Well?? How Good are You?

Gary sent me this poem yesterday, and I love it. If you know me very well, you can guess it brought tears to my eyes.


Almost as Good
As Your Dog

If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pep pills,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time.
If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than an poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion or politics, THEN, my friend, you are almost as good as your dog.

Author Unknown

Laughter

It's good to know what people see in us. Last night, as I listened to Gary and Kim talk about me, I was pleased with what they were saying. They were talking about the way I laugh. And the things that make me laugh. For somebody who has never been overly fond of my own laugh, it was good to hear. They never once mentioned that I cackle like a witch, they never brought up the Betty Rubble giggle. They talked about the near to tears laughter. That laugh that comes from somewhere deep inside and uses more energy that a good work-out. As Gary calls it, me sharing my joy with those around me. I love knowing that laughter is one of the memories I leave with people. So, that said, here's to more living, more laughter, and more love in 2010. Happy New Year.

The Bizarre World of the Sleeping

It's funny the things we do in our sleep. From time to time, Neil will walk into our room, in his sleep. I have been known to laugh to the point of hysteria in my sleep. Gary and I have woken ourselves up mid-conversation in our sleep. Punches have even been thrown in our sleep. Last night, Neil took a left turn out of his bedroom instead of a right. Making our room, not the bathroom, the destination point. Weren't we surprised awake by the sound of his mid-sleep whizzing. Gary was startled into full wakefulness, and turning on the light, witnessed the wee little event. This in turn brought on a bout of near-hysterical laughing from me. While I remember laughing myself into full wakefulness, I hope Neil does not remember his little mid-sleep piss-up....uh, I mean slip-up.

OH, and a big thank-you Gary, for being the one awake enough to clean it up. I knew I loved you for the right reasons.

Geography Lesson Needed.....

For the month of December, leading up to Christmas, Macey's grocery store had an extremely nice man wandering around the store in a Santa Claus suit. I thought he was creepy. Not in a Billy Bob Thornton "Bad Santa" kind of way, but in an "I don't want my child sitting on his lap kind of way". Anyway, I was curious to see what Neil would think of him. He's usually pretty grounded in the fact that store Santas are just guys in Santa suits helping the Big Guy out. Not so with this one! Neil was certain that he was "one of the real Santas". Yup. Apparently there's more than one. In Neil's opinion, there are four or, "One for every continent", so he says.

Moving Forward

Last night for dinner we had spaghetti and broccoli. I thought this was no problem, Neil has always loved both, and though Gary can't eat the pasta or the sauce, he does his own thing with the meat. Anyway, all was going well. Until Gary told Neil he had to eat his broccoli. That sparked a series of gagging and pained looking facial expressions from Neil. Gary reminded him that he's always liked broccoli, to which Neil replied "I'm evolving here!" Later he explained that his taste buds are evolving backward, and he no longer likes the broccoli "blossoms", and he did point out that he ate the "stumps". Good to know.

Maybe My Favorite Christmas Story.

There's a story from WWI about British troops and German troops calling an "informal armistice" on Christmas Eve of 1914. German troops began by decorating around their trenches and singing Christmas carols. Most notably "Silent Night" or "Stille Nacht". British troops responded by singing English carols. Greetings and gifts were exchanged. They gave proper burial to their dead and both sides mourned together. They played soccer. In many sectors, this truce lasted until Christmas Day and in some areas it lasted until New Year's Day. There would be other informal treaties during that war, but none of the same size.

A Carol from Flanders
by Frederick Niven

In Flanders on the Christmas morn
The trenched foemen lay,
the German and the Briton born,
And it was Christmas Day.

The red sun rose on fields accurst,
The gray fog fled away;
But neither cared to fire the first,
For it was Christmas Day!

They called from each to each across
The hideous disarray,
For terrible has been their loss:
"Oh, this is Christmas Day!"

Their rifles all they set aside,
One impulse to obey;
'Twas just the men on either side,
Just men — and Christmas Day.

They dug the graves for all their dead
And over them did pray:
And Englishmen and Germans said:
"How strange a Christmas Day!"

Between the trenches then they met,
Shook hands, and e'en did play
At games on which their hearts were set
On happy Christmas Day.

Not all the emperors and kings,
Financiers and they
Who rule us could prevent these things —
For it was Christmas Day.

Oh ye who read this truthful rime
From Flanders, kneel and say:
God speed the time when every day
Shall be as Christmas Day.

WOW...Has it Really Been 7 Years?!!!

So, lunch with my mom went well. Expensive, but well. I managed to calm down and live in the moment. Kids are great reminders that we should do that. And, the weather stayed my version of drive-able.




Yesterday was Neil's seventh birthday, and I have a question. Does anybody have any hard and fast rules about when is the right time to open presents? Gary took the day off, I was already off, and Neil was out of school...since it was Sunday, and all. Anyway, he woke up early...and very excited. He did great getting through breakfast, his strange request was oatmeal. Then, he started asking if he could open his presents. Gary's so programmed that it should be after dinner, that he didn't quite know what to say. He's not used to everybody being home in the morning. So, he kept giving his famous "Afta" answer. To which Neil would ask "Afta what??" Which leads to "Afta, afta..." not what the newly turned 7 year old was wanting to hear. We settled for "afta cake", which would be after lunch. So, we passed the time with television and polishing pennies. Neil has a special "log cabin" penny, that as he calls it is, one of his "luckies". And, he wanted to see how shiny it could be. Which gave Gary the idea that it would be fun to have a "lucky penny" from his birthyear. 1973. He thought it would be a quest. He didn't knw that we had 3 of them in a can of change. Sadly enough, I can't find a 1970 penny in any of that. Did they even make pennies in 1970? It's amazing how long a person can spend polishing change, if one lets oneself. Neil got bored after about an hour. And was back at it..."can I just open one?" Time to make lunch. "When can we have cake?", "You just said you were full...let's wait 45 minutes", "Is it 45 minutes yet?", "When this is over". Good call Gary, an hour long program about Russia's Ural mountain (which oddly enough, sucked Neil in just as well as Gary). And yes, it was time to open presents. He'd been guessing as to what they were all morning. And was pleased to find, not bath beads, but BBs. Not a paver stone, but a very large book about prehistoric life. Sadly not night vision goggles, but new shoes. And the box that could only be a stick, or maybe two sticks, was a Red Ryder BB gun. The mystery box, that wouldn't even get a guess, was that Screature that he's been asking for since April.


He told us several times that it was his best birthday EVER!! Good words to hear on a quiet day that didn't see company or a party. After some time checking out the new stuff, he went shooting with Dad, to make proper use of a shoe box and completely demolish a peanut butter jar. Apparently BBs will get trapped in a glass jar, until it's shot enough times that it completely shatters. Some more telling Dad that it was the best birthday ever, and they were home.






I was planning on lunch with my mom being his birthday meal, but after hearing an under his breath "today's not my birthday", I decided I had better come up with something on the actual day of. "What do you want for your birthday dinner?" went from a seafood medley to surprise me. Well, when he put it that way....It was baked salmon, shrimp scampi, and SCD friendly coleslaw. YUM! After dinner he watched what seemed like four back to back episodes of "Battle of the Dinosaurs" on Discovery Channel (how did they know?) with his dad, spent an hour looking at the new book, with Screature sitting next to him, and still wanted me to read about dinosaurs when it was time for bed. Yep, I think he had a great birthday. But wow, he's seven, already? Where does the time go?