If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Redford

Our month-long whirlwind of adventure has come to an end.

While I already miss everyone we visited, I could kiss the red earth of Georgia.

The older I get, the harder time I have sleeping in a strange bed. This year 4:00 A.M. turned into the witching hour. I was wide awake, no matter how late or early I had gone to bed, no matter how exhausted I still was. While at this stage in the game of life, I strongly suspect hormones are the principal culprit, my endocrine system had assistance:

- Nate, my nephew, woke up with swimmer's ear at about 4:00.

- Jasper, the dog, wanted to get into my room at about 4:00.

- John, burning up with fever, threw up at about 4:00.

- Jasper, the dog, wanted to get out of my room at about 4:00.

- John, still burning up with fever, threw up again at about 4:00.

- Ainsley, sleeping on the couch, woke up and climbed into my bed, thus disturbing John who moved to the bed across the hall. Ainsley was delivering energetic roundhouse kicks in her sleep, so I joined John. Ainsley realized I was gone and moved across the hall to join us. John felt crowded and left taking the comforter and all the pillows. I staggered across the hall to commandeer a pillow and some sort of blanket and in the morning discovered not one item or person was in its original room. All at about 4:00.

I usually sleep like the dead at Dave's parents' house. Not so this trip.  One night -- at about 4:00 -- I adjusted the covers which shifted the bed skirt which activated this monstrosity:

Sunny day, everything's a-okay! in loud, harsh, electric guitar chords reminiscent of Prince.

The real beauty of this guitar?

1) I bought it. Yes, I did. At the consignment shop across the street, I shelled out $1.81 for this baby.

2) It has no off switch.

I took it from its hiding place under the bed and stuck it in a new and better hiding place in the living room, hoping that the cats would not activate it once more. I then stumbled into the kitchen trying to locate a) my glasses and b) the sleep aid my mother-in-law had kindly left out for me should the need arise.

It had arisen indeed.

But, see, this was a prescription bottle, and the drug was not one I recognized, and pharmacists the world over, I'm convinced, note Generic for fill-in-the-blank  in script far too small for any mere mortal over the age of forty to read. 

So there I stood -- at about 4:10 -- shining a light onto the bottle, sitting at the computer trying to type the name of the medicine to see if this was, in fact, a perfectly harmless sleep aid or Lipitor or Celebrex or Viagra or who knows what.

It was fine. I surprised Dave by sleeping until 10:00, something I have not done in ten years, I'll bet.

My eyes continue to be the source of both consternation and amusement. I've shared before my dilemma about my eyebrows when I'm out of town. (Yes, yes, yes, file this under First World Problems). This year I thought I'd just carefully use a razor to keep the brows in check. People do this, you know. People with better fine motor skills than I possess. I guess it worked fine until the evening I got a touch distracted. I looked in the mirror and gasped. I lopped off half my eyebrow! I quickly tried to part my hair the opposite way and then attempted to train a curly tendril to camouflage the botched brow. No luck.

It's only an eyebrow. Surely, no one will notice.

So we're now home and have access to good lighting and a magnifying mirror, and I have half an eyebrow!

Surely no one will notice? Surely you're dead wrong.

Not notice? They're gawking! Gawking, I say!

Maybe it was the post-trip exhaustion, maybe the pain of re-entry, the bags, bags, bags under my eyes and covering every. last. surface. of this house, maybe it was the smell in the kitchen that made me wonder if we had left a potato in the pantry to ferment for weeks on end. 

I don't know. 

Instead of crying over shorn eyebrows, I started to laugh. And I laughed and I laughed and I laughed. I rolled on my bed clutching my stomach and laughed until tears ran down my face. 

If it's Tuesday again, this must be Augusta. 

And it's so very good to be here. With or without intact eyebrows.