Missing In Action

I went to the lovely church bazaar today - came home with some chocolate-oatmeal-peanut butter no-bake cookies (I love those little suckers) and a loaf of the Limpa Rye bread I had baked and donated to the bazaar. My daughter looked at me as I was paying for my items and said "You just bought a loaf of the bread you made for this?" Yes, incredulous, isn't it? But I know I had only kept behind one loaf at home and figured since the other loaves I'd donated had been grabbed up almost immediately after we arrived and when we were leaving, it was almost time for them to close down so rather than it sit and maybe not get sold, I could just as easily use it at home. What the heck - it's all going to a good cause anyway, isn't it?

I spent the bulk of my time at the bazaar sitting with a dear friend of mine from church - she was having lunch there, all by herself when Mandy, Maya and I arrived, and I don't usually get a chance to sit and talk with her. So, today - that's what I did. Had my lunch -the lasagne special -with her too. Mandy and Maya didn't sit with us - they were at a table adjacent simply because Maya headed to that table, sat down there and once she decides she wants to sit in a particular spot, you usually don't want to interrupt her and ask her to move unless it is a matter of dire emergency or there could possibly be dire consequences for all around. Something that minor can (and has) on some occasions, caused her to go into a massive meltdown. Soooo, in the interest of preservation of the peace and calm - the camaraderie that prevailed in the church social room, Mandy decided that table was just as good as any.

Maya did tire of the bazaar after a while though - thankfully, it was after she'd had her lunch there too - a hot dog, cookie and apple cider - and when the boredom set in for her before my friend and I were finished our visiting, Mandy decided to bring Maya home and then, come back out to pick me up. Normally, we would have taken both cars but when I went to leave this morning - horrors - my car refused to start, so we had to go out in one car and Mandy called Bill to tell him that mine was temporarily out of order. He checked it out and said the battery apparently had run down a bit -probably due to a door not being closed tightly or some such thing. We shall see if it lets me down again in the near future and if it does, most likely I'll need to invest in a new battery for the poor old buggy.

Before Mandy left to take Maya home, she informed me that she'd seen a particular item on the Swedish items table that she'd like to have - a nice little key chain with the flag of Sweden on it. Yes, my kids and I are often suckers for things that are a little reminder of our ethnic heritage but when she came back to pick me up, she noticed I hadn't got around to looking at the crafts and Swedish items and stuff but that apparently someone else had like the key chain a lot too because it was gone. Well, if I go online to one of the Swedish specialty shops perhaps I can order one from there for her for Christmas.

One side note here too -at the bazaar, Mandy informed me that Maya was very much enjoying her "Apple Spider." Say what, I said? Mandy repeated this to me and this time, she pointed to Maya's almost empty cup sitting in front of her. Oh yeah, Ok - now we know the little Princess also loves "Apple cider." Always nice to learn of a different food substance she enjoys.

After I got home, almost right on schedule too, enough time had passed from when I had my nice and tasty lunch at church and as frequently happens then, I get really, really sleepy. Apparently the same thing had happened to Mandy too as she was curled up already on the loveseat, taking a nap. So, I headed out to my room and crashed, figuring I could squeeze in a two hour nap there.

I slept for almost four hours - more than I sometimes get to sleep after having actually gone to bed some nights! Wow! When I got up too I sensed something very different in the house as well. What was it, what was different? Oh yes, total - and I do mean - TOTAL quiet!

Not a single person wandering around the place but me! I knew Mandy had to go to work tonight, as did Kate - the 16-year-old, but where'd the other three disappear to! Not a trace of Maya or Kurtis and I knew full well Mandy wouldn't go off to work and leave those two little ones alone in the living room with me still asleep in my room! What really puzzled me though was that Bill's truck was parked out front. Mandy would have taken her car to go to work, sure - but if Bill's truck was here, then where was he?

After thinking on this for a while - since no one bothered to leave me a note as to where my two sweet but often noisy and one who can also be quite mischievous too, grandchildren might be -I came to the conclusion that perhaps Mandy had arranged to take Maya and Kurtis up to her friend Jen's house so as to allow me to continue to sleep. And as to Bill's truck being here but him being among the missing, I then remembered he was planning sometime today to work on our neighbor's car and perhaps he'd taken it up to the garage where he works part-time to work on the exhaust system of the neighbor's car.

Lucky for me, I remembered his cell phone number and gave him a call. I got his answering machine so I left a message for him to call me back. About five minutes later, he called, wanting to know what was up and I asked where the kids are. Yep, I was right in my initial assumption - they were up at "Aunt Jen's" place.

Now wasn't that a really sweet gesture from my daughter to me? Give me an extra two hours of sleep to compensate for the many hours I lost this past week thanks to that certain little boy here! That, added to the extra hour I will get tonight thanks to turning back the clocks, will give me a good start for the coming week.

Too bad one can't put extra hours of sleep in a "Sleep bank" -in reserve for when you can't get enough rest some days, isn' it? I'd probably still run on a deficit budget basis then anyway I suppose.

Now, if I could just get Mandy accustomed to at least leaving me a note to let me know where the two little ones are so when I do wake up and find them to be missing in action, I don't get all worried and upset wondering what the heck may have happened to them.