Keeping Up With The Joneses

lost in textlation

My mother has been having an issue with carpenter bees wanting to drill her deck into a pile of sawdust. The deck has also needed a little work done, although why bother if the bees are going to just demolish it?

I received a text this morning that my mother could not go to the grocery as planned since “the carpenters showed up”. Since I was in the middle of something and could not immediately reply, I kept trying to figure out why the carpenter bees would hinder her grocery run. I tried to call for an explanation and she did not answer. I texted that I tried to call her and that she must have been allowed passage by the bees and made it to the grocery.

Before I got a reply, I was explaining the text to a coworker and I was envisioning the bees swarming my mother’s car or swarming the door of the house so she could not exit.

A few moments later, I got a text from her: “No. The real carpenters who are here to repair the deck.”

“What we've got here is failure to communicate.” (Please use your best Southern accent while reading this line taken from the movie “Cool Hand Luke” starring the ever-so-handsome, late, great Paul Newman).

 

that's the name?

Every time this song comes up in my iPod rotation, I smile. I remember a time when my mother was riding with me when the song came on.

Mom (with a confused look): "The name of this song is Toothbrush?"

Me: "Uh, yep...but I had nothing to do with it."

 

uncles

Prior to Mother’s Day, I went in search for the perfect card. As I strolled down the card aisle at Target, the section for birthday cards for uncles stopped me in my tracks. I am not sure why I had not admitted to myself before this moment that all of my uncles were gone. It was a privilege to have 5 blood uncles and 3 others who married my mother’s sisters.

It was a brief moment of realization that I chose to revisit later. I did not have a meltdown in Target, so as not to compete with the 3 babies near me who were having their own little meltdowns. I guess the happy gas that Target pumps into the air works on adults, but not so much on children. Someone is probably working on that as I write this.

Today is Memorial Day and I am reflecting on the moment I had at Target. All of my blood uncles and my father served in various branches of the military and I am thankful and proud of that. Not just on this day every year, but every day. I have an appreciation for all who are serving and who have served their country, even if I don’t care much for fighting wars.

I don’t think I inherited the courage of my uncles and my father, but maybe I am a mix of their other positive attributes that have been and will be helpful during the portion of my life without them to personally guide me. My hope is that all of them knew I respected and loved them.