Home again

I just got back from a trip to Houston, where we celebrated my Mom's 80th birthday. It was in the 70s and 80s every day, with none of the usual Houston humidity. It was absolutely beautiful weather, and the bluebonnets were out everywhere. Landing at Houston Intercontinental is so easy...the runways are very long. You get to spend a lot of time looking out of the window at the ground. Flying over Lake Houston. Checking out all the new construction in Kingwood. Wondering if that big area really IS Humble. And then you seem to hover over the runway forever before touching down. It is very unlike National Airport, where the runways are the shortest in the country. I can't begin to count the number of rough landings I have experienced at National, and then the intercom comes on and you can hear the laughter in the cockpit as the captain says "welcome to the nation's Capitol from your all-Houston crew," as if the fact they are not from DC explains WHY the landing was so rough. Well, they need not worry. It doesn't matter where the crew hails from...landings at National are simply rough. It's the nature of the airport. And, actually, I don't really mind. I love taking-off and landing.

OK, OK, more information than I needed to share. So, I spent the first part of my trip with my sister... I still don't know how to add a URL address but she's that Girl From Texas. We had a great time, getting a mani-pedi, watching movies (I'm too embarassed to write just how many we watched), stitching, eating out, shopping. She has a cockatoo named Muzetta, named after the character in La Boheme (yes, La Boheme is both my sister's and my favorite opera). This bird is funny. My sister's phone rings and Muzetta says "hello?" If she hears us laughing, she imitates us. You can watch her pretending she is doing the things that we are doing. She bobs her head, flips up the feathers on her head, ruffles her tail...well, um, maybe she's not really imitating us, because we don't have feathers on our heads... she's cute.

But Muzetta hates me. She wants to bite me. Me! I'm the one who plays the Cong game with her (she tosses the Cong and I retrieve it, of course). I'm the one who talks to her: she says "mumble mumble good bird?" and I say "No you are not a good bird." And I whistle at her. But I think she hates me because my sister and I sound so much alike that it confuses her. Or maybe she just doesn't like my red hair. Every time I walked by her cage when she was outside of it, she would lean out as far as she could with her beak opened, ready to bite me if she could only reach me (her wings are clipped, so she can't fly to me). And then, she pretends to be biting me. Seriously! She hits her beak against the floor or the bar four or five times in succession and then looks at me as if to say "that could be you." Sheesh! She hates me.

Then my brother comes over and get this. Muzetta does her little raptor walk to him, works her way up his leg (luckily he wears jeans), using her beak and claws, works her way up his shirt to his chest, then puts her head down on his chest, all lovey-dovey! What's that all about! (Ok, never mind, I know, he's a guy and she's a girl) But HE doesn't play the Cong game with her. He doesn't talk to her or whistle at her. He just looks at her. She loves him.

OK, so my sister has a tiny Himalayan cat named Mimi (yes, also after the character in La Boheme). But Mimi hates me, too! Well, I think she hates everyone. You have to imagine this tiny cat (maybe 7 pounds?), shaved in a plushy "lion cut" and with a puff of dark fur on the tip of her tail, and an attitude the size of a 700-pound tiger! If you walk past her, she hisses at you. If you stand near her, she hisses at you. If you LOOK at her from across the room, she hisses at you. The funny thing about Mimi is that she also gets confused between me and my sister! She forgets that I'm me and not my sister. She comes up to me and rubs against my leg, then looks up and realizes her mistake, and growls at me and swipes at my leg, as if it's MY fault. Sheesh! Mimi hates me.

Lest you think all of my sister's animals are psychotic, she has one other little cat, a Persian named Seamus ... Seamus Heany MacCool, to be precise. She named him partially after the Irish poet and partially after the Irish folk hero Fionn McCoul, but changed the spelling to make him unique. Seamus loves me. He makes up for those other two. He is such a love bug! He does this thing...well, I have to call it a Love Attack, and it goes like this: I was sleeping, or trying to sleep, when something soft and furry launched itself at my neck. It was Seamus...but he was not trying to kill me...at least I don't THINK he was trying to kill me. He just flopped across my neck and squirmed until he was a close as he could get under my chin, and then he rested his head on my face, half burying my eyes and nose, purring like crazy and patting my face with his soft feet. And he does the squinchy eye thing, kitty kisses. He adores my sister. When she works on the computer, he carefully places himself in a position across her arms. He likes to cover whatever papers she is currently working on. Anyway, that's Seamus. Enough about my sister's animals.

On Friday, we met my two brothers at Starbuck's in Kingwood. Mom didn't know we were coming. So when we walked into her house, all she could do was stare at us with her mouth open. She was so funny! She almost cried...or maybe she did. I was so focused on her hand. "Is that meat you're holding in your fist?" I asked. "Yes," she answers as she hugs my younger brother, "I was hungry." My younger brother says "Oh, good, that's good to know. I wondered what was going to be on the back of my shirt." So, the rest of the day, we teased Mom about her "fist meat." We checked to make sure she had plenty of "fist meat" in her fridge.

This came up again the next morning when we awoke to hot air blowing down on us from the vents. 70-something degrees outside and she had the heater on! A house full of people, and she had the heater on. Everyone was sitting around, very hot and uncomfortable, trying to figure out what to do. So I say: "Mom, did you run out of fist meat?" "What?" she says. I ask: "Are you planning to have Offspring Stew for lunch?" "What?" she says. I try to elucidate further: "Well, Mom, you're cooking your kids and I wondered why." At which point, she allowed that it was probably too warm in the house and we should turn off the heater. I brought her a sweater.

For her birthday, I got her a set of three cordless-phones. I got it all set up and taught her how to answer the phone. She wanted to hear how the message machine would sound, so my younger brother called her from the cell phone. There we are, all standing around the kitchen watching my younger brother on his cell phone and my mom holding the cordless phone, but not answering it. Then the message machine beeps and my brother starts this plaintive cry in an almost-Elvis-like voice: "Answer the phone, Mama! Please, Mama! Answer the phone! Mama, I'm begging you!" And my mom stands there with the phone in her hand, watching us all laugh at my pitiful weeping brother. "Mama, please, answer the phone! Don't just stand there looking at it, Mama, answer it, please! It's me! Ple-he-he-hease! Don't leave me here, waiting!" Finally, she presses the answer button, and my brother says in his sweetest voice, "Happy Birthday, Mama, happy birthday." Periodically throughout the day, we played that message and laughed every time as if it was the first. Yes, my little brother is very funny, and very charming.

The best part of the whole trip was the Monopoly game between the brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces. It was a noisy and rowdy game, where a bunch of 20-somethings, and 40-somethings, and 50-somethings acted like school children. This game went on for several hours, during which time we broke for dinner at Outback Steakhouse. For a time, we were kids again. I looked around at my siblings and their kids and my mom, and it hit me that it was much like the birthday celebration my husband's family threw for me in 1993, when my father was still alive. Almost all of us were there, my family and my husband's family, and I remember thinking that it was a day I would remember forever. It was one of those rare occasions where everyone was together, having a great time. Little did I know then that my father would be gone in a year. There is a wonderful saying "Live each day as if it were your last, live each day as if it were your first."

Well, this is enough for one day. By the way, Kira was very happy when I got home. She was so satisfied, having her pack together again. But Daily was even happier...he would not let me out of his sight. When I woke this morning, he was curled up in my arm, purring like crazy. I love that funny little cat.