On Friday, Mr. T went on a campout with his boy scout troop.  This was his second attempt.  The first campout did not go over so well as it was raining and cold and there were irritating boys whose sole purpose in Mr. T’s estimation was to make everyone else miserable.  Friday afternoon I reminded him it was time to get ready and he heaved a heavy sigh.  Chuck and I decided long ago that scouting would not be something we would force upon our son, but Mr. T is the type of kid who occasionally needs a little nudging to do anything besides sit at the computer so we’re still trying to gently encourage him.  He agreed to go and got everything ready.  We were to meet at our church at 4:50 pm so they could leave at 5 pm sharp.  The scoutmaster ended up being over an hour late.  Whatever.  It was also raining and cold.  And there were irritating boys whose sole purpose was to make Mr. T miserable.  I’m not sure we can talk him into going a third time.  I’m not sure we’ll even try.

Saturday night DynaGirl woke up sobbing.  She’d had a nightmare.  She said she dreamed that Mr. T, BigHugs and I had all died.  Yikes.  That’s a nightmare.  The kind I have frequently.  I have times where my subconscious is a little too preoccupied with death.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had nightmares about losing members of my family.  They’re awful.  And even the relief of waking up and realizing it was just a dream isn’t enough to take away the feeling of dread.  It just lingers and makes me want to cry. Sometimes I do, like DynaGirl.

My favorite death dreams are the ones where someone dead comes back to life, specifically my mom.  I used to dream about her all the time—that she was still alive and everything was back to normal.  Those were actually good dreams, and even though I would wake up only to realize she was still gone, that repeated grief and disappointment was totally worth having her back for a few imaginary moments.  Sometimes I would dream that she was still alive, but then she would die again in my dream.  Those sucked.  No fair to have to relive it.

On Sunday night, we were all sitting at the dinner table when I noticed this weird noise in the background. My kids were convinced it was the dryer.  I thought, “It damn well better not be the dryer because that is definitely not how the dryer is supposed to sound, which could only mean that something is terribly, terribly wrong with the dryer and didn’t we just do the whole dead washer routine?”  I decided to investigate and ended up poking my head out the front door to find an ambulance and fire engine outside my neighbor’s house.  The weird background noise was the fire engine idling.

We go to church with these neighbors (an older couple with mostly grown kids and one 16 year old son at home), and have lived across the street from them for over seven years.  My first thought was one of them must have had a heart attack.  They’re both large people.  Lovely, lovely people, but large.  I was afraid.  I sent Chuck over to investigate, and it turns out Mrs. Lovely large neighbor had her leg just collapse out from under her.  She heard a pop and then it just folded.  Ouch.  Her husband said it happened in their bedroom, which is downstairs, while he was away, so she called out to her teenage son, who was upstairs, but he couldn’t hear her so she called him on his cell phone.  This is a small house, but thank goodness for cell phones, I guess.  Her son called his dad and he came home.  Chuck said the son was still upstairs when he got there.  I was wondering if he was still upstairs or upstairs again.  Surely he didn’t just stay upstairs and leave his poor mother alone in her misery until dad arrived.  Surely.

I was just so relieved no one had a heart attack.  I’m going to check on her today.

Today Chuck left for a 10-day business trip.  Again with the business trips.  It would have been a full two weeks only DynaGirl’s birthday is next Thursday and Chuck missed her birthday two years ago while on business in Italy, and DynaGirl has never let him forget it.  She still brings it up at random non-birthday related times.  “Remember that time you missed my birthday?” 

He broke the news to the kids Friday night over dinner.

Chuck:  I’ve got good news and bad news.  Which do you want first?

DynaGirl:  Bad news.

Chuck:  I have to go on another trip.

DynaGirl and Goose:  What?  Again?

DynaGirl:  You’re going to miss my birthday!  Again!

Chuck:  Wait for the good news.

DynaGirl, sulking.

Chuck:  I’m coming back on your birthday.

DynaGirl:  Yay!  Wait, what time?

He’ll be home before she gets home from school, but I love how quick she was to make sure he wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on her.  Like not getting home until nighttime would have been totally cheating because he still would have basically missed her birthday.  Again.

So, to sum up:

stupid campouts = bad

death = bad

jacked-up leg = better than a heart attack

DynaGirl = forgive, but not forget

 

How was your weekend?