An Unplanned Escape

Last night I was on the phone with my good friend, Vera, whining how we are stuck because of snow and cannot go anywhere when someone knocked on our door. I was very surprised to have a visitor as we have not had anybody not even any of Peter's sixteen siblings stop by for a random visit for whole two days now. This is because even if their car was a tank, they would not be able to make it up our mountain on steep roads that have three feet of iced snow. This visitor turned out to be a nice neighbor of ours who very graciously invited us over to his house to watch a Blazer's game and have some pizza. I was about to accept the invitation when my husband came out of the garage and joined the conversation. He didn't like the idea as much as I did.

"Basketball? Nah, its the last thing I am interested in," he said, which sounded kind of rude.

"OK, then I'll be going as I have some more neighbors to invite," said the guy and left.

"I just had a chance to LEAVE the house for the first time in a WEEK and you blew it," I scolded him.

"To go and waste an hour and a half watching a game on television? Lets spend some quality time together as a family instead, " he said.

(Yes, I know I am a lucky woman to have a husband who prefers talking to me to watching sports on television. You can go ahead and envy me.)


That is when I reminded him that we have broken our family record with the amount of hours we have spent as a family this week. We have also have spent soooooo much time in our house that an idea that one can LEAVE the house to watch a basketball game on a small television while eating grocery bought previously frozen pizza all while talking to people you hardly know sounded pretty good.

"Pizza? I didn't hear the pizza part." He said curiously.

I looked outside and saw what seemed like an exodus. Our fellow neighbors, some carrying small children were straddling over the snow bumps, trying very hard not to drop the kids on the ground. They were all heading one way, to the house of the nicest man on the block who actually gave a care about the sanity of his neighbors who have not left home in a week or more.

Not to much convincing came after I mentioned the pizza part and my husband agreed to go. I looked through my food deprived fridge and kitchen cabinets in an effort to find something that I could contribute to the party but found nothing. So I got out enough food to make a mediocre fruit salad while Peter got the kids ready. Right before we were to head out the door I looked my kids straight in the eyes and with a serious face said,

"Make sure you eat my fruit salad, even if no one else does, you hear?"

They nodded in agreement as they too were ready to do anything to get out of the house we usually are pretty fond of.