Looking Up

Waking up this morning I did not feel like I had been lifted by a crane and dropped square on my back at some point during the night. In fact, I could open my jaw more than a crack and only my hips popped when I exited bed left.

Also helping matters, the sun was streaming through our bedroom window for the first time in days, and I could recall some vivid good dreams for a change. In one, I won some game at the casino for hitting "Double Zero" whatever that means. No one had ever done it in the existence of the game and the whole place was cheering. In this dream I had long, thick dirty blonde hair that I kept tied in a low braid which hung at my shoulder. To me, this is symbolic of good things to come.

Last night we went out to my parents' house. I took a nice, deep nap on their living room recliner while my mom dozed off in the recliner next to me while absentmindedly watching her soaps. Then I stumbled my way down the familiar hallway and continued the nap on my parents' bed. I felt my mom drop drop a soft blanket over me. Out I was until I heard the garage door opening below the room signaling my Dad's return from work. It was a familiar and comforting feeling remembering all the days that I would snuggle in for a nap on top of their bed watching "Duck Tales" and "Rescue Rangers" after school while my Mom cooked dinner until my Dad came home and the smells of ground turkey sizzling in the kitchen became too inciting to remain napping any longer. Last night it was the spicy scents of Mexican spices and the sound of crisp lettuce being cracked off the head that lured me out to discover one of my favorite dinners: "Make Your Own Taco Night".

Craig, my dad and my brother had appeared while I was napping and we enjoyed a great dinner and a little game of "Battle of the Sexes" out on the screened porch. As it got dark my sister pulled in from a long day of Park Rangering and my brother's childhood friend came down with his mom, whom I hadn't seen in years and years. We laughed at his stories of being a beach lifeguard on the South Carolina shore. Over bowls of Peaches & Cream chocolate raspberry mousse we heard about the women who would ask him to take his shirt off and pose for photos. We heard about the man who would come every day, booze it up, and tie an invisible fishing line to a perfectly shaped conch shell, set it up so that it was rolling in the tide and watched and mocked as people nonchalantly tried to pick it up while he mysteriously reeled in the line and pulled it out of their grasp. Fantastic!

We got home and I hit the pillow hard. I think the change of scenery did a world of wonders.