Hez's Travels

Atten-SHUN! This, ladies and gentlemen and cats and dogs and praying mantises, is an account of the Texas reunion from the perspective of that Famous Individual, Raquelle Sheen, whose credentials are as follows: 1) Owner of four remarkable cats, 2) Second-oldest grandchild, and 3) Author of the national best-seller “Why People Should Quit Bugging Me About Leaving My Shoes in the Middle of the Floor.”

Prrrrrepare to be amazed................

I will use one of my favorite narrative approaches, the old highlight/lowlight format. Like this:

Highlight: I have a huge bag of M&Ms on my desk

Lowlight: The IRS is demanding a 47% tax on my M&Ms. Stupid crackpot government.

Get the picture? Good. Here we go.

P.S. Not all highlights and lowlights are relevant to the topic, because that’s too conventional. Next thing you know I might start not capitalizing anything either or sumpthing else unconventional that will give Inscrutable Meaning to these, my memoirs.

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DAY ONE

Highlight: How cool is a 60^th anniversary party???!?!? Can’t wait!

Lowlight: It’s a 13.25 hour drive to Mineola, excluding stops.

Lowlight: The Sheens make lots of stops.

Highlight: We left only 15 minutes later than we intended on Sunday morning. Usually it’s 30 minutes, so this was pretty cool. (We refer to this as trying to achieve escape velocity.) The euphoria lasted till at least lunchtime. We felt inclined to nudge the person next to us at the rest stop sink and say, “Hey pal, did you know we only left fifteen minutes late this morning?”

Highlight: There is minimal traffic in Atlanta on Sunday morning.

Lowlight: By the time we were all in the mood for a Dunkin Donuts coolatta, they weren’t listed on the road signs anymore.

Lowlight: We despaired of coolattas and got a round of McDonald’s mocha frappes.........and THEN found a Dunkin Donuts 20 miles later. Alas, too late! We carefully noted the exit, however, for the return trip. Gotta get those yummy iced coffee slurpies!

Highlight: They stopped putting artificial coloring in the tooth-friendly Xylitol chewing gum I buy.

Highlight: We ate supper at a nice picnic table at a rest stop. (Supper was KFC chicken that we’d bought at home the day before to avoid standing in line for 20 minutes at a durn fast food place run by dawdling nincompoops)

Lowlight: It began to rain during supper. We finished eating in the van.

Lowlight: Usually we use travel time to Brainstorm Something. However, we were all too brain dead to brainstorm anything. Too bad. 15 hours in the car and not one single brainstorm. Anyone who tried to brainstorm anything was rapidly quelled by the other three. Conversation degenerated and we began to long for something stimulating.

Highlight: We had good roads and clear weather the whole drive.

Lowlight: I used to have three gray hairs in my bangs. Now I think I’m up to seven.

Lowlight:  We couldn’t find the driveway for the lodge.

Highlight: We found it.

Epic Highlight: Greeting everyone! Arrival time at a reunion is just the funnest thing ever. So many hugs! J

Second Epic Highlight: Having SIXTEEN people swarm to help us unload the van. Wanna travel with us and be our roadies from now on, y’all? That. Was. Awesome.

Lowlight: I am so non-techie that I was using the wrong attachment to blow up my air mattress. It was taking forever. Remind me someday to tell you the story of how I recently thought I was turning off the water main in our latest water crisis and actually only turned off the filter bypass, even though there was a large instruction tag on the water main handle that I had written and affixed MYSELF. Not my best moment. Like, this would be me:

Highlight: Uncle Kent is much more techie than I am and rescued me from myself. He put on the right attachment and blew up both air mattresses in approximately 13.7 seconds.

Highlight: Staying up too late chatting the other night owls for a little while.

Highlight: Going to bed.

Lowlight: That night I dreamed we were trying to set up our reenacting camp on the deck of the Titanic. It was pretty wet. We checked out both ends of the ship and opted for the end with the ankle-deep water instead of the chest-high water. The water made it really inconvenient to set up camp. I don’t recommend it, personally.

Highlight: People in the Roberts family like to cook. Can you believe it? They actually LIKE to cook. I don’t. So I bip out of bed in the morning and like, WOW, people have made BREAKFAST! At home I barely summon up the resolve to scramble an egg for breakfast and I vary this with eating dry cereal. No, seriously.

Highlight: Having a Top Secret Clandestine Meeting with all the cousins upstairs, plotting our role in the party. We stopped just shy of plotting a World Takeover. Consider yourselves fortunate.

Highlight: My cousins are cool.

Highlight: I am also cool.

Highlight: I am also humble.

Highlight: Grandma and Gramps conveniently had an errand at Walmart. While they were gone, me and Uncle Brian and Co. frantically practiced their special music for the party.

Lowlight: There were thunderstorms bashing around all morning.

Highlight: Even though they lost power in town, we did not lose it at the lodge.

Highlight: Sneaking around in Mom and Dad’s room with Mom, Dad, Monica and Aunt Therese, working on party decorations, making sure we didn't forget anything Highly Critical. Balloons, check. Curly ribbon, check. Cake, check. Confetti, check. Kitchen sink, check.

Highlight: Decorating the living room for the party. Me and Tim got our hands on a bunch of streamers and went berserk together. Everybody else went berserk too. Yes, you can hire us for a very reasonable fee of $1789.43 per event.

Lowlight: My toenail polish chipped two days ago for no good reason. *miffed*

Lowlight: Realizing I’d forgotten to pack the jewelry I meant to wear with my dress.

Lowlight: Finding the jewelry the next day and realizing I’d forgotten that I hadn’t forgotten. Crud.

Highlight: This crowd is a good-lookin’ bunch of people. As Mamaw always said, “There’s not an ugly one in the bunch.” Not in our bunch, anyhow. ‘Cept maybe Uncle Mitch.

(Fine print: I don’t really mean it, it’s just a test to see if he actually reads this.)

Highlight: Making a big whoop-de-do as Grandma and Gramps came downstairs, duly escorted by some of their esteemed grandchildren.

Highlight: My grandparents have been married 60 years. That's spectacular!!!!!!!!!!!!! My grandparents are mighty cool, yessiree.

Highlight: Watching all my waycool cousins do a waycool talent show for the party. Crikey, I had no idea that Monica and Steven and Susie and Sheila could sing like that! And the memories that the other cousins shared were hilarious. I especially got tickled at the one about Jason informing his first (second?) grade teacher that Lincoln was LIAR. 

Highlight: Enjoying all the party fol-de-rol for the next couple of hours.

Lowlight: The guy cousins, aided and abetted by several uncles, shot nerf guns at us from the balcony. Can you believe it??!?!?! Outrageous! Dastardly! Finks! 

Highlight: They tried to shoot down a balloon that escaped up the two-story ceiling and missed it. The nerf stuck in the rafter. I'm sure this was what Aunt Carol was thinking..........

(Epilogue: The nerf was later removed with a long fishing pole.)

Lowlight: It was dinner time. Cook? Somebody has to cook?

Repeated highlight: People in the Roberts family ACTUALLY LIKE TO COOK! A crew of talented chefs whomped up a delicious meal for everyone. Holy cats. I’m stayin’ here all my life!

I'll do it! I'll cook supper! 

Highlight: Listening to Heather and Monica jam together on the keyboard and sax.

Lowlight: Uncle Kent, Monica, and Steven had to head out for home. Bummer.

Highlight: Per tradition, I called Steven a pipsqueak when I hugged him goodbye, a term which isn't even slightly applicable anymore since he towers over me. However, he grinned and said he didn't mind. 

Highlight: Having a traditional Roberts sing-along that evening. Man, I’ve missed all those times of sitting around singing with Uncle Mark’s guitar. When we were little kids in California, we used to do that a lot. And then Heather and I would have to go to bed, but we’d get out of bed and sneak into the hallway and listen to the music continue while we hid behind the hallway door. We usually got caught and got in trouble, but it was worth it.

Highlight: We all enjoy good ole traditional favorites, which is great fun. None of this, “I know, let’s sing My Life Is A Epic Tragedy And I Have Angst And Also My Bologna Samwich Rotted tedious pop stuff.

Highlight: Recycling traditional nonsense songs, including, but not limited to, “Don’t Take Your Cats to Town,” and “It Ain’t Me, Cat,” and the ballad about ole butter-fingered what's-his-name, whose talents including drawing pictures of a cow when he was SUPPOSED to be drawing a gun. (Easy mistake, I’ve made it myself.)

Highlight: Learning “All God’s Creatures Got a Place in the Choir” from Uncle Mark and Jason. A new favorite for me. You can hear the official version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iP27eatYxE&feature=kp but I prefer hearing Uncle Mark and Jason sing it.

Highlight: This family has a powerful lot of good voices. I haven’t heard the cousins sing much so it was great fun to hear ‘em. Yowsers, Susie and Sheila can harm-o-NIZE!!!!

Lowlight: That’s TWICE I’ve tried to kill the obnoxious mosquito buzzing around my computer and twice I’ve missed him. I throw a ball like a girl, I blow up an air mattress like a girl, and I kill mosquitoes like a girl. *sigh*

Highlight: I did NOT dream about the Titanic when I went to bed that night.

Stay tuned for more................