The Good, The Bad and The Gag Reflex

I absolutely adore my younger brother.....hence the title. He loves Clint Eastwood movies and one of his favorites is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Not a personal favorite of mine, but he and I have enough movies that we do agree on that we can see past this one. LOL
So most nights he will call me and we will sit on the phone and chat over what the day was like, or an upcoming movie we both want to see like (INSERT SHAMELESS MOVIE PLUG HERE) An American Carol, which by the way looks like it will be HILARIOUS (and may I just say it's about time somebody gave conservative America a chance to verbally and visually smack around the OBNOXIOUS and ARROGANT Michael Moore in his own media of choice, the silver screen....but I digress)! One of our absolute favorite things to do is to watch Red Sox games on the phone together. Yes I said on the phone...we live about 25 miles away from each other which isn't really that far at all, we could watch it together in person easy enough, but there's a unique bonding that takes place when you watch it over the phone. I can't really explain it...but it's become our thing and we both enjoy it immensely. Last year my favorite part of the entire World Series was sitting up until far past my bedtime each night and screaming excitedly (not an easy feat when you want to raise the roof and jump up and down but you don't want to wake your husband who's sleeping in the next room....but somehow I managed...lol) into the phone as we watched our Bosox knock out the games like tipping over bowling pins. I am so thankful, not just for the brother sister relationship we share, but also for the friendship we've developed over the years.
So all of that to say.........I had stayed home from work yesterday because of a migraine and a fever and had felt pretty crappy all day. Ben had lovingly doted on me before he had to go to work and then called and checked on me during the day. Sarge kept an ever watchful guard on me all day long just in case the evil chipmunks that are trying to get into the house for the Winter decided to invade and try to carry me away. Of course he also dutifully checked to make sure that my reflexes were not being affected by my headache by periodically bringing me his squeaky monkey to throw.
As evening came my headache was finally subsiding and Rog made his nightly call to me. As we chatted and watched a tv show together I realized that even though I hadn't felt well all day and I could have scrathed the day off as a really bad day and just generally felt sorry for myself, I really COULDN'T. How can it be a crappy day when I'm surrounded by people (and a mini marine) that love me? Yeah I felt crappy....but how I feel doesn't determine the course of the day....it's just how I FEEL....feelings are fickle. So this morning even though I still felt pretty crappy I woke up and decided that no matter what happens today will be a great day.

Ohhhhhhhhh WAIT..............I almost forgot........we covered The Good, we covered The Bad....what about The Gag Reflex?

So as I'm laying in bed this morning for my final 5 minutes before having to get up and I'm listening to the radio and deciding that no matter what comes my way this is going to be a good day.......Ben came running into the bedroom, "Fran, come quick.....Sarge threw up under my desk!"
Sooooooooo I jump out of bed.......and go into the office where my sweet Marine is standing halfway across the room and shining a flashlight under the desk and saying, "EWWW..it stinks.." (I don't know about you...but so far in my life I don't think I've ever encounterd vomit that DIDN'T stink...however this particular one brought back memories of Peter Pan...Beth you know what I mean!) It was at this moment that I was about to respond when suddenly the boy was behind Ben and began heaving again....(Of course, we temporarily forgot..our little fluff has a thing for barfing in twos because just once is never enough...he might miss a chunk) Immediately we went into fight or flight mode "Grab him! Get him into the hall!! QUICK!!(we got to the hall...still no barf) QUICK, get him to the kitchen if you can...less mess!!!" So with tiny white paws dragging behind him Ben ran to the kitchen and dropped the boy in a heap then ran across the room as if he had just deployed a grenade. Meanwhile the pitiful little fluff who by this point had been so upset with the whole ordeal, and slinked over to lean up against me for comfort, decided that it was too much for his bladder that was still waiting for his morning potty break and as I stood comforting him decided to pee instead of barfing. **sigh** Not just a piddle....not just a puddle....no....this was the equivelant to Lake Michigan......
So as I stood there amid a husband scrambeling for paper towels, a dog with soggy paws looking at me with eyes that begged, "I'm sorry mom, I didn't mean to..." and a headache making an appearance for the third day in a row I had to choose. (This is the stuff Excedrin commercials are made of...WHY haven't they called me??) Moments ago I had decided that no matter what this was going to be a good day....did I MEAN that? Tick....tick....tick....tick...the moments passed.....yes, this is covered under my "Anti crappy day" policy.
Yeah you heard me....I'm sorry, but life just ISN'T bad....stuff happens, inconvenient and sometimes frustrating stuff...and sometimes nasty stuff too...(I did NOT feed him whatever that was..EWWW....) but is that enough to say life sucks or this day sucks? No.....not really..........not at all actually.......it's still just STUFF. There is STILL ALWAYS going to be too much to be thankful for. The same head that has a fever and headache is the same head that holds all the great memories of the past and hopes for tomorrow and the same nose that smelled that vomit is the same nose that enjoys the smell of apple pie baking, and the same dog that puked and peed is the same dog that lovingly wakes me up when Ben tells him to "Go wake up mommy". The same things that register the bad things also register the good things. ALWAYS. So I choose to focus on the good and be thankful in spite of those bad times....life is just too good not to.