Greetings Friends ...

We're Going to Expedite This Holiday!

2019 Happy Holidays!

I am awakened to a phone call. This is just one of too many to count. It is important to note that in these trying times, some things never change. Daddy (a.k.a. Col Marc Powe) is still escaping from memory care. Protocol dictates that the staff at Isle at Watercrest begin the call in this manner:

Alex: Hello?

Isle: Alex, your dad is okay but …

It is here that I will next learn about how my father has done something somewhere somehow. Currently, there are several “open” investigations. On this phone call, however, I learn that Daddy has made it upstairs, through a locked stairwell again. The story, however, is best told from the perspective of Rose, one of our beloved caregivers.

Rose: I was standing at my station when the nurses called from upstairs. They said, ‘Rose, the Colonel is upstairs,’ I said ‘No, this is impossible. He is sitting right here eating his pancakes,’ but they say, ‘No, Rose, he is right here, waving at everyone.’ [shaking head] “I say, ‘No,’ this is impossible. ‘He is right here eating his—oh, my God, he’s gone!”

There will be another investigation. There should be an investigation into what happened with my car. Our dealership kept the car for eight days, no explanation, and only began working on it on the eighth which allowed the radiator fan, which ran non-stop, to drain the battery and then, without admitting the battery had had to be jumped, returned my car so that on the eve of the eighth day – no rental, no loaner – the car went dead and the dealer said (essentially) ‘sucks to be you.’ Homebound and angry, Katie continues to send random pictures from her veterinarian schooling, shoulder-deep into the back end of a cow, grinning like she just discovered teeth. It’s only 7 am. Geez!

Speaking of shoulders, this kid had two complete tears in the rotator cuff and a partial bicep. Surgery was imminent. Post-shoulder surgery (six weeks), I was instructed to lift no more than two pounds but got busted holding my BRAND-NEW GRANDDAUGHTER (That’s right! That’s right!) with the online message of “That’s more than 2 lbs.” Actually, I was doing squats with her so … Last year when I had foot surgery I, under heavy sedation, refused to get into my bed until Tommy rearranged all my furniture. I have no memory of this but just to be cautious, I rearranged my living room before surgery. That’ll show me! But brat-face Tommy still got me. When he drove me around town in that first week, he’d roll down the windows at traffic lights and blare Kenny G., telling me to “surrender to the soothing sounds of Kenny,” while bobbing his head like he was really into it. I hate that kid sometimes. How about I listen to the soothing sounds of clippers taken to your hair, boy!

Tommy called with a weird skin rash. He’s going to Texas State University with Katie and, together, they like to go rafting down the river as much as possible. As he described the skin rash, I Googled madly. There are some pretty scary parasites in the water that can-- “…and my skin also feels so hot, it’s kind of bubbling and—” That’s called a sunburn, you idiot! Our genius language student who is taking Russian, Arabic and Spanish, when not playing video games, got his first sunburn in years. #GenerationZ-need-to-get-outside-more-often! Because Kyle has a weird aversion to fingernails (he’s a forensic lab technician, c’mon!) and I mentioned that Douglas, our dog, loves to eat fingernail clippings, Kyle has to find a “quiet place” to trim his nails so for a present we’re going to give him a professional manicure, save the clippings and then make him watch Douglas eat his nails. It’s for science.

Katie thought it prudent to run a full marathon (that’s 26.2 miles) without ever having run any further than 12 miles so at mile 19 when she was ‘going down’ her boyfriend, Grant, not a runner, decided to run the next 7 miles with her because no one likes to suffer like the Allreds. In Grant’s case, just being around an Allred means he needed to suffer. This would include his Celiac Disease which Katie counts as her personal blessing because if a waiter messes up a meal or if they go to an Italian restaurant that has bread on the table, “It’s all mine. I should’ve dated a guy with a gluten intolerance a long time ago!”

Michelle (or Aunt Mimi), not to be outdone, stumbled in late to a graduation ceremony at her high school so loudly that she received a standing ovation but her true moment of glory was in memory care when Ms. Elwanda (who is deaf and therefore yells everything) told Michelle, “Don’t you dare take your clothes off and pee on the floor!” Michelle, cognizant of all the caregivers and visiting family members but also woefully aware of our genetic makeup thus fearful of one day actually stripping off her clothes and relieving herself, assured Elwanda she would not while also jokingly saying, “I have, in fact, found that doing so in public is a party killer!” Hardeehar-- Crickets. Everyone just stared at her. #Dont-Joke-In-Memory-Care. They are now watching her very carefully and the next time there is a potty mess on the floor … there will be an investigation.

Robb is angry that he lost before making the Fantasy Football championships and sent out an “I hate everyone in this league” note that derailed into his hate of people who wear crocs, people who “like art,” and tinsel on trees. “I hate watching American Ninja, knowing I can’t do any of that stuff. I hate people who go to NYC and I hate when I look upstairs and there’s a light on up there but nobody in the room.” But his hate of Peloton – the commercial? Oh, it was real before it became the thing to hate this holiday season. He has “trigger” commercials. Liberty insurance and the Dominoes Pizza commercials are, perhaps, the worst and it is because of this that this year’s anti-holiday letter comes to you so late. On December 23^rd, we arranged to have Dominoes “expedite this order!” just for Robb (Don’t know what this means? Google the Domino’s commercial) He will literally dive for the remote to mute this and soooo ….. this is how it went down: https://youtu.be/Z7TsSG6NqB0 under “Robb’s Expedited Pizza”

Knock, knock (I was hiding outside, scared the poop out of Connor, delivery guy, while Katie and Kyle recorded)

Connor (awesome delivery guy): How’s it going, sir? We’ve expedited this order for you, free of charge.

Robb: What?

Connor: It’s free, sir.

Robb: Is it? How did that happen?

Connor (still in his role, what a champ): Free of charge. We expedited this for you

Robb (suspicious): You guys must have heard something …

[giggles in the background]

Don’t get me wrong, everyone suffered this year in other ways. But there were a few ah-has, like after more than 20 years of having to sit in H&R Blocks while Robb scrutinized every danged expenditure (If I’m traveling 60 MPH but on a more rural highway where there are numerous curves in the road, thus putting more pressure on the outside of my tires and my car weighs precisely 4,060 pounds, how many miles can I expect out of the tires, how much gas have I spent and how can this be an expenditure?) and having to hear his annual tax joke (“We were told that on our eighth visit, we get a free filing,”) I learned that I have not had to actually endure that! Another accountant sauntered by, no doubt feeling really sorry for our accountant. I think they have a code in the office, which was why our agent kept repeating, “Serenity now!” over and over. She said, “You know, you can drop off your tax information. You don’t have to sit here.” What does she mean we can drop off the information and not sit here for hours?!? A ray of light began to rise up from behind this woman, and I smelled something like hope or freedom that grew and grew so that I could barely speak. I whispered, “Wait. This is a thing? You can just drop off your tax information and—” Robb tried to tell his joke again but it was too late. The angel was talking still. Yes, you can leave your information and we will prepare it all for you.

True suffering combined with absolute joy and light, however, came in the way of our granddaughter Eleanor Katherine Beckman, aka, Ella. No one suffered as much as Kerri. And that, by the way, is the goal of this family each year – who can win ‘who-suffered-most.’ And, by the way, for those who don’t understand how little our Generation Z understand things, when Michelle told a few of her students how rough the labor & delivery had been, a boy listening nearby began gagging, struck dumb with horror and disbelief. “She threw up her baby?” Before she could explain that babies do not come out of mouths, he was wildly explaining to the rest of the stunned class how a lady puked up her baby and this, ladies and gentlemen, is how urban legends are born. #GenerationZkids-really-need-to-read-more!

With a 102-degree F fever, Kerri delivered our first granddaughter, Ella, vomiting. The perk to this is Kerri has almost no memory of labor & delivery. Ella, all 20 inches and 7.8 pounds of her, entered into the world with a massive fever and had to have a spinal tap by day two of her life. (She’s brought untold joy ever since!) While new father, the forensic scientist Kyle, was forced to face his other fears of human excrement, the runner-up of this letter goes to the Colonel – not for suffering but his continued pursuit of escape & evade tactics. It’s not an easy job but someone’s gotta do it. #LifeWithDementia.

From us to you … Happy Holidays and may 2020 bring you soothing sounds, standing ovations, great deliveries, and expedited pizzas as you traverse your own marathon!

The Allreds

Robb, Alexandra, Katie & Tommy; Kerri, Kyle & Ella Beckman; Marc and Michelle Powe, and, as always, the dogs!