Thankful - a TV Timeout

In my last post, I concluded with Ron and Ben leaving in the afternoon and a picture of our front yard at 8 pm. I should have concluded at 11 pm with... "They're baaaaack". Power was out in their Tacoma neighborhood. The brave Evans family tried to keep warm blanketed in front of their fireplace. When the cat, dog and all Ben's stuffed animals wanted to crawl in with them, it was time to head over the river and through the woods - back to grandmother's house. (Uff dah, Nana B sounds much better). I pulled out the sleeper sofa in the TV room and the family including Murphy, the long-haired dachshund, snuggled in bed next to a roaring (well, flickering anyway) gas fireplace, snow blowing outside and everybody cozy inside.

Next morning, I made breakfast for us. That's a big deal! It means opening boxes from the freezer: Eggos, all natural sausages (you never know what those will taste like), cholesterol free scrambled eggs from a carton and prune juice. Okay, so the rest of the family had orange juice. I'm the prune juice person in the house and if you haven't figured it out - not a "from scratch" kinda cook. People do scratch their heads over some of my dishes, however.

Courtney tried to turn on the TV while still cozied in bed. But alas, it was not to be. The screen would give a flicker of hope and then turn itself off. Of course this also meant the wrath of grandpa Scott for touching his Harmony remote and then pressing buttons on the cable box and the TV to try to fix it. Ron and I were the culprits in that effort. (Hope Scott doesn't read this; we denied everything). After Scott spent an hour on the phone with Comcast, even he threw up his hands and we called the Geek Squad. (We'll probably see them sometime in January). So - no TV. What would we do?

We talked and laughed - most of Tuesday (Ron's truck is worthless on ice) and Wednesday until they left for home. Ron and Scott told story after story of their youthful adventures, each one trying to outdo the other, of course. Courtney and I got in a few stories when they took a breath. At one point, Ron was holding the very heavy TV he'd taken off the wall so I could read the serial number to Scott who was on the phone with the Geek Squad. I was trying to shout the numbers to Scott in the kitchen. It was even harder reading the numbers because Ron was laughing, the TV was bouncing up and down as he held it and I wear bifocals. I started laughing so hard I couldn't breath and shout out the numbers at the same time. "No, not 770, it's 700! No, not F as in fat; it's F as in Frank!"

More than once, we commented on how grateful we were for not having TV - we were family. Even more gratitude was expressed when Ron volunteered to prepare the rest of the meals. www.BonnieKingPhotography.com