Calendars are good for more than pictures of cute puppies

By Margi Washburn

"So, basically, you bought a calendar to remind us of one of the biggest mistakes we've ever made. And we get to look at it every day this year."

Hubby was paging through one of the new calendars I'd bought, and silly me, I thought he'd love it. It was special, twelve months of labrador retrievers, and more than half of them could have been our very own Sarah."Don't you like it?" I asked. There was a sigh, a smile, and then a pat on the dog's head. "I guess," he said, as he hung it on the kitchen wall.

I don't blame anyone for their lack of enthusiasm about the calendars I buy. They're important to me, and although I haven't figured out just why, I look forward to finding the half dozen new ones that find their way into our home every January.

Some are free, and they come in various forms. There's the little cardboard one from a local gas station that I keep on my desk at work. Someone gave me one they got in the mail, along with a Farmer's Almanac. That went on the wall in front of my computer at home.The huge desk calendar with lots of big squares is to my left in my home office. I write social and work reminders on that one, and cross off each day in light blue marker.

The one to my right is small and thin and I use it to keep track of my working hours. It used to go in my purse, but I keptignoring it there.Usually our youngest will buy me a Get Fuzzy page-a-day calendar for Christmas, but this time I bought my own. I love getting my favorite comic strip for half price, and I get 365 strips for under six bucks. How could anyone pass that up?

So, I guess that's about six calendars, and four of them are in one room. A psychiatrist would have a blast with that information.Tracking the days, weeks, and months isn't all I do. We go through heck on earth whenever it's time to change the clocks, whether it's that time of the year or the electricity goes off. Between our wristwatches, the VCRs, and the dozen clocks, we're about ready to pull our hair out by the time we'refinished.

Does having this many reminders mean that we're always on time for appointments and parties? Actually, yes, it does. But I think my fascination with calendars has become more pronounced over the years simply because there are so many to choose from.

For instance, we already had the doggy calendar, and all of the labs are adorable, but we were in a real, honest-to-goodness pet store one day, and I saw the other half of Sarah. We now know she's a lab and Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, so when I saw a calendar of Ridgebacks, I got excited. Thankfully, hubby was there to pour water all over my enthusiasm with one withering glance, though we did check out every picture. Yup, here was Sarah, too, with the line down her back, the dark brown toenails, and the wrinkly forehead.

That wasn't all I found in that store, and if I'd been alone, our bank balance would have been much lighter than it is now. There was a gigantic ball of twisted rope, one of our pup's favorite things in the world to chew on, and it was just under $30. Thing is, Sarah manages to completely shred any ropes we buy, no matter how tough they appear to be. It would be easier to simply put a lighted match to our money and watch it burn, because too many of our pet toys end up in the trash bag within half an hour after they meet our dog.

In retrospect, it could be that as I get older I've become more obsessed with time, but I don't think so. I think we all want to have places to go and people to see. It's comforting to fill in those blank squares with lunch dates and shopping trips, and reminders that our lives are full. Time is precious, and though none of us needs a calendar to tell us that, it's nice to know there are so many perfect ones to choose from. That goes especially for the one hanging in my kitchen.

Come on down, the road's fine, and bring my cookies

By Margi Washburn

Hubby's mom seemed so sure that the road down to her house was fine. "You shouldn't have a problem," she said. "Everyone else is getting up and down just fine." I had serious doubts about our ability to do the same, and I voiced them to hubby for the tenth time.

"We don't have front-wheel drive in your car," I said. "Little Red would work fine, maybe, but my brakes are iffy. Real iffy." It freaked me out to drive my car under the best road conditions, but as you all know, the roads have been a trifle icy and snow-packed since the storm of the month. The road in front of mom's is one of the worst because it goes downhill, and should someone with iffy brakes attempt to visit her, and their brakes would fail, they would wind up in the creek. Well, I should amend that; right now there's a mini-mountain of snow jammed at the bottom of the hill from when the road was plowed.

Hubby assured me that we should try to visit his mom on the Monday evening after the storm. We had an hour, because she was getting ready to leave but she wanted her cookies. I had done her a favor the Saturday before by picking up a few pounds of cookies from the First Baptist Church cookie walk. This appears to be the church's last such venture, and mom has gone for years, but this time she was socked in with snow and couldn't make it.

I was getting nervous having that many delectable goodies in my house, so I reluctantly agreed we should go and drop them off. We decided to take the little car, and sometime around 5:30 we arrived. We didn't slide into the pile of snow, and the driveway was in pretty good shape.

We visited for a bit, and watched Wheel of Fortune. Mom was getting picked up around 7, so we put on our heavy coats, stuffed ourselves into the car and backed up. And there we sat.

One of my few faults is that I wait until my dashboard screams at me in red letters that the car is dangerously low on gas. I had ignored its warning for almost two whole days, which was supremely stupid, because now I couldn't keep my eyes off of the accusing message. I wanted to turn on the heat, but was afraid it would use more gas, so I shut it off. Besides, it was easier to hear hubby make many, many comments about being stuck at the bottom of the hill in the dark.

There we sat, spinning our tires, and filling the air with the smell of burning rubber. At about that time, mom's ride came down the hill in a car just like the one we'd left at home. It had no front-wheel drive and it was headed straight for us.

Hubby flashed his brights on and off at the driver. There was a hesitation, then the car came down the hill. I dialed my prayer partner, and I'm afraid I scared her by speaking gibberish for a few seconds.

When I could see that the car was going to miss us by a few feet, I asked my aunt to pray for us. She was laughing and so was I, until the driver in the big car got stuck. It was time to call hubby's brother and ask for help.

I could see mom silhouetted in the light from her garage as she watched the two cars spinning their tires. Hubby got out and met the other driver, who shared a bottle of sand with us. Eventually, the big car made it over halfway up the hill; he and mom walked up there, got inside, and drove away.

We spent a few more harrowing minutes stuck, then hubby whipped the car into a neighbor's driveway, backed into his mom's, and tore out of there so we could get up the hill. Now I had to call and cancel the help that was on the way.

It figured that my brother-in-law had already left, so we sat at the top of the hill and met him. We all had a good laugh, then went our separate ways. I was never so glad to get home in my life.

Here's the thing. Mom's is a favorite place for lots of folks to drop by for coffee, sweets and stimulating coversation. It's been that way for years, and once the ice melts off the road, she's going to get a lot of company. I guess it's a good thing hubby and I risked life and limb to deliver those wonderful cookies the other night. You know, just in case someone wanted to set aside a special treat for a certain couple, because I'm sure they'll be back.