Indulge Me

There were MagnaTiles for connecting and for playing peek-a-boo, which is extremely adorable when said with a toddler's Russian accent.

Mama read books.

Grandma was asked to take her for a walk. She brought me my shoes and said park, both of which were also quite adorable.  The sun was out and the park was empty and the slide was so much fun. 

We went to music class,  with 3 pony tails and a pretty dress.

We came home and I collapsed on the couch.  

Parenting is exhausting.  Grandparenting is tiring. 

Big Cuter reminds me every few hours, it's a marathon,  not a sprint. 

I'd be tired after either one. 

Back Again

HoneyBunny's little brother is expected to join the world this week.  Grandma came to help.

It was a lovely flight.  It left on time, arrived on time, and there was room in the overhead compartment for my roll-on bag.  The pilot pointed out the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam.  I noticed wind farms and solar panel installations and roads that travelled up into the mountains to connect to one house at the very top

For the longest time, I haven't traveled with anything larger than the bag that fits under the seat in front of me.  Packing was fun when I didn't have to worry if something would fit.  Of course,  that made lifting the suitcase into the overhead bin a formidable challenge.  I got it up there, but asked for help getting it out.  

I'm getting better at asking.  I felt old and feeble and very happy that I didn't have to struggle.  I have decided that it's a trade off worth making.

HoneyBunny wanted nothing to do with me for about five minutes.  Her parents were encouraging her to hug me, but I asked them to let it go.  Sure enough, she was grabbing my hand and showing me her books before I had my boots off.  

I was invited to watch but not touch the Magna Tiles.

NO is a big part of her vocabulary.  

So is Baba (Grandma) and Shark (Baby Shark Do Do Do Do DoDo) and E I E I O (Old MacDonald).  I'm learning her language the hard way; she is patient up to a point but when Baba can't figure out exactly what she wants there's hell to pay.

It's a good thing she's so cute.  

How Does This Happen?

The Lost and Found hooks had morphed into three big plastic tubs in the hallway of Prince Elementary School.  At Winter Break, a full van load of unclaimed items was donated to the district's Clothing Bank.

It is inconceivable to me that the jackets just sit there, the hats hang on pegs, the fancy lunch boxes on the window sill and in the buckets. 

Every student walks past it on their way to and from the Music Room.  The K-2 students and anyone visiting them pass it as they leave their classrooms...... and they leave their classrooms many times during the day.  

I worry about people who are living on the edge, yet don't search out missing sweaters and mittens and backpacks.  Is loss that familiar?  Is there so much on their plate that a missing cardigan hardly makes it to the table?  

On Wednesday, the whole situation took on a disturbing cast.  

I understand everything but the pants.

How is it possible that someone lost his pants and didn't care?

I add this to the growing number of signs that the Apocalypse is drawing nigh. 

Random Thoughts on Age

It is just a number.  

It's just that the number keeps getting larger.

*****

You look great! 

Oh, really.  Compared to what, I might ask.  

I think of myself with dark hair and and regular features.  The mirror shows me jowls and Daddooooo's eyebrows and G'ma's wrinkles around the mouth. Modern technologies could remedy all of that, but, as Ogden Nash said, 

 My face, I don't mind it

Because I'm behind it. 

 I'm not quite sure to do with the end of the poem, though.

It's the people out front that I jar.

Could it be that they are unsurprised to see this old woman's visage, merely reacting to the beauty within when they tell me I look great?  Am I really this old?

*****

When I was 25 years old and applying for employment, I remember writing 18 in the box next to age.  

Rechecking the information before handing it over, it took me a moment to recognize what was wrong.  It wasn't really incorrect, but it was wrong.  Wasn't I 18?  No, that was freshman year in college and you have a master's degree now.  i did the math, subtracting and realizing with a dull thud in my chest that I was, indeed, 25 years old.

*****

Old feels different at every stage of life, I guess.

The Prince scholars cannot comprehend how I can be so old, frequently reminding me that death is right around the corner, filling me in their grandparents' ages and infirmities, and marveling that life still exists within our crumbling structures.  

They, on the other hand, are quite proud with every added year.  I Am SIX!!!! is the happiest sound on the playground

*****

There will be more thoughts.  Like JES, I'm still trying to figure it out.

Silly Names

I'm feeling a little anxiety creeping in around the edges.  That toe I dipped into the news began to drag the whole foot and leg in behind it.  This is not good.

*****

To reset, I'll share the list of ridiculous college football bowl games that TBG and Big Cuter helped me collect over the turn of the year.

It started with the Scooter's Coffee Frisco Bowl.  Scooter has coffee?  Who knew?  Who's Scooter.  It went downhill from there.

Duke's Mayo Bowl?  Who's Duke?

The StaffDNA Cure Bowl. It felt awkward to laugh, but we couldn't help being bemused.

The Pop Tarts Bowl had pop tarts commercials and pop tarts costumed pop tarts just about everywhere you looked.  The Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl..... the man is all over.

There were military bowls.   Lockheed Martin  Armed Forces Bowl, the Auto Zone Liberty Bowl, and my favorite, the Go Bowling Military Bowl.

The cities and states states had their own bowls - the Islet New Mexico Bowl, the Union Home Mortgage Gasparillla Bowl, the Birmingham Bowl - although one state had two - the Kinder Texas Bowl and the TaxSlayer Texas Bowl.

The Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl,  Allstate Sugar Bowl, VRBO Fiesta Bowl, Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl, Teams Perfect Music, ReliaQuest Bowl, and the ServPro First Responder Bowl all felt fine.  The corporations wanted to support a sporting event; I have no problem with that.

I did wonder how much it cost to name a bowl. Obviously, not everyone could manage it on their own:  Bad Boy Shake Calling Mowers Pinstripe Bowl.

The one my guys like the most, though was the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl.  

This one has a verb in it!

*****

I feel a lot better.

Getting the News

I saw a reference to Virtue Signaling When Saying You're Off FaceBook so I won't mention that I haven't logged on to the site in several years.  That was where I was most visible on social media, and if now I'm tagged by someone else, it probably still is.  

I had a Twitter account but never posted.  I left there when it became X, for obvious reasons.  

I follow the young people I know on Instagram, watching their children grow.  I do like some photos, but I never use words.

For long form, I've given up my NYTimes and WaPo subscriptions in favor of following some of my favorite commentators and lawyers and authors on Substack. There is Mother Jones and ProPublica . 

MeidasTouch Network is reader supported, also tending left, and is like reading a daily paper.  That said, I do subscribe to the local newspaper, and always will.  Local journalists covering local news often break the biggest stories.  After all, Woodward and Bernstein were covering the DC night court when the Watergate plumbers were brought in.  

To find out what the mainstream is hearing, TBG listens to the first few moments of the NBC Nightly News.  

Now there is BlueSky, a left leaning on-line safe space, unlike Elon's sewer, that aims for a Twitter-like experience, with fewer trolls, and, at least for now, a carefully crafted algorithm that has kept cat videos off my feed.  The problem is size.  I hope that more content providers will migrate over from the dark side.  Right now, it's an echo chamber.

I don't feel that I'm missing anything, except maybe Nicolle Wallace in the afternoon.  These are the sources that don't have me screaming back at them.  There's no sane washing the craziness.  There's a fair amount of rubbernecking at the slow train wreck of our democracy, but it comes at me in small. manageable doses I can titrate myself.

I'm not willing to fully engage.  Heather Cox Richardson's contemporaneous history keeps  me up to date on what happened today, tying it into what's come before.  She gives the facts some heft.  

And that's enough for me. I've been paring down to this level since the election, adding and subtracting along the way.  

Recuperating

After ten days of family squeezing lovingly and snugly around dining tables and breakfast nooks and couches of all shapes and sizes and colors, our house feels quite empty.  

There are a variety of seating options, but none of them include a view of a grandkid being a grandkid.

No one has asked me to sing Baby Shark or Old MacDonald all day.

I have not covered anyone in a ball pit nor watched my son and granddaughter discuss fantasy novels.  

I've cooked for one instead of nine, and I knew exactly what and how much to make.

The travel was easy but the altitude continues to surprise us .  We're tired and content and just a little bit lonely.  I've got thoughts about cultural appropriation and BlueSky and what old means, but tonight I'm going to review the photos and the memories and pretend that they are all still right near by.

As he got off the plane 20 hours later than planned, Giblet's only comment was I don't like being far away from Baby HoneyBunny.   

Neither do I, kiddo.  Neither do I.

Stinson Beach Adventure

We took the kids to Stinson Beach on Monday, December 30th. They had never seen the ocean, so the views on Highway 1 were thrilling. 

We expected fog and cold and a ten minute dipping of toes in the water before we escaped to warmth and a mall. 

Instead we found an almost empty beach 

and crystal clear skies and water that could not be resisted. 

They swam and giggled and jumped and laughed.  They made a sand city with many roads and steps leading to a castle. 

The tide went out and they collected sand dollars and sea glass and shells.

We all agreed that it was a perfect day. 

My heart is full. 

Happy Birthday, TBG

75.

That's old. 

Surrounded by his family,  the birthday boy is happy.  

His littlest grandkid calls him Bapa.  

Happy Birthday, Bapa, from all of us.  

2025

Happy New Year!  

How was last night?  Was it filled with fireworks (surprisingly loud booms at 10pm... were Tucsonans celebrating for New Yorkers who can't legally purchase them in the grocery store?)?  

Did you watch hours of The Thin Man on TMC (we did!)?  

Were you snuggled in front of a fireplace, sipping mulled wine (what IS mulled wine?) and snuggling with a sweetie?  

Were you cleaning out closets or putting away decorations or were you in bed before midnight, nursing the sniffles?

Whatever it was, where ever it was, with whomever it was, I hope it was wonderful.

**** 

That was how I greeted 2018.

Facing 2025 feels different.  It's going to take more effort than usual to consider patience and the good in others, former resolutions I've managed to continue to think about.  Living in the moment without judgment may be impossible outside of a small slice of the world.  I was going to add a new resolution but I'm afraid of psychic overload.

It's going to be an interesting ride.  I'm glad you'll be along.