Wednesday, July 21, 2010
There’s nothing like a long, luxuriously laid-back summer vacation at my parents’ house on the lake—although it’s very hard to come home. One bright spot, however: This year I felt a little more missed than usual.
Carson and I didn’t get home until after midnight this morning (which, we keep saying, feels like 3 a.m. Michigan time), and my most important goal for the day (other than unpacking and refilling the fridge) is to see some soldiers.
My first stop: Ray McDade’s room, to deliver the Michigan-made strawberry fruit spread I brought back for him. I looked and looked for something strawberry at the family fruit farm near my parents’ house, because Ray always snatches every single jar of strawberry jelly from the Bingo prize cart. Ray was very happy with his souvenir, but later it slipped out that he had asked the woman who buys the Bingo prizes to please find a new jelly flavor. Turns out he grabbed every jar of strawberry jelly only because it was the only jelly option, not because strawberry is his all-time favorite fruit flavor. Sigh.
Ray had had an adventure while we were gone: He’d woken up to find his bed soaked—but not because of anything he’d done. (This happened to me once at my parents’ house—I thought I’d been shot, but in reality, I had just popped my mom’s waterbed.) Technically, Ray didn’t have a waterbed, but he does have a new overhead water pipe. The other one had sprung a leak—maybe several—soaking the wall and Ray’s bed, and Ray. But it was quickly fixed, no harm done, and now it makes for a good story, especially when Ray tells it.
Next I found Gary, someplace I’d never expected to find him: in his room, in bed. He hasn’t been feeling well, but he looked good and seemed happy with his Detroit Crunch caramel corn. He had good news and bad news. The bad: They had to cancel two Bingo sessions while I was gone because no one else showed up to help. That made me feel horrible (but suddenly relevant). The good: His inaugural Texas Hold ‘Em poker tournament is still on for Sunday, and he’s still counting on me as an official dealer. Even better: He thinks he’ll feel better by then.
Mike was not in his room, so I hopefully headed to the pond, where I found him pointing his binoculars at the eagles’ tree. “Hey, Mr. Audubon,” I trilled. He was very happy to see me, and he had news, too: The entire time I was gone, so was his trusty wheelchair. He has had so much trouble with that stupid thing. Even after it was “fixed,” it still lost its battery charge too quickly, so they took it in again, and it took that entire three weeks and then some to get it back. On the way back to his room (where I left him a big, fat Michigan cherry-truffle chocolate bar), the chair’s battery almost died. And Mike’s oxygen tank was in the red zone. “Sheez. Good thing I got back when I did,” I told him. “You were about out of everything.”
I had talked to Mike on the phone a couple times while we were gone, but now, in person, he wanted to hear all about our trip, and my parents and— of course—Carson’s golf game. I told him that Carson won a lot of money from my dad and his buddies on the course, and that Carson had hit the single best drive he and my dad had ever seen. “I am so damn proud of that boy, I feel like a relative,” Mike said.
“That makes me very happy,” I told him. “And I feel like you are, too.”
Sad as I was to leave my parents, it was nice to come back to another branch of family.
There’s nothing like a long, luxuriously laid-back summer vacation at my parents’ house on the lake—although it’s very hard to come home. One bright spot, however: This year I felt a little more missed than usual.
Carson and I didn’t get home until after midnight this morning (which, we keep saying, feels like 3 a.m. Michigan time), and my most important goal for the day (other than unpacking and refilling the fridge) is to see some soldiers.
My first stop: Ray McDade’s room, to deliver the Michigan-made strawberry fruit spread I brought back for him. I looked and looked for something strawberry at the family fruit farm near my parents’ house, because Ray always snatches every single jar of strawberry jelly from the Bingo prize cart. Ray was very happy with his souvenir, but later it slipped out that he had asked the woman who buys the Bingo prizes to please find a new jelly flavor. Turns out he grabbed every jar of strawberry jelly only because it was the only jelly option, not because strawberry is his all-time favorite fruit flavor. Sigh.
Ray had had an adventure while we were gone: He’d woken up to find his bed soaked—but not because of anything he’d done. (This happened to me once at my parents’ house—I thought I’d been shot, but in reality, I had just popped my mom’s waterbed.) Technically, Ray didn’t have a waterbed, but he does have a new overhead water pipe. The other one had sprung a leak—maybe several—soaking the wall and Ray’s bed, and Ray. But it was quickly fixed, no harm done, and now it makes for a good story, especially when Ray tells it.
Next I found Gary, someplace I’d never expected to find him: in his room, in bed. He hasn’t been feeling well, but he looked good and seemed happy with his Detroit Crunch caramel corn. He had good news and bad news. The bad: They had to cancel two Bingo sessions while I was gone because no one else showed up to help. That made me feel horrible (but suddenly relevant). The good: His inaugural Texas Hold ‘Em poker tournament is still on for Sunday, and he’s still counting on me as an official dealer. Even better: He thinks he’ll feel better by then.
Mike was not in his room, so I hopefully headed to the pond, where I found him pointing his binoculars at the eagles’ tree. “Hey, Mr. Audubon,” I trilled. He was very happy to see me, and he had news, too: The entire time I was gone, so was his trusty wheelchair. He has had so much trouble with that stupid thing. Even after it was “fixed,” it still lost its battery charge too quickly, so they took it in again, and it took that entire three weeks and then some to get it back. On the way back to his room (where I left him a big, fat Michigan cherry-truffle chocolate bar), the chair’s battery almost died. And Mike’s oxygen tank was in the red zone. “Sheez. Good thing I got back when I did,” I told him. “You were about out of everything.”
I had talked to Mike on the phone a couple times while we were gone, but now, in person, he wanted to hear all about our trip, and my parents and— of course—Carson’s golf game. I told him that Carson won a lot of money from my dad and his buddies on the course, and that Carson had hit the single best drive he and my dad had ever seen. “I am so damn proud of that boy, I feel like a relative,” Mike said.
“That makes me very happy,” I told him. “And I feel like you are, too.”
Sad as I was to leave my parents, it was nice to come back to another branch of family.