Peek-a-Boo Hodgepodge

Why this title?

Maybe it's because I was watching my almost 14-month old niece yesterday and she loves to play peek-a-boo.

Or maybe because you wondered if I'd dropped completely out of bloggy sight and just popped in to say, "Peek-a-boo. I'm still here."

Or maybe it's because I had a really, really embarrassing  peek-a-boo moment on the flight home from Kansas.  I blame it on my friend Barb whose 1904 Victorian home no longer has working locks on bathroom doors and they don't need them because it's just the two of them, usually, herself and her honey .All week long I got used to closing the door and not locking it.

Well, when I went to the toilet on the airplane, guess what I forgot to do? And guess what happens if you don't lock the door that triggers the "OCCUPIED" sign?

Guess what happens when the door opens while YOU'RE occupied, pants full down with a wad of airline Charmin in your hand?

I screamed, "HEY, STOP THAT!"  I didn't know what else to say.  Honestly I was so mortified I just wished there was a way to jump out of the jet. All I saw was a flight attendant's navy skirt and the back of a blue turbin of a Middle Eastern Muslim man  in the last row.  Did he see me? I hope not.
I had to get out of the bathroom because we were getting ready to land, but truly, I wanted to simply evaporate and then re-appear at home.

So that's my first of many last-week's-get-away stories. Somehow telling it is less,  or  just as more haunting than experiencing it firsthand, but it had to be told. For your levity, if nothing else. Because if I'm gonna be embarrassed, YOU'RE gonna be entertained, okay? Deal?

No jumping out of aircraft. How about I simply jump into the Hodgepodge?

1. Do you manage your own money or do you have a financial planner who helps in some way? Do those kinds of conversations stress you out? A lot or a little?

We have a financial planner, as of a few months ago when my financially savvy but stressed out hubby concluded that he'd rather pay someone to keep an eye on our "flocks and herds" and perhaps do it better than he can do with limited spare time and energy.   We went together for that sit-down conversation,  and I admit to trying not to have visibly glazed-over eyes.   Or to not suspect that this dude's aother Bernie Madoff.

All that finnacial business comes second nature to my guy, and he gets an adrenaline rush out of talking stocks, bonds, risk,  trust funds, yada yada.   My only input was  "do not invest a dime in Starbucks because their CEO made it abundantly clear that we don't share the same views on morality."  'Nuff said.


2. The second week of October is Pet Peeve Week. Off the top of your head, share TWO of your current pet peeves.

Gotta say, when I read this, my pet was chewing a new stuffed piggy that was SUPPOSED to go to a child for Operation Christmas Child.  So, any beast--or person--who takes stuff without asking--and then slobbers all over it--has committed a pet peeve of mine.

Another pet peeve? Poor grammar.   I just really can't stand it.  What was you thinkin' I's gonna say? Don't none o' ya'll be hatin' me just cuz I talk good. M'mama and m'daddy raised me to talk good and I'm pert near glad theys done did that.  I might not lock potty doors on airplanes likens I should, but heaven knows I even scream with good grammar.


3. What is one thing you'd like to learn right now, this very week if you could?

How to confront people, with grace and truth, when I know someone in authority has done something morally and legally wrong but won't admit it.   In short, how to fear God more than man.

4. How concerned are you about the recent health related news concerning Ebola? How about Enterovirus D68?

I'm really not.  I think the media blows it way out of proportion.  Sensationalizes something that people have been dying from for a long time, and will continue to die from once the hype has blown away.  If only the millions of babies still being aborted were receiving such attention!

I offered  a soldier my barf bag on the airplane when she had filled her own. (Sorry, TMI?) I felt so bad for her and she was just across the aisle. I didn't want her germs, but I didn't wonder "has she been to Africa?"  I handed her the bag without touching her hand, but I'd do that for anyone.


5. Garfield, Nemo, or Tigger-your favorite orange cartoon character?

Nemo.    I never liked Garfield and never attached to Tigger.

6. I'm going to see Gone Girl with my neighborhood book club this week. So often books made into film are disappointing. What's a book turned film you thought was well done, in that the casting was 'like you pictured' when you read the book, and the film plot remained mostly true to the book plot?

I'm REALLY dating myself here because I almost never see movies after reading the book, but when I was young I read "Old Yeller" and then saw the movie.  Old Yeller himself was just like I pictured.  Ha!

7. What is one story your family always tells about you?

They love to tell the tell the "time mom fell in the pool" story.   We were at a resort in Myrtle Beach many years ago, when the big pool got shut down because of FFM (Floating Fecal Matter).   Hottest day of the year, so everyone and their brother moved to the kiddie pool to enjoy the big ceramic mushroom sprinklers and knee-high cold water.

Well, I thought the bottom of the kiddie pool was only about 15 inches deep, but no, it wasn't. I underestimated.  When I stepped in, I lost my balance. Landed butt first in  22 inches of water, right under the mushroom sprinkler, which I hit my head on, and came up coughing and gurgling.  The family sat on their lounge chairs just guffawing all over themselves.

Now, when trying to get our 12 year old son to smile for a picture, someone just has to say, "Remember the time Mom fell in the pool?"

My embarrassment in exchange for their levity. See a theme here?



8. Insert your own random thought here.

All laughing aside, please pray for my brother-in-law Jay.  Last Friday morning he went hunting, and as he climbed to a height of about five feet up the tree, the peg snapped. Jay fell, full weight, onto the hard knotted roots of the tree. His ankle broke at a 90-degree angle to his foot, and he was all alone. Thanks be to God he had his phone on him and it was not crushed . He called my sister (his wife) and  his mother, neither of whom heard the phone at 4:45 a.m. Called his hunting buddy whose property it was, and then 911 . 

About 16 people in all finally located him, deep in the woods, as he screamed in agony. They tried to remove his boot thinking how swollen the foot was. But the pain was so excruciating that Jay threatened them not to touch his foot again.  Only morphine first and then doctors could do that.  Over rugged terrain they carried him on a country stretcher to the waiting ambulance. 

His ankle bones on the x-rays looked like Rice Krispies, my sister said. Jay is wearing an external fixator for two weeks and then will have surgery and months of recovery and rehab.  He is miserable from pain, and has an esophageal hernia causing chronic hiccups from screaming so loud and long.  The hiccups caused a panic attack--felt he couldn't breathe--which landed him back in the ER 3 hours after coming home from the hospital. 

He is miserable from sitting still .He is miserable that this happened at the beginning of hunting season . And they have a toddler and rambunctious black lab they have to keep away from his  bad foot.   Prayers are greatly appreciated for him, for my exhausted sister, and for the caregivers who are all pitching in to help as needed. 

Oh, and one other very important random thing: today is my parents' 53rd wedding anniversary. And yes, they are still madly in love. Daddy said they honeymoon hasn't ended yet.