Right There In River City

You can see he is laughing at me. Christmas, 2008.

---

Himself: It’s his favorite day of the week. Herself: Got almost all the email done. Yes, I will get to yours. Made a giant pile of mending. Marveled at how allergies can make you lose your mind. Cut the leftover beef into bite sized pieces, and simmered that tough, slow-cooked beef with tomatoes for two hours until it would melt in the mouth. Mixed in a heaping spoonful of sour cream, and poured it over the leftover veggies. Hurrah. Sometimes it’s the little successes that make the day. The Holiday: My youngest is having a hard time this year. Balance:This day my eldest helped me to an acceptance and letting go.

Sometimes it’s the big successes that make the day.

I’ve not been worried about the keys. G has. It’s the fancy, new, expensive clicker sold to us by that 100% totally non-functional installer that’s been worrying him. I think he saw the price of one new clicker multiplying astronomically. Not me. I knew if I had them at the door of the house, I would have had them at the tailgate of the truck where they vanished.

It truly was a magic vanishing act, you know.

Then G left a note yesterday. “I think the keys are…stuck in one of the umbrella wires…” he wrote.

I knew the umbrella was still dripping water two flights down in Grumpy’s bed. Every time I would go downstairs to flip another load of laundry into the dryer or washer, I would forget to take the key. Grumpy is a very tight fit there in his corner.

G pulled into the garage, and even before we considered dinner, back down we went to pulled both vehicles out into the driveway. No key caught up in the umbrella. Darn. I set it aside to dry. But I hadn’t shaken out the pads we keep over the paint in the truck bed. We opened up everything again, pulled on the old, grey furniture pad, and there lay the key and clicker triumphant.

Right there in River City.