Lemonade Escapades
I had just finished a 24 hour shift. Exhausted, I collapsed into bed. Just as the waves of sleep were carrying me gently to some far off dreamy shore, the door bell rang jerking me back into the land of the awake. I had posted a LARGE piece of paper and had written in very LARGE letters: SLEEPING DO NOT RING THE DOORBELL OR KNOCK. Apparently my neighbor kids can't read. I groggily went to the door and tried to look as tired and forlorn as possible. It worked, they felt very badly for waking me up and assured me they wouldn't come back until after 3:30 pm "for sure." I sank back into my bed and resumed my interrupted dream journey which ended up with a nightmare of me trying to send a blood culture but unable to find the patient name label or the nurse to draw the blood or the lab to take the blood, etc.
AT 3:00 pm EXACTLY the doorbell rang again, I attempted to ignore it, BUT IT KEPT RINGING... I guess my neighbor kids had decided I'd had enough sleep for one day. I finally made my way to the door. My protests that I was still sleeping and the sign was still up sort of died in my throat. I stood a little aghast at the sight. Nabela, Haleel, and Robny were standing triumphantly on my front porch with a HUGE pile of lemons they had picked from our lemon tree. All three tried to talk at once at extremely high decibels. I finally calmed them down enough to figure out they wanted to make lemonade and sell it--would I let them come in and make lemonade? And so, the lemonade escapade begin.
After trooping into the kitchen, the first argument started over my ONE lemon juicer for THREE children. It was much more fun to squeeze the lemons on the whirl top of the lemon juicer than to chop them in two or pour the juice into a pitcher. I nixed the argument by giving them their cut lemons and making them stand in line to juice them. Quite a cacophony was created with lemon peels, squealing children, spattered lemon juice, water, and white sugar all intertwined together. Finally the lemons were all juiced, enough sugar was added, and the pitcher of lemonade was ready for sampling. Nabeela sampled it first--which involved taking a cup, using her hands to dip it in the lemonade, drinking out of the cup, and putting the same cup BACK into the pitcher. Then it was my turn, my sampling technique was less barbaric (and more antiseptic). Each child had a chance to taste the juice--which was 1/4 gone by the time they finished.
Then came the fun of selling it. Nabeela had made a HUGE sign "50 cents for lemonade." I suggested that might be a steep price, but they were confident they could get it sold. We'll see, they are actually in my front lawn as I type this post--yelling at everyone passing by "Lemonade for 50 cents." We'll see how much they sell! Now I have to go and clean up the mess left in the kitchen... More later...
Rachel
I had just finished a 24 hour shift. Exhausted, I collapsed into bed. Just as the waves of sleep were carrying me gently to some far off dreamy shore, the door bell rang jerking me back into the land of the awake. I had posted a LARGE piece of paper and had written in very LARGE letters: SLEEPING DO NOT RING THE DOORBELL OR KNOCK. Apparently my neighbor kids can't read. I groggily went to the door and tried to look as tired and forlorn as possible. It worked, they felt very badly for waking me up and assured me they wouldn't come back until after 3:30 pm "for sure." I sank back into my bed and resumed my interrupted dream journey which ended up with a nightmare of me trying to send a blood culture but unable to find the patient name label or the nurse to draw the blood or the lab to take the blood, etc.
AT 3:00 pm EXACTLY the doorbell rang again, I attempted to ignore it, BUT IT KEPT RINGING... I guess my neighbor kids had decided I'd had enough sleep for one day. I finally made my way to the door. My protests that I was still sleeping and the sign was still up sort of died in my throat. I stood a little aghast at the sight. Nabela, Haleel, and Robny were standing triumphantly on my front porch with a HUGE pile of lemons they had picked from our lemon tree. All three tried to talk at once at extremely high decibels. I finally calmed them down enough to figure out they wanted to make lemonade and sell it--would I let them come in and make lemonade? And so, the lemonade escapade begin.
After trooping into the kitchen, the first argument started over my ONE lemon juicer for THREE children. It was much more fun to squeeze the lemons on the whirl top of the lemon juicer than to chop them in two or pour the juice into a pitcher. I nixed the argument by giving them their cut lemons and making them stand in line to juice them. Quite a cacophony was created with lemon peels, squealing children, spattered lemon juice, water, and white sugar all intertwined together. Finally the lemons were all juiced, enough sugar was added, and the pitcher of lemonade was ready for sampling. Nabeela sampled it first--which involved taking a cup, using her hands to dip it in the lemonade, drinking out of the cup, and putting the same cup BACK into the pitcher. Then it was my turn, my sampling technique was less barbaric (and more antiseptic). Each child had a chance to taste the juice--which was 1/4 gone by the time they finished.
Then came the fun of selling it. Nabeela had made a HUGE sign "50 cents for lemonade." I suggested that might be a steep price, but they were confident they could get it sold. We'll see, they are actually in my front lawn as I type this post--yelling at everyone passing by "Lemonade for 50 cents." We'll see how much they sell! Now I have to go and clean up the mess left in the kitchen... More later...
Rachel
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