I love this time of year, cooler daytime temperatures
and snugly nighttime’s.
Here’s Bernie’s bed, notice how empty it is......
Now, here’s my bed ......
ummmm, yea he’s not allowed on my bed ...
Every night I tuck him in his bed, cover him with his blanket
and every morning I wake up spooning him!
Anyway, getting back to fall, growing up my sister and I used
to take rides to look at the changing leaves.
We often made our way to Lancaster, PA. Up hills and down
one lane roadways, getting lost in strange small towns. My sister had heard the
Amish never had their photos taken because they thought it would steal there souls, she also heard they pinned their clothes together instead of using
buttons. I don’t know if any of that was true, but every time we passed a horse
drown covered Amish carriage she’d hang out the car window brandishing her
camera, trying to snag her some Amish soul.
Then, she thought we should
ride through "Amish Town" with a
giant magnet, collecting all their pins
and leaving a town full of half-naked Amish in our wake. Luckily for the Amish we never could find a giant magnet!!
On this particular trip my sister really wanted to eat in a
family style restaurant as was very popular in that area. I had eaten family
style on a trip with my parents years ago. It was horrible, being that I have a tricky
stomach and don’t really like many things, family style dinning is risky at best. My father brought us there with his
grandparents and wanted to make a good impression, so through her smile, my
mother pinched me and growled for me not to complain.
We were seated with other
people, which I hated because being
small everyone wanted to look at me and ask me ,“how old are you ?”,“what grade
are you in?", shit like that. Well, the hooded women started plunking down plates
and bowls of food for the table. I ordered a cup of tea because they didn’t have
soda. I watched as the dishes passed by for something, anything I could
eat. Plate after plate nothing appealed to
me but I was starving! Finally, I spied a bowl of corn! YES ! I love corn! When the bowl finally made its way
to me I picked up the spoon and looked into the bowl only to find a dead fly in
it! Just as I saw it so did my mother, I looked at her ready to blow my top but
as always, she did not want to make what she called a scene and once again
through her smile I knew to say nothing.
Well, at least I had a bit of hard bread and oh yes, my tea,
unfortunately the teabag had broken in
my cup and I resigned myself to bread and water.
So, you see why when my sister asked if we could eat in
a family style restaurant, I freaked out.
I drove for miles passing every family style restaurant
by. While I drove, my sister kept complaining and pretending she was dying from
hunger on and on until finally I said "You want to eat family style OK!" , then I
pulled into the first driveway I saw. I stopped the car and said “they look like they're having dinner, go eat with them!
I ‘ll wait.”. She was mortified and screamed for me to get us out of there as the family in the house saw our
car pull up and began gathering at the window trying to see who we were.
Later, I believe we ate at Red Lobster, yep nothing like a fall trip with my sister.
