And the color is...orange

"Riddle me, riddle me, ree.  I see something you can't see.  Riddle me, riddle me ree, and the color is..."

This little song is my fail safe.  My safety chute.  It's my Plan B and the trick I use when the natives really are getting restless.

We learned it when College Kid was seven.  Now, 15 years later, we're still playing it when we're waiting, usually in the BMV and usually on The Mister.  Here's how it goes.  The "it" person picks an object somewhere within his visual field.  He (or she) will sing the little ditty above and name the color.  The rest of us (The Restless Ones) search high and low, guessing, guessing, guessing all objects of that color until someone (The Lucky Guesser) names it.  Then he's it.

Little Schrock loves this game.  He loves it, even though he never quite nails the words.  "Riddle me me me me me," he chirps in his high, sweet voice.  "...and the color is..."

Here, he says it out, bold, eager, as he looks right at the object.  The rest of us, with furrowed brows, play it up. This is a tough one.  What's he picked out now?


"Riddle me, riddle me, ree.  I see something you can't see.  Riddle me, riddle me, ree, and the color is - orange."  


And it is.  It's my color for this summer.  In a season of bone-deep exhaustion, in a whirl of graduation and year-end activities, it's orange.  After weeks of party planning and feeling the stress of pulling it together, pulling it off, holding it together...

The color is orange.  Orange sandals.  Orange scarf.  Cute orange shorts and orange flowers on that sweet, new dress.  It's orange.

In the midst of physical weariness; in spite of emotional and mental exhaustion, I'm choosing orange because of what it says.  It shouts life! spunk! happiness! joie de vivre! joy!  All of these, even though.

Inside the cover of my brand-new, Italian leather journal I've written this verse:  "(She) will be like a tree planted by the water. (She) does not fear when heat comes.  Her leaves are always green.  (She) has no worries in a year of drought. (She) never fails to bear fruit." - Jer. 17: 7,8.  On the outside of the cover, embossed in that beautiful leather, are leaves.  In green.

In one week, Kid Kaboom goes to Honduras.  College Kid is back.  We're short one vehicle.  There's a speech to plan, a proposal to write, a website to finish, my doctor's going nuts, and people are looking for lunch.  It's orange.

It's orange.  And green.  For Christ within me is life, spunk, happiness, joie de vivre, joy, and the ever-green of a tree that's planted solid, sound, by a river of living water.  Even though.

Even though.

And what is your summer color?