memories....

it was taking something just mean and using it for fun.
and it's one of my favorite memories.

the creativity involved, the fun, and the just not taking
the mean seriously all added into such a good time.

one of my friends had a sister in law who was just not nice.
my friend tried to be nice to her, welcome her to the country,
all that kinda thing....but perhaps this woman was just insecure,
nervous about being in a foreign country, and just didn't know
how to handle it all. or perhaps she was just kinda petty.

i always had the feeling it was the petty deal.

whatever it was, it hurt my friend more than once who kept trying
to open her heart to her and include her in her life.

at a gathering, i saw this woman be really snide to my friend
and insult her dip made from walnuts. and she told her that the
walnuts were stale.

this totally hit my funny bone.
the whole thing.
her face when she tasted the dip. (i happened to be looking in
her direction and caught the whole thing)
the whole stale walnut insult. i mean, come on. really?? couldn't
you come up with something better than that???
just the whole concept.

on the way home, i told my (at the time)husband about it.
and truly, he had some great moments that i remember and this is
one of them. it hit his funny bone too.

and the stale walnut jokes occupied us all the way home.
the kids were in the car and we just kept at it.
laughing all the way home.
not at the woman.
that wasn't the theme.
that woulda been mean.
and it wasn't about that.

the stale walnuts were the theme.
somehow, that just grabbed our imaginations.

the first thing to happen was a goofy answering machine message.
we liked to make new goofy ones all the time just to entertain ourselves.
this was baseball season and i think the guy's name was mark mcguire.
he was hittin home runs at the time.

so josh and his dad made a message that was like a baseball game
with mark mcguire hitting the stale walnut outta the stadium.
the crowd roared. the whole deal. we loved that one!

and that was the start.

yeah, this may be one of those 'you had to be there' things.......
but when i think back of how we took that and ran with it, i just
laugh out loud.

we had a stale walnut party.
the boys and their dad cut a big wooden walnut out of wood and
attached a chain to it. it was the 'walnut of shame'....we had
everyone come to the party with goofy names they picked for themselves.
no one could use their regular names. and if they did, they had to
wear the walnut of shame until the next person goofed up, and the
walnut was passed forward.

we made fortune walnuts, drilling little holes in the walnuts and
slipping in fortunes.....

josh was a teen then and was instant messaging all the time with
his buds. i remember they formed one of those on line groups and
called it 'the stale walnut fraternity.'

never has one theme carried into such fun.

and what it did was take some hurt for my friend and lighten it and
make it all easier.

it set up a stage for laughter.
which in those days, we just plain needed.
heck, in every day we just plain need.

a few months later, we were all at another gathering
and yes, my friend's sister in law was there.

and yes, my friend burnt the lasagna.

and yes, i was in the kitchen.

and yes, i doubled over in laughter and laughed so hard i
couldn't stand up straight.

and yes, for christmas, i made my friend a burnt lasagna necklace.