The Waiting Game

I am waiting, I have about twelve days until I leave to go to Germany. I have always thought that waiting was a game. How long will a doctor keep you waiting, does he really have someone in there or is he just wanting to see how long he can keep you sitting in his waiting room. There is so much to do and time is running out, so what do I do? I spend my time trying to think of things to say on my blog (see what you started Myrna, love ya anyway).

Some of my kids wanted me to write my past history down. So to my family and friends who care, I have decided to include at least one item of my past on each of my blogs (provided I can tie it into the main theme I want to say), to all the others who decided to read blogs for a living and happen to run across this one will just have to deal with them. Granted, the past history will not be in any way personal, I will how ever try to keep them from putting you to sleep. They will not be in order the way they happened in real life and they will be the short version. They are all from my memory therefore will be my point of view. They will not reflect any of  my brothers, sister, or anyone else's recall of what happened in the past. I realize that everyone has a story to tell and if you listen hard enough to them all you will most likely get the full picture (semi quote from "Hoodwinked").

I chose the title, "The Waiting Game", because all I can do right now is play the game. Did you know that waiting can be a game? It could have good results, bad results or both depending on your attitude and in some situations the it can even turn deadly.Some of my family and friends know this well.

Now a flash of the past in "The Waiting Game".

When my brothers and I were working construction and the neighborhood kids would come around to investigate what we were doing or to gawk at us running around on stilts, we would say to them “Go tell your mother she wants you” or “Go play on the freeway”, anything to try to get rid of them. Someone must have mentioned the latter to my brother and I to give us the idea.

This is a story that my mother related to me; to be honest I don’t remember any of it and I strongly recommend that you don’t repeat it to your little ones for fear of giving them ideas.

First a little history of my family situation. I grew up with five brothers and one sister, I was labeled “Number Four” in other words I was the fourth child. My three older brothers and I were a year apart (give or take a month or two) and one brother was a year and a half younger than me, and sister a year younger than him. Roughly thirteen years after my sister we were blessed with another brother. Remembering all that had happened in the past and after having kids of my own all I can think of now is "our poor parents, what were you thinking?".

I must have been three at the time because I was told that my older brother (who was just a year older) was with me or I was with him, because of our ages we were constantly together. My two other older brothers were probably in school. There were only two houses on the block where we lived and both houses were connected by a huge field in the back and faced a main street. This happened back in a time when even though the street we lived on was considered a busy street, only a dozen or so cars drove past every ten to fifteen minutes, and for some reason the people were not in a hurry to get from point A to point B and took time to look at their surroundings. Unlike today where there's a couple of hundred cars every one to two minutes, and the people have to get there now if not sooner, only looking at the break lights of the car in front of them. Anyway, to get on with the story, nobody knows who came up with the idea, my brother or I. We just thought it would be fun to take a stroll. So we strolled out into the street, lied down on the yellow line then started to play the waiting game. We waited for a car to drive past and tried to touch it as it went by. Nobody knows how long we were out there doing this when we got caught. Our Mom found out because a truck driver would stop and pick us up out of the street and take us to our house. We were either smart or dumb enough to lay in the street in front of our house so the driver easily figured out where we lived (or could it had been all the toys in the yard?).  According to my Mom we did this on more than one occasion. There you have it a waiting game that could have ended deadly, but didn't because I am here to write about it.

At least this past week has been busy with Myrna and Josie's Gamelan Bintang Wahyu (see Laytonology) and Myrna's cousin's daughter Wendy's premiere of "An Evening With My Comatose Mother" a short film which she was the star of. And may I add I enjoyed both thoroughly.

And now I must continue playing "The Waiting Game", but instead of thinking of things to write I must concentrate on getting ready for the trip.

Until next time...may you have good luck.