I’m late in posting but not much funny has happened.  Masks are coming off and people are still driving selfishly.  Neither of those things are funny.  More people are getting vaccinated and people are still throwing junk in our yard.  Not amusing, either.  Our son had an accident and fractured his ankle, requiring surgery and a lengthy recovery period.  Really not anything there to make me smile.

               So, I’ve been struggling to post a late spring, early summer, funny blog entry.  It’s rainy, hot, humid and people are complaining about the weather (remember when it was February and people wanted it to not be cold?).  I’ve been dashing back and forth, trying to keep our son’s house tidy, food in his fridge and worrying about him/praying for him (counter intuitive activities, I realize).

               Then, I had a Godwink day.  Several things happened that made me realize the world is still rotating and my personal little world is going to be okay.

               I’ve had an appointment with an oral surgeon for several months, waiting to hear his recommendation on a tooth that needs extraction.  I’m a nut about the dentist anyway – even a simple cleaning raises my blood pressure many points and causes panic attacks.  So the thought of an extraction had me on the edge of my seat.  The dentist!  Surgery!  The pain!  Complications!  (Okay, there probably won’t be any, but it’s a possibility that strikes terror into the already-fearful brain).  The horrible food afterward! (Seriously, I am shunning carbs these days, so there’s maybe two things on the list I can actually eat – eggs, and sugar-free jello.  Gag.).

               So, there I was, sitting there with palms sweaty, wondering just how horrible this appointment would be.  Then the receptionist happily announced that my dental insurance was in “their network.” That was a first – and happy – moment. 

               Shortly thereafter, the nurse, Julie, came to get me.  She was pleasant, too, and very kind to me while I babbled, fidgeted, and basically behaved like a scared child.  When inputting my name into her computer, she double-checked that my actual name is “Sue” and not “Susan.”  As her name is “Julie” not “Julia,” we shared amusing anecdotes about times people have called us by incorrect names.  As the morning progressed, I was a little less nervous.

               The doctor came in the room, still chatting with the nurse who was with him, saying something like “I’ve decided not to be frustrated about it.”  (It’s a good thing when your oral surgeon isn’t frustrated, by the way).  I naturally inquired what was going on and he indicated he was having problems with the licensing bureau.

               If you’re a driving adult on the planet, you’ve likely had some difficulty with the license bureau.  But after a few inquiries about what he’d been going through – trouble getting the same person on the phone, being told he hadn’t submitted proper paperwork, renewing the temporary tags, and getting a vin inspection – I had a sense of déjà vu.  “Did you buy your car online?” I asked.  Because our son did this in January, and it took months of emails and phone calls to get his actual license plates.

               As it turns out, he did and he is currently going through the same rather annoying process to get his actual license plates that our son did.  I was grateful to be able to assure him that, with perseverance, he would prevail in getting a real license plate.

               It felt a bit like these interactions were all just supposed to happen.  Maybe this tooth extraction won’t be so bad, after all. Godwink moments really do make a person feel better.

We had this great idea to spruce up our son’s house landscaping by adding some solar lights to his steps.  Well, okay, it was my idea, but my husband indulged me, saying he thought it would look great, as well.

This being my idea, it became my project and I was certain it was so easy I would need no assistance whatsoever. (First mistake, never take your own skills for granted!). I managed to get to the store, find the solar lighting I wanted, purchase eight of them, and return home without much stress.  In fact, it was completely stress-free –which maybe should have put me on full alert.  Really, my projects are usually great ideas, sometimes fun, but rarely stress-free.       

Now mind you, we only needed five lanterns, but they come in sets of four. Or at least the ones I liked did.  Fortunately, we have seven or eight garden areas around our own home that can benefit from lighting, so I wasn’t worried.

I opened the boxes and removed the instructions, carefully setting them aside to read  – if needed – later.  I mean, come on, how complicated can solar lights be?  I then took out each and every one of the lovely little lights and removed them from the loose, plastic baggie one by one.  I carefully set them on the side of our son’s driveway, which faces south and gets full sun most of the day.  It was about noon and the directions indicated that it took 12 hours for a full charge, so I figured we’d get some light that evening and fully charge them the next night.

               Then, because I didn’t read the rest of the directions, I turned the lights onto the large end (which, as it happens, is upside down).  I can’t honestly say I did this with some conscious thought, it just seemed to me that the battery must be in the bottom, so that’s the end that would need the sunlight (another mistake, are you keeping count?  If so, you actually already missed one).

               After dinner that night, we were too tired to go out and assemble the lanterns.  I thought it was okay, since they weren’t going to be fully charged until the next day anyway.  But Matt went out with the dog and when he returned (after dark), he asked me if I had taken the plastic off the lanterns.  Well, duh, yes, the bags surrounding the lights were hard to miss (I thought this, but of course merely responded, “yes, honey, I did”).

               Just about dark, our son arrived home and texted me “are you painting the lights?”  I texted back, “no, they’re just charging and should be on tomorrow night.”

               What NEITHER of these guys said to me is anything about why those lanterns, which had been in the sun since noon, were not lighted. Neither of them said, “well, then, why aren’t they on?” They just accepted my answers to their rather ambiguous questions.                    

               So the next day, I went out to assemble the lights on their stakes and when I turned the first lantern over, I saw…yeah, plastic film.  (this was the second mistake I made).  Then, when I finally removed the plastic film I realized that this was the correct end of the light to be in the sun.  So naturally, the batteries weren’t charged in the slightest.

               Having removed the film and turned them right side up, they were beautiful by nightfall.  Another successful project completed!  But don’t worry, I’m not quitting my day job!

My mom died about 25 years ago, which surprised me as I typed it.  It seems, somehow, longer than that and shorter than that.  I loved my mom.  During my childhood, she was my best friend – sometimes my only friend.  Something happened during my adolescence and we began to fight a lot.  Her behavior drove me crazy and I was embarrassed often by her actions.  Some of that spilled into adulthood, sadly.

               One of the things she did that drove me nuts was making me wear yellow.  She would buy me dresses for events (things like eighth-grade graduation) that were yellow.  The problem?  I hate yellow – always have.  Plus, I do not look good in yellow – it’s not in my color wheel.  I usually wear purple, green, blue and black.  Sometimes pink or turquoise, maybe even peach, but never, ever yellow.

               Despite my protestations, she would always “surprise” me with a new dress or sweater or once (shudder) a pair of pants in bright yellow.  This continued into my college years and beyond.  I could not convince her to pick another color, or to not surprise me, or to let me pick my own clothes.  You can imagine the petty squabbles we had over that.

               There were other issues, of course, and many more significant than the hideous yellow outfits.  But sometimes it takes years to gain wisdom, or at least perspective, and this week, I gained a new perspective on my mom’s choices of yellow garb for me.

               When she passed away, I sold a piece of property that my parents had owned.  It had a cabin on it that a caretaker had lived in.  We went to clean it out and in the attic we found a few items that belonged to my parents.  I was very excited about my dad’s jadeite coffee mugs – four of them! – and my mom’s potato salad bowl.  We packed all the items into a box and left the cabin for the last time.

               I’ve used her potato salad bowl – for the designated purpose – for the past two decades since then, remembering her and her great food with fondness. It didn’t occur to me during any of those times that the bowl is a pale yellow.

               She also had a pitcher that she used to make lemonade.  We don’t drink a lot of that, and when we do, we typically take a plastic pitcher outside, so I just put the pitcher on a shelf in my kitchen to hold up one end of my cookbook collection.  I didn’t notice until today that it’s bright yellow.

               What happened today?  Today I pulled out the potato masher I’ve used ever since we cleaned out the cabin.  It was hers.  I don’t make a lot of mashed potatoes, so it’s in a cupboard in the back.  I was making guacamole and the avocado I bought was still a little firm.  Rather than food process it, I thought I would just mash it with mom’s potato masher.  I pulled it out from the cupboard and noticed the bright yellow handle.

               That’s when I figured it all out.  Yellow is my least favorite color.  But it was my mom’s favorite.  So naturally she wanted to dress her favorite daughter (okay, her only daughter, but that’s beside the point) in her favorite color.

               It took me 25 years, but I finally understand.  I sure do wish I had one more opportunity to gripe to her about her taste in clothing for me.  After which, I’d put on that awful yellow dress and take her out to dinner. Because I just wasn’t done fighting with her yet.

Now that I’ve reached what could be considered the very top end of “middle age,” I have occasionally experienced memory problems.  Mind you, I’ve had memory problems before I even reached the bottom level of middle age.  Once, when I was just a young gal of 35, we had our brand new pastor and his wife come to our place for dinner.  I was honored to be hosting them, and I put baked beans in the oven that afternoon. 

                We were cooking out hamburgers (it was June) and it should have been a wonderful meal.  As it turned out, my memory was shorting out all over the place.  First of all, I forgot to add the appropriate liquid – including sauce – to the beans before putting them in the oven.  Then we got busy watching our children play, playing card games, and swimming and I forgot the beans entirely – until Matt starting grilling the hamburgers.

               That’s when I went in, turned off the oven, and carried out all the condiments, plates, buns, silverware, etc. for our picnic.  When the burgers were done, I went into the get the baked beans.  There may have actually been beans in that dish, who would know?  They were a solid brick of hardened, fossilized rock.  Matt couldn’t chisel out a portion with his spatula, a hammer, and a knife.  So…we just had burgers and cole slaw.

               It turned out our new pastor and his wife had a great sense of humor.  We decided that beans needed to be put in an atomic oven and baked at least three weeks before serving. We laughed hard and have been friends ever since – over 30 years now! 

               I was reminded of the baked bean fiasco last week, when I was creating a care package for an old friend who is in a rehab center.  She had asked for some particular items, including cheese sticks, pretzel rods, and puff popcorn.  I had added some books, magazines, and lotion to the tote bag.  Meanwhile, our friends (the pastor and his wife) were coming for dinner two days later, so while I was buying the care kit items, I purchased potatoes and a couple packages of cooked shrimp to grill.

               So that morning, I packed up all the items to go to the rehab center, reached into the fridge, pulled out the bag with the cheese sticks and tossed it on top.  Then I went on my merry way.

               You know where this is going, don’t you?

               About an hour after I delivered the tote bag, I received a text from my friend, thanking me for all the goodies and especially for the SHRIMP! 

               Heavens above.  When I returned home, I looked in the fridge and there in the meat keeper was the bag of cheese sticks.  What was I supposed to serve the next night?  Grilled cheese sticks??

               Back to the store I went, and bought some more shrimp.  Plus, now I have to return to the rehab center at some future point to deliver the requested cheese sticks. Maybe it really isn’t a memory loss, it’s just general confusion.

               That must explain my shopping trip when Matt had two teeth pulled.  He was supposed to eat soft foods for a day, maybe two.  So I bought him three packages of macaroni and cheese, six pints of ice cream, ten tubs of yogurt, three 4-packs of pudding, four individual mashed potatoes, and eight individual pots of jello.  That’s probably enough for one or two days, don’t you think?  I mean, it is if he and every other person in the county who had teeth pulled are coming to our house.

               Oh, well, if it weren’t for my confusion, I wouldn’t have so many adventures, would I?