Do you ever find a word popping out of your mouth that is totally not what you intended?
It happens to me all the time. It used to happen to aunty Kay as well. We laughed a lot.
Tinkerbell. My on-going work in progress.
So to speak
This morning her eyes were softer, when she looked at me. The daggers were not there. So I reached out, slowly, and tickled her head cautiously. For a moment.
Then she remembered it was me. Or some bad memory occurred, and out came the claws.
Not as savage as usual, but still. There was blood.
And what I meant to say was that my fingers had been already full of holes, but what came out was:
“My hangars…” and Grant fell about laughing.
I guess you needed to be there.
You could possibly say that Grant and I are a slightly odd couple. Not that we are really a couple at all, but we live in this house, with these 12 cats, and it is a bit of a circus.
So, funny things happen. Or maybe we just share the same weird sense of humour. He is South African and he ‘gets’ the Britishness that still sticks to me.
Coming back to New York, I knew I would need boots and I obtained a really cheap pair that everyone admired. They are very comfy.
I wore them a lot, back when I was allowed to go out.
In those days, when I could go to Hannaford’s, Grant and I went shopping one day, just up the road in Greenwich. (“Green Witch”, if you please.)
As I stepped out of the car, I looked down for some reason, and started to laugh.
“What?” asked Grant.
“I’ve got my boots on the wrong feet.”
So then he started to laugh, and as it didn’t seem to make much difference, I kept walking into the store.
We went giggling and snorting like a pair of fools all the way round Hannaford’s.
People were looking at us funny.
So then we laughed some more.
There was a time when I was actually allowed to drive us to Hannaford’s. It’s about as far as Grant thinks I’m capable of driving without incident, apparently.
Which is a bit of a sauce, considering I drove all the way to Boston to collect him when he flew back from Seattle, after fixing up my house there.
Anyway, I was driving us home, one day, going at a decent speed along route 372, when…
I suddenly saw Mobil and recalled we needed gas.
Next thing you know, we were parked at a gas pump.
And Grant was gasping for air. “Holy cow!” he said.
Since then, he seems less enthused about being my passenger. I can’t think why. I make a decision and I act on it. What’s wrong with that? It was all perfectly safe. Just a bit sudden. Maybe.
I’m rather inclined that way.
In 1976 my aunt and uncle retired and went to Maine.
The previous summer they rented a camper and we drove up for a few days to see their property.
We got as far as Connecticut and the camper began to misbehave, so we went all the way at 40 mph.
It’s a long way.
It really wasn’t terribly funny. But it seemed like every time we went under a bridge (and there must have been lots of those) the stupid thing backfired. Each time, my uncle got more annoyed, and pretty soon my aunt got the giggles, then she and I couldn’t stop.
My uncle had a very bad day, but it’s one of my funnier and happier memories of Kay.
Grant and I had many moments, during the move from Washington, that were really not fun. The last leg, after the red-eye flight, was particularly tough. We rented a car and Grant drove from JFK. We were exhausted from the packing and travelling and we were stressed about the cats. We had been hours without food and we took a wrong turn at some point, which didn’t help.
Then I remembered something in my handbag. “Here”, I said, “breakfast for you.” And Grant solemnly accepted the cough drop, which was all I had to offer. And we laughed.
Sometimes, what else are you going to do? There are so many much worse situations one could be in, so you make the best of things and if you can find the tiniest bit of humour, it really does feel better.
We have to laugh! Yesterday my husband pulled a funny joke on me that really had me wondering if I was totally losing it. When I realized what he was up to and went to him about it we laughed so hard we cried! Just what we needed! So keep laughing!