As we said last week, everyone has to find their own joy journey and sometimes we have to make gratitude lists and look for the joy in our day and other times, it just lands in your lap.  

No joke, I was out walking around the lake yesterday meditating on joy; actively looking for it. It’s not that I wasn’t feeling joyful, it’s just that I was looking for a story; something to share will all of you.  Probably like you, our little mountain town is almost on full lockdown so that means there isn’t a lot to do and restaurants are only allowed to do takeout or patio dining. I don’t know about where you live, but in Colorado, it’s winter. One little brewery on the lake, okay, the only eatery on the lake, took a note from the ice fisherman.  This little brewery has purchased ice fishing tents and put them lake side. Inside,  you will find a picnic table, a heater and patio lighting hanging from the ceiling.  It’s just enough room for a family of 5 or 6. Just looking at this row of tents made me smile.  I love creativity and this pandemic has brought out so much ingenuity that you can’t help but feel hopeful about this next year.  These are things that will keep on giving years to come in this tiny, windy, mountain town.  It makes you wonder why nobody thought of this sooner.  

I continued my walk around the lake smiling and taking photos of the ice fishermen and thinking that surely there is a story to be told with these people who CHOOSE to sit on the ice all day in a tent fishing, but I will save that for another day.

I walked into my house still thinking about this story of joy I was weaving in my head when my mother-in-law, who is visiting from Ohio, says, “We will be ready to go in just a few minutes, but I am just waiting for the cannabis store to text me back to let me know when my order is ready for pickup…” 

Ummmm, what?

Sweet Jesus, you can’t make this stuff up. I knew as soon as the word cannabis slipped from her mouth that God had literally thrown a story of joy into my lap. How else can you explain your 71-year-old mother-in-law waiting for her weed order to be ready? 
I took off my coat and settled in with a cup of hot tea because I knew whatever came next was going to be GOOOOOOD! She followed that last statement up with, I just got some THC stuff, not CBD and also, I am shopping local this year. 

Again, ummm, what? 

Now, we live in Colorado, so all things cannabis have been legal for years. You can eat it, smoke it, nibble it, bathe in it or rub your body down with it and we don’t care. Truly, we don’t, but when your mother-in-law starts talking about it like she just ordered brownies from the local bakery, you just know this day can’t get much better. 

Her husband, Dale, then says, “dear, I think THC is psychoactive. I think you ordered the wrong thing” and her face turned so many shades of red, I couldn’t keep up. After a little more research, she decided that THC is indeed what she wanted. Apparently, she knows her cannabis properties and who were we to step in and make a suggestion. We then broke the news to her that she wouldn’t be able to take her THC back home on the airplane and if she tried, the drug dogs would sniff her out in a heartbeat at the Denver Airport. 

Then she tells us that the cannabis that she ordered was a “therapeutic stick.” Ummmm, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to hear anymore, but again this was too good not to probe further. No pun intended.

Okay, so she ordered herself a “rub” for her arthritis which is perfectly understandable. I get it, we all have some chronic pain from time to time and if you can relieve it with a rub from the local dispensary, why not? After all, she is in a state where it’s legal, she should try whatever works. 

Once we realized that the dispensary was indeed open until 6pm, we were able to convince her to go do a little Christmas shopping while we waited. She checked her phone periodically, but still no therapeutic stick!

Finally, about 3:30 in the afternoon, she received the much-awaited text that her order was complete and she could swing by the dispensary to pick up her order. Within minutes we all packed into the car because this was too good to pass up. This was a photo opportunity like none other and I was not going to miss it. It’s not everyday that you sit in the car waiting for your mother-in-law to get her weed, but wait we did. She says she didn’t try any samples or get any free gifts, but she was in the store for an inordinate amount of time. She confirmed while her therapeutic stick would not have any psychoactive effects, she would not be able to travel across state lines with it. I guess she will just have to leave it here with us. I don’t know what we are going to do with it…

You’re probably wondering how she is doing. Let’s just say, the market is all out of Cheetohs and brownies.

It just goes to show you that joy is everywhere and you just never know when it’s going to land right in your lap. 

Sunshine & Sarcasm,
Lowi & G