So I checked my calendar and the next time I get on an airplane is August 12th. So I plan to do three weeks of M-F posts until then: Something FOUND, Something WRITTEN, and Something MADE.

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Something FOUND

seno-kaori has lovely work; her website!

seno

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Something WRITTEN

stinky feet, suggested by tcre8ive

So I was at the airport and in the security line. That day things were moving fast and I was feeling pretty good, unusual for me and airport security lines.

It was April 14th and I was flying home to Seattle from Denver — a quick trip for my mother’s 80th birthday. My mom, sister and I had spent a good day together the day before; Kelly had arranged for us to spend the day at The Wild Animal Sanctuary. The weather was beautiful — welcomingly hot! — and I noticed that the park was basically a 1.5 mile elevated sidewalk where we could observe tigers and lions and bears from a high vantage point.

My heart leapt; I could kill two birds with one stone! The two “birds” were:

  1. Honor the woman who gave birth to me, raised me, and who, miraculously, had made it to 80 despite several life-threatening health scares in her life.
  2. Get my walk in.

They had wheelchairs to rent and my mom had wandered over to the parking lot. She was settling into a nice big one when Kelly and I looked at each other and sprung into action.

“No, mom,” Kelly said. “Your chair is over here.”

My mom’s face fell. We were pointing out (cheerfully, big smiles!) a motorized chair.

“But I…” she protested as we plopped her on her chariot.

My mom was nervous that she wouldn’t be able to drive that fast thing, and said that she preferred that we push her in “that wheelchair over there….” But her voice trailed off as she pointed vaguely to the right, clearly giving up. Kelly and I exchanged a cautiously triumphant look and I started giving mom instructions on how to push the lever.

Well, we got through it.

The 3-mile round trip was made up of numerous jerky starts and stops, a couple of crash landings, and a bathroom break. At one point Kelly had to walk alongside mom for about a mile with her thumb impressively steady on the “go” lever.

Mom was a nervous wreck the whole time.

We did get to see a few animals, though. “Look mom,” I would say. “Do you see those black dots in the corner there, by the fence? Not there… farther away, yes, there! Yes, way out there! Those are lions!”

Still, all told it was a pretty good day! My mom has a good sense of humor and we all laughed a lot. An hour later we dropped mom off at her residential home in time for dinner and then drove home to Kelly’s house, exhausted but happy things had gone so well.

I was thinking of our successful birthday outing when I grabbed my bin and took off my shoes, as one does when one doesn’t have TSA Precheck.  The woman in front of me immediately pulled her scarf up over her nose. I thought it was an odd thing to do, actually, especially as she kept it there for an unusually long time (how long does it take to blow a nose?).

But then I realized that my shoes, or my feet — one or the other, or both (all four actually) — were causing the odd behavior: I was stinking her out:

Hot weather + 3-mile walk + old shoes – socks = Oops, sorry

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Something MADE

Videos from my mom’s 80th birthday.

Kelly Walks, Mom Rides

 

At one point my mom had had enough:

Mom Walks, Kelly Rides
https://vimeo.com/226211115

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Have a wonderful day and I’ll see you tomorrow!

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Please help me decide what to write about tomorrow! Comment with two words — they can be anything, nouns, verbs, names — and I will pick a set for tomorrow’s post. Examples: “thumb-like antics,” “yellow mane,” “goodness me,” “Ew, serious?” etc.