Kim was back in town for the holidays and had texted me about doing a workout. I was itching to crack the 100 barrier and wanted her as a witness. When I texted back (not while driving) the time I would pick her up, she figured out she wouldn’t be available until after dark. That wouldn’t have stopped me, but she’s afraid of deer and everyone, EVERYONE knows that ninja deer stalk their prey after dark. Though we’ve had the conversation before, I can’t convince her that deer are herbivores and not really a threat to her. Logic, however, is not part of her processing when it comes to deer. I drove home thinking it would be a boring night on the trainer.
Cabinetry for Heidi is not the only thing in my Christmas workshop. I’d long ago converted my father’s 4,000 plus photo slides to digital by reshooting them with my macro lens and downloading them to my computer. I’d been dissatisfied with the quality of many of the shots and decided to redo them over the summer. I plugged them into iPhoto, the photo software that comes standard with an iMac computer and cropped each picture to maximize the image for wide screen TV viewing. I would burn them to a DVD and give them to each of my siblings, but I had not completed the final stage of the process, which was a log of each picture and who was in it. These shots go back to the early fifties and although I’d identified all the pictures, I hadn’t finished typing the information into my excel spread sheet. I sat down in front of the computer and began working around six.
Holly was sick in her bed, but she had her iPad with her. I heard that a message had come in on facebook while I worked and was surprised to see it was from her...and it was nine o’clock. She’d sent me a message asking if I’d get her won ton soup. I’d offered to make her something when I’d come home, but that was several hours ago. I was about 50 pictures from finishing, but Christmas was near and I was sure she hadn’t completed her shopping. I headed out the door for the Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant.
When I returned, we sat down together to eat. I’d put together a sandwich with turkey breast, mushrooms and spinach...yum, yum. I watched her eating, hair disheveled, nose and eyes red and puffy, and wondered how she would be functioning tomorrow...our 37th anniversary. Dinner and a movie might have to wait. She ate about half the soup and returned to bed and I went back to finish my project.
I was only there a couple of minutes when Jack walked in. He had that inquisitive look on his face, which meant I should be taking notes because it was bound to be something good. It was.
“Dad...how do you make coffee?”
Random Jack, I thought.
“I heat up water and drop a coffee bag in it. Do you mean how would I make it with the coffee maker? And why do you want to know anyway?”
“I was thinking it would keep me awake to work on a paper I need to finish for tomorrow. What do you put in yours?”
“I use cream and sugar...but maybe you should just drink some Pepsi. You’ve never had coffee and you might not like it,” I said.
“Hmm. Cream and sugar, huh? How...um...do you make it black?”
I looked at him to see if he was pulling my leg. I should have known better since he doesn’t do that. “You...um...don’t put cream and sugar in it,” I said.
The light bulb went on and he smiled. So did I. The things I’d have missed if we hadn’t had four children.
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