Month: January 2025

A birthday bash at the burger joint

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We blew out all the stops to celebrate the husband’s birthday with a last-minute meet-up at McDonald’s. Do we know how to party or what?

Three carloads. Five adults. Six kids, all girls.

If we squeeze six into the bench against the wall that spans two tables, and grab extra chairs, we can make it work.

Kids squirrel around as adults take food orders. Somebody shouts there are discounts on the phone app.

Phones come out, kids finish shouting their orders and the birthday boy says he’ll take a burger, fries and a frozen coffee caramel-laced drink, which the menu board says has 590 calories. I suggest he share the drink if he wants to see another birthday.

Orders are complete and the phone apps won’t link to the store.

Someone approaches a worker. She disappears, reappears, disappears, reappears and the connection issue is eventually fixed.

After a very lengthy wait, the food arrives. They got the french fries and iced coffee right, but everything else is wrong. Chaos ensues at the tables. Fries are involved. And ketchup.

The husband passes his frappe down the line to me. I take a slurp and a 6-year-old across the table wants a taste. She likes it and refuses to relinquish it. I rat her out to her mother, who says, “Oh, caffeine doesn’t bother her,” and goes back to a conversation with her sister.

Well, I’d like it to bother me, but it’s gone now.

Someone says the recently remodeled restrooms are really cool. Six girls peel off to check it out. We are in the farthest corner of the store but can see the door to the ladies room swing open and hear someone scream, “WHOA!”

They don’t come back and don’t come back. I check on them and the restroom is, well, a nothing burger. They return to the table.

A hush falls as Grandpa opens his cards. There’s not a Hallmark in the bunch.

The last card he opens is from the one who finished off his frappe, the kindergartener with round cheeks, big eyes, legs swinging under the table, the one who screamed “WHOA!” opening the door to the ladies room.

The group is stunned to see money in her card. It is a green bill rolled tight and taped next to a self-portrait of her and Grandpa.

No one wants to ask the denomination of the greenback, and it would be rude to rip the bill off the card.

We wonder where she got the idea. Maybe she got it from her aunts and uncles who give nephews and nieces a quarter for every year old they are.

Thank goodness she didn’t try to give grandpa a bill for every year old he is.

She sits quietly, either uncomfortable with the attention or still thinking about that hand dryer with the roar of a jet engine in the ladies room.

The silence passes, everyone gathers their things and their people and says goodbye.

When we get home, Grandpa carefully unrolls the bill. It is a one. One to be remembered.

 

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When collectors and cleaners collide

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I say that I am married to a collector because packrat sounds unkind. My husband comes from a long line of collectors.

When they closed out the farmhouse his father lived in all his life, the lead auctioneer kicked off the three-ring, two-day auction under the main tent bellowing, “Ladies and gentlemen! The same family has lived in this house for 103 years! As near as we can tell, they never threw a thing away!”


Nailed it.

Naturally, I was raised in a family of the other extreme. If you dropped your napkin on the floor at dinner, by the time you bent over, picked it up and sat back up, your dinner plate could be gone, scraped, washed, dried and put away.

My philosophy is that there is a place for everything and everything has a place — and it better well be there.

My husband says he is married to a woman who is highly-organized and efficiency-driven because extremist sounds unkind.

Being it is the start of a new year and fresh starts, I gently broach the matter of thinning out our every-growing accumulation of clutter—I mean treasures—by mentioning the Swedish Death Cleaning method.

My voice is soft and calming and the giant box of construction-grade trash bags is hidden behind my back. I explain that the idea is to remove the burden of decluttering so after you’ve moved on (and I don’t mean to a store-n-lock), only the essentials have been left behind for your loved ones.

He says that’s fine for people who are Swedish, but he’s not Swedish.

I say I’m not Swedish either, but Swedish or non-Swedish, we all face death and then our kids will face our collections of clutter.

Typically, this is when he experiences a bout of sudden hearing loss. This occurs frequently when you’ve been married as long as we have.

A few days later, I casually mention the Four Box Method where you take four boxes, label one “keep,” the others “throw away,” “donate” and “sell,” and divide your goods accordingly. It is touted as a good method for when you don’t have a lot of time.

He says he can slash the time on the Four Box Method by knocking those four boxes down to one—“keep.”

I then suggest the 12-12-12 Challenge. You declutter by identifying 12 items to donate, 12 items to throw away and 12 more that need to remain in the home.

He says he has already identified the things that need to remain in the home—everything.

I am digging through papers in our safe deposit box, the bulk of which are expired home and auto insurance policies. I ask why we need to keep policies no longer in force. He says he needs them so he can compare the rates from year to year.

I tell him I can give him comparison rates for this year, the next year and every year after that: Every single policy will be more expensive than the year before.”

He acts like he’s not impressed, but I see him chuckle in the reflection of an old mirror—as I drop it into a large black trash bag.
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Headstands are so last century

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Saturday morning began with a video text of one of the grands doing a wild gymnastics routine on an exercise mat in the middle of their family room. She was lunging, flipping, and cartwheeling (barely clearing the sofa, the tv and a younger sister’s head), all to the soothing strains of “Who Let the Dogs Out?”

The antics culminated in a headstand. There may have been more. We couldn’t tell because her legs wobbled toward the camera and the video abruptly ended in a blur.

“Typical weekend?” I messaged back to our daughter. “Your Uncle Bob and I used to have headstand contests during family holidays in Ohio.”

“When was that?” came an immediate response. I detected skepticism oozing through my phone.

I began thinking. If she, our youngest, was a toddler at that time . . .  I would have been about . . .  and the year would have been about . . .

I need paper for this one. I subtract my approximate age (circa. the Headstand Era) from 2025, borrow from the tens, subtract, borrow from the hundreds, subtract and carry down the hundreds and thousands columns.

The year was 1988. “That was ages ago!” I exclaim.


The kind soul I am married to (and did not participate in the contests) simplifies the matter saying, “It was last century.”

Realizing one of my more notable achievements is now “last century” was like having the wind knocked out of me.

Funny how we spend our early years yearning to be older, dreaming about the freedoms and privileges that come with age. Then we are older, enjoying the freedoms and privileges of age, which look a lot like work, taxes, marriage, parenting, meal prep, grocery store runs, car repairs, health concerns, teen concerns, looming retirement and cooking dinner 967 days a year. Then one day, we realize we are on a speeding train that will not and cannot stop.

Time is a wily rascal. Some days drag like a slow crawl through mud, while others pass rapid-fire like lightning bolts. The speed of each day may vary, but the calendar pages keep time to a steady beat.

Recent news reports say that 20 percent of people in their 20s and 30s are prematurely feeling the onset of middle age. Stress over job security, relationships, debt and retirement years are making them feel older than they are.

Whether you feel your age or not, whether you can do a headstand or can’t, one thing is certain—the clock is ticking.

One of the last books Billy Graham wrote before he died was “Nearing Home.” It is a good read in any season of life. I copied one of his lines on the inside leaf of the book. Graham wrote, “Growing old has been the biggest surprise of my life.”

So, seize the day – and brace yourself.

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Snow problem, new weather terms are chill

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“Stay tuned for a weather impact update,” says the man on the television.

I have problems with the word impact and not just because it’s one of those words that can be both a noun and a verb. Impact always reminds me of when my brother was a toddler and shoved a red hot up his nose. The red hot was impacted and our mother had to carefully remove it. The episode was traumatic and it wasn’t even my nose.

According to which network you listen to, or which app you use, our weather impact this week will be 5 inches of snow, 6 inches of snow or two tons of red hots.

Personally, I follow a local amateur meteorologist on Facebook named Stubby. He has a good track record. Stubby predicts 8-13 inches of snow. He says—and I quote—“We are about to get our backsides kicked.

How can you not love a forecaster who frames weather impact in such easy-to-understand language?

About midafternoon, family texts began flying about which impact report to believe when one of our girls texted that her husband said if we get 13 inches of snow, he’ll run around in the street naked.

I said to let us know if he does and I’ll call the police so he can get his five seconds of fame. Of course, we all knew he was kidding.

I’ve noticed that weather terminology changes faster than the weather.

“Wind Chill Warnings” are now “Extreme Cold Warnings.”

“Wind Chill Advisories” are now “Extreme Cold Weather Advisories.”

The National Weather Service people want us to know that cold can be dangerous even without wind.

I’m going to miss “Wind Chill.” It was a term loaded with fear and drama that could send chills racing down your spine. Or maybe that was just the cold.

The word “hard” has fallen on the trash heap as well. “Hard Freeze Watches” and “Hard Freeze Warnings” are now plain old “Freeze Watches” and “Freeze Warnings.”

When these snow event warnings are issued, I’ve never grasped why everybody rushes to the grocery and dives for the eggs, milk and bread.

If you truly thought you might be snowbound, wouldn’t you want something more substantial? I’m thinking a side of beef and large bags of carrots and potatoes.

Hold on. A friend just called and asked if I could drop off a dozen cage-free brown eggs before the storm. Again, it’s probably just me, but I’ve never thought of scrambled eggs as a cold-weather comfort food.

In any case, the weather forecaster, I mean the meteorologist, on television is saying it will be dry until the first flake, which will not fall until tomorrow morning. I am looking outside as he speaks, watching large flakes pirouette like ballerinas.

Clearly there are no windows in the television studio.

Good morning, Indianapolis!
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