This wind! It's "Wizard of Oz" wind. It whistles like an old man talking through a chipped tooth. It's pretty crazy. I don't really know what to make of it. They say on the news it'll die down by tomorrow, but it woke me up again last night. It's the raccoon version of wind...it only comes out at night. I'm proud of the boys for not even noticing it. They've slept straight through, even when all those branches blew down a few nights ago. But it's waking me up and frankly, I'm tired of it. It makes me want to have a glass of warm milk when it wakes me up at night even though it's a "warm wind." This is a hard concept for me. Wind = Chilly to me. And then I have to pee because I can't be up for more than nine seconds without having to pee. It's a whole thing.

The wind must have kept Barb up the other night too or she was afraid it was keeping Nell up or something because when I woke up and was en route (my new favorite phrase that I love putting in italics) to the loo, Barb was in Nell's room holding her. Come to think of it, it wasn't even really blowing that bad that night...not as bad as the others, but Barb was up and was with Nell and it was so sweet my heart felt like a warm and gooey brownie right out of the oven. It was one of those times I wish I was just a little ladybug or something and I could walk in the room and just watch and watch and watch and never be seen or interrupt the awesomeness that I was witnessing. It doesn't matter one bit but I wonder why she was still up (Barb, I mean). It wasn't late - Bill was still out (I'll get to that in a second) - but Barb and I both decided right after dinner that we were gonna hit the sack early, me after a long bath. She didn't mention that the wind kept or woke her up...but then again, I didn't ask her. I wasn't gonna ruin it. She was holding Nell like she was put on this earth to hold Nell. It was a really neat moment for me.

We stayed up for a while after that and she still never mentioned the wind. (Why am I so into cracking this case? Geez. Why does it matter? Maybe she just woke up and said, "you know what? I wanna hold Nell so I'm gonna go and hold Nell for a while." And that's just what she did. It doesn't matter.)

So we decided to wait up for Bill and it was fun because we don't get much mano-y-mano time to ourselves. (Does that mean "man to man?" If so, what's the female-to-female version?)¹ She was more talkative than normal. She told a story about her and Cindy, when they were kids, that's made a giggle each time I've thought about it since - not that it's like super hilarious, but...their dad had just gotten this new, big car and it was all fancy and it was the family's pride and joy, but it was also the thing their dad obsessed over every minute for the first year they had it. So, during the first summer they had it, she and Cindy begged their dad to take them to go get ice cream at this place they loved. Cindy made this huge fuss about not being able to finish her double scoop cone before their dad was ready to leave and he finally gave in and let her take it in the car if she swore not to let one drop drip off that cone. Well, in the car, Cindy had kinda forgotten about her promise she started doing what she always did in the backseat of cars, which was tickle Barb in the ribs so hard she couldn't breathe. Obviously, Barb would squirm and wiggle, and Cindy would keep trying to get her ribs...and finally, that second scoop rolled off the cone and smacked down in between them in the middle seat with a splat. Barb was cracking up telling me how big Cindy's eyes got when she looked down and said, "Dad," with the softest little voice ever. Her dad turned around, saw the scoop of peppermint chip sitting there on the seat, grinded his teeth, grabbed the scoop like a baseball, and threw it out of the back window on Cindy's side...all in one furiously intense motion (Barb does a great reenactment of this, by the way). Then, he wiped his hand on his pants and said, without turning around, "You're grounded forever." Eventually, her sentence was reduced thanks to her mom's negotiating but apparently that was a Dutton story for the ages. I wonder when the last time Barb told that story was, though. Her eyes lit up telling it. That was kinda neat. I like when you can tell someone's reliving a story as they're telling it...they're so connected to it...it just makes it so much more fun to listen to.

What wasn't fun to listen to and what kinda killed the otherwise nice mood of this late night girl-fest was Bill coming home and telling us that it was over with Ana. That was a bombshell. We knew he was with her and I was gonna be awesome about letting him talk and then awesome about letting Barb do her "It's all of us or none of us" thing, but then I was gonna smooth everything over like only I can by just telling everyone to calm down and come up with some compromise everyone can live with. BUT...never got a chance! He looked terrible. He looked...I don't know how to describe him. He looked exhausted and beaten up. But he seemed pretty convinced. So, we all went to bed all tense but then she showed up at the block party² all out of nowhere and now it's looking like things are back on. So, who knows? I thought I could be the magic conductor of their relationship but it might be harder than I thought. Those two are volatile! Man! I don't know if anyone can wrangle them. Gosh, I want it to work out between them and I'm definitely not gonna stop being the little helper I know I can be but...I don't know. To use a Bill phrase, "it's like herding cats" with those two. I have to be able to adapt to their all-over-the-place temperaments. I have to be able to adjust strategies, depending on the circumstance...depending on who's fired up about what, when. Oh, it's tough being me...but someone has to be. And besides...I like it.

Talk Soon!!
Margie.

*****************************************************************
¹I Wikipedia-ed this after the fact and don't really want to change it, but might as well learn you a little bit, Internet. It's not "man to man" at all, so, of course there's no female version. It means "hand to hand" and is "mano-A-mano." Never knew that. Apparently, people mess that up all the time so I don't feel as bad about not going back and correcting it. I mean, if I said, Ben and Bill went on a camping trip for some "mano-y-mano" time before Ben leaves for college or something, you'd get what I mean, right? Anyway...sorry.

²We went to the annual block party. Not too many details to worry about. It was fun. But not exactly the place we thought Ana would crash to say she wants to date us all. Anyway...