What I love! | Peaches Prattlings

{August 17, 2016} Happy birthday SDL!!!

One of my most favorite people in the world is celebrating her birthday today…SDL!

SDL and I met in 1998. OMG, really? We’ve known each other for almost twenty years!! Can you believe it?!

We met when SDL was working on her undergraduate degree and I was starting my graduate program at Georgia State University. We took quite a few classes together and ended up becoming friends.

There was a.period of about five years thar we saw each other once or twice but then one year we reconnected at a going away party for her coworker who was my neighbor’s son and it was back on! And we’ve been friends ever since.

We’ve hung out, gone out, stayed out, traveled together, taken care of each other, I used to take care of her furry babies and plants when she’d travel, man, there are a lot of plants!

She was there for me through some really bad times and good times. I ask remember the day she stated talking about the adoption process and everything in between to the day Miss A came home. I even got a speeding ticket taking her and DJL to the airport for that trip!

I mentioned taking classes together, they were art classes. This woman is an amazing artist, you pick a medium, she’s excelled at it! Pottery, sketching, oil, acrylic, you name it…I was even lucky enough to receive one of my favorite pieces of hers as my 40th birthday gift! Talk about photography, I remember that she was one of the last people I knew who liked to develop their own film. So incredibly talented.

She’s an amazing mother to watch, I love seeing her with Miss A, the relationship is incredible, tender, firm, loving, silly and wonderful.

I love spending time with my friend, she is a trip, steadfast, opinionated, goofy, smart, funny and true. I look forward to the next adventure with this woman.

Happy birthday SDL, rock it!

{August 16, 2016} Happy anniversary dad and LaLa

I missed telling you about a special anniversary this weekend! Shame on me!

Dad and LaLa just celebrated eleven years together!

They met through mutual friends and hit it off. He had been going out and meeting people but no one clicked until LaLa.

I remember when he first told me about her and then when they started dating and then it was on, museums, theater, opera, trips, you name it, they’ve probably done it.

They’re similar in some ways and very different in others. Dad likes to plan a trip by getting the plane tickets, hotels and going. LaLa likes to plan in more detail, which works for him, it’s all taken care of!

They are similar in being fabulous grandparents. There are four on Lana’s side and two on dad’s side and they are grandparents to all six. LaLa was around before EJS and MGS were born and dad was around before Lana’s two grandsons were born. I think I told you that EJS couldn’t say Lana’s name, so it became LaLa and stuck. The cool thing about that…LaLa means grandmother in Chinese.

They love coming to Boston to see EJS and MGS, play games, spoil the grandkids, that’s their job, after all. And when they travel, everyone gets postcards from wherever they are, we all love it.

They don’t live together, but spend just about every weekend together and it seems to work, they have their lives together and individually, which is nice.

LaLa met us and became part of the family almost immediately, we took our first trip together, BK, before kids, to Las Vegas eleven years ago and we’ve been doing a family vacation every year since that and is been nice to all get away together.

You never know what is going to happen when your parents start dating again, will they met someone nice, someone who accepts you and wants to fit in with your family, not try to take over or monopolize your parents time and that’s what is been like with them, they have adjusted and blended and become part of each other’s families.

Happy eleven years Dad and LaLa, here’s to the next eleven. We love you.

{August 14, 2016} Welcome home EJS!

And we’re all very happy she’s home!

EJS has been at sleep away camp for the past three weeks, I think MGS has been a little lonely without her big sis, but she has has a lot of personal, one on one time with mom and dad, let alone Papa, LaLa and Auntie J…

GES, ACS and MGS left this morning to pick up EJS from camp. And from the pictures GES texted it looked like a very happy reunion indeed!

They got home, I met them there, got hugs, caught up and hung out until B&SM and M&C O’F came over to have pizza, salad, home made cookies and welcome EJS home.

After dinner a little play and everyone went home, GES and I sat in the car and talked for a long time, it was nice to have some one on one time, doesn’t happen very often. We even made a possible for next weekend.

Home and now talking to you and I have to crash soon, alarm is going off way too early!!

{August 13, 2016} Suicide Squad

Surprisingly, better than I expected.

Or should I say pleasantly? Nah, nothing pleasant about this movie, technically. But, it was good. When I saw the preview, I had mixed feelings, it had some great star power, good premise and I was either going to love it or loathe it, I feared. Then the reviews started rolling in and…

Great cast of bad guys, which I say loosely, since Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robbie, is most definitely not a guy. They are called “meta humans”, they have some form of ability or ailment or whatever that makes them a little different and special, like Batman and Superman, we’d never call them mutants, huh?

You have Harley Quinn, love interest of The Joker and quite possibly more bat-sh*t crazy than he is, if that’s possible. He is the one who made her that way. The Joker is played by Jared Leto and oh my, ku ku for Coco Puffs! In this movie, he’s more like a gangster or mafia boss.

Will Smith plays Dead shot, a hit man who never misses a shot, unless he wants to. I have to say quite impressive…and only one thing that can penetrate that thick skin..his 11 year old daughter.

Jay Hernandez plays Diablo, basically a human torch, not just a human torch a bad arse human torch, he gets to really show his stuff towards the end of the movie, you’ll be surprised.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje plays Killer Croc, um…yeah. well, I liked him.
Cara Delvigne plays Dr. June Moone and The Enchantress. She was a great bad guy, except when she was doing this weird rocking, gyrating whatever calling evil spirits, bad juju whatever, it kind of killed it for me.

Joel Kinnaman played Rick Flag, the soldier in charge of this merry band of murderers. No special “metahuman” anilities, except for being able to control The Enchantress, since he and June are in love.

Viola Davis, I’m convinced, was born to play human reprobate with no conscious. I was was on the fence after watching How to Get Away With Murder, not anymore.

Even Ben Affleck, as Batman, made an appearance at few times.

All in all, a good graphic novel come to life, monsters, bad guys, superheroes. But under it all, the real stories…three love stories…the love of a dad for his daughter, the love of two completely insane individuals and the love of a soldier for his lady love inhabited by a six thousand year old angry witch. What more could you want?

A sequal.

Don’t worry, it’s coming, just sit through the credits.

{August 10, 2016} Uber driver…why can’t you all be the same?

Ok, I don’t mean the same person or all look alike, what I mean is manners, attitude, things like that. Let me ‘splain.

I started taking Uber about two years ago and a lot on this project in Chicago. After a while, certain Uber drivers have treated me so well that they have brought up my level of expectation. A good or bad thing?

I like a clean car, that’s not too much to ask, right? I like it when you see that I have bags, ask if I want it in the trunk and you get out of the car to help me or put the bag[s] in the trunk, I think that’s courteous.

I like a polite driver, someone who says hello, how are you?, someone who is didn’t frighten me with their driving.

So…to much to ask?

{August 8, 2016} What a travel day!

Did anyone else get caught up in the Delta debacle?

My flight was scheduled for 535am this morning as it has been for the last few weeks out of Boston. I got to the airport about 430am and the security lines were crazy, I’m so glad I have TSA Pre-Check! The lines for bag drop were crazy and at the Sky Priority line for Delta it was almost out the door with ONE person working, what!? Apparently the system was down, I thought just at check in, so luckily, I had two small bags and decided to travel with my checked bag. Off to security I went.

I get to the gate and find out that the system is down globally! No idea why, but down, uh oh. Since the system is down, they can’t print paperwork for the pilots and if they can’t print paperwork, we can’t get on the plane. They also printed paper tickets for us in case they can’t scan.

So, about 630, they still have no updates, I get on the phone to call my travel company. I wait for 30 minutes to talk to someone, it’s understandable. I get booked on a 730 Jet Blu flight, problem is…by the time I get to the terminal it’s too late to check in and get a boarding pass, so I call the travel company. One hour later, someone picks up the phone…

I am now booked on an 11am from Boston to Chicago. So, off to the gate I go, sit down, plug in and get to work.

Finally get on the plane, 1st row is nice, nice guy sitting next to me, was in the same boat I was, I think quite a few people were…

I finally got to Chicago, took a taxi to the airport and got in to the office about 2pm, only for hours late. But…everyone knew what was going on. GES texted “Are you on Delta?”, when I emailed someone at work to let them know I’d be late…their only response, “Delta?”

How did you all know? It was on the news! While I was switching terminals, there were at least four news stations there.
I got to the office, printed what I needed and in less than two hours, out the door for Amtrak for Springfield! I got to Springfield, took an Uber to the airport for a rental car, then to the hotel. It’s about 930pm, think I’ll make it past 1030? We’ll see…

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2016/08/08/delta-air-lines-system-outage-causes-worldwide-delays.html

{August 7, 2016} A car show and a cookout…pretty good day

I got to sleep in a minute, it was nice.

I got a little work done and headed to GES’. We went to a car museum which happened to have a car show happening today.

The museum is on the Larz Anderson Estate, http://larzanderson.org/. Very interesting history, it’s the home of America’s Oldest Car Collection. There were Electrmobiles, Porsches, BMWs.

Outside there were Porsches, Lamborghinis, Ferrari, a McLaren and so many more. It was a lot of fun, especially watching the folks at the exit waiting for cars to leave and gun the engine and take off down the street.

After the car show we went into Brookline for one of ACS’ favorite pizza joints from when he lived there.

Then back to the house to hang out for a bit until we headed across the street for dinner, all sorts of goodies on the grill. Good food, good conversation and lots of laughter.

Now, home, packed, talking to you and ready to head to the airport in a few hours. For another great week!

{August 6, 2016} A better day and a homecoming

MGS is definitely on the mend, happy about that!

We all are! Apparently she woke Papa up at 6am because she wanted to take her medicine, good girl! Then they all went back to sleep, well, Papa and LaLa did, MGS went down stairs and watched tv.

I ran some errands this morning eventually when I got up, after I convinced the cats to stop trying to wake me every hour starting at 6am…then back to GES’ to hang with MGS, dad and LaLa.

Then I headed to the airport to pick up GES and ACS. Now, when I was leaving, LaLa asked MGS who I was going to pick up and her first thought was EJS! “EJS? Oh! I get to see my sister!” So cute!

I picked up my sister and brother-in-law from their trip from Iceland and Copenhagen, they had an amazing time! Sounds fabulous! We might be following in their footsteps, who knows.

They brought all of us treats and what did I get? Some fabulous seasoning and…she fed into my addiction…a bag! Wahoo!

MGS is better, welcome home GES and ACS.

{August 5, 2016} First strep test…poor little bit

That first strep test, blech!

Oh my…what a day we had! It didn’t start so great. Last night I got to my sister’s house and MGS was already asleep, but over the course of the night she kept waking up, she was a little warm to the touch and had the sniffles.

This morning she didn’t have a fever, a little tummy ache, didn’t want to eat breakfast, but still wanted to go to camp.

We got a text from GES about 1045 this morning, who happens to be in Copenhagen this week…she got a call from camp, MGS is running a fever and we need to pick her up and bring her home. Ok…off to camp we go.

We pick her up, bring her home, give her some lunch and about 2pm we headed out to see the doctor.

In the exam room we met with a great NP, Nurser Practioner, named Lauren who asked a lot of questions and some of the answers were great…”did anything else hurt?” “My brain”, priceless!

Based on her answers, the NP came up with the same suggestion as GES, strep. Hey, a mother knows…

So, being that MGS has never had strep, this would be her first throat culture. I’m sure just about everyone reading this has had a strep test at least once in their lives. You know, the q-tip at the back of the throat and the nasty gag…let’s just say it did not go over well.

After a while she had calmed down and the results were in, positive for strep. So…off to CVS for medicine, Gatorade and treats for being a trooper!

I’m happy to say that when I left tonight she was doing much better! Thank goodness.

Feel better MGS

{August 4, 2016} Happy birthday daddy!

Today is a very special day! My dad’s birthday!

Have I ever told you my dad’s name? I don’t think so, so here it is, it’s DWS. Ha ha, what did you think, I was going to reveal someone’s ‘real’ name?

My dad…what’s so special about my dad? Well, what haven’t I told you? Well, he’s the best dad on the planet, sorry everyone else, that’s just the way it is.

He’s funny, not just when he tells a joke, but when he gets a joke, it’s awesome! Especially when he thinks it’s funny, he laughs so hard and heartily, it comes from his gut, sometimes laughing so hard he cries. Performers at comedy clubs love him and call him out after the show, his laughter is infectious. We have a very similar sense of humor and laugh at the same things, we love a lot of the same literature, music, movies, art, we can spend days talking about anything.

He taught my sister and I so much growing up, we learned so much from him and our mom. We learned love and patience, sometimes, and tolerance and acceptance. We learned what joy there is in a good back scratch.

Not only is he a great dad, he’s an amazing grandfather, or Papa to EJS and MGS. To see them together is a treat, he’s silly, goofy, generous, endearing, spoiling, you name it, he’s just that good!

We learned how to be good parents and I learned how to be a good grandparent. What could be more special?
He’s a confidant, a friend, a pal, a buddy, a co-conspirator, a hero, a teacher, an inspiration. Do you know the phrase ‘Anyone can be a father, not everyone can be a dad’, that’s who he is, a dad, our dad. And I fully admit, I’m a daddy’s girl, always will be! GES will tell you the same!

Now, if I tell you the three of us share a similar sense of humor, you might not believe me, but just check out the cards that GES and I sent to dad…the same goofy card!

Today, I started my day by sending him a text of me singing happy birthday and I got to come home early from Chicago so I could hug him and tell him happy birthday in person!

Happy birthday daddy, I/we love you!

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