AH LAUGHTER, IT'S A GOOD THING !

As you know by now the other week was a booger for me. If it had been a booger bear it would have bitten me in the butt. In a way it did, to say the least it caught me by surprise.
Normally I can handle the setbacks in life without anyone knowing. That was my Mom that made everyone share her sadness, not me, I'm the one that smiles and laughs all the time, but this time , oh Lord I hope everyone can forgive me.

All of last month I had the blues the blahs and the boohoos. No one saw me cry I kept that well hidden, but I was mean and rude and took my feelings out on everyone around me, my daughter, my grandson and God. Oh yes God, we talk all of the time and when I'm mad at him I tell him. Sometimes I even slip up and say a curse word, oh not at him just in my complaining in general, then I feel bad and start to apologize to him and in mid-stream I stop and end up saying, oh you know I'm human, so stop trying to make me feel guilty.

But then something happened to help break the spell and once again I am fine.

A funny thing happened the weekend I was at my worst. The day before what would have been my wedding anniversary my daughter wanted to go shopping in Monroe, LA. Oh joy, I thought, but I knew if I would have said that I didn't want to go she would want to know why because I love to go there and at the time I just didn't feel like sharing. I wanted to brood alone, by myself, without an audience and without making everyone else as miserable as I felt.

Wouldn't you know my poor grandson not having any idea, out of the blue picked January to ask me when I had gotten married and I panicked and jumped down his throat with a snotty remark like, why what makes you ask and walked away.
I felt really badly that I had acted that way. I think he realized something was wrong and he didn't ask again. It haunted me so, days later I finally apologized to him and explained why I had acted that way.

So here we go our big outing. I waited tell the last minute to get ready trying to think of an excuse not to go. I finally realized that if I said, I think I'll just stay home, she'd want to know why? She's like a darn blood hound, that wouldn't be a good excuse and she would just keep on , why, whying me and then I would cry and it would be a mess, so I decided to keep my mouth shut and go.

We are in the car and on our way, O.K. it's not so bad maybe it will get my mind off of things. It's a beautiful day and what's that on the radio - a love song. Oh boy just what I need, well I'll get through it. But then there was another and another and another. Half way there and that radio is still pumping out one stinking love song after another. I wanted to rip it out of the dash and throw it out the window. But instead I would turn my head and look out the window so no one would notice that I had tears in my eyes.

We are just entering Bastrop and there is this little antique shop that we have always wanted to brows in, but it is always closed everytime we go there. This time there is a car in front and my daughter spots it and says someone is there so she turns around and goes back.
She parks in front of the door. I sit there in a deadly stare, as she jumps out and rushes for the door in her excitement. I stare at what is just outside the shop with the look of doom on my face as I open the door and slowly get out of the car, my grandson is doing the same. We are shoulder to shoulder and we turn and look at each other and he glances at the it and whispers to me, I know grandma and I whispered back, I know you do and all of a sudden I started to giggle. I threw my hands up in the air and broke out into hysterical laughter, he did the same, as I said, Oh that stinker he must be doing this to me, referring to my husband. We both just kept giggling.

Would you believe that right next to the front door was a freshly painted bench and across the back in big bold block letters was painted HUSBANDS BENCH.
It had never been there before, why today?
' HUSBANDS BENCH ', Now you tell me, what are the odds of that.
I've heard of grampas chair, and many other expressions, but never HUSBANDS BENCH. Was that a message to let me know that he is still always with us. Or maybe a 'Happy Anniversary'. It wouldn't surprise me or my grandson. You see he and I have heard from him before.

It turned out to be a great outing after all. When my daughter asked what was so funny we just said nothing really and we browsed the antique shop, then went on to Monroe and had a great time going to the Mall. Our favorite store there has the name of one of my favorite movies 'Romancing the Stone' , it has all kinds of strange and exotic things ( no not those kind of exotic things, shame on you, don't forget FWL was with us). We went to a very nice, very expensive Japanese restaurant and I choked on the Wasabi and made a fool of myself in front of everyone which just made for more good fun and conversation.

Ah but the night was not over yet, we ended the night by going to one of our favorite places. There is a huge book store there called 'Books a Million' which stays open I think a tell -- I don't know, I've never seen it closed it's always open even when we go by there in the middle of the night which we did.
It is complete with places to sit and a latte counter. We are all book lovers so we each went our separate ways because we each have different preferences in books. Well I tried to go my own way, but my daughter kept finding me and saying I can't find and where do you think? She seemed lost this time, hmm she never has before. FWL didn't have any trouble finding anything all of the isles are labeled at the top. Sometimes I wonder about her?? But that's O.K. , I just took my baby girl and tried to helped her find the books she wanted.

Ending the evening at the latte counter seemed appropriate and a perfect way to end the evening. Two of us sat at a table, but the third one, sat at the counter so as not to appear to be with us when the cute girls walked by. Guess who?