Pretend

One of my friends has the greatest imagination ever, and she's well in to her sixties--close to seventy.  She told me every year on Jan. 1st, she pretends that it's the first day of Spring.  She says winter is usually cold and dull so rather than fight it, she just pretends it's something else.  She puts pots of pansies and other winter hardy plants on her front porch, and to keep the pansies blooming, you have to pick them so she has small clusters in tiny vases through out her house.  No wonder I feel a gravitational pull every time I try to drive by Nicholsen-Hardie plant store.  I have to fight the pull to turn into their parking lot but when I do give in, just walking around all those lush plants and Spring bloomers floods my senses.  The smell, the slight feel of the humidity, the riot of color all makes me smile without realizing it.  Ahhhhh.

When I thought about it further, I realized I pretend all the time.  I pretend I'm skinny, I pretend that it's OK for me to have dessert and that crumbs don't count, and my best pretend is that the people on TV doing all those exercises and yoga, have worked out for me, so I don't have to.  Yep.  That's definitely my favorite one.  Personally, I think a good old game of pretend is what keeps most of us going.  In a more harsh sense, I guess you could also call it DENIAL, but that takes all the damn fun out of it.  I like pretend a whole lot better.  It's lots more child like and less finger pointy.

Brian came by last night to pick up his food for his freezer that I'd made so on night's that he comes home exhausted, dinner is done, as long as he thaws something the night before in the refrigerator.  When he called, I went to check and be sure we had enough pork chalupa stuff left (roll it in a warm soft flour tortilla and add the fixin's) and then told him to come eat, if he was hungry.  Errrrrrrrrrrk.  Truck pulling up in driveway a few minutes later.  Nothing is more gratifying to this old May-May than feeding her chicks.  Even that old rooster of mine, too.
  Brian hung around after dinner and we ended up talking, and talking,.... and then we started laughing..... and telling stories.  Boy, what a gift our kids are.  I hadn't laughed that hard in ages and what a grrrrrrreat stress buster.    For both of us.