cooking works really well for me.
  9. Tidy up as you go. Nope.
  10. Schedule cleaning breaks. Nope to the second power.

And so, this holiday, like last, will remain disorganized, but we will muster through. At the end of the day we will all have full stomachs and will be able to rest in the knowledge that even if my kitchen is dirty, I have still been saved through our Lord’s death and resurrection.

Is It Noisy in Here, or Is It Just Me?

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Anyone who has had more than a three-minute conversation with Bill any time since early January knows that this past weekend was devoted to car racing. Bill has been beside himself with excitement for what transpired at Phoenix International Raceway April 7, 8, and 9, and couldn’t curb his enthusiasm.

And for good reason, because the way Bill spent the last few days is a dream come true for a car racing fan.

It all started when he received a Christmas gift from Dave and Jll for a ride-along in an Indie car at PIR. You might recall that last Christmas he received a similar gift from them, only that time it was a NASCAR ride-along. He had such a good time last year that it was no wonder he so eagerly awaited the Indie car ride.

Bill has a way of figuring out how to make a fun activity even more fun. In his Bill-like way, he learned that the NASCAR Experience (which is the company that offers the ride alongs) offered the opportunity to DRIVE either an Indie car or a NASCAR for eight minutes by yourself in exchange for providing slave labor for three days for NASCAR Experience.

Only here’s the thing. For Bill, it wasn’t slave labor at all; rather, though it was indeed hard work, it was a labor of love. Getting to be around race cars and racing fans, being able to shoot the breeze with people who get just as excited as he does at seeing the blur of cars go by and hearing the nearly deafening noise of the cars, and talking to new friends about Chase Elliott’s chances this year all made him a happy man.


In fact, he was so excited about his racing plans that he bought my brother, who loves NASCAR as much as Bill, a NASCAR ride along.

Friday and Saturday I did little more than drop him off at the race track before heading to the hotel room that we obtained so that he didn’t have to make the hour-and-15-minute drive twice a day for three days. I’ll take reading by the pool drinking a gin and tonic over talking about Dale Junior’s chances at taking it all this year with strangers any day of the week. While Bill helped men and women of all ages into race cars, I saw Beauty and the Beast. He came home smelling like exhaust fumes; I came home smelling like buttered popcorn.

But I did have the opportunity when I dropped him off on Friday morning to meet one of his co-volunteers. Surprisingly, she was a young woman in her late 20s or early 30s who is a big racing fan. Lavinia was born in Romania, but came to the United States when she was 5. Having lived in Chicago much of her life, the only trace of an accent she had was a Chicago twang. And in the It’s-a-Small-World Department, she lived only a hop and a skip from where Bill lived much of his Chicago life.

Lavinia and Bill

As we talked, I learned that she is well traveled, and makes frequent trips back to Europe. She told us about a recent trip she took to Paris, and how this particular visit was exceptionally exciting because it was on Bastille Day. She talked about how much energy the city had because of the holiday, and how she enjoyed the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower.

“Wasn’t there a terror attack in France that took place last Bastille Day?” I asked, being such a student of current events.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s when I was there.”

She buried the lead. Or, as they would spell it in journalism school, lede. Because SHE WAS IN FRANCE DURING A TERROR ATTACK. The surprising thing, however, was that we probably learned about the Nice attack before she did. All she knew was that it took her several hours to get back to her hotel because streets were closed. That, and she was getting frantic text messages from family and friends saying things like Mother of God! Tell me you’re hundreds of kilometers from Nice!

But back to NASCAR. And Indie cars. Because Bill had a two-in-one experience yesterday. He had his ride-along in an Indie car, which he said went extremely fast and was extremely fun. And because of his volunteer work, he drove a NASCAR all by himself. Well, sort of all by himself, because there was a man in the tower feeding him instructions on what to do, how many RPMs to get it up to on the straight-away, and ordering him to take his foot off the accelerator as he approached a curve. And getting annoyed when Bill didn’t exactly, well, obey.

 

 

As for my brother, he was able to drive in one of Jeff Gordon’s old cars, and his driver told him they reached a speed of 130 mph on the straight-away. Dave’s assessment as he emerged from the car? “That was a blast.”

You had to be there I guess.

This post linked to Grand Social.

Saturday Smiles: More Smiles!

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This week has gone by in a flash, but here are a few things that made me smile while in Denver last weekend, if you can stand a few more photos of that trip.

My sister Jen came to visit on Sunday, and we had the opportunity to go geocaching. We greatly missed my geocaching buddies Maggie and Dagny, but still, ended up one for two in our search. Here is Jen uncovering a geocache that was stuck inside a log….

The spring flowers are blooming in Denver, though since we left town, they have had to bloom through a bit of snow. Here, though, is a particularly pretty tree of some sort that we came across while on our geocaching adventure….

I have mentioned on numerous occasions that our Zierk grands love Play Doh. Love, in fact, is not a strong enough word. There was a lot of creating going on, but perhaps this simple sculpture says it all.

What is it, you ask? According to its creator, Kaiya, it is unicorn poop. All it needs is eyes and a mouth, and it could be an emoji.

And finally, Alastair’s birthday was Wednesday, two days after we left. So he celebrated with us on Saturday. He turned a mighty 12!…..

Don’t you love my gift wrapping?

Have a great weekend.

Thursday Thoughts

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Crash
Every morning when we are in AZ, the first thing I do in the morning when I get up is open the front door. The Acacia tree in our front yard, about which I have frequently written as it creates so much work for Bill, while being a pain in the neck, also is the home of many birds. I love to hear the birds chirping in our front yard in the early morning hours. Unfortunately, yesterday morning the open front door also allowed me to hear a car accident that took place at our closest major intersection – Brown and Ellsworth – that is probably a quarter of a mile from our house. I heard the sound of screeching tires and then a really loud BOOM. I knew full well that within a few minutes, I would also hear the sound of sirens, and I did. I’m not sure what happened, but I know that someone’s day was ruined. I quickly said a prayer, as I do whenever I hear or see something like that. I was reminded about how our lives can change in the blink of an eye.

Watch Out!
It must be the day for accidents, because I almost saw one at the grocery store yesterday afternoon. In fact, I don’t want to brag, but I think that were it not for little ol’ moi, someone’s insurance would have gone up. I was walking back to my car after a quick shop, and there was a car backing up without any tentativeness and another car driving down the aisle, also throwing caution to the wind. They were set to crash, and without thinking, I yelled out at the top of my lungs, “WATCH OUT!” They both stopped suddenly, and crisis averted. I can’t say they even gave me the slightest wave of thanks; nevertheless, I feel as though my attempt to be a blessing to someone every day was successful for that day.

Is it Hot in Here or is it Just Me?
I read a story the other day that made me laugh out loud at the time, and it’s made me laugh out loud every single time I’ve read it. And frankly, that’s very naughty of me because what happened was actually quite unfortunate and dangerous. What was fortunate is that it doesn’t sound as though the person was hurt. Apparently a man shopping at a Costco store in Washington had to swiftly and undoubtedly frantically remove his pants because the cell phone that was in his pocket caught fire. It was NOT a Galaxy Note 7, which has been the topic of much media coverage and discussion because they have been known to spontaneously combust due to the battery getting too hot. The fact that it was NOT a Note 7 does not, my friends, give me much comfort. Instead, it tells me that at any moment, my very own cell phone could go up in flames and though I would not have to remove my pants, I would have to throw aside my new purse. Maybe it really was simpler when telephones were connected to the wall and didn’t start on fire.

Rose Colored Glasses
I suddenly realized the other day that my new favorite color must be dusty rose. Why do I think that? Because I realized that my phone is dusty rose, my iPad cover is dusty rose, and I purchased a new purse at DSW the other day, and it is – you guessed it – dusty rose. I didn’t even realize that I was drawn to that extent to that particular color.

Ciao.

Hospitality Room

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As we flew back to Denver, when both of my hands weren’t completely tied up either clutching the sides of my seat or holding Bill’s hand so tightly he felt like he was sitting next to a vice grip because of turbulence, I was reading a fairly mindless novel. In the part of the novel I was reading as I was trying not to think about the prospects of plummeting to my death, the main character was attending a Catholic Mass at which the priest pointed out how much of the New Testament talked about hospitality.

Interesting notion, that. I started thinking about it, mainly to refrain from thinking about how the plane was bouncing around the sky like part of a pinball machine. There are all number of examples and stories of hospitality in the Bible, and particularly in the New Testament. In fact, Jesus’ first miracle took place at a wedding party, where his mother pointed out that the wine was running out and it wouldn’t be very hospitable to let that happen, now would it, son?

During the time of Christ, hospitality wasn’t just good manners; it could be the difference between life and death. When Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes, for example, he wasn’t just demonstrating to the people that he was the son of God. Oh, that was undoubtedly the main reason he did it. But the fact of the matter is that those people had come a very long way to hear Jesus speak. Perhaps it was bad planning on their part, but there was no food, and they were hungry. It wasn’t like they could call Uber Eats and order 625 buckets of extra crispy chicken.

The return of the prodigal son was celebrated with a big party and lots of food. It was at a fairly controversial dinner with (gasp!) a Pharisee that Jesus forgave the sinful woman and pointed out that she was being more hospitable than was his host.

My most-loved story of hospitality in the New Testament, however, is the story of Mary and Martha, the two sisters of Lazarus who Jesus loved so much that Jesus cried when he learned that Lazarus had died.  My favorite account of Mary and Martha is in Luke’s gospel when he tells us about the day that Jesus came for a visit. As Jesus preached, Mary sat at his feet and listened to him talk. At the same time, Martha was getting more and more perturbed as she did all of the preparation for dinner. If it wasn’t for Martha, the day would have been quite inhospitable. Still, as you will recall, when Martha complained to Jesus that she was doing all the work, rather than the expected pat on the back, Jesus told her Mary was making the better decision.

SERIOUSLY? That’s what I always think when I listen to that gospel. Because there is no doubt in my mind that I would be Martha, down to the whining about doing all of the work. Furthermore, I always think, if Martha didn’t get dinner on the table, there was going to be a whole bunch of hungry people looking for something to eat, and see above. No Uber Eats.

I’m not second-guessing Jesus, mind you (as I glance up at the ceiling to make certain there are no lightning bolts present). But hospitality was always a big thing when I grew up. Big family dinners. Holiday celebrations. Small dinners that might include drop-ins.

And the tradition of hospitality has been passed on to all of Mom’s children and grandchildren as well. There is scarcely a week that goes by that I don’t eat at my brother’s or my sister’s or my niece’s or my nephew’s house, or they eat at ours. That meal will include lots of food, wine, beer, bread, and if Bill has anything to say about it, dessert. It’s what we did when we were back in Denver for that short period of time — broke bread together.

Sometimes it seems like all of our advanced technology has made us less hospitable rather than more. We spend more time looking at our cell phones or our iPads, and less time looking into each other’s eyes. And really, how can you know if someone needs our help unless you are looking at them and talking to them, and maybe even breaking bread with them.

And, by the way, I know what Jesus meant when he said Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.  But still, at the risk of that lightning bolt, couldn’t Mary have listened from the kitchen as she helped Martha set the table?

Ready When You Are

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Yesterday morning, at about 9:15, Bill and I opened the front door of our Denver home, and began watching for our ride to the airport. Our intention had been to call for an Uber, thereby not inconveniencing anybody on a busy Monday morning. Our daughter-in-law Jll caught wind of this and offered to drive us to the airport instead of waiting for a stranger in an unknown vehicle to pick us up. Well, if you put it that way….

We agreed upon 9:30, which was actually humorously early as our plane wasn’t leaving until 12:30. But you never know. People rushing somewhere in Atlanta the other day probably weren’t expecting that someone smoking crack underneath an overpass would light a chair on fire, thereby causing a section of a major Atlanta freeway to collapse. Jll is too nice to even come close to rolling her eyes, so if we said 9:30, she would be there at 9:30.

So at 9:15, there were Bill and I, with our suitcases neatly packed and ready to roll, and the house all closed up and ready for us to simply walk out and lock the door. But I must admit that the situation got me to thinking about my grandmother.

My grandfather passed away in 1969, and my mother and father sold the bakery five years later to move to Colorado. Seeings as my grandmother lived in an apartment above the bakery, she needed to move as well. Though I was 19 years old and away at college when my parents sold everything and moved to Colorado, I think I am safe in assuming that there was much discussion about what should happen to Grammie. At the end of the day, the final decision was that she would divide her time between her four kids – two of whom also lived in my home town of Columbus, Nebraska, and two of whom now lived in Colorado.

When I think back on that situation, it couldn’t have been easy for her. She had lived independently for nearly 50 years, and suddenly she was going to be relying on her children for her room and board. As far as I know, she never complained.

Eventually I left Nebraska and moved to Colorado, where I lived with my parents for a period of time. It’s kinda starting to sound crowded, isn’t it? But on a number of occasions, I would drive back to Nebraska to visit my friends and family who still lived there. I had my sporty 1969 Ford Mustang (read about it here) and I would hit I-80 and make it to Columbus in eight or nine hours. Very often, Grammie would go with me.

I was always amused about the fact that no matter what time I told her we would leave in the morning, when I got up and went out to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, there she would be, sitting in the front room with her coat on, her “pocketbook” on her lap, and her suitcase at her feet, ready to go. I actually got to the point where I would tell her we were going to leave a bit later than I actually planned, hoping she would sleep in a bit. Maybe it worked; maybe it didn’t. I don’t know because she was always sitting there when I arose.

So there I was yesterday morning, awaiting Jll’s arrival, and I was doing my own version of sitting in the front room with my pocketbook on my lap and my suitcase at my feet. And suddenly I realized why Grammie was always ready long before I was fixing to leave. SHE DIDN’T WANT TO INCONVENIENCE ME. The same reason that Bill and I were ready long before it was time for Jll to arrive.

Which tells me that there is a point in one’s life where you are aware that your children and grandchildren are busy and there is no obligation for them to drop everything they are doing and be at your beck and call. I’m sure when that point is exactly, but I know I’ve hit it.

But Grammie, if you read my blog in heaven, first of all, thank you, and second of all, it was an honor, never an obligation, to be your driver to Nebraska!

This post linked to Grammys Grid.

Games People Play

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Saturday night, Bill and I went over to Dave and Jll’s house to spend time with them. Dagny and Maggie Faith were not there; they are off with their Aunt Julie at a dude ranch in the mountains of Colorado. It is my firm belief that when Maggie Faith mounts a horse, the horse is quite unaware that someone is on its back because she is such a peanut.

Anyway, Addie invited me to play Hearts with her. I admitted that I hadn’t played Hearts for quite a long time. In fact, as I thought about it, the last time I played Hearts was when I was in high school, some 45 years ago. Back in those days, my friends and I were quite satisfied to spend an evening at someone’s house playing Hearts or Pitch rather than doing something much more illegal and/or dangerous. In other words…..

Let me assure you that unlike riding a bike, playing Hearts doesn’t easily come back to you. Or at least it didn’t to me. Dave and Jll joined Addie and me at the game, and I came in dead last. A-for-effort and all that jazz. And Addie didn’t have to be quite that amused by my loss! Remember the good ol’ days when she was still nice to me…..

They are a family of game players. Mine was not. I have a vague recollection of Mom teaching me to play gin rummy, a game that I actually do still remember how to play. At some point, I knew how to play cribbage, because I remember playing cribbage games with my dad. That game required me to be able to do math my head, something problematic for me. Nevertheless, my brother has promised to refresh my memory on that particular game very soon. I hope he doesn’t mind if I count on my fingers.

Monopoly? No. Life? Not a chance. Scrabble? You’ve got to be kidding me. We never even owned a game of Candyland.

Back in the 70s when I was still married to my first husband, he taught me to play backgammon. We didn’t play often, but I did learn the game. Decades later, when Bill and I took our big European adventure trip, we brought along playing cards and a backgammon board. Bill had never played backgammon, and I could scarcely remember how to play. Still, we read up on the rules and sat down one night in Italy and played backgammon. I decidedly defeated my husband, and I was never able to get him to play again. He claims it wasn’t because I beat him so handily, but I am suspicious. Bill’s love for games is even smaller than mine, so the fact that we played a lot of games of gin rummy and kings-in-the-corner while on our trip indicates just how desperate we were for entertainment in a world in which we couldn’t understand a word on the television.

When I attended the University of Nebraska, I was a member of a sorority. I moved into the sorority house during my sophomore year. I remember that nearly any time of the day and often late into the night, there were women sitting in the beautiful living room of the sorority house playing Bridge. They looked so accomplished and elegant and grown up what with the bidding and the partners and all. And they didn’t even have to slap their hands on any cards like I did during a recent game of Slap Jack with Dagny and Addie. But I never learned to play.

A game I kind of wish I could learn to play is Pinochle. Having said that my family wasn’t one to play games, I must admit there was one exception. I remember my dad and my grandfather and my uncles and sometimes even my mom and my aunts sitting at Grammie’s big dining room table and playing Pinochle. I know nearly nothing about the game, except that you have partners and it requires a specific deck of cards, called – shockingly – a pinochle deck. And while I’m not entirely sure I’m right about this, I think it requires that the players drink beer as they play the game. It doesn’t say that in the rules, but I don’t remember any games played without beer, so I’m pretty sure I’m right.

Bill and I don’t play well together. We tried playing Trivial Pursuit a very long time ago. We were at my brother’s house, and for some reason, we thought it would be fun to play girls against boys, thereby pitting me against Bill. Everytime I would pick a card bearing a trivia question, Bill would say, “Geez, that’s sooooooo easy.” I, of course, wouldn’t know the answer, and felt completely stupid. Even after all these years, I remember one of the questions for which I couldn’t come up with the answer: Who was the president of France during the first part of the Cold War? The answer, of course, was Charles de Gaulle, and I knew this. I promise I did. But for the life of me, I couldn’t come up with his name. All the while, Bill was saying, “That’s soooooo easy.” I’ll tell you what that was. The end of the game.

Last night I played cards again with Addie and her mom and dad. Neither she nor I won the games, and Addie and I both wallowed in our card-playing shame.

Until next time….

This post linked to the GRAND Social

Saturday Smile: Grandkid Almost Heaven

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Our trip back to Denver has been a good one, with both Bill and I being able to visit with friends and family. Here are some of the highlights that have made me smile….

Kaiya, Mylee, and Cole enjoyed a movie day at our house that included candy, soda, the essential popcorn, and The Troll Movie. Mylee and Cole are concentrating on the food. As for Kaiya, she is unable to refrain from performing for a camera.

I was able to avert disaster just as Alastair, Dagny, and Maggie Faith were about to commence using their various sticks to go into sibling battle. The trick? A camera.

Adelaide shows me the trick to a selfie…..from what I can tell, the trick is to have her take the picture instead of me!

You can see why I’m smiling. I’m very blessed. And, by the way, the reason this post is entitled ALMOST HEAVEN is because we’re missing two of our grandkids who are at home in Vermont! Now, that would be heaven.

Have a great weekend.