As we were traveling back home from Tulsa, Sunday before last, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel, somewhere in Texas, after we left Oklahoma. When we got out of the car, it was breezy and a little chilly. And I recalled the conversation I had with myself, several times that Sunday morning, in the hotel, as I was packing. “Oh, there’s my jacket. I must remember that my jacket is on the chair. And I’ll need to get it when we leave.” When we left the room, to go down for breakfast in the hotel, um, snack room, I reminded myself about my jacket. “There’s my jacket on the chair. I must remember to get it when we leave.”

After breakfast, when we got back to the room, there was my jacket on the chair. “Oh, yes,” I said to  myself. “I must remember to get my jacket.”

I carefully packed up all my things, and we went down the elevator and checked out and took our things to the car (where the weather was still) and drove away, off to the Chickasaw Nation Visitor Center, where the weather was also still. At the Cracker Barrel, however, it was not still, and as we walked toward the Cracker Barrel door, I was chilly, and I thought, “Oh, yes, I need my jacket, which is … on the chair in our hotel room.”

At the door of the Cracker Barrel, I told David I didn’t have my jacket. And, he knew where it was. On the chair. In our hotel room. In Tulsa. He went back to the car and got the hotel receipt and, from the door of the Cracker Barrel, I phoned the hotel and gave them my name and our room number and a description of the jacket. “It’s sort of a sweater-jacket,” I said. “A knitted thing. It’s sort of a pinkish/lavender jacket, with a hood. And it’s on the chair, in room 212.” She explained that the housecleaning crew had just begun to work, and that they waited until they were completely done cleaning, before they brought things down (apparently, I’m not the only guest who leaves things behind). We went over our home address and phone number (just in case), and, of course, the credit card number, which they would need to pay for the postage for sending the jacket to me. And I thanked her, and we went and had our lunch.

When we got back to Waco, I unpacked and put things away. But it wasn’t until I was getting ready for bed that I began to look around, check my suitcase, look in my smaller bag, and finally accepted the fact that my nightgown had not made the trip back to Waco. I’ve had this “white nightgown” problem before, last May. I had left it at David’s mom’s house, when I went to Baltimore for a family wedding. It had gotten mixed in with some white towels, and I didn’t see it. Same thing in the hotel. White nightgown, hanging on bathroom hook, along with a white towel.

Monday morning, I called the hotel. AGAIN. I gave the lady my name and room number and, oh, yes, they had the white nightgown. “Oh, thank you,” I said. And, they had a white shirt. “WHAT!” I should not be allowed to travel. It was an extra knit shirt I had taken along, in case I got cold and needed to wear it underneath something else (like a jacket, for example). And, same, problem. It was folded up, in the suitcase, and I think that, when I was repacking everything, I may have taken it out of the suitcase, rearranged things, and didn’t notice it on the white sheets of the bed, and just packed everything else up. So, yes, they would pack up ALL my left-behind clothing, and send it along to me.

My missing things: jacket, white nightgown, white knit shirt, all safe and sound back in Texas

I had hoped the package would arrive by Thursday, so I could take a photo, to put in last week’s post. But, it didn’t come until Saturday. I thought that, after all their traveling, maybe I should just go ahead and toss them in the laundry, to clean them up. And I did that. I’d done laundry all day Friday, so these things just went into the washer all together. The white nightgown. The white knit shirt. And the lavender/pinkish sort of colored jacket. Regular cycle. Warm wash, and cold rinse.

Right out of the washer

Looking closely at the jacket, you probably notice that it’s covered with little white detritus. Apparently, I’d left a tissue in a pocket. Or maybe a tissue in each pocket. Or multiple tissues. There were a lot of little pieces. And I thought I’d just go ahead and put it in the dryer and let the dryer get all that stuff off the jacket. And, then I noticed the white nightgown and the white shirt. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so obvious, if they hadn’t been sitting on top of the white dryer. But, they were sitting on the white dryer. And they were pink. Not really, REALLY pink. But, most certainly–pink.

Every laundry room should have Color Catchers. And every launderer should figure out when to use them.

I tried washing the gown and shirt again, by themselves, with a Color Catcher, hoping that, maybe, if they went right back into the water, the pink would just wander right out of the gown and shirt and be corralled by the Color Catcher. Nope. They are still pink.

I was talking with a friend about this and we agreed that having a box of Color Catchers is a good idea. Knowing when to use a Color Catcher doesn’t always kick in.

I checked the tag on the jacket. It says “Wash with like colors,” which means: launder this thing with other purpley, pinkish, and red things, or even blue things. Not white.

True, the grass withers and the wildflowers fade,
    but our God’s Word stands firm and forever.”

Isaiah 40:8 (The Message)

THE FIRST DAISY!!

Small mistakes are nothing. They are gnats. So many more things are more important. And, seriously, I have a nightgown. I have several nightgowns. I have shirts that I wear under other shirts, to stay warm. And if I’m still cold, I have jackets and coats. And socks and shoes. And enough to eat and a safe place to live.

And CHECK THIS OUT——–>>>>>>>>>>>>

Two weeks ago, last Wednesday, Kevin phoned and said could I please come and be with Peter. He’d been sick with something that had swept through Fort Worth, knocking over kids like bowling pins. He was better, but still running a little fever, which meant he could not go back to preschool on Thursday, and Kevin, who’d been at home for a couple of days, and April, a teacher at Peter’s preschool, really needed to get back to work. “And,” he said, “if you get here by 5:00, April and I can go to church and teach Mini Maestros (their little preschool music group).”

“Sure,” I said. And I went on up. Peter wasn’t all that sick, except for a rather epic sneeze situation, with adult-type output. There were tissue boxes in every room of the house, at kid level, and trash cans. We played and read books and had a very nice time. There was one instance when he wasn’t near a tissue box when the parent-of-all-sneezes occurred. He looked down at the catastrophic pool on his tummy, and said, “I need to change my shirt.” Which he did.

On Thursday, I got a concert:

When I woke up, I did find this pile of used tissues between us. While he was sleeping, I emptied the trash, and practically filled it up again.

After lunch, I was falling asleep while reading to him and finally said, “Peter, Mimi has got to have a little nap. You can play in your room and I’ll lie down on your bed and nap for a few minutes.” He ended up getting in bed, too, with a box of tissues. I had put his trash can next to the bed. Just as I was falling asleep, he whispered, “Mimi. My trash is overflowing.” “Well,” I whispered back, “I’ll empty it after I nap.” “Where can I put my tissues,” he asked. “Just put them here on the bed, and I’ll throw them away after I empty your trash can.”

Saturday, I got some writing work done. Sunday, as I was getting ready to go to church, I felt a little bit of a scratchy throat. Hmmmm. If thing was as contagious as they said, then I did NOT need to spend the morning with preschoolers at church. So hurried up to church to leave things, contacted other teachers, and stayed home. And did some writing work. On Monday, also. I walked on the treadmill, but at half my usual speed, went to bed early, and on Tuesday, could not get out of bed. I would think, “I must get up and do some work.” And I would roll over to get out of bed, and fall asleep before I’d gotten all the way over. Except for trips to the bathroom (to check my glucose level and take my temperature), I stayed in bed all day. ALL. DAY.

I was quite a bit better Wednesday, and was able to sit up for extended periods, finish up a bunch of writing and send it off to my editor. But I stayed really weak, and, on Sunday, I was too woozy to feel secure about being in a room with preschoolers, and missed another Sunday. Monday I was quite a bit better. Tuesday, I was in bed most of the day with some intestinal thing. Seriously. No Valentine’s Day dinner out. Wednesday, I actually left the house, for the first time in over a week. I went to Target.

I called Jeremy a few days ago, for a reason I don’t recall now, but I said, “There was something rolling through Fort Worth.” Jeremy said, “It’s rolling all over the country.” He and Sarah both had it. TWICE! And, as far as he was concerned, the absolute worst part was that it snowed in New York and he was unable to go out and play in it. I had lunch yesterday with a friend from Corpus Christi. Where it also rampaged through.

The annoying cough is back, after a brief hiatus. As is the intestinal thing. My wastebaskets are overflowing, and I am ready to feel better. Lots Better! Maybe I’ll phone the doctor.

I hope you are having sunny weather and sunny health.

Amen

The capitalized, or upper-case, Epiphany, refers to Twelfth Night, or the end of the Christmas season, the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas (the one with the twelve drummers drumming), celebrated in some churches as the festival commemorating the visit of the three kings. The lower-case “epiphany” is defined as “an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure,” used in a sentence like, “One epiphany came when a dozen engineers in northern New Mexico saw a lone, fading Xerox paper carton bobbing in a swamp of old motor oil at the bottom of a pit.” —Michelle Conlin, Business Week, 1 Nov. 1999 (This quote is from dictionary.com. And, I don’t know about you, but I intend to track down that article and find out what that amazing epiphany was**. But that’s not what this post is about.)

What I *used* to think of as a nice, safe, pleasant place to sit and read.

Even though it’s really hot here in Central Texas right now, the mornings aren’t too horrible, and I sometimes go out and sit on the pew on the front porch and read. It’s in the shade until early afternoon, and I even might eat lunch there, while I’m reading, which is what I did last Saturday. If I’m going to be outside working in the yard, especially in the back yard, which has some low places, I always use insect spray. We don’t have standing water, but I’m not so sure about the neighbors. But, sitting on the front porch, I don’t, ordinarily, until recently, use that precaution. So-o-o-o, after enjoying a relatively pleasant time of reading and lunching, the temperature escalated and I went back into the house, and noticed how my left forearm was itchy. Really itchy! And, being a responsible adult who knows better, I went ahead and scratched it. It was REALLY itchy. As the afternoon wore on, I would idly scratch the itchy place, not particularly paying much attention to it. When I actually looked at the thing, I saw that there was a pretty large red (itchy) patch, and in the center of that, a smallish raw, gooey circle in the center. Hmmmmm. And I went to bed.