Thyme After Time: Through the Smart Phone's GPS: Chapter One, Marvin the Mad Muddler Makes Mojitos

Lavender Mojitos

Searching for a house was so amazingly frustrating. Every morning we would look through our emails and make a list of the houses we were interested in. The houses all looked the same after a while...cookie cutter boxes on cookie cutter streets with cookie cutter people. The Realtors we worked with kind of blended together in my mind into one giant Jabba mass of a realtor that seemingly, in my mind, held us hostage with no promise of escape from our house search. There never seemed to be that one special house that we could make our own. We eventually broke free from the Jabbas. We secretly searched on our own and quietly waited for our opportunity.

So the sun rose and we equipped ourselves with a list and our smart phones. I was the navigator. This is where this story begins.
It took some time for me to figure out my phone's GPS. When we headed one way, my phone would show us driving the exact opposite way. I turned the phone upside down hoping to correct the view but it turned the map upside down as well. When we went left, our little avatars went right. When we headed up, our avatars headed down. It made for a confusing drive. My husband began to get irritated and I decided not to tell him we were heading the wrong way. It was nice to have a few quiet moments.
"You DO know where we are heading, don't you?" husband asked.
"Of course! Just keep driving." I assured him smiling to myself.
We drove for a short time, ending up in the cutest of neighborhoods. The houses were stretched out, allowing for plenty of elbow room between neighbors. The homes were made of stone and brick. Ivy gently draped its vine-y leaves over some of the houses giving the neighborhood a very Thomas Kinkade kind of feel. Wow. I didn't know where we were but I wouldn't mind living here at all.
"Let me see your phone." Husband said as we pulled into a random driveway. He was taking over the search now, obviously figuring out I had no idea how to use the thing to give directions.
Out of the corner of my eye a sign appeared on the lawn... FOR SALE.
I seized the opportunity to save face and pointed to it. I once again assured him I had everything under control.
He assured me that he knew me better and the sign was a coincidence.
The knock on our car window snapped us out of our world and into the old lady's staring at us in our car sitting in her driveway.
"I have something very special to show you." she smiled.
There was an awkward silence between my betrothed and I. There was something amiss, not quite right, but we shrugged our shoulders and followed.

We were led right into the garden where an odd fellow had a card table set up. He was short. He had shoulder length grey hair that flowed out from under the top hat he was wearing. His shiny top hat had a wreath of branches wrapped around it. I couldn't quite make out what the greenery was but maybe rosemary or lavender. His smile was bigger than his face as he ran up to us wishing us a Happy Birthday!...
"Ignore him." The old lady pointed to the man with a warning and disappeared through the garden while calling out "He's stark raving mad!"
I side glanced my husband. I was looking for the OK to run. He seemed a bit bemused.

"I'm Marvin" the top hatted man spit out as he raised his drink to cheers us. We both stared motionless. So after a salute he returned to his card table and grabbed two more glasses. He ran back up to us to cheers once again handing us the two glasses but he then realized he had forgotten his own. Before we could grab the two glasses, he was back at the card table again trying manage all three glasses.
He ran to us with all three of them, spilling all of the contents as he ran..
"Oh this won't do." He turned and ran back with his three empty glasses to the table once again.
I tried not to laugh out loud but Husband had beat me to it. He grabbed my hand and led me to the table so the mad man wouldn't have far to go.

The little man grabbed a few leaves off of a plant, some lime, sugar and dried flowers. He threw them all in a glass and grabbed what looked like the tiniest of baseball bats. He then treated us to his very own rendition of Happy Birthday while his hips gyrated, his body swayed, his eyelids floated up and down and his hand twisted the tiny bat lightly into his little concoction. He repeated the entire process twice more. By then we were glad there were only three drinks. We both politely clapped and slowly turned to find the woman who had left us.

"But wait. We didn't toast. You have to have a drink with me. I made these especially for you!"

He looked so sad and he did do a lot of work (and dancing) to make these cocktails.
"A sip wont kill us" husband whispered. We turned to face him again.
His body lit up. He excitedly cheered jumping up and raising his arms as a child would do and in the process spilling his drink (again). I began to suspect the grass and the garden drank a lot more than rain water. After the last version of "Happy Birthday" we all toasted.
I pinched my nose, closed my eyes, suspicious of dried flowers floating in this mad concoction, and sipped.

"You see" the little man raised his hand as if speaking to a crowd, "It was many years ago on this day, I found myself in the Caribbean. I learned the dance of the mojito. Today I commemorate the occasion with a mojito of my own creation; dried lavender from our garden, fresh mint and the purest of intentions..."

"You're mad!!!! The dance was in a commercial and the drink we had at Melt last week!!!!" the woman yelled from behind the hedges. "We've never even left the country!" What was she doing over there?

Unfazed by her corrections, he went on with his speech. And on and on. The drink was very good so we made our way through the yard towards the hedges, drinks in hand while the little man speeched it up and bowed to a secret audience. Our last glimpse of him left us with memories of gyrating hips and birthday sentiments.