Hither and Yon

Yesterday was challenging, but good, overall. Mark had a rough night. Shortly after I sent off my email to you last night, he said that he thought he might need to go in to the hospital. I had laid (had lain?) down, but I got up because once I'm asleep, I'm toast. I did some embroidery, watched TV, waited to see which way things would go. Finally Mark decided to just take a valium and call it good. This morning, though, he decided that he needed to go. I was running short on time, though, by the time he made this decision so I put Brendan in the car, took Mark to Newberg, dropped him at the door of the emergency room, ran to Fred Meyers to get lunch stuff, hurried home ... For some reason, our phone wasn't working, and Kate was distraught. The people she was riding with were a half hour late, and she couldn't call them. (I had been planning on riding with them, but I couldn't find anyone to take the boys, so I decided to let Kate ride with her friends and follow along in the van. I wanted to just stay home. It would have been far simpler! But when I asked her how she felt about this, although she SAID it was fine, I could tell she really wanted me to come check her in to camp. But there wasn't room for me AND the boys, so I had to come in our van.) Anyhow! I got home, threw together a lunch, and pretty soon we were on the way. I still had to find someone to pick up Mark though. I had three people who were willing to do it if I couldn't find anyone else, but finally I got ahold of my dad, who readily agreed to transport him home later in the afternoon. Whew! Finally, I could relax a bit.

Well, I got her settled, called the hospital, found out that Mark had just left. (Hours have passed during the last paragraph, btw.) Again, another relief. He's okay. I figured he would be, but there's always that chance. I told Kaitlyn and Shari (Dakota's mom) that if they got to camp and I wasn't behind them, that I had gotten a call from the hospital and turned around. (That was the agreement I made with Mark when I dropped him off.) But thankfully they didn't call. When I did finally get ahold of Mark himself (later, down on the beach), he was really tired and groggy, but said, "It was nothing." Whew, again.

We drove into Lincoln City and stopped at the beach with the tide pools, except that they were nearly all underwater. It was really cool though because the water coming in over the rocks had created a sort of pool for the boys to play in. Brendan said, "Look! We have our own ocean!" I hadn't brought a change of clothes for them, thinking we were just going to play in the sand, but that pool was irresistible. Alex had shorts on, thankfully, so that he could wade in. I stripped Brendan down to his little underpants and he went swimming! The water was ice cold, but he didn't seem to mind--for awhile! After ... oh, I don't know ... forty minutes or so, he was totally shivering. I wrapped him in the blanket (since we hadn't brought any towels), stripped off his underpants, and held him tight until he finally (a good fifteen minutes later) stopped shivering. Then I pulled on his clothes (sans the soaked undergarments) and he went back to playing (although not in the water). I sat in my little portable chair and wrote verse ideas (and took a bunch of pictures, of course!). It was so relaxing, definitely the best part of the day. Finally, we packed up the plastic buckets, etc. and set off for the van.

I stopped at my favorite little drive through coffee place, and asked the price of hot chocolates for the boys. "What size do you want?" the guy asked. "Well, I have $2.80, and I need two, so ... whatever I can get for that!" As he was making the hot chocolates, the boys were behind me, barking like dogs. “How many puppies have you got in there?” the man asked. He handed a couple of real dog biscuits through the window, which the boys gave to the stuffed animals they had buckled into the way back. They thought it most amusing that this grown man was playing along with their game! Then he passed me the hot chocolates. I started to hand him the money. "Is that all you've got?" he asked. I said, yes. He said, "Keep your money then." I ... could only grin and think ... I don't know. Just how lucky I am, sometimes. Just how many fabulous people I seem to encounter all the time. I know it was only a little thing, but it made my heart sort of sing as I headed for home.