So, we've established several examples of why I love my brother: 1) giving out packets of condiments to the lame costumes wearers at Halloween, 2) his introducing me to the Grape Lady and 3) just this past Sunday his exhibition of a new fun trick. His kids weren't eating their dinner. It's no wonder, they'd been gorging on snacks and m&ms all day but they claimed to have plenty of room for a Fat Boy. The adults were enjoying dinner in the dining room while the kids were watching tv and eating in the next room. (Life at Grandma's is good for the kids.) After about 10 minutes my brother walked in to find their dinner barely touched. As punishment he tuned the tv to C-Span and left the room with the remote in hand and a grin on his face. Oh, that's harsh! He later shook it up a bit by leaving it on the Spanish language channel for a while. Funny? Yes. Did it work? Si!
Now on to why I love my Mom. My Mom traveled the world before she married my Dad. She had many, many fun and unique adventures along the way. While Mom is a smart woman she was a bit of a naive Southern belle back in the 60's. She once accidentally found herself skiing on the Swiss Olympic Ski team's training course in the Alps. Oopsie! On the other hand, while living in Libya, she quickly discovered that she could circumvent time consuming inspection of her bags in customs but simply lining the top of her suitcase contents with maxi pads. The male inspectors would freak out every time they saw the pads and immediately shut her bag and tell her to move along. Mom and her friends said it worked every time. But the thing I love most about Mom is that even in my 41st year of life, I'm still learning new things about her. Just tonight, for instance, I learned that she once chose to read Exodus while casually sunbathing on a Libyan beach. Does anyone see the problem with this scenario? My mother reading Exodus, in public, in an Arab country, in the 60's? She says she didn't think twice about it until every American on the beach eventually strolled by her, give a rapid double take, rushed over and urgently whispered "Are you insane?!" It's not as though she didn't understand the climate in Libya towards Jews. She would receive her American magazines with holes in them because mail inspectors would cut out articles and pictures of all Jews. Even Elizabeth Taylor was cut out of publications because she married a Jew. Mom was clear on the issues of the day. She told me that one guy in the Air Force hated living in Libya so much that he eventually he took things into his own hands (and a big chance) by returning to Libya with Israeli bonds in his bag. A customs inspector took one look at bonds, snapped the suitcase shut and sent the man to the get-out-of- Libya-now line. The Air Force tried and tried to get him back in the country but it never happened. The guy was soon transferred to another base far away from Libya.
Now, on to why I love my Dad. Tonight I heard a very loud screeching noise. I live in a woodsy area so while strange noises are not unusual they do typically require some investigation. Eventually I wandered to the back of the house and asked Dad what the racket was. "Oh" he said "it's my recording of the (fill-in-the-name-of owl-breed-whose-name-escapes-me-here)". He went on to excitedly tell me that he was in the process of uploading all of his bird calls to his iPod "so whenever I want to call a bird in, I'm all set!" Ya just gotta love that kind of enthusiasm.
On the other hand, I wasn't very thrilled with Dad yesterday morning. I took a day off yesterday and stayed up way too late Sunday night assuming I'd be sleeping in yesterday morning. Dad had other ideas. At 7:30 am, as I was deep into my lovely sleep, Dad decided he had to get into the attic. This wouldn't be a problem except that the attic door pulls down on an extremely loud and squeaky spring door right outside my bedroom door. Needless to say it woke me up and I never got back to sleep. He also doesn't seem to believe me when I tell him that anything using water will turn my shower to ice water. I was shot with ice water 5 separate times Saturday morning alone. As I groggily woke up too early yesterday morning I accused my dad of running a wannabe Guantanamo Bay facility in our home. A home according to me "deprives me of hot showers and sleep all weekend!" Of course, this analogy just made him laugh and probably encouraged him to torture me even more in the weeks to come.
Still, I love my crazy family.
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:-)
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