WHAT HAPPENED??!!

(I started a Mucus Journal on Facebook around day #6 of my head cold. It is Day #10 and here are some of the highlights of my Mucus Journal.

        The mucus in my airways sounds like the creaking rig on a sailing ship.

        There is no commercial use for human mucus.  I checked.

         Some nasal sprays are miraculously effective - also addictive.

         Washing dishes by hand can loosen up your sinuses.  Also, eat hot sauce!

You. Are. Welcome.)


Even though both Gramps and I compete for the stuffiest nose prize, D came for a few hours last night. And you won't believe what happened.

The evening started with a few hands of poker. Little Blue Bunny won the first two hands and D got bored. So we threw all the red buttons in the pot and played one last hand. D won!! And there was NO CHEATING by anyone. Not even the dealer, who was Gramps.

(In the following true account, I will designate who came up with different plot points in this way: One asterisk means that D came up with the idea. Two asterisks are Nana ideas. Three asterisks are combination ideas.

A sad, sad day for the Acorn family.  More below.

Suddenly, we discovered that Little Blue Bunny had a terrible illness. Scarlet Fever*. I looked and he had a decidedly purplish cast to his skin - because scarlet and blue mixed together make...purple.

He had to go into quarantine which D did not know about yet - so another part of her medical education has been achieved. But before he even had a chance to get medication, he developed appendicitis***. (D wanted to operate. I suggested appendicitis.)

We had to operate, and quickly, so we both donned masks, (I wore one for most of the evening anyway.) And we operated and sent Little Blue Bunny to the Recovery Room.

Can you see his stitches?  I can't and I put them in.

He was quarantined there as well and his family could not come to see him.

Well, I had to tell the absolutely TRUE story about my little sister, Heidi.  When she was a toddler - no older than 2 and probably younger - she developed a dangerously high fever and went to the hospital. The doctors and nurses told my Mom and Dad that they could NOT visit Heidi in the hospital. So for that whole week and a half, my Mom drove to the parking lot outside the Children's Ward window, every day, and the nurse brought Heidi to the window. That was the only contact my Mom was allowed. One day, we all went. I remember standing in the parking lot and waving up at the windows on the third or fourth floor. (I was around 6.) I couldn't see that Heidi was there at all, just a curtain twitching and the nurse's hand. Heidi DID survive. She lives in Texas. I miss her.

"Well," D announced. "This is long ago times, like that."

Nutty Romomlia sneaked into the Recovery Room and got quarantined as well. Mr. and Mrs. Acorn could not see TWO of their children.

I needed a break so we did "Art Therapy" with some paint. Little Blue Bunny sneaked down to the art room to help.

During one of my bathroom and annoying cough breaks, D discovered something very distressing.

"Little Blue Bunny's Great Grandfather just died! We have to have a funeral*!"

Oh no! "How? Where? Who?" I stuttered. "I know. He was playing golf and the human golfers ran over him with a golf cart.**"

D laughed. Gramps came out to see what the noise was about and said, "I hate it when grandfathers die."

"GREAT grandfather!" D assured Gramps.

We found out that Great Grampsie's name was Squirilo (Squih -rill-oh) Acorn. He was born in 1927 so he was 91 when he died.  That was some impressive math, actually.

I don't have another squirrel toy to use as Squirilo but D assured me that we did not need one. On the side table, in the living room, she had already set a small black chest between two battery operated candles*. That's the photo at the top of this post and to the right.

Looks like a casket to me!

We found fake flowers and some pine cones and made an arrangement.  And she printed out a memorial stone.*** (Her words, my styrofoam tray.)

The family gathered with crying all around. Everyone had kind words to say about Great Grampsie. Each family member broke into tears while they extolled his gentleness, his funny ways, his golfing skills and his pranks.

At one point, D wanted us all to turn our backs to the casket and throw flowers over our shoulders*. I got confused. "So the one who gets their flower nearest the casket is the next person to have a funeral?"

D explained that it was a way to determine who got to kiss the casket first at the end of the funeral.*

Oh!  Okaaaayyy!

Then Big Grey Rabbit showed up. He told stories about his school days with Squirilo that made Squirilo sound awful. Lila, the teenage daughter, told Great Grampsie's version of these stories but Big Grey Rabbit (BGR) persisted. Nutsa Acorn was so upset that anyone would malign her grandfather-in-law at his own funeral.

D to the rescue. She pulled out her Orb of Truth*. She spun around, and there, on the orb, we could all see each event just as it happened.

Squirilo was not an angel.  HE DID play a mean prank on his best friend, Squirellarry.  Squirilo did a wintery version of the banana peel on the sidewalk prank.  Squirellary slipped and fell on the hard sidewalk - NOT into the snowbank.  Squirellary sprained his wrist.**

Squirilo was so upset.  He thought his friend would fall into the snow.  He did not think before he played this prank.  He offered to carry all of Squirellarry's books until the wrist healed and he shoveled the snow at the Squirellary household for the rest of the winter.  He did the lawn that summer, too.** The two squirrels remained fast friends their entire lives, even when Squirellary became the Mayor of the United States of Stuffies.*

BUT BGR said that Squirilo laughed and laughed and ran away. The Orb of Truth showed all. BGR laughed and laughed when Squirellarry came to school with a hurt wrist. Then, BGR played the same mean trick on Old Man Chipmunk - but Old Man Chipmunk caught BGR and never got hurt.  Thank goodness**.

(I could use an Orb of Truth. Just saying.)

Meanwhile, Stripe, the Green Rabbit, showed up. He went to school with Nutsa and he always wanted to date her. Stripe is magical* and has lived for almost 200 years*. He was born in the 1800s*. He also knew Squirilo. He said that Squirilo was the reason he, Stripe, became a Bad Guy**.  Not true. But Stripe hypnotized Lila into believing Stripe's stories. He also hypnotized Lila into thinking she wanted to marry Stripe.*

He's a bad one, that Stripe!

"NO!!! NO! No weddings! We have had illness, an operation, family separation, a death, a funeral and horrible lies.  NO WEDDINGS**!"  I dissolved into a coughing fit at this point.

OK. No weddings.  Lila was hypnotized into believing that she wanted to marry Stripe when she got old enough. Her father, Acornio Acorn had to unhypnotize her**. Stripe hypnotized her again*. Only D could help her.*

D explained that she, too, was magical and that SHE had been born in the 1700s so she knew a thing or two about Bad Guys*.  Also, I was magical and I had been born in the 1500s*.  (Thanks a lot!  I am not that old!)

There was a lot of to and fro-ing between Nutsa, Stripe, Acornio, D, and Lila and, quite frankly, I had story-creating-overload at this point. I actually forget what happened next but I know we decided that BGR - who ended up in the accordion case - could not be in the same prison as Stripe since they planned escapes together**.

Oh, I FORGOT about how we played music for the funeral. D played "Fur Elise" on the piano. (It sounds just like Fur Elise - although it's a simplified version her teacher found.) I played a song that Squirilo wrote on the accordion. He was a wonderful accordionist**. Also I played some songs that D knew so she could sing along.

My accordion, not Squirilo's.

I also forgot that Stripe hypnotized Lila into playing an awful prank on D and me. He had Lila put pepper in the cinnamon sugar jar so that D's cinnamon toast would be all peppery**. (I have to find pranks that are surprising but not actually dangerous, especially after falling down prank which could be very dangerous.) Don't worry. D smelled the pepper and only took a tiny bite. She had to drink a lot of water (Not really. Also, we did not really put pepper in the cinnamon sugar jar.)

It was almost time for Mommy to come and take D home to bed. We went up to the bedroom for a quick storybook reading. I think D did not know just how tired she was.

Mommy came and D went home to bed. And it took me less than 10 minutes to fall asleep after I went to bed.

May our adventures with the Stuffies continue for a long time, especially with the Bunny of Blue Persuasion as Gramps likes to call him. Love to D, to Little Blue Bunny, to Gramps, to Mommy and Daddy and to all of you. (Also to MY Mom and all my siblings, especially Heidi because part of her story was told last night.)

Back in the arms of his family.