A Memory: Christie

Ah, the memories! My cousins were some of my favorite playmates! Christie is a couple years older than me, and her sister Catherine is my age. My sister and I loved visiting them in Calgary.
One of our favorite games was "Town." We set up a little town in their unfinished basement and we each had a role; post office, banker, store, etc. Christie was the police officer. She was Officer Jones. I don't remember what her first name was. Jim, maybe. Only it wasn't Jim Jones, it was Gjim Kjones: the G was silent, like in "gnat," and the K was silent, like in "knife." That still makes me laugh all these years later.
One day we were playing outside and Christie had a container with some sort of blue fluid in it (we had no idea what it was, but now I realize it was antifreeze, maybe?) and she dropped it and the container cracked. Well she was sure this spelled certain doom for her if her dad found out, so we decided to bury the evidence. We probably got spoons from the kitchen (I know, Auntie Betty is horrified at this story, but remember the statute of limitations has passed. Besides, it wasn't as bad as our Fish Creek Adventure). While we were covering up the thing someone commented that it seemed like we were having a funeral. We looked at eachother; what a brilliant idea! What could be more fun than a funeral?!
We found a little plastic guy to be our newly deceased. My sister, Laura, was the grieving widow. We picked some flowers and found a nice rock for the tombstone, then stood around the gravesite and Christie offered kind words about how nice and round his head was, how well he wore his red shirt and blue pants, what a great toy he was, and how much he would be missed by us all. There was weeping and wailing, and great anguish of soul, and . . .
"This is getting boring."
"Let's go play Town!"
"I'm Officer Kjones! Kjones with a K!"

I'm sure we left the spoons outside.

Sunday

Some days at church are just so nice, sitting there with your family, enjoying the speakers, seeing friends.
Today was not one of those days. Jared had clinical, so I was on my own. It's awesome that the boys love their little sister so much, but they can't sit still and leave her alone for 2 seconds, or quit playing with her and laughing out loud at her. She is good entertainment for bored kids. And why does a baby have to go from totally happy and content to starving in the space of 4 seconds, and hysterical while you dump the formula in the bottle and shake it up. A little bit of mild crankiness as foreshadowing would help.
But we got through. I should get us some new sunday clothes. Maybe a wrestling singlet for me, and some straight jackets for the boys.
But Allie was adorable in this little dress from Auntie Betty. I call it a Cabbage Patch dress because doesn't it look like the little dresses they came with when we were kids?

Today's adventure

Joey has become a babysitter. Twice now he has tended the neighbor's kids. There is a 4 year old and a 3 year old. The first time, they were asleep so he played video games while his parents were at a meeting. The next time it was just the 5 year old and he played with him for a couple hours. Isn't it kind of funny? They live in our apartment complex, really close to us, so it's not like we were far away if he needed help (and that was the whole idea, too.) And he has earned 3 whole dollars, which is exciting to him because he really never gets money, except from Grandma and Grandpa, and Auntie Betty. It was burning a hole in his pocket tonight, so I took him to the drugstore down the street so he could get some candy. We were in there checking out the goods for probably about 3 minutes, and I started thinking that he should hurry up because I wanted to get home so I could get Allie ready for bed . . . wait a minute!!! And I remembered that we had brought her with us. And left her in the car. AAAAAHHHH!! Needless to say I tore out of the store and rescued her. She wasn't happy. She didn't want to come on the trip in the first place, and then to be left! Poor girl. I was just glad nobody saw her and called the cops. It was really only a few minutes though. So sad. But funny, too. More funny than sad, I think. Oh brain, when did you desert me?