Happy-making.
*ring ring*
Me: “Hello?”
Mom: “Hi, baby, I just wanted to see how you were holding up by yourself while (husband) is gone.”
Me: “Oh, pretty well. I stayed up too late on the computer, and of course (daughter) woke up at 6am, but I still managed to take her to a water park and we had a good OH MY GOD!!!”
Mom: “What? What?”
Me: “Deer! Mom, a deer just stumbled out of the woods!” (there is a medium-sized patch of woods at the edge of our yard)
Mom: “Wow!”
Me: “Yeah, it sort of stumbled out, like it didn’t mean to OH MY GOD!!!”
Mom: “What? Now what?”
Me: “Another one! Another one just followed it! There are two deer in my yard!”
Mom: “Wow!”
Me: “Yes! Wow! Oh, there they go, back alongside the woods back toward the sewage plant!” (Yes, the woods are a buffer zone between us and a sewage plant. Hush, it doesn’t stink most days.)
Mom: “Wow!”
Me: “Wow! Mommy, two deer were just in my yard!”
Mom: “Wow!”
Me: “Wow! Wow!”
Mom: “Wow! Gee, if I hadn’t called, you might not have seen it!”
Me: “Yeah! Wow! Thanks, Mom!”
Mom: “Anytime, darling. Wow!”
Me: “Wow! Okay, bye Mom! Wow!”
Last night I dreamt that the deer had stumbled out of the woods and started eating my husband’s carefully cultivated raspberries, which grow near the point from which they had emerged. I knew I should be stopping them from eating them, but all I could do was watch and be happy. I thought, “(Husband’s) going to be pissed, but this is so worth it.”
Deer live in the woods behind my house. Life is good.