My day, yesterday, was filled with quotes like that. My grandfather, Papa, says things like that on a pretty regular basis. As some of you may know, my grandmother, Nanny, is pretty sick. Mostly she is frustrated, though. She is in a lot of pain whenever she tries to move due to a cancer that has landed in her hip. I seem to recall her saying something to the effect of “Getting older is not for sissies.” Other than the fact that she can’t move around very much because of the pain, she is doing really well. Her cancer treatments seem to be taking care of business and she is slowly recovering.

This lack of moving around is the main reason that Teacher Sis, Prince Jazzbo, and I made our trek down to our old hometown to visit. We wanted to help out around the house to give Papa, my aunt, and Word to Me a break for the day. And that is exactly what we did. We made lunch for the crew. I cleaned out the frozen-over ice maker and chunked some old food from the “ice box”. Prince Jazzbo cut back some bamboo that was trying to take over the yard. Teacher Sis cleaned up the kitchen. We helped out.

In addition to our attempts at helping out, we got to revisit some of our childhood memories. One place that holds specific horrors in our memory, is our Grandparents’ basement. I’m sure it was all of the tales of monsters that Papa spun to us growing up, but all three of us still hesitate to go down to the basement alone.

If you check out yesterday’s Daily Photo, you will see the three of us in what is a very creepy basement, but unless the monsters divide themselves up and live in the hundreds of mason jars, the basement wasn’t that scary. I say this now, from the comfort of my not-at-all-scary office and not from the basement itself and not alone. Especially at night. It is still a place of childhood dread. Maybe Papa’s tales of unspeakable evil that awaited us on the other side of that door was just a ploy to keep us from messing with their hundreds of jars of preserved food, so in the event of nuclear winter, they could still survive. Maybe there are monsters. I don’t care to personally find out. All I know is that the basement is very creepy. I mean, they have this weird duck marionette hanging up down there. Creepy.

On the way down to Nanny and Papa’s house, we (read as Teacher Sis) got a message requesting that we stop at WalMart* and pick up a box of Bunn coffee filters and a couple of Fleet enemas. We laughed for about three solid minutes at this and then theorized about what else we should pick up in order to paint an even more disturbing image to our cashier. A shovel, a bag of lime, kerosene, a lot of psuedo-ephedrine, maybe some duct tape, panty hose, leather gloves, some Reese’s cups, etc. We stopped at the store like good children and, being trained well at bargain hunting by our Papa, we made a beeline to the clearance racks out front of the store. We all ended up walking away with a $5 hoodie despite that fact that it was t-shirt weather outside. You just can’t pass up a bargain like that.

Later, during a moment that required some privacy on Nanny’s part, the three of us headed over to the local thrift shop and browsed around trying to fill a sack to the brim in conjunction with the store’s $2 bag sale. I, somehow, walked away empty handed, but Prince Jazzbo ended up scoring an old school IBM lab coat. Complete with velcro closures. So nice.

While I was away, my phone rang constantly. One call in particular sticks out in my mind. Ma and Pa Wombat had tried to call to tell me that they had a “small delivery” for me. So, I called them back, informed them that I was out of town, but suggested that they just drop it off with Pancake Land. I tried to give her the head’s up that they were coming by, failed, and just accepted that she’d find out soon enough. A little while later she called to check in and I was informed that they, being good Cajuns, had brought me a King Cake. Right. Mardi Gras. I forgot about that. So, in my head, based on the earlier conversation, I had expected the cake to be small. (Hence, small delivery.) Maybe the size of a very large donut. When I returned home in the early evening, I found a whole, regular size King Cake waiting for me. Bless them. I do love my adopted parents.

I was a little upset to learn that the bakers no longer hide the Baby Jesus in the cake, but instead leave him on top for you to hide yourself. This is upsetting because of the reasoning behind their stopping hiding him. Apparently, people eating the cake were “breaking teeth and choking on the Baby Jesus.” Reasons why this is stupid:

1) He is a little tiny relatively soft plastic baby.

2) It is King Cake. The Baby Jesus hidden inside is what makes it a King Cake and not just a big donut.

People upset me.

Speaking of people upsetting me, I have to get ready to go buy groceries. We are out of cat food and the natives are getting restless. More soon. ~SC