memories

Its funny how some things just kind of float into your mind at odd times.
Its like this for me tonight. I am here, at work, and, as you've probably figured from my posting times of the two nights past, this is the "slow" part of the night.
So I'm here, and thinking, watching my patients, doing boring stuff, and a memory springs to mind, un bidden, all on its own.
I remember, during the holidays, especially the spring and summer ones, playing Croquet in Grandma and Grandpa's back yard.
It was always competative, but fun. My Dad (the newly christened Uncle Heinz, who is married to Aunt Tuna) always had the black ball. Lots of trash talk would go on, people would take GREAT pleasure into "sending" someone else's ball out into the far reaches of what felt like a big back yard, to me. Now that I'm grown, that backyard is a postage stamp, and I wonder how we even managed to set the whole game up back there.
I remember winning once. Was I "given" the win? Maybe. I was a child. My prize for winning was that Dad took me to the store, and bought me a plastic container of bubbles. How I loved blowing bubbles.
But more fun, was the family, in the back yard, smacking the hell out of croquet balls and trash talkin'.
If I remember right, around Christmas we also played baseball with empty wrapping paper sticks, and wrapping paper balls.
As I got older, the family past time evolved into playing cards. Many a night was spent around the card table, playing "blitz" for dimes, and being allowed to play one hand "on your honor" after your dimes were gone. Grandpa, when he "knocked" to indicate he either had 31, or was close to it, would practically bang a hole in the table as he laughed gleefully, knowing he'd probably win. He was quite a card shark. My Mom had a glass dining room table for a long time, and I always worried he'd knock right through it. He used to also love to torment us by gently tapping the table, as if in thought, like he was GOING to knock, maybe, but was he? Or wasn't he.
And Grandma. She's just as skillful with the cards, in a quieter, more devious way.
We still play cards at times. 'Skip-bo' is a favorite. But, its just not the same. And I haven't played croquet in years.
My oldest sister though, (can we call her sister crazy? um, well, maybe not but I am tempted)
she has a croquet set, just like the one we used to play with. She found it at an antique store one year when she was visiting me.
Maybe, someday, we'll break that sucker out, and make sure we have plenty of bubbles to go around!