THREE WEEKS, 21 DAYS

 

   Three weeks, 21 days.

Amazing!  Nothing went wrong in this long period of time.  Well, my cell phone didn’t want to send pictures or text, but I could live with that.  A TV never blared in my presence which was a plus.  No re-runs, no news.

It can’t be called a vacation when I no longer work.  I’ll name it as a ‘get-away” from my current life which is happily settled in an apartment I like and friends around me.  This trip is a get-away to a different wonderful 21 days. 

Sister Nan made up a calendar with the plan for each day.  Then I added in red the special happenings.  

We started with bright sparkly fireworks!  Well, maybe they weren’t meant just for me.  It happened to be Fourth of July.  Six of us happened to be maneuvering a pontoon boat on a river close to a park where celebrations were happening.   Don’t be worried by the photo.  The beer in my hand is real.  But the captain only let me take the steering wheel with miles of water around us. 

There comes a time it life when “what goes around, comes around,” and it certainly has come back to me in pi square quantities.  In my teen age years I did considerable babysitting for a cute little girl 13 years younger than me.  Now that cute kid takes care of older sister with class and style.  Eyes & glasses checked; teeth cleaned and given a good report; dentures adjusted; a haircut with the little snips that shape it; a first-class pedicure and then to top it off, an hour’s massage that soothed every muscle.   I looked the best possible for a party which Nan considers small with only 33 people. 

To work off the extra delicious calories we put in enjoyable long walks in the near-by park. 

Yep, pay back was here.  Except when it came to Mexican train dominoes. We battled every evening, keeping score in red on my calendar.  They wouldn’t let me win and I had to fight hard until the last day.  Score right now is the monster and the old lady tied with 13, cutie-pie catching up with an 11.   

We drove to Galveston in their Minnie Winnie – a pretty green 16 foot Winnebago trailer – and settled down on a beach RV park.  This gave me a chance to catch up on deep breathing with delicious sea air.    Old ladies get privileges.  They had fixed a curtain (mailed from brother Bill) so I had my own space and I was allowed to sleep an extra hour in the morning.  

In addition to play-acting joists and slapping the waves in the warm Gulf waters, we gave a day to the Moody Gardens.  Every pre-kindergarten school in the area visited that day.  However, we had more fun than the kids watching the fish and the turtles and the snails.  Then came the rain forest (they keep it as hot as Phoenix) with monkeys and pretty birds and water dragons. 

More good eating.   The two Lewis girls relaxed after their tour around the Gardens with a fancy named coconut berry drink that had fifty percent ice.  No worry, someone else did the driving and he watched out for us. 

Off to Nan ’s family.  Her four year old granddaughter doesn’t just read books, she writes them.  I now know all about the tree frogs and their activities.  Food in that household is of the healthy tasty kind.  One menu included white chili that tasted like a favorite very good bean soup to me. 

We enjoyed another daughter’s lake house,  spotting grazing deer and driving through green forest on the tree farm.  One evening musical granddaughter gave a special cello concert, just for me.  The height of enjoyment is reclining on a soft couch with Bach surrounding me.

 

We constantly ate.  Chinese, Mexican, fish and hamburgers.   Another special treat: being driven around in a 1931, looking like brand new, Ford town car. 

Everywhere I was given a welcome with so much warmth and love.  They shared their homes and lives as though I belonged there every day.  Plans were made with activities I would enjoy.  Care was taken to make my trip one that would go into my memory books as a very special one. Thank you.  I am a very happy-to-have-you old lady. 

Looking forward next year to returning again to my room, my “light” room.