L surprised me this morning by requesting a note on her napkin. Once upon a time, when the older two were in school, I tucked happy little notes into their lunch boxes. I started out doing this with L too, but one day she insisted on no more notes. Made me a little sad to receive a rejection notice from my own flesh and blood, but it seemed she preferred her napkins to remain clean blank squares of highly processed wood pulp, expressly for the purpose of face wiping. But she is reading now and eagerly accepting any and all new material, thus the renewed interest in lunchtime communications. In my haste and excitement to meet the morning deadline, I tried to think up something wildly novel, not some standard, "Have a nice day!" blurb, and foolishly foreshadowed the upcoming visit:
I have a big surprise for you after school!
Love, Mom
See, she is unaware that Nanny and Papa will be dropping by. I intentionally left out this bit of information for the reason that they may not actually come by our house at all, preferring to get right back on the road after our lunch date in order to reach Fort Lauderdale before dark, and not wanting to negotiate all the stairs of our monstrously elevated stilt house. That'’s how old people are sometimes, structured, arthritic, fearful, crabby. Again, with the experience. L, knowing that she might miss seeing her beloved grandparents, would be crushed. So I screwed up with the napkin teaser. Luckily, in a brilliant save this morning, while returning the tuna that I accidentally bought packed in oil rather than water, I spotted The Incredibles on sale at the grocery store'’s service counter. So, if they don'’t show, I will soothe her soul and fulfill my promise with a video.
Meanwhile, after straightening up the living room and the guest bathroom, the bare minimum required for house guests, on the slim chance that they may possibly hang out for a while, we did our history, reading aloud from The Red Badge of Courage and went over their list of words for a homeschool spelling bee scheduled for Friday. Now playing, The Incredibles.
Knowing this was a day for not getting much accomplished, I even picked myself up a copy of Coastal Living while checking out. Sadly, I couldn'’t tell if this was one I had read before. The covers all blur together into one big front porchy kind of perfection. Irregardless, I'’m now watching The Incredibles, and will probably see it at least once more during the course of the day.
On the way home from the grocery store, I was thrilled to see the Blue Angels flying into our little local municipal airport for the airshow this weekend, I am a sucker for jet power. Right over our house making their landing approach, how cool is that?
It has just occurred to me that I better get off the computer and do a little more cleaning than the living room and guest bath. If they do show up for a brief stop at our house, the closed bedroom doors will be no effective barricade to my aunt, who has always kept a miraculously clean house and insists that her daughter would still be married, her husband never wandering, if only she had just had a home cooked dinner on the table for him every night. The bare minimum is never enough for Aunt M.
Oh, my God, they'’re here! They’'re not supposed to be here…!
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Lunch was pleasant. I highly recommend Presseller'’s Deli if you'’re ever in Punta Gorda. The smoked turkey, Brie, and Granny Smith Apple slices on a baguette is particularly yummy. Everybody did come back to the house for a bit and L was thrilled to have Nanny pick her up from school. I successfully headed off humiliation by physically blocking the hallway and telling my mother, when she asked Aunt M if she had seen the rest of the house yet, that unfortunately the bedrooms were not included on the tour today. I heard Aunt M’'s neck craning behind me as I quickly reclosed my bedroom door, carelessly left open after one of the kids had run in there for something. A close call.
And now, back to The Incredibles.
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