Thankfully Naive

I didn’t mean to do it.  Really, it wasn’t intentional.  And it certainly wasn’t what it looked like!! 

What you ask?  Well, let me frame the story.

We live in a pretty close knit neighborhood.  Most everyone knows each other and we all watch each others homes.  That also goes for the church/ministry across the street from us; it’s a very large part of this neighborhood.

Our direct neighbor is great – I’ve mentioned this before.   We have keys to each other’s homes and take care of things when they are away and do each other favors when necessary.   

We definitely call on each other for favors; can you let the dog out? Can you bring in the mail? Can you meet the smallest child at the bus, we won’t be home on time? Can you turn the %&@ sprinkler off in the garden – I forgot AGAIN and I’m an hour away….  

A nice little give and take.

But one of my favorite things about them is they come over and ask for things like eggs, a cup of milk or half a stick of butter.  I love this!  And I never remember to do the same when I need something – I just don’t make whatever it was, or run to the store, or hubby runs to the store when I’m in the middle of a mess and can’t believe I don’t have any flour (probably to shut me up and yes, because he’s a good man). 

But whenever they send their youngest daughter over for some baking ingredient – I again remember how cool it is we live in a neighborhood that still does this!  And why don’t I remember to do this when I need ¼ cup milk?

So, today their lovely young daughter comes over and asks for some baking soda – they are making banana bread and can’t find the baking soda.  She pops in the back door, visits with the doggies and tells us the whole story about the banana bread, why they are making it and its intended final destination.

I grab the box of Arm and Hammer and look at it for a minute.  I don’t want to send the whole box, they are on a mission and then she’d have to stop everything and run it back over.  Also, our sweet little neighbor girl sometimes gets distracted, so Lord knows really where the box will end up once the desired amount is used. 

I decide to make it easy on everyone and put a few table spoons in a zip lock baggie.

As soon as I send her out the door I know this was a bad idea.

The church/ministry is letting out across the street.  There are people everywhere.  I’m sure that the neighbor girl stopped and talked to some of the congregation along the route home and I’m sure they saw her leaving out our back door, heading down the driveway and over to her house – all the while prominently carrying a clear ziplock baggie with a corner full of white powder.

Yeah, really – we aren’t dealing and the little girl next door is not our middle man.  No one has a drug problem and no we were not helping the neighbors next door get their fix.

Man, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean for it to look that way, I was just trying to save them a trip back to the house.  And yes, you’re right – the big yellow box would have looked better – I know.  

Good thing she’s too young to know that it looked like something fishy was going on, again, I’m sorry.  

Oops….

Ps: I just want to say you can find anything on the internet, I put in “baking soda in a bag: on google  and look – a picture of what I did today came right up for me, no need to recreate it here… fabulous! Thanks wikihow.com

Have I Mopped the Sky Lately?

Oh my – it seems God dropped his cotton balls all over the sky last night!  Which could have had him asking if the sky was clean enough to pick them all up for re-use later?

Out with the dogs – at 3:00am, (guh, at least the weather was fair and it was a pleasant night.  If that can be said about being outside at 3:00am and not snug in your bed on a Tuesday night). I looked up at the sky and it was fascinating, then I thought, looks like cotton balls. 

Wow – God must have dropped them all over the sky while he was fumbling around at 3:00am too!

When it’s this late and I’m on dog duty, I too find myself doing half-awake things – like putting the leash on the wrong dog or wearing my husband’s robe, which, due to more than a foot in height difference between us, has it dragging through the wet grass – like a not so elegant train.  Therefore, when he gets up a few hours later and puts it on – it’s soaking wet.  Not to mention the nights I go out in the snow in my bare feet.  Yup, sound asleep, then startled awake for a puppy piddle, doesn’t always go well.

But at least for me last night I had something pretty to look at.  And I’m so glad he didn't drop the Q-Tips, they could have come down like cardboard spears and killed us all!  Certainly ducking would have been an aerobic activity I may not have been prepared for that early in the morning……

(Had to borrow a pic from photosearch.com, tried to take a picture of the sky – but all I got was blackness)

'Tis the Season

Ah, October – time for high jinx and hilarity!

I remember those days.  When we were kids – the Toilet Papering of trees was common place.  Yet, I haven’t seen any in years.

Ta Da!!!  An old friend has returned.  

Instead of burning houses down in Detroit in October, the kids are buying toilet paper in bulk and tossing it through the air on dark evenings.  Then again, this wasn’t Detroit and it is possible that a few structures will still burn in the city during this Halloween season of pranks and terror before October is over...  

We were in my most favorite of towns for finding Blog fodder, the Grosse Pointes!  And there was no shortage of trees in the area covered in Toilet Paper streamers.  

It was EVERYWHERE, kind of offsets the beauty of the well manicured lawns, but not too much.  Of course, the first time it rains, it’s going to look horrid – but for now – the white sweeping streamers are quite pretty.

I must have passed twenty homes, blocks and blocks away from each other, covered in the flowing white stuff (haven’t thought of it, but the days when we had blue, pink and yellow TP are long over – white is pretty much it now).  

This task was not accomplished by one group of kids out to bring the Homecoming spirit to the area.  It had to have been a planned event, among a group of kids in different neighborhoods.  Date picked, hour set, TP bought at the Costco (en masse) and off they went, in a synchronized manner.

This of course is much different than my youth, it was always done just on a whim and really to no one in particular, just to the trees that looked like we could get a good toss on them and of course within walking distance with-in our own neighborhood.  Not too bright, but we were never caught, so I guess it all worked out.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the memories and good luck with your Homecoming game this Friday!!