Lori Bratz

After I Drill-Sergeant everyone out of bed, through their routines, into clean clothes, listen to squawking about wet combs in bed-head hair,  complaints about the toast being incorrectly cut, no butter, yes butter, peanut butter, baaaaageeeeeeel!  I sit down with Mike the Dog on the patio for a few minutes and we gather our thoughts before we get to our day’s work.  I drink coffee and Mike drinks in the smell of Renton City Limits and we sit together and just enjoy a minute or two of peace and quiet.  If the coffee is particularly good, which is almost always IS bcz its a K cup (for God’s sake) in a big, white Crate & Barrel latte mug, and so duh, it IS lovely, my mind goes to this amazing fantasy:

I see myself as this FINALLY-skinny, very silver-haired grandma, with my grown boys and their spouses and all of their children always being here, surrounding me in my house.  I think about how pleased I am with them and they with me.  And in this fantasy, they LIKE being here because we’re sincerely interested in them, and we ourselves are sincerely interesting. We still talk about ideas and books and current events and we have witty banter, even when we’re very fragile.  I imagine that we are the parents who smile and approve of our childrens’ choices and their lives and we support them unconditionally in all their endeavors.

Sometimes I even imagine an anniversary party with me and Big D and all of our children and grandchildren and their friends celebrating not only us but our whole family. I imagine the nice things they’ll say about how lovely we have always been to them and their friends.  And THEN in this fantasy, I sing “Best Friend” to Big D and everone tears up and says what a beautiful love affair we have and how inspired they are to be good to one another.  Maybe we get up and dance a little to the song where there’s only music and no words, and we just smile while everyone is broken up and feeling the love.  Later when we’re alone, we’ll pretend to tease about how everyone had to “go wring the tears out of their dresses bcz we’re so awesome” but we’re joking and being silly because we’re still adorable like that. And then I grab Big D’s butt because I somehow believe he’s still this giant Viking that I adore.  Even tho we’re very old and fragile.

And then Mike snaps me out of my daydream and barks a warning at a neighbor dog walking with a person on the other side of the fence as if to simultaneously say, “GET OUT OF HERE, OTHER DOG!”  and “Lori.  Come AWN.  Get crackin, sister. The poop isn’t going to clean itself out of that backpack!”  And I know he is right.

Lori Bratz is a professional writer, specializing in website content.