Thankfuls From The Trenches

There's a thankful or two in here somewhere, but I'm not sure where, exactly. You decide.

I didn't write a Ten Things of Thankful last weekend, because I was fairly sure I was on my deathbed. Turns out, I wasn't, but who knew at the time?

See, I have prided myself in the fact that I have only thrown up three times IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. The first time was when I was in kindergarten. The second was when I was seven and had gotten my tonsils out (you can read THAT story right here, and you should). The third and what I believed to be final time was on December 23, 1971. I was 11, in the 6th grade, and it was so horrible that I vowed never again.

I survived pregnancies, surgeries, and a couple of bouts with the stomach flu without ever throwing up. I cleaned up after my kids when THEY had the stomach flu and threw up, but I never did it myself. I was invincible, or so I thought until the early morning hours of November 23, 2019, when my streak ended. 

I believe I had food poisoning that night/morning, mostly because neither my dad nor my husband caught it, and my dad gets the stomach flu if you just say the words in front of him. Also, I had eaten pasta carbonara at a restaurant (something that will never pass my lips again), and it is rife with ingredients that could cause food poisoning. I felt like hammered horseshit for two days and nowhere near 100% ever since (including now).

Fast forward a couple of days to this past Wednesday. My husband, daughter and I picked up my dad and drove up to Kansas City to spend Thanksgiving (incidentally, my very favorite holiday, because you don't have to buy gifts for anyone and there's food) with my brother and his family. My brother wanted to take us to a favorite pizza place near them that evening. There was a 30 minute wait when we arrived, so we decided to go next door to a super cool toy store to kill time. My dad wasn't acting quite like himself, but I thought maybe he was just tired from meandering in the toy store (my dad will be 85 in two weeks, so he's entitled), but a few minutes later, I saw my husband and my dad go out onto the sidewalk, then saw my husband looking panicky and waving his arms around while my dad stood there, and I knew something was up.

When I went out the door, my dad was saying he was about to lose it. My first thought was that he either was having some kind of panic attack or there was something wrong with his heart. Neither. He thought he was going to throw up.

He didn't. Yet.

We canceled our plan to eat and went back to my brother's house. As soon as I had my dad settled in a chair with an empty wastebasket "just in case", my brother and I went to Target and picked up some clothes he would be more comfortable in if he were ill (he only had khaki pants and button down shirts with him, and who wants to dress like that when you feel like death?). We also got a couple of large bottles of ginger ale. Shortly after we got back to the house, he made use of the wastebasket, and it all went downhill after that (and by "downhill", just use your imagination). I took care of my dad all evening, until he finally felt he was ready to go to bed.

By morning (THANKSGIVING morning, mind you), my dad was downhiller than ever, and I had to make a Walmart run for more sweatpants and other things that I won't mention but you can figure out for yourself. In the meantime, my brother, with the help of his mighty  spreadsheet, were making our Thanksgiving feast. My dad didn't join us for our meal, but he was feeling better, and by evening, he was able to eat something bland and the Kaopectate that he took (enough to stop up an elephant, according to my dad) was finally doing its job, and by the time he went to bed, he was doing fairly well.

I went down to the basement guest room and tucked myself into bed. That lingering feeling of yuck from my own barf fest had not improved a bit and I was exhausted. My husband and daughter watched movies on their computers and I slept, or I did until about 10:00 pm when I heard the unmistakable sound of my husband throwing up.

And again.

And then he came to bed and turned on his side, facing me, breathing what was obviously stomach flu germs in my face, so I went back upstairs to sleep on the couch.

A few hours later, I heard my daughter throwing up.

Then husband.

Then daughter.

Then I tried not to hear anything that was going on downstairs, but know that things went rapidly "downhill" for them as well, and I had to make another trip to Walmart for more ginger ale. I spent the rest of Friday washing clothes, sheets and towels and cleaning two bathrooms (I am a good guest), and my husband and daughter determined they were able to travel the two hours home around 3:00 that afternoon. My dad, on the other hand, woke up that morning feeling great.

Halfway home, I got a text from my brother saying my niece was throwing up.

Two hours after that, I got another text from my brother, this time telling me HE was throwing up and that we were uninvited for next year.

The next morning, another text that my sister in law was now throwing up and he blamed me for all of it.

Here's the real question: did I have food poisoning when I got sick, or was I, indeed, Patient Zero as the family has taken to calling me? And how could I be Patient Zero if I was sick in the early morning hours of Saturday and no one else who had been close to me caught it until Wednesday evening? I believe I am being blamed needlessly and it was all a big coincidence, and I'm maybe a little nervous that instead of being Patient Zero I am actually Patient Seven.... 

What say you?

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The Thanksgiving Post

This Thanksgiving, as we prepared to travel over 200 miles to my brother's home by car with my parents, my husband stated that his only goal for the trip was that we could get there and back without anyone pooping their pants. (Don't ask.)

The first hurdle we had to overcome for the trip was what to do about Ruby. We've had her for one month, and while she and Fletcher have become pretty friendly, Pete is another story. He still hisses at her with little or no provocation (although sometimes, she really does ask for it), and I worried about leaving them together for three days with no human running interference. Then, I had an epiphany: take Pete to stay at my parents' house while we were all gone.

We packed our car with the four of us, Pete in a very large pet carrier (he's a very large pet - he weighs in at 25 lbs.), suitcases, coats, scarves, hats and gloves (because it was FREAKING cold),  four laptops, two school backpacks, two pumpkin pies, a coffee cake, a tub of caramel popcorn, sugar cookies, and a ukulele. We drove to my parents' house, an hour to the north, and transferred all of it (minus the cat) to THEIR car, along with their suitcases, coats, two pecan pies and a cranberry salad. We left a bewildered Pete at their house and piled in their SUV. I drove, my dad rode shotgun, my mom and the college boy sat in the middle seats and my daughter sat in the far back, with my husband wedged in beside her, where they intended to watch movies the entire trip.  We were off.

I. The drive:

We took a windy, two-lane highway, as suggested by my dad, despite my warning that three of the people I brought with me get carsick.

My mother pointed out every single Casey's General Store (a convenience store chain, for those of you not in-the-know) we passed, saying she wished HER town had one, to which all of us responded with, "They're BUILDING one there!"

My kids fought over the bag full of candy that my mother brought for them TO SHARE, because you would THINK that when they are 14 and 18, they could manage that, but you'd be wrong.

My husband complained that I swerved all over the road (I didn't).

II. The Game

We made it to my brother's house in plenty of time to attend the last volleyball game of the season for the Mizzou Tigers. They were 33-0 going into this game (against University of Arkansas, incidentally). Considering it was the night before Thanksgiving, Hearnes Arena had a pretty big crowd. My volleyball playing daughter was in Heaven.

The volleyball team won the SEC title, the first Mizzou team to win it since joining the SEC. YOU HEARD IT RIGHT. THE GIRLS WERE FIRST. And since the football team blew it in their game against Auburn this past weekend, the girls remain the ONLY Mizzou team to win an SEC title. But I digress.

We had a rare sighting of The Antlers, an unsanctioned student group that formed in 1976. They usually reserve their antics for the basketball team, but having been ejected from Mizzou Arena two games in a row for what the University deemed inappropriate chants, the ones who were still in town had nowhere else to go. They were on good behavior. 

Some of the things The Antlers yelled, each time as the other team was getting ready to serve:

"There's a bee!" (accompanied by screaming like girls and swatting the air)
"Probably Team Jacob."
"Snape killed Dumbledore."
"Still has a MySpace."
"Peeta doesn't love you."
"Hates Forest Gump."
"The bees are back!" (accompanied by more screaming like girls and swatting the air)

These comments, incidentally, are not what got them kicked out of the basketball games.

Truman the Tiger was in attendance, as was the Governor. 

This one is Truman.

This one is the Governor.

The volleyball team beat Arkansas in three games, ending the season 34-0.

We had Shakespeare's Pizza after the game.

III. Thanksgiving Day

My brother might be considered a bit of a control freak. He would not be offended by that description.

He had a spread sheet that outlined what time each item for the dinner needed to be prepared. I kid you not. My sister-in-law is a wise woman and just lets him go for it. 

Dinner was delicious. The only thing it lacked, in my opinion, was pickled beets. I like pickled beets.

IV. The Jam Session

My brother is the one who bought my daughter her ukulele. She has been teaching herself to play by watching YouTube videos, and she has gotten pretty good. Her playing tastes lean toward artists like Ingrid Michaelson and Bruno Mars. My brother plays the mandolin extremely well. He plays bluegrass. In other words, their musical tastes are pretty far apart. So they compromised. They played bluegrass. It went something like this:

We went home the next day via interstate; no windy roads, no complaining from the backseat that I was swerving (I WASN'T), didn't pass a single Casey's General Store, and nobody pooped their pants.

The End.

P.S. Pete had a relatively uneventful stay at my parents' house while we were gone (or so we hope, unless he watched pay-per-view in the absence of adult supervision), his reunion with his kitty siblings was anticlimactic, and Ruby made me promise I'd never leave her for that long ever again.

My children not behaving while trying
to get a picture with their cousin.

My parents with their grandkids.

Digging Deep: 10 Things Of Thankful

This week ended with me in a rather crappy mood, and I've had a time coming up with my 10 Things of Thankful. Unloading some of it on a friend made a huge difference (thanks, Lizzi), so here goes:

1. I am thankful my friend Lizzi made me an AWESOMESAUCE blog button this week. Check out those lemons! 

2. I am thankful that I picked up a couple extra turkeys when they were on sale around Thanksgiving, because I baked one today, and we enjoyed turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy for supper last night. Yes, in July. 

3. I'm thankful my daughter actually DOES read my blog, because she always says she doesn't, even though that means she now knows there was a dead mouse in the closet.

4. I'm thankful that Pete wanted to be a lap kitty today. He's not usually like that with me, and I don't have enough lap to make it a particularly comfortable experience for either of us (especially me), but the effort was appreciated.

There's way more Pete than lap.

5. I am thankful my daughter is continuing to learn to play the ukulele. When she practices, I feel a little bit like I am in a Bruno Mars video.

6. I'm thankful I didn't fall and break something vital earlier today when I stepped on a white cutting board that was in the middle of my white tile kitchen floor and it flew out from under me. Why was there a cutting board in the middle of my kitchen floor, you ask? Because my husband put it there, so the cat could eat the bits of turkey that were left on it after he sliced some to make a turkey sandwich. His response to my screams was, "I thought you would be able to see it on the floor." But my hands were full of glasses and dishes and such from the family room (left by someone who lives here for 19 more days [not me, though the thought is tempting]), and I wasn't aware that I needed to keep my eyes peeled for cutting boards on the kitchen floor at ANY time. Silly me.

7. I'm thankful I finally cleared level 158 in Candy Crush, because that sucker was going to kill me.

8. I'm thankful that Fletcher had enough sense to come out of the bathroom cabinet where he was napping and yak up his hairball on the tile floor instead of on the towels inside the cabinet.

Fletcher also felt the need to be in my lap.

9. I am thankful for unseasonably cool weather today (hey, I like summer better than winter, but I'm no fool).

10. I'm thankful I finally used up the ginormous bottles of shampoo and conditioner that I thought would be better than what I was already using (it wasn't) and have now gone back to the old stuff that worked JUST FINE. Redken All Soft, if you're curious.

And now, because it made me laugh out loud when it popped up in my Facebook sidebar this week, I leave you with this t-shirt design:

That One Time My Brother Really Bugged Me

It was the morning after Thanksgiving at my mom and dad's house. I was in college; my brother was in grad school. My Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Bradley (you can read about my relationship with him here) were visiting for the holiday, and we had just finished a leisurely breakfast when it happened. 

I had come downstairs that morning to find my brother, a notoriously early (and obnoxiously cheerful) riser, and my mom, who is much the same, in the kitchen already. My mom was frying sausage, my brother was sitting on the kitchen counter. When I entered the kitchen (my dad and I were the grumpy ones, although after I had kids I found out that I no longer could afford the luxury of being a crab in the morning), my mother told me she was going to make biscuits and gravy to go with the sausage.

Canned biscuits. Because she didn't want to mess with making them from scratch (or Bisquick, which is as scratchy as she got with biscuits).

(I interrupt this post to present a joke, ca. 1945, that my mother thought was a riot when she was a girl:

          Knock Knock
                Who's there?

          Bisquick.
               Bisquick who?

         Bisquick! Your pants are on fire!

Back to regularly scheduled post.)

I immediately started whining that I didn't want canned biscuits, and my brother joined in. My mom wasn't having any of it, until my brother said, "I'll make them. Do you have Bisquick?"

My mom pulled a box out of the pantry, saying, "It's kind of old. I don't use it very often," and my brother set to work. He produced a pan of beautiful, golden biscuits.

Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Bradley joined us, and we sat around the table, visiting, long after we had all finished eating.

There was one biscuit left on the plate, and as I listened to the conversation, I reached over and picked up the biscuit, cutting it in half across its equator. As I began to spread butter on half of the biscuit, something caught my eye. I looked closer....

A dead weevil was baked into my biscuit half.

I quickly placed the biscuit half, cut-side down, on my plate, then reached for the other half of the biscuit, which I crumbled into bits on my plate, looking for evidence of another weevil, but I didn't find anything. As everyone began leaving the table, I carried my plate into the kitchen, flipped over the biscuit half, and showed my mother the baked-in weevil.

She was horrified.

My brother came in the kitchen at that point, and my mother said, "Show him."

I proffered the biscuit half to him.

He gave it a glance and said, "Huh. Missed one."

Our mouths dropped open.

"I really wanted biscuits," my brother continued, "but when I opened the box, there were bugs inside. I sifted through all of it and fished them out, but I guess I missed one."

Shout out to Christine at
 A Fly On Our (ChickenCoop) Wall:
this drawing thing is HARD!

We never told Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Bradley about the weevils in the biscuits. We figured it was best that they never knew about it.

And I never eat anything that my brother bakes (and he's a pretty darn fine baker, I must admit) without it crossing my mind that he wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing again.

And probably has.

I figure it's best that I never know about it.

Linking to Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. Prompt #3 Share a story about a sibling that still makes you smile.