Yesterday, my youngest kiddo turned 45. He's spending Memorial Day weekend at a conference in Atlanta. Here he is back when I could pick him up and carry him around....if I wanted to and he was in the mood, which I did a lot, a lot. He was such a huggable funny kid, and he still is.
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While he's gone, his family is off to the beach in Nathan's jeep, but before heading out, Elena did a ten-second Blue Ribbon weave around the rodeo barrels!
Got home yesterday to gentle rain and San Antonio air, then a sweet Sunday with my girl, the furry one and the dancing in the rain girl.
While her parents were out celebrating their dozenth anniversary, Elena taught me how to make earrings, we watched a movie, went to the park, and I made little 45th birthday cakes for Will and Bonnie, hers on the 18th, Will's on the 26th.
Elena brought her tackle box filled with jewelry supplies and taught me how to make earrings. When the rain started, she said, "Let's go outside and dance in it!"
I'm reading two books, a few chapters in one, a few chapters in the other. One is Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, based on David Copperfield but set in Appalachia.. The other is a memoir Bob gave me, The Last Radio Baby. It's about growing up Black in Madison, Georgia in the 1930s.
We visited Madison and Monroe, each town about half an hour from Carlene's house. Antebellum houses (Madison spared by Sherman's fires), collard greens and cornbread, quaint shops and bakeries on pretty downtown squares.
My fifth-generation Californian sister-in-law Jocelyn has Italian ancestry--and it shows. She made us a delicious Italian meal for Monday Mother's Day. And my brother Bob showed up wearing the exact same sunglasses as mine!
One of their gifts to Carlene made her cry--a silver locket with a picture of her Navy boy before they married.
We had a wonderful day, the four of us! We'll be spending most of this week together, driving to Madison and Monroe two days, and having incomparably delicious Georgia barbecue.
Here we are in Lawrenceville on this warm Sunday:
Rose, my niece, picked me up at the airport yesterday and stayed to visit until 9ish, then went home to Sandy Springs to take care of her dogs. She came back today and we had lunch at Longhorns.
Meanwhile in San Antonio, Luci appears to be having a good time at Camp Jannie:
Tomorrow I am flying to Georgia to celebrate Mother's Day. My suitcase is packed, umbrella at the ready.
Luci is going to Camp Jannie, and Janet--proprietor of said camp--is picking up Luci in the morning to deliver her to her other Happy Place where she'll spend the week with Janet and Bill, two cats, and three dogs.
Pam (we hope she doesn't have to use floaties to get here) will pick me up and deliver me to the airport. My niece Rose will pick me up in Atlanta and drive to Carlene's house. I'm hoping for a little less rain than forecast for tomorrow and an uneventful flight.
Since driving from Georgia to San Antonio in October, the furthest I've been is Comfort, so it feels like a big deal to take a trip. I'm ready for lift off!
And since Janet is adding pick up and delivery to her camp services, I get to spend this Friday night with my furry little diva who's been eyeing my suitcase with suspicion all day.
Doris' older sister Nancy lived near us, 1971, long before I met Doris .
On the day before Day was born, my 23rd birthday, I walked down the hill from our house to Scenic Loop, a long bumpy walk, hoping to get labor started. I turned the corner onto the road where Nancy lived.
I had gained 65 pounds--they didn't caution against weight gain back then. Tony was with me, my German Shepherd who didn't need a leash to walk beside me. That was his job, protecting me. Soon he would have an additional gig, protecting the baby girl who was taking her sweet time showing up.
We'd park the stroller while we rode motorcycles on our track, his 250 Bultaco, my 250 Montessa. Two red dirt bikes, Tony standing beside the stroller chasing flies and bees away from the baby human.
We lived atop Beckman Hill on 65 acres. To see another human, you had to walk all the way to the street on our rutted road. Then you walked a mile on Scenic Loop. There were no other houses on Beckman Hill.
You could hear young Willie Nelson singing at Flores on Saturday nights. We listened from the porch. We sometimes tailgated with a case of beer, humming along to "Georgia on My Mind," "On the Road Again"....
On my 23rd birthday, Tony and I walked past Nancy's house. I barely knew her. She called out "Any minute now?" (pointing to my giant belly) and invited me inside her house.
She smashed an avocado and spread it on toast. Poured coffee. I told her I didn't drink coffee, never had, never have still.
Did I want a boy or a girl? When was it due?
Way past due, two weeks ago, I said.
52 years later, her sister is telling me that Nancy's husband was an abusive alcoholic. He once threw a fire poker at his daughter. He made fun of his wife, called her fat--and worse. What would it have taken for her sister to leave that man? Doris wondered.
(As it turned out, it took dying.)
I saw her as a cheerful older woman (in her thirties!) who mashed avocado and spread it on toast, who opened her house to a young pregnant stranger. I had no idea what went on in that house, so close. We didn't tell each other things like that back then.
Janet and I visited a friend who has cancer.
Years ago, Doris and I went to Helotes Methodist together and had children the same ages. Fast forward all these years, and Janet was Doris' NIA teacher at Golds and they became close friends.
Doris was not glum or morbid. "I'm not afraid of death," she said. "I just want to be here for all the good things still ahead. I hope people will miss me and not forget me."
At one point, she got out of bed to go to the bathroom and joked about her appearance. She was wearing, of course, the standard hospital fare, socks many sizes too big and a hideous olive green hospital gown. "I don't see myself in this person at all," she said.
Since I had just been in Janet's sewing room and seen her array of beautiful outfits she'd made--some for herself, some for friends, even a red jacket she'd made for Doris for an event she didn't get to attend after all--I suggested a new project for Janet. "You could start designing pretty hospital gowns!" I said.
Indeed, I wonder: do hospitals try to make patient rooms and attire ugly?
How hard would it be to make gowns that would allow patients to feel less like patients?
The room was tiny. The lavatory is outside the bathroom, so guests need to move to allow the patient to wash her hands.
The public spaces of the hospital are beautiful, spacious, and filled with light. If I were a hospital designer, I'd do it the reverse way. I'd make the public spaces less impressive and make the rooms beautiful, colorful, and spacious, with big windows.
Why not hire manicurists and stylists for people who happen to be sick? I'd have someone like Janet design gowns that are more than cheap wraps. Patients should be able to see and be themselves in spite of illness.
Nathan's first wheels of his own, a Jeep. One never forgets the day of the first wheels.
In the world of Jeep drivers, there's a tradition of putting rubber duckies on the hood of a stranger's jeep. Will bought him a bag of duckies to disperse to others in the Jeep tribe, and Elena grabbed the first one to duck her brother's hood.
I haven't seen the Jeep in person yet, but our 16-year-old guy is pretty psyched, Will says, and I look forward to taking a ride in it as soon as I can.
When Luci and I go into stores, the clerks often offer her treats and ask her to "Sit." I just give her treats cause I love her, no tricks, but tonight, I taught her to Sit on command. She learned right away, one treat in.
When she walks, she always stops to smell the flowers. We should all do that.
And look at whatever is blooming in the community garden. Today it was kids.
We love flowers and we love little kids.
Yesterday at the shoe store, we had a lengthy conversation with a loquacious and precocious little guy who asked his mom if she'd get my phone number so we could be friends. "You can call me anytime you want to go somewhere," seven-year-old Santiago said, "I can take care of Luci."
"I love her so much, even as much as my dog," he said. "But have you ever wondered why dogs have to sniff everybody's butts? That's really bizarre!"
Okay, back to the final episode of Maestro in Blue (takes place on a Greek island) on Netflix!
