The weekend debriefing

Guess what we did at the Bright Compound this weekend. Nothing. Isn’t that fabulous! My birthday present to my brother was to take my father for the extended weekend so he could go to the lake.

That went pretty smoothly with nothing unusual to tell about until this morning. One of the things that has most changed with my father since his stroke is that his judgement has been seriously compromised. On that note, I stayed up very late the night before and was truly looking forward to a morning of sleeping in. At eight o’clock Sassy came to wake me up. My father planned to put Sassy on her bicycle and send her up to the convenience store to purchase him some cigarettes.

Go ahead and roll your eyes. I certainly did.

If you are not completely aware, here are a few of the issues with his plan.

#1. Sassy is nine not nineteen. Arizona has some truly crazy rules but purchasing cigarettes – even with a note from her grandfather – is not permissible at nine.

#2. Sassy doesn’t know how to ride her bicycle. Our one foray into teaching her to ride sans training wheels ended in tears. None of them mine, I assure you.

#3. Are you freaking kidding me?

Much to Sassy’s relief, I said most emphatically, “No!”

When I got to the living room, he was putting on his shoes and intended to walk up there himself. I angrily told him to get in the car. When I drove him up the street and around the corner, he was quite surprised. He admitted he didn’t even really know where the store was. I know that he would most certainly have gotten lost. I can’t even imagine how I would have explained that to my brother, but I am certain he would not have been amused.

There was still some fun to be had this weekend. As evidence I give you this.

 Sassy became completely enamored of the mustaches and eyebrows. So much so that I was genuinely becoming concerned that she was planning to keep them on when I took her to camp tomorrow.

This was her six hours later. She’d finally lost the mustache but the eyebrows were taking root. She has since tucked all three strips of hair into her purse for safe keeping. I hardly know what to think of that. Is she planning a career of cross dressing? Bank robbery? Does she plan to start Charlie Chaplin impersonations?

My father did note how weird it was to kiss Groucho Marx good night.

And lastly, this is the other thing we did a lot of over the weekend.

Here’s Jojo with Roscoe. As you can see, Jojo is terrified of the dogs and Roscoe despises the kitten. We even witnessed our big tom cat playing with the baby when he didn’t think we were watching.

All in all, it was a very relaxing weekend – even as I got sicker and sicker with these damn allergies. At this point, I’m probably the sexiest I’ve ever been because I’ve taken to wadding up Kleenex and shoving it in my nose to staunch the flow of snot. I’m certain I’ve contracted Legionnaires disease by now and shortly Ava and Kelli will be telling you of my funeral services.

What did you do over the long weekend? Was it a weekend of barbeques and fireworks and parades? Or did you hole up under the a/c vents or spend hours submerged in the pool? Or like me are your allergies making your life miserable?