Lucky Loser

There's been a lot of talk over the last week or so about the lottery. I guess a jackpot of 656 million will do that. It was amusing to watch people fantasize about what they would do with their piece of the pie but it was depressing to see the mile-long lines of hopeful gamblers waiting to cross state lines to plunk their money down on a ticket that would inevitably be thrown in the trash. If you're wondering, I did throw five of my hard-earned dollars on a quick pick. True to form, my ticket of thirty numbers boasted only one of the winning digits. They ought to give out some kind of consolation prize for people with that kind of luck.

While everyone else was obsessing about the Mega-Millions, I was busy playing another game; something where skill trumps luck - mini-golf. Now there's a game I can relate to. Take a little, hot pink ball, try to go under the lion's mouth, around the tiger's tail, past the strategically placed boulder, and put it into a six-inch hole. We used to make a habit of frequenting the "links" when the kids were little but now, here I was, smacking those silly balls around with a six-foot tall twenty-three year-old man and a beautiful twenty-five year-old woman. We supposedly put this outing together to entertain my twelve year-old nephew but that was just a ruse. I rarely get the chance to corral both of my busy kids in the same place at the same time so I'll use every excuse I can get my hands on.

So we printed out the Groupon for an arcade/golf extravaganza and headed to Oswego. I watched as my nephew got a hole in one, I sighed as my engineer husband got two. When my daughter read the scores over the requisite celebratory pizza, I was surprised to learn that my golfing skills had let me down - last place. It was that 5 on that darn octopus hole that did me in. My competitive nature, not to mention my pride, almost got the best of me until I took a good look around the table.

There was no doubt about it. Losing had never felt this good.

Spring Brake

This used to be a pretty good time of year for me. Since my husband traveled a lot for work, our family didn't get to spend as much quality time together as we would have liked. One of the ways we over-compensated was to take one fabulous vacation every year. That usually happened over our kids' Spring Break. Like every other crazy family trying to squeeze in a vacation during our children's school holidays, we overpaid for ridiculously crowded hotels in warm, exotic locales. I have to say - I kind of miss it.

Don't get me wrong; I don't miss having to take vacations when everyone and their brother does. The fact that my husband and I are now on our own makes for spontaneous (and infinitely cheaper) getaways. But I do miss the planning, the anticipation, and the looks on our kids' faces when they stepped into our home away from home for the first time. Once, we even had adjoining rooms where they could raid their very own mini-bar (which was included - I didn't need to see those rapturous looks enough to pay $10 for a Hershey bar!) We all loved the change of scenery and the chance to interact with one another away from TV, computers and telephones. Well, maybe our son didn't love it as much as the rest of us but he humored us enough to make us think he did. Anyway, the point is that those weeks turned out some memorable moments worth every penny those shyster vacation mongers charged us. So while most of my friends and co-workers are off enjoying the crowded sunshine with millions of other together-time starved families, I'll have to settle for sitting outside in unseasonably warm Illinois flipping through old photo albums.

And there will be a part of me waiting impatiently for a couple of grandchildren to get the chance to do it all over again.