I have returned!
I Minnesota'd briefly & North Dakota'd even more briefly, especially since I was riding with race car boy. (We only got up to 125 mph for a little while, but there were long stretches at 90, 100, 110...) (btw, it was a blast, & I'm even more excited by my son's potential racing career.)
My parents' 50th anniversary party was a tremendous success, enjoyed by all & sundry. We didn't succeed in getting everyone to sign the guest book, so we're only estimating that there were 200 people there. Maybe more. Probably not less.
Besides the party, I helped freeze corn & make pickles--the cutest baby dills you have EVER seen in your whole life--& ate bunches of great food, including steak & burgers & salmon my daddy caught in Alaska earlier this year.
Mostly though, I played cards. Pinochle. Casino. A little cribbage--one game to be exact, with my dad, & I won. This is an unusual occurence for persons playing cribbage with my dad, so I instantly retired at the height of my career. Grin. & then there were endless games of Pitch. Pitch is a really excellent 3-handed game, unlike Pinochle, which is a mean, nasty, ganging-up sort of 3-handed game, so Mom & Dad & I played game after game of it. We didn't keep track of who won how many, but each of us had great winning streaks & not-so-great losing streaks. It was a blast.
I got to see my sisters & brother, & their families. Both of my kids came, one with a girlfriend in tow (hi Chloe!), & dozens of other relatives.
I'll end this with a story of one of my cousins. If you don't like blood, skip right to the blog alternative. She was in the process of building a shelf with her husband & there was a staple in the end of the last board they cut & that made the board twist & she cut off three fingers of her right hand at the knuckle. Yep, she's right-handed. (Although perhaps less so than she used to be...)
I don't tell this story merely to titillate you with blood & gore, but to illustrate a fabulous spirit. She's planning on continuing to have a marvelous life & learning to operate so she can do everything she needs & wants to do. The day she cut off her fingers she joked that perhaps she'd get half-off on manicures, for that hand at least. I don't know if this impresses you, but it does me. I will guarantee that her healing process will be astonishing.
Blog alternative:
142. Appreciate your fingers & all they do for you. Give yourself a little hand massage. A manicure? Maybe, like my parents' pastor, you're already missing one. (A similar accident to my cousin's.) You know what he does? (A similar magnificent spirit.) He holds up that hand & says, "Give me four!"
