By Charlotte Byus
Lord, where to begin? As of today, I feel like I might live a day or two longer. Three days with a stomach virus totally overrides the rest of the week. On Tuesday, RR started our preparation for leaving the beach and heading down I45 toward Pearland. Getting the house ready for a few days of abandonment, checking the weather to see what I needed to do with my fall tomatoes and of course, Momma Kitty.

We would be staying 36 hours at Dianne’s home, you would think we were leaving for a month with what all we packed. Of course, there was the electric carving knife for ham and turkey, items for cooking that only Mom usually has, and then there are the clothes. Di had mentioned going to a Disney movie, Wednesday church service, and of course clothes for cooking and Thursday picture-taking. I do believe it would have been easier to hook up and take the house. Deed restrictions did not allow for that.

Early on Wednesday, I once again paid attention to the weather and decided to wrap my beautiful fall tomatoes. With that said, when we left, both containers looked like the scary monster of the beach. I used four beach towels and close to 40 wooden clothesline pins. Ask your grandkids if they know what those contraptions are? You will get the answer, “of course I do, a chip holder, silly Grandma.” Back to leaving, off we go on the ferry, one hour later that we needed to, but we were off.

By the afternoon, we were chopping and dicing and there were laughs and happy-sad memories of years gone by – Memories of my Mom’s Thanksgiving dinners and parties. By the time my children came along, Mom & Dad had moved to the farm in Blanco for Mom’s health. Before that, Dad always wanted to take Mom out to dinner as it was the anniversary of the night they met. He never forgot.

Thursday came along, turkey in the oven, casseroles out of the fridge, straightening of the home and – stomach virus of two grandkids! Well, you just keep going and hope for the best and we did. We banished the kids to their rooms with phones to text us what they needed, and started spraying Lysol everywhere and spraying again. We kept the grandkids contained to one bathroom, and visitors were allowed to use the to the other. And we sprayed again. The house did not smell like roasting turkey anymore, more like some tropical island.

When the day was over, we all headed home with containers of lunch goodies and pie and more pie. As far as I know, Di and I are the only two who came down with the virus after the children. Thank goodness.

For those who do “that black Friday weekend stuff,” hope you had fun.

A special thank you to RR who took care of me while I was so sick. I really do not make a good or nice patient.

[11-27-2017]