Forgotten Treasure

Have you ever taken a winter coat out of the closet for the first time in a season, only to find money in the pocket? I once found a twenty left from the previous spring. It's so exciting. Like free money. Or lip gloss. Which I have also found more than once in jacket pockets after months of searching in vain for that great new color whose name I can't remember.

Well, I had a variation on this experiential theme happen this month. We had come home from vacation.

(Moms everywhere don't even need an illustration here of what my life was like. For non-moms: it's laundry and unpacking times six and finding homes for newly purchased knick-knacks. It's getting everyones toothbrushes and shoes to their respective rooms. It's returning phone calls and making postponed appointments. It's trying to get back into some sort of groove, which, we moms know, requires almost another vacation period. But we don't get that second vacation and so uptight, type-A moms like me just stress out.)

Home from vacation about a day and a half, and I was unloading the dishwasher. I saw them. They were tucked in the bowl of my food scale. I had already shut the cabinet door before they registered in my brain.

M&Ms!!

A little over half of a pound bag. Purchased during my stressful vacation preparation period. I couldn't believe that I hadn't finished off the bag before we left. Or that since I hadn't, I hadn't remembered them. I keep track of my chocolate. But there they were. To be honest, I didn't take too long analyzing my forgotten treasure. I just enjoyed the loot.

Ahoy thar!

It's not every day a girl gets swept off her feet by a pirate.

We're back from holiday up in the Pacific Northwest. While on the Oregon Coast, we visited an aquarium. We saw all of the normal great stuff--jelly fish, sharks, crab, tide-pool critters, sea otters, and some fish, too. On the way out, Larry stopped with #4 at the gift shop to purchase a book about sharks.

We girls were standing outside the shop when a band of pirates came marching up the sidewalk. They looked fantastic, and I grinned a wide grin, knowing that #4 was going to have a hey day with this. It must have been that silly Cheshire smile that caught the attention of the "captain," who commented on my sea-faring shirt. When I realized they were going to be staying in the quad area, I ran in the shop to get my boy.

I returned to find the girls bestowed with pirate gold and the troupe entertaining the crowd with pirate ditties. #4 was duly impressed, and I shot some photos of the captain for his scrapbook. The singing finished, kids began asking important questions such as "Do you kill people?" The captain spied me a second time and asked me to join him in the center of the quad. He had #3 take my bags and handed my camera to #1, who snapped pics at an impressive rate.

He introduced himself as Captain ? (drat my poor name recall!) from Scotland and asked my name. "Mina," he replied, "sounds like minnow to me." (Not the first time this rhyme has been noticed, which fact may give you some insight into the name of my blog.) He asked if I'd ever been on a ship: yes. Cruise?: yes. Know the difference between starboard and port?: Well, it's left and right, but I can never recall which is which. So he gave me a great little way to remember that port is left. Then he asked, "Port or starboard?" And although I generally love random questions like that, this one make me nervous. But I firmly answered "Starboard."

"Starboard it is then," and he picked me up over his right shoulder like a sack of flour and spun me around several times before putting me back on my feet. I am embarrassed to say that I at first screamed like a little girl. I am also sorry to say that Larry missed the whole thing, as did my sister-in-law, who'd been video recording most of our adventures that day. But the kids saw it and got a big kick out of seeing mom twirled about by the captain of a pirate ship.

Larry asked if I'd pointed out the jewels on my left hand to him. There was no need really.

He'd have had only to worry had it been Johnny Depp in that costume!