Orange Whip...

I was lying in bed and slowly reached for the orange juice on my bedside table.  I gingerly sat up, rested my head back on my soft leather headboard and closed my eyes as I slowly sipped my juice.  For a few minutes I was no longer here, in bed in Phoenix with this current body heavy and fighting to recover from four blood treatments in one week.  Instead my brain regressed and this juice tasted just like when I was a kid and my dad would make us a "special drink".  He would take the frozen orange juice and add more ice and whip it in the blender and serve the iced delicacy in a fancy glass. That memory diverged to his other special drink..7-Up with food coloring.  We thought it was magic, that electric blue or red iced drink, something out of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  Funny things pop in your head when you have a lot of time on your hands, time you would rather being doing something else...but your body is spent so you just lie in bed and wait.  I drift in and out of being here and letting my mind take my somewhere else...to escape for a bit.

Lucky for me those memories meandered further and sparked the voice of my cousin Tom reciting some movie line...what was it...orange crush...no that's not it...ahhh  orange whip and I started to laugh.  Of course, the Blue's Brothers, John Candy,  how could I forget.  The magic of google brought me to the scene my cousin would at random times recite..."orange whip...orange whip...three orange whips" and the two of us would be in tears laughing...he would repeat this phrase for no reason at all with no context to make it appropriate...all that matters was that it was funny...it's only 15 seconds but what a difference 15 seconds feels like when you are laughing. 3 Orange Whips

The movie "The Blues Brothers", directed by John Landis. Seen here, John Candy as Burton Mercer. Initial theatrical release June 20, 1980. Screen capture. © 1980 Universal City Studios. Credit: © 1980 Universal / Courtesy Pyxurz.