It is warm today at 40°, but this week we’ve seen low temperatures that we haven’t seen in several years. Yesterday morning we woke up to 4°, yes four degrees. Our schools were closed due to the cold (Metro Nashville started it and all the surrounding counties fell like dominoes). Now, I’ve complained about this before -- I don’t mind the cold, but where’s the snow? If we’re going to pay admission I want to see the show.
GREAT NEWS! Pauline has gotten the results from her last PET scan. Her lymphoma is now in remission! The chemo is over!
DIFFERENT CULTURES -- DIFFERENT FOODS. The other day I brought Chinese take out home for our supper. This is a treat for us from time to time. After supper Nate saw the packets of soy sauce on the counter and asked what they were. When I told him he got really grossed out and said, “Soil sauce! Why would anyone want soil sauce?”
EASILY EMBARRASSED. It is so easy to embarrass Jenna in public. She really should be thankful Kenny is not her father.
Last week Vicki and Jenna were out shopping. Jenna needed new shorts for basketball. They were in Wal-Mart and Vicki handed Jenna a pair of shorts to try on saying, “Just try them on over your pants.” Poor Jenna just couldn’t imagine her mom would suggest such a thing. I think she was ready to melt into the floor.
Another time they were shopping Vicki was looking at bath towels. Now Vicki likes to wrap herself in her towel after a shower, after all, with only one bathroom she’s got to be somewhat decent if someone else needs to come in. So when Vicki looks for towels she’s sizing them up to see if they will wrap around properly. Much to Jenna’s chagrin her mother begins trying on towels (over her clothes) right there in the middle of the towel aisle. I think Jenna would have disowned her mom right then and there if she could have. When Vicki saw that Jenna was dying of embarrassment she modeled a different colored towel.
Then there was the time they were out shopping while it was raining. As they were leaving the store Vicki asked for an empty shopping bag. She poked two eye holes in it, put it on, and stepped out in the weather. Jenna was mortified, and did not want a bag for herself. Obviously, she’d rather be a drowned rat than wear a shopping bag over her head.
I can, of course, relate to Jenna on this last one. Mom and Aunt Mar have always had their hair done once a week so the hairdo has got to hold for seven days. Naturally, they keep rain bonnets in their purses. I was always amazed at what conditions would bring out the rain bonnets. All it took was the slightest breeze. Of course, the crowning moment was the day we were at the beach...
SHOE TYING. Velcro is a wonderful invention. I can’t imagine life without it. But an unfortunate side effect is that kids don’t learn how to tie their shoes as early as they did when I was a boy. This is best illustrated by a story Morgan told us over Christmas. She was helping Wil tie his shoes and was talking to him about learning how to tie them for himself. In this conversation she asked Wil if any other kids in his class could tie their shoes. That’s when it comes out that Ben can’t tie his shoes either.
Somewhere along the way Wil had gotten the impression that I never learned how to tie my own shoes and had forbidden my family from tying their shoes either. What freaked Morgan out was the next time she saw our family at church none of us were wearing shoes with shoelaces. After looking at our feet she slips out her cell phone and texts Lori, “Mom, is it true that Uncle Joe can’t tie his shoes?” (Lori has saved this text as it is one of the most absurd messages she’s ever gotten.)
For the record, I do know how to tie shoes, though I taught myself. I never could figure out how to do it when Mom showed me. Her fingers kept getting in the way when I was watching. As a matter of fact, my method wasn’t the best way to tie a shoe, and when I was in college I saw someone tying their shoes and re-taught myself how to tie the knot a different way.
Of course, I stopped Wil at church the other day and pointed to his shoes and said, “You know, it’s a little known fact that I don’t know how to tie shoes.”
Joe
