Life's Little Snags

Some ramblings from my senior mind:

1.  No matter how much I ride herd over my grandkids when it comes time to pack to go home, they always manage to leave something behind.  Most of the time, it's Ryan that is the guilty party in this, but not always.  This visit, I was particularly vigilant.  I saw one of Ry's black socks near the bay window in the living room, so I made sure he got that.  And his new soccer ball was in my bedroom (hidden there by his sister).  Got that, too.  I asked Robin to check the bathroom for her beauty products, etc.  She said she had it all.  Then I asked if she got her bathing suit out of the bathroom. She said, "Totally!", then promptly walked into the bathroom and came back with her suit in her hand.  I checked the rooms.  Got it all this time!  Packed the car and left to deliver the kids to their mother up north.  Came home and crashed.  Then, the next morning, there it was: a black sock under the couch.  Not even far under the couch.  In plain sight!  How did I miss that????

2.  This morning, I was sitting here in front of my computer when along came a spider dropping down from the ceiling on his own piece of thread.  The nerve of him!  He came right down between my face and the computer screen.  Had I been Little Miss Muffet, I might have been frightened away, but I'm not.  (I used to teach 8th grade; I am fearless!)  I grabbed a tissue and clapped him between my hands. He never knew what hit him.  I can tell you this:  he won't be scaring anyone else ever again!

3.  Also this morning, I saw a "parade" of eight 15-passenger church vans come down my street and turn west.  Two were from my church; two were from Plainfield Christian; two were from First Baptist; and two had no ID on the side.  Wonder what that was all about.  Hmmmm....

4.  When I get up and dressed in the mornings, I usually don't return to my bedroom until time to retire for the night.  Yesterday, I got ready to go to bed and heard water bubbling somewhere.  Turns out that the toilet in my half-bath had been running ALL DAY, from the time I got up and used it, until bedtime.  Ugh!!  I jiggled the handle and it quit, but how many gallons had already run through before then?  It's only money down the drain...

5.  When the grandchildren are here, mysterious things happen--things no one seems to know anything about.  For example, an entire box of 15 Schwann's peanut butter ice cream miniatures disappeared from the freezer in less than 12 hours.  Correction:  the box was still there.  The ice cream wasn't.  Know how many of those miniatures I had?  None.  Ryan said it must have been Robin; Robin said it must have been Ryan.  Then, too, I got up one morning to find a big wet spot on the carpet in front of the main bathroom door.  What is that?  No one knew.  Curiouser and curiouser...

6.  Unbeknownst to me, Ryan got sick to his stomach in the middle of the night after doing the State Fair.  He didn't wake me, and he didn't tell me.  (He told his mother days later after he got home.  Said he didn't tell me because he had felt better after that.)  I wondered if that was the wet spot on the carpet, but he said no.  The mysterious wet spot is still a mystery.

7.  One morning when the grandkids were here, Ryan got up at 8:00 AM, which was a shock because he normally will sleep past noon if allowed to.  (His computer tablet said 1:00 PM, so he thought he'd better get up.)  When he found out it was still early, he curled up under a blanket on the couch and went back to sleep for hours.  At one point, he sat up on the couch and announced, "I have crispy pee."  I thought I had misunderstood, so I asked for a repeat.  Same thing.  Then he put his head back down and went back to sleep....or should I say that he just continued his sleep.  (He wasn't awake at all when he said what he said!)  I happened to mention it to his mom and stepdad.  Now, they won't let him live it down, primarily because he is so easily embarrassed by things like that.  He teases, so he gets teased.  Evens things out!

8.  In the Who Knew? Department, I just discovered a feature of my 12-year-old car that I never knew existed.  It has a split seat in back that opens up the trunk to the back seat.  I knew about that. What I didn't know was that part of the split seat function had a console that comes down to separate the back seats and provides cup holders.  How many years have I transported grandchildren with no idea that they could have put their drinks in something that would hold them upright??  I feel so stupid!

9.  I'm watching Million Dollar Listing, Los Angeles.  Cracks me up!  My entire little house-on-a-slab cost less than the cars that those real estate dudes are driving.  I win!  When those dudes get to be as old and infirm as I am, they will discover that all the money in the world will not suffice.  The standard of living in California costs so much more than here in the good ol' Midwest.  Yes, we suffer from more weather problems than they do, but that makes us sturdier.  They freak out when there is a little water on the pavement.  We don't freak until more than six inches of snow falls.  I love the Midwest.  MY country!

Okay, okay...I'm blabbering.  Ever onward and upward!