5)  Happy Birthday, Spacewolf!  (Zac’s 25th Birthday video)

4) My mom’s love of telling time, my dad’s ADD confessions, and Zac’s pranks… humor… and awesomeness.

3)  The time I was called a lesbian, saw Ryan Adams and The Cardinals, John Mayer, Ingrid, the Crows and Matty Nay to name a few, fed the masses, begged my bffs take over, and celebrated my 27th in style.

2) Written back at the beginning of the great CaresTeam departure/Laurel moving out on her own.

Change is still headed my way. I’m still gonna have moments of complete and utter collapse, and what needs to happen in the next few months will still overwhelm me. But, I’ve stopped playing the reality peek-a-boo game because I know that time marches on whether or not you want it to. For now, let’s go ahead and schedule a time this fall where we can all sit back and laugh at my drama queen distress today. We’ll watch the Arizona sun set as we sip iced tea, and I won’t be offended when you remind how we all knew deep down… it would be okay.

Say it with me now… you were right. It was/ok better than ok.

1) The great Charlie abduction, ransom note, detective work, and New World Order video.

It had been five years since I had traveled to visit my grandparents.  In that time, grandma had had a stroke, and to be honest I had done the grandma who says mean things because of her illness and was more than wary of dealing with it all over again.  It’s amazing the excuses we make and build for ourselves when we want to, “too busy at work”, “too busy with Cares”, “too understaffed at work” and “Flagstaff would crumble if I were to leave”.  But with a little encouragement and accompaniment from Zac and a list of rules to keep me out of trouble from my mom (No cleavage, perfume, unladylike language, and shoes in the house), I did what I’d be dreading for months and stepped on that plane.

In a flash it was seven days later and I hugged my family goodbye and walked with Zac down that airport walkway with tears in my eyes at the realization of how wrong I had been.  My time with my grandparents was a time I’ll forever cherish.  There was no moment where I regretted being there.  The days were not as boring as I had been warned they’d be.  We played rummy after breakfast and sat on the porch and talked after dinner.  We played Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? and some other hideous game Zac made us play.  We laughed and listened and reconnected.  One afternoon as I was doing dishes and grandma was showing me where things went, she asked about my job.  After a quick, ‘Wal-Mart’ explanation of what I do, she asked if I liked it.  “I love it,” I gushed.  “Well, it sounds downright scary to me,” she replied with a laugh in her voice, “as long as you’re happy.”

Of course, our worlds were different.  They wake up every morning before six and would prefer if we were up to.  They like cereal and milk in the mornings before my eyes want to open, and quiet, bland restaurants when I like Mexican and Thai.  We both love fish, but they like Friday Fish Fry Dinners at 2pm, and I prefer sushi.  I check my email on my cell phone, and they rock the Earthlink MailStation.  Yet, when it comes down to it, the walls I thought divided us and made our paths uncrossable were just the details that make us unique individuals in this family.

As I look back on my time there, there’s one moment that sticks out.  It was the last afternoon we were there and grandma had disappeared. I walked to the end of the hall to see if she had gone to take a nap, when she appeared out of her bathroom.  She told me she wished we could stay longer but understood I had to go home to work.  We joked about the joys of being an adult and having to pay bills and be responsible.  In a moment of vulnerability, I confessed that I feared I was a much better kid than I was an adult.  She patted my arm and said, “I think you’re doing a mighty fine job at being an adult,” and walked away as I fought back the tears at her approval.  With all of my fear and worry about how my grandmother and I would get along, my time with her was the time I wouldn’t give back for anything.  I’m very aware that both of my grandparents won’t be here forever, but it’s nice (as selfish as it may be) to have happy memories at the end of the story to cling to and carry on with.  Because despite the ups and downs and distance literally and figuratively, we have been and always will be family.

(I took this last night at around 8:15 pm.  Proving that we were all smarter than a 5th grader exhausted the grandparents… Or maybe it was putting up with their Arizona grandkids… hmmm.)