As I waited at a red light this morning, I received this photo via text (message: check to make sure tree is securely in stand before decorating) from one of my college besties:

After composing myself -hysterical laughter had overtaken me- I called her to find that they'd bought their tree last Friday. She put it in the stand, and her husband, K, said, "that tree is leaning." In typical E fashion (which I love), her feminist feathers ruffled, she retorted that some trees just don't have straight trunks and this one was surely fine. K nodded (probably saying to himself, "that tree is not secure.") and the whole family proceeded to decorate gleefully.

The next morning, K and their son left for some sort of athletic practice (they are very athletic, and really, I can't keep up because we are not), and E and her daughter were upstairs getting dressed. They heard a crash and said it sounded rather like a Christmas tree had just toppled over. Indeed it had.

All this came after E had eaten a Chipotle burrito on Wednesday night and shortly thereafter started to feel ill. As she was taking the kids to K's wrestling tournament (he coaches), she had to pull over, quickly threw her wallet and makeup bag out of her purse and puked into it several times. I thought it was really something that she managed to clear out the important stuff before booting over the rest. A new black purse is now on her Christmas list.

"Why did you not just puke onto the road, E?"

"Well, we were in a nice neighborhood and I didn't think anyone wanted to wake up on Thanksgiving morning to find puke on their sidewalk."

Thoughtful, and, again, impressive thinking in the midst of "it's coming!" vomit.

Not only did she recover but managed to get to the tournament and sell concessions (unfortunately she did not feel quite up to much eating on Thanksgiving). K was inspired and told his team that the next time they considered whining about being tired or whatever, they better put a plug in that, think about his wife who puked in her own purse and still sold concessions at their match. Hah! What a pair.

Such a Vacation vacation, yes?