I left town today and headed south. My mother-in-law is going out of town, and because I’m holy and selfless, I decided to come keep my father-in-law company. A few days without the husband and child, hanging at the beach playing cards and drinking Bloody Mary’s because that’s what families DO, amiright? We sacrifice.

I texted JD a few photos along the way so he could feel like he was with me – hours in the car – it’s his favorite part!

I stopped outside of town for a quick drink. This may be the original Chick-fil-A. Or it might just be an old Chick-fil-A. Or not.

It rained so hard that I couldn’t see out the window. Cars and trucks were pulling over on both sides of the interstate, leaves were blowing, I even saw a tree down on the side of the road. I was praying like a Wallenda crossing the Grand Canyon. Spoiler alert – I made it.

Finally! Ahhhh, the beach.

I have a feeling this is going to be an exciting week. And by “exciting”, I mean “bridge filled.”  You have your mission field, I have mine.

Kittens, I have so many awesome and exciting stories to tell you. How could I not after SIXTEEN hours of bridge that began at 6:30 am?

Unfortunately you wouldn’t understand any of them. Just know this – my partner made a bid that is RARE and she was the ONLY person in the whole room to do it. It was worth 2140 points, gave us a top board, and propelled us into 2nd place, so take THAT losers! Oh, and we helped raise a bunch of money for the Alzheimer’s Association which was totally the point.

Saturday, I died. Or at least I felt like I had. But I rallied for two reasons. One, I wanted to buy a car at a yard sale. Yes, a CAR. Unfortunately, so did a bunch of other people and apparently they felt the need to bid on it. Fine, I like walking, it builds character.

The second reason I rallied is that it was the monthly Supper Club. The theme this month was Caribbean Fare and everyone prepared AWESOME dishes. Like : Pinon and a Crab-Papaya Appetizer. The evening also included SALSA dancing. It was a lot of fun, but then, well, you know how people at parties get…

Embarrassing.

Sunday was church, then lunch, and finally CANOEING. We didn’t own a canoe this time last week, but my brother called and talked to JD. I imagine it went like this:

AmmoGuy: I was wondering if you wanted to buy..

JD: YES!

JD claimed that owning a canoe would give him plenty of opportunity to bond with Moon, so I decided to give him that opportunity immediately. The fact that it gave ME the opportunity to lay on the couch with a book was beside the point.

Moon took along her BFF and obviously, in an attempt to make her feel needed, elected to let HER do all the paddling.

We Tyres’ are big on making people feel needed.

So, mom is fine. I was finally able to talk to her today. It seems that yesterday she was EXHAUSTED from the surgery and the pain and all of the calling my sister was doing, but mainly that last one. She woke up feeling better today which proves what 8 hours of sleep and an extended period where TTM can’t call will do for you. She should be totally healed from the boob job, I mean GALL BLADDER (wink) surgery in another few days.

Speaking of boobs, what is up with the English? Seriously. While I’ve never been to London, I do watch a lot of BBC and lately I’ve been devouring the show, Luther. LUTHER is a cop, in London, where for the most part, cops don’t have GUNS. What is the point of having a copper without a gun?? Everywhere I look, on the fictional TV show, people are getting stabbed and clubbed and sometimes even shot, and Luther chases them down without a weapon. It drives me crazy. If I could get a gun and a really cool costume to England, I could be a modern-day superhero. “Stopping crime, foiling criminals – it’s GUN GIRL!”

Speaking of foiling criminals, are you getting hit on as you walk down the street? Would you like to walk around town without hearing those annoying catcalls? Then you need these:

Pantyhose that looks like hairy legs! I think I’m going to give some of these as Christmas gifts for my friends that are too lazy to just let their leg hair grow.

Speaking of lazy, I’m going to bed. Tania-the-mad called me today, too and I am EXHAUSTED.

My mother posted on Facebook this morning that she was having surgery, and I was all “DUDE. You don’t post that on Facebook! That’s what Twitter is for.” Geesh. Anyway, after spending hours agonizing over whether she was okay or not, I finally called the house about 6 pm and no one answered. So I called my dad and he didn’t answer. So I called my SISTER and she didn’t answer. So I called my brother and HE didn’t answer. Then I did it all over again. And again. Until finally I figured that mom was dead and everyone was already on the mountain dividing up her stuff. I finally texted my brother, OMG, IS MOM DEAD? or something low key like that, and since he hadn’t heard that she was, I figured all was well. He’d be the first person they’d call to come get her good antiques.

My dad called later saying how his phone just never seems to ring when I call, blah, blah, blah, and that mom was resting but too tired to talk.  I wanted him to take a picture of her holding up today’s paper, but the Overton County News only prints twice a week. So I’m going to have to take his word for it.

Then I went to play bridge and Patty and I were having a GREAT game until this JERK sat down at our table and gave us three low boards. And did I mention that he was a JERK? We still managed to come in first sitting N/S, but not 1st overall. THANKS, hateful face loser-pants.

And my mother thought SHE was having a bad day.

(Love you MOM, hope you feel better. xoxo)

If there was such of things, these fellows would be in it.

My dad, cause he is AWESOME. I’ve blogged about him plenty so you should know by now he’s the best. Ever.

There are those in my house who think THIS is the best father in the world. I can understand that belief. He’s definitely in the top 2.

My brother is not only a great dad, but he’s a pretty good step-dad too. Of course, he had OUR dad as an example so how could he be anything other than great?

Tania-the-mad somehow managed to find someone to marry her AND give her children. None of them will admit it, but he spoils this kids to death. But it’s going to stop ANY DAY NOW. Uh huh.

My OTHER brother-in-law is not only a great father, he’s very creative. While most dads take their kids to the movies, or maybe dinner, he’s taken his girls to Spring Training every spring for years! He and Alex once went on a Blues Tour of all the famous landmarks and eateries in the south where blues music featured prominently. That’s not run-of-the-mill parenting, amiright?

Dads should be celebrated more. Even though everyone has seen this a zillion times, it’s always worth ANOTHER look.

There’s a lot of bad men out there, I’m blessed to know some good ones.

One of the rules for building a blog audience is to post frequently. Obviously, I am going to be a big success. But what could I do? Yesterday afternoon, I took Moon to the barn for a horseback riding lesson. As we were preparing to leave for home, a kid came running up yelling, “There’s a tornado warning in the area!” Yikes. I called my brother to get a more accurate weather update in case I needed to come over and hide in his basement. He assured me that I’d be fine, just keep driving, what are the chances I’d actually get hit by a tornado? Or a tree? 70%? Don’t be a baby, you’ll make it.

Moon and I drove home, me clutching the the steering wheel with white knuckles, while Moon stared at the phone in case Uncle Ellery called and told us to turn around. Uh huh, like THAT would happen. The scariest part was when I drove through a deep puddle, just as a couple of other cars came toward me. The muddy water splashed onto my windshield and I drove blind for what seemed like FOREVER. Then everything was fine. So much for career as a suspense writer.

Anyway, we made it back home but I couldn’t blog because the power went out! Not here, but I just felt bad having electricity while others were suffering. So Moon and I crawled in the bed and started reading a new book. By candlelight for all you know.

As I may have mentioned, Moon is not a big reader. She likes books if YOU read them, but on her own, not so much. I’ve tried to encourage her by getting her really good books and insisting she read for a little bit each day. I say “encourage”, others say “force”, whatever. So every day she’d read a chapter as fast as she could so she could then move on to other things. Not really what I was going for. So I decided that we’d read TOGETHER. I’d read a few pages, then she would. So that’s why we got out of bed today at 2:15 pm., STARVING, and with sore throats and carpel tunnel from hitting the next button on my NOOK. But the good news is we finished a book, and if laying in bed reading doesn’t bond a pair, I don’t know what does, amiright Kittens?

So now I’m looking for something good for us to read together again. And by “read”, I mean I’m going to find an audio version. Moon is right – reading is much easier when someone else does it.