One lovely afternoon, playing cards with Luke & Sean on the front porch....
Me: You know, Dad and I used to not have a tv. We did other things like read books, work on stuff, make things...It was actually nice not to have the tv around. Maybe we'll do that this summer, see how it goes.
Sean: I think I'm addicted to the television.
Me: Well, what do you think you'd do if we turned off the tv?
Sean: Turn it back on.
Vacation posts done, I'm settling in and embracing home. My brother-in-law took the kids to the orchard the other day and picked blueberries and peaches. These are the ones my kids picked. Sean was rather annoyed that I combined them into one bowl. Now how are we going to tell who's are who's? I made two blueberry buckles and lots of blueberry peach smoothies with a dollop of Greek yogurt and milk. The fresh taste burst onto your tongue unlike anything else. How is it that a freshly picked piece of fruit tastes drastically different from one that was picked last week and shipped across three states? Any time I'd yell out Anyone want a blueberry smoothie? a resounding YES would come from all corners of the house.
I gave one of the buckles to my best friend and her family who had gathered home and had been holding fast to their dad, not doing well. He wasn't eating or drinking but ate an entire piece of my blueberry buckle, our blueberry buckle. I laid some out on cookie sheets in the freezer and froze the rest and we're still having blueberry smooties.
When I was little, we spent many summers at my great grandfather's farm, just around the corner from a blueberry field manned by Puerto Rican summer workers. They had a small stand on the road that attracted fisherman on their way to the bay. Those were the best blueberries I've ever eaten and the largest. Find the largest blueberry in that bowl and that was the smallest of the blueberries we'd get from that bayside blueberry field. My mom would immediately make a blueberry buckle with the recipe from my great grandmother's file. She knew what to do with a blueberry.
We left Bloomington, Indiana mid-afternoon and headed east down the curving road toward Nashville, Indiana. As he drove, Stan wondered about the van's floaty feeling and planned to check our tires in Columbus, Indiana. In Columbus before we could stop, two guys in an old turquoise sports car came up on our right so's I could see straight into their car and what they were drinkin' and pointed to our back right tire. They drove on and we stopped at a gas station where a friendly customer eagerly asked if Stan needed air, ran inside to ask Clementine behind the counter if she had air and when she said she didn't, directed Stan to the nearest and finest tire-changin' spot around! I mean, if that's not service - even the customers are helpful!
So we jumped into the van and drove down to Leonard's tire place on North Gladstone across from the cemetery. They squeezed us in at 4:48 on a Friday evening, changed our tire in less than one half hour and we were on our way at 5:16. $45. And a small tip just for being so nice and all.
Then we drove home.
Wait just a second. It wasn't quite that easy. We did sleep in Parkersburg and that's a whole nother story and then we drove home. Well, we drove to Delaware. You see in Delaware on I-95 there is a toll booth. We couldn't know that was what we were stopping for because we were 9 miles away from any toll booth when we came to a screeching halt, plus we had just flown through a toll booth in Maryland in the same traffic. 9 miles, 45 minutes. Roll that over in your head a few times. Don't forget the three kids in the back who had just traveled 650 miles at an average of 65 miles an hour. Somewhere in Delaware it became 12 miles an hour. That changes the flavor of the trip! There were four gates open for cash, three open for easy-pass. Oh and three gates closed. They were resting gates. They were sleepy. We all tiptoed through the insufficient number of open gates very quietly so as not to wake them. I was sure wishin' one of the drunk guys in the sports car, the guy buying milk at the service station and Leonard himself were there. Bet they would've stepped up and manned those booths in a pinch like that!
Getting a flat tire fixed in a strange town took half the time it did to pass through a toll booth on the major throughway - and I use that word loosely in this case - of the east coast a Saturday afternoon.
So, I'd like to review. Just to beat this dead horse.
Columbus, Indiana Flat Tire (+ two drunk guys in a car + one good samaritan fellow buying some milk + Leonard's great business on N. Gladstone) = 25 minutes and 5 grateful customers.
I-95 Delaware Toll Booth = 45 minutes and the promise never to travel that route again.
We live in a busy place. Every time we drive out to the midwest we note: We have to fight our way out and we have to fight our way back in. That's just the way it is. I'm grateful still. We've driven those roads countless times for over 20 years and we have been graced with many many traveling mercies. I do count Columbus, Indiana as one of them!
In this third summer vacation post, I'd like to introduce you to Jeanne Ann. She's my great & groovy sister-in-law. She taught my husband to read and still loves him and his family very much.
She is a new grandmother.
And she's also a lifelong tom-boy who still plays soccer with grown men and does probably better than most. She also still likes to play football with her three brothers in the backyard whenever the spirit moves her.
She'd also never broken a bone until her little brother came in from New Jersey and threw her a pass at a family reunion. Then everyone gathered round to see Jeanne's new strangely bent pinkie that would snap up and down with a flick from her other finger but not on it's own.
She's tough. But it hurt. (She loves it when I take pictures of her worst moments.)
And then it really started to hurt.
And then everyone was giving their opinion and diagnosis. That snapping up and down made me think dislocation, but I guess I was wrong. The doc says it's a break.
I still like her, weird misshapen pinkie finger and all.
In this, my second summer vacation post, I am going to carry on a generalization. I can't help it. It's almost as clear and in your face as the red in the air they breathe in Bloomington, Indiana. So I'm just going with it. I'll never forget the first time I walked into the registrars office at IU. I walked up to the lady sitting at her desk and oh, I can't remember her exact words but they might as well have been: Hello Sugar Darling. How long has it been since we've seen each other? Weeks? Please, sit down and let me take a look at you - how are you? I had never been treated like that lady treated me, not even in my childhood home. (Embellishing a bit for affect.) That was the day I discovered how cold was the place from which I'd come.
Now I just want to share a pleasant, touching interchange that happened to me in Indiana with a complete and utter stranger. Two people, three thermoses of coffee, a McDonald's by the side of the road. That's all. It was just a moment, but a moment I will always hold dear. Just let me say as a way to cover my butt fact that there are a'plenty pleasant communicators in the "northeast corridor". (my husband loves that phrase)
Now, let me get to this incredible and memorable story. We drove from New Jersey to Indiana a couple weeks ago. When we crossed over the Indiana border something did stand out to me and it wasn't just the color red. We stopped at a gas station/convenience store/McDonald's for some gas, some coffee and some, yes, convenience. I went to the McD's counter and ordered a coffee and the lady handed me an empty cup. I turned and saw a counter with coffee thermoses. Two were plain colored, one had orange tape on it, but none was labeled. There was a young fellow there, an electrical lines worker dude, and he had just filled his cup with the orange taped thermos.
Here's where things got amazing.
Is that decaf? I asked as I stood next to him.
Oh! I'm not sure! He stepped back a bit. I just assumed it was regular since it was in the middle.
Hm, they usually put orange for decaf, but I thought the same thing. I'll go ask........Yup, it's decaf.
Oh, shoot, he said, pouring his cup into the drain nearby. Well, thanks for pointing that out, I like to have regular.
Wouldn't want you to get a headache later!
He tried the thermos on his side while I filled my cup with the other, This one is empty.
Oh, well I hope there is some left in this one for you.
Yeah, there's some left. He filled his cup, while I was looking for the lids.
I don't see any lids here, I mumbled. Oh well.
Yeah, where are they? He glanced around, just as stumped.
I walked over to Sean who was scoping out candy in the convenience part of the store.
Hey, I found the lids! The guy called to me from across the store on his way out. He pointed to the back, behind the coffee counter, They are over there on that side.
Oh! Thanks a lot!
What you have just witnessed does not happen every day in the northeast corridor. Sure, it HAS happened, but not every day, not with such casual good-naturedness, not really ever in a roadside reststop type place where people are sure not to know each other.
~I will now reenact the scene as might happen on the New Jersey Turnpike.~
Hm, do you know if that one is decaf?
Oh crap.
sitting subtly atop a refridgerator...
...nestled in a shed. (This looks a bit sacrilege. Ever played "corn hole"?)
Even a dock tries its very best to fit in.
If only someone would paint me red, it cried!
Hm. This is getting familiar now.
Remember this person? I didn't know of his existence until at the tender age of 18 I headed in a westerly direction and crossed a few state lines.
Time's running out. Any guesses yet? Anyone? Anyone?
1. There should be an age when men are not allowed to climb ladders any longer. I know of a handful of men (more than 5, less than 10) who fell off ladders doing chores at home and 1) got injured, 2) got severely injured, 3) died. One I know, in the second category, was doing simple chores at home. He is a fire chief. My husband wants to clean the gutters on our third floor, hanging out the window with a "harness" or climbing a very, very tall ladder.
No.
2. I was pulling weeds in my garden today and my 7 year old was playing tennis against our garage door. Behind me, he was chattering away, as he always is. I heard his little mouth say two things: 1) This is fun, you working and me playing tennis. 2) Mom, let's see how good you can duck.
3. One of my sons is in Indiana, in a soccer camp, in a nurse's office, with a fever. He got it from his little brother who last week was on the couch, in my living room, with a fever. Last week we learned that he (the current sick kid) has thyroiditis but ~thankfully~ not juvenile diabetes! So, that he is in Indiana...at a soccer camp...sleeping in a lounge...in a dorm...with a fever...at a rate (I've figured) of about $100/day...not to mention the flight out...is...well......sigh......whatever.
4. My sister is practically forcing me to read Twilight, a popular teen book about a vampire or something. It's like she hasn't known me for 38 years or something.
5. Last night we had both the heat on and the downstairs window air conditioner running. This morning I descended into the cool downstairs, walked over to the coffee pot that sits on a counter above a radiator, opened the top, put in a new filter, grabbed the pot and noticed that my legs were really warm.
6. The Fourth of July parade route in our town has been lined with lawnchairs for days.
7. What's up with this site?
8. Billy Bob Thorton's unique character in Sling Blade (1996) is exactly like Robert Duvall's unique character in Tomorrow (1972).
9. There is some concern lately that because some farm raised fish are being fed cow parts there may be a chance of people getting mad cow disease from eating fish.
10. Today I called or texted or spoke to 4 of Seth's friends trying to return the camera on my table to its rightful owner. It's ours.
TILT!
