Glad To Be Back, More or Less

CHAPTER 1: THE THINGS I DIDN'T DO

Three things absolutely did not happen on my trip home to Wisconsin: I didn't take the kids over to Lake Michigan. I didn't take any photos. (Not one. Didn't take the camera out of its case. This happens to me when I'm overstimulated.) I also didn't ask my parents any difficult questions. Mom and I drank a couple of gin and tonics; Dad and I took turns reading favorite A.A. Milne poems out loud to each other and laughing (one doesn't get to say the word "blip" very much when reciting peotry, except in the case of A.A. Milne). No questions. I was so laid back, so non-confrontational. I was mellow and just smiled, even when:

1. My sister-in-law said that she didn't think the Harry Potter series was very "sophisticated". ("Snob!" I thought.)
2. My nephew told me that he'd love the chance to shake the hand of a great person like Dick Cheney. (I told him that I had once scratched the belly of Millie, beloved dog of Bush the Elder. My brush with fame.)
3. I found out my niece works for a big, bloated HMO. (This was a tough one. I repressed the urge to claw her face off. We were in a restaurant and I didn't want to be gauche.)

CHAPTER 2: THE THINGS I DID

I DID have lunch with John, and a few short hours of fun conversation, spent with my toes trailing in the healing waters of Lake Monona. Thanks John! Both for lunch (next time, I'm buying) and for BS-ing me about how I still look good after all these years.

I DID go up to our cottage by Wautoma, visited with my aunt and cousins, and went swimming. It is a pity that there are scarcely any lakes in Utah that are really good for swimming. Any Wisconsinite would be appalled to hear my children asking where the chlorine is and why they can't see their feet on the bottom. I like to stand still and let the minnows nibble my legs...for about 20 seconds, after which I can't tolerate the tickling any more. A cousin was telling me about spas at which people can experience exfoliation by minnow. How could anyone stand it?

I DID run. Once.

I DID sleep. A little.

I DID weed, when Mom wasn't looking. I was not permitted to clean, except maybe the kitchen after supper.

I DID canoe, although not with Dad. My sister-in-law and I dragged one of the canoes out of its home under the cottage and hauled it down to the bay. I was up near the bow and we were moving at a fairly good clip, so as not to waste our momentum. The water is low this year, and so no one bothered to set up the pier. I was headed purposefully to the water line and almost made it before being sucked down to my knees in black, flaky, loamy, fish-scented mud. My SIL came to a screeching halt, trying not to get dragged in with me. It took a few minutes of wriggling and pulling to extricate myself - we decided that the kids couldn't get into the canoe there or they might all disappear forever. They went over to the sandy swimming beach to wait for me while I climbed in and paddled over to pick them up. I probably haven't been alone in a canoe in 20 years. The kids are lucky I came back to shore - I really didn't want to.

I DID rummage in old photos. I even got to bring a favorite one (of my great- grandmother) back with me. My parents are in give-away mode. If there's anything old and musty that you need, go over to their place. The ice cream freezer never came up, but I did score:

1. A soft and snugly quilt sewn by my great grandmother in the 1920s or so.
2. A blue glass butter dish and sugar bowl. I'm sure they are just Depression glass and anyway, they both have nicks. But they were on the table up at the cottage when I was little, and they remind me of my grammy.
3. Some bathroom tiles painted with whimsical fish. I'll bet Grandpa picked them up at an auction or something, thinking he'd tile the cottage bathroom with them. I don't know what I'm going to do with them, either - I'll think of something.
4. A couple of interesting old books: a school geography text from 1877 with my great- grandfather's name in the front cover; and an old atlas without a publication date. The maps are odd. The one of North America shows Wisconsin to be part of "French Canada", but Wisconsin has been a state since 1848. Western Canada is uncharted. Someone wrote the date 1748 on it, but that can't be right...I'm going to take it to an antique book dealer here in SLC and see what he can tell me about it.

I did show some restraint. I did not take Dad's boyhood bedspread, chewed and pooped on by generations of mice. After some deliberation, I didn't take the collection of microscope slides from his medical school days. They're cool, but they'd sit in my basement just like they sat in his.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of "Antiques Road Show".

CHAPTER 3: WHY IT'S A GOOD THING I CAME BACK (I SUPPOSE)

1. My e-mail is being replaced by a new e-mail in a couple of days, and there are a few million people who need to know. Agony.

2. The peach tree needs attention. It's heavy with fruit that's not quite ripe. The weight broke a limb, in fact. Si went out to deal with it and told me that we'd lost 136 peaches. He counted!?!

3. Tomatoes. I have my umpteenth pot of marinara simmering as I write.

4. Simon was going deaf from listening to music at pavement-cracking decibel levels. Plus it was Supertramp. It's a good thing someone didn't kill him.

5. Simon also need to be stopped from any further shopping at IKEA. He's driving me up the f***ing wall with this. I'm serious. He keeps going to IKEA and buying decor. I got home and found a new rug in the front hall. OK, I don't mind it. But there's also a vase. Not a vase, a vahzzz. It's about waist high and resembles a stack of tiny inner-tubes. Or a skinny black bee-hive. It blows. I hate it. AND! AND! Ooooh, this pisses me off. OK, he has a place on the bedroom floor where he piles stuff. The Mound. I don't like piles of stuff lying on the floor, so I pick The Mound up and put it on his nightstand. At IKEA he found a little tiny folding table (about knee-high and about a foot square) (Only $5! What a steal!) He's got it all set up and piles his stuff there instead. He asked me what I thought. Pfft. An elevated Mound is still a Mound. Why can't he just put his s*** away? Maybe if I let him crank a little vintage Genesis, the neighbors will kill him so I don't have to.