It was fun seeing the family, but it was hot, tiring, and hectic, and it felt good to get back home again.
Funny how just a little time spent away, can often help one appreciate home again.
It gives one a new perspective on things.
I learned that I am a town mouse.
Oh, I love ducks and geese and flowers and big country kitchens and quiet afternoons strolling the open prairie.
But country life is a lot of work .... and there's not much food out on that prairie.
Also, there's a lot of hay fever.
Two hours after arrival, my son began sneezing nonstop, his head swelled like a balloon, and then he broke out with the most severe case of hives I have ever seen. For a moment we thought we were going to have to make a trip to the emergency room. Thankfully, now he is okay.
But I can just imagine the ER conversation ...
Nurse: What's he allergic to?
Me: The country.
Things have been a bit stressful lately, and we were tired and so looking forward to this trip.
But one weekend on the open prairie, near a small town with nothing but a couple rundown fast food joints and a meal of nothing but meat at my brothers home ... and my two kids and I came running home so fast it made our heads spin.
So much for the country life.
We barely lasted a weekend.
Tired, sun burned and hungry, we hit Tulsa late Sunday afternoon and headed straight for Whole Foods, where we ate like pigs and picked up enough groceries to last a nuclear winter.
Warning: never go to Whole Foods after spending starving weekend with relatives in the country. It cost me nearly $400 to get out of that place. No kidding. But I was stocking up, since OKC has no Whole Foods.
Even though our weekend in the country wasn't as spectacular as we had hoped, it did us all good to get away.
It's nice to visit another persons world ... it allows one to reasses one's own values and learn more about themselves.
When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to read The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse to me. And I always became giddy at the part where the town mouse takes his friend, the city mouse, back home for an elaborate feast. I always felt sorry in the end for lonely, scanty existance of the country mouse.
Now it's rather ironic, for I no longer feel so sorry for the country mouse.
Sometimes simple is good.
Someday I will invite my brother and his family to my home in the city where we will share a great feast.
It will be a grand time.
But something tells me, in the end, he will scurry home to his safe haven in the country, while I remain happily in the city.
Contented mice we will be.
2 comments:
This was so fun and enjoyable to read :) I too enjoyed that book as a child, and I've learned that I'm actually a bit of both. I always prided myself on being a "Chicago girl", when in actuality, many of my childhood homes were located in what were originally small towns, near Chicago. All of those towns have since mushroomed and are cities now as well.
I moved downstate Illinois (2 hours south of Chicago) smack dab in the middle of corn and soybean fields 14 years ago this summer. We sort of have the best of both worlds, with the very large University town within 1/2 an hour. But I kind of like our quiet country town now, to the point that when I go back to Chicago, I find it all too rushed and needlessly stressful. :)
Geese are a real killer in the yard, and ducks aren't much better. Too many these days - we need more hunters so we can cook more geese and share with some coffee we make with our single cup coffee maker.
Penny
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