Trena Eiden

Leaving Wyoming, we made it to our kids the first night, in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Our 5-year-old granddaughter, Quinn, was holding the neighbor’s cat they were babysitting. I asked its name and she said, what I thought was, “Saliva.” Turns out it was Solara. Just as dumb in my book.  

We bought Quinn a small, stuffed squirrel family complete with grandparents in eyeglasses. She also has lots of toy farm animals and forest creatures. She loves her Aunt Lunny’s old dollhouse so after church, lined up the house, plus all her smaller buildings and a barn, side by side to make a big home for all her critters. The people who came with the dollhouse were in a box away from everything so I asked her what she was going to do with them? Frowning, she glanced at their container thinking, then happily quipped, “I know, we can pretend they’re chickens.” Honestly, I like her thinking.  

We finally got to Florida where our RV was stored and visited with our kids for a few days. Our daughter-in-law Wendy freezes leftovers for her mom who lives close by. The first night at their house, 9-year-old Wes was sitting by me in the kitchen when his mom opened the freezer. As she moved things around, Wes turned to me and in all seriousness, proudly remarked, “We give Mimi all our ‘expired’ food.” Our grandkids make Gar and I laugh a lot, and Gar likes to remind me they all get their sense of humor from him. It’s probably true, but a few of them are flesh of my flesh. One night as we got ready to go out to dinner, 12-year-old Lyds remarked to me, “I wanna sit in the front.” I nodded, expecting her to give a good reason why this should be. When I raised my eyebrows, she added, “Because I don’t want to sit in the back.” She’s me. Who needs a reason when our own logic works just fine? At dinner that night Lyds sat between me and Gar. Turning to her Gramps she said, “I heard a joke today. Don’t let your coworkers put you in a bad mood. Come to work in a bad mood.” Gar hugged her chuckling, “Oh boy, you sound like your Grammy.”  

When we pull our RV from storage, before moving in, I like to wash all the linens kept in it. This includes sheets, blankets, towels, pillows, etc. It’s a lot and usually I take a couple days to get it done, using our children’s laundry room. Unfortunately, this time they had a new washer/dryer set coming and Home Depot decided to ruin my life by installing them the very day I wanted to do my laundry. I took our belongings to a laundromat.  

When I got there, it was wall-to-wall people and every washer was full except a line of five. I wondered why those were empty, but soon realized it was because they were the smallest in the facility. It was like God was testing me saying, “I’m giving you washers and 90 sweaty people, whatcha gonna do?” I’m not sure God uses slang, but I told him what I was gonna do. I was gonna persevere, but I was gonna have PTSD later.  

I loaded the five available washers, plus one I had to race an old woman with a walker for. With no signs on the dryers, I asked two foreign-looking gentlemen how long the dryers ran on a quarter? One guy looked at the other, so I knew he wasn’t full of information. The other guy smiling, replied, “I don’t know.” I asked, “You don’t know how long the dryers will go, or you don’t know what I’m saying?” He said, “Yes.” I felt like I was dealing with a 40-year-old teenager.  

Nearly finished, as I folded blankets, I heard a guy across the room say he knew where to get free marijuana. Another guy said, “Serious?” The first guy said, “Ya man, marijuana is medicine in Alabama.” Another guy kept walking by me, saying, “Hello ma’am.” Did he take me for a nice person? If so, what a naïve, misguided, poor judge of character.  

We finally made it to our final destination, Lake Jackson, Texas, and pulled into our kids’ place. I hopped out, hugged 12-year-old grandson Romes and said, “Hey bud, how ya doin?” He hugged me back, and said what we all feel, “Life took a toll on me, I’m barely making it through 2026.” Haha.