Good Bye, 2018

2018 surprised me every day.

2018 drove me away from the news for the sake of my sanity, then drew me back in, obsessively.

2018 had me fearful for our democracy and then, poignantly, hopeful. (Is poignant appropriate in talking about oneself?).

2018 gave me Get Out! and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Witch Elm and Fancy Nancy, which did nothing to balance out the fact that it was safer to be deployed in Afghanistan than it was to go to school in the USofA. 

2018 saw teenagers calling B.S. and FlapJilly adding simple sums, Giblet smiling out from behind those cheeks and many more diagnoses and deaths than I'd noticed before.

Time passed and I was here to see it - by definition that makes it a good year, if I'm true to my post-perforated self.  I tried to say yes to new adventures, to thank those who brought me joy, to appreciate each day for what it had, not what it might have been. 

Gabby's mother says No yesterdays. Only tomorrows.

Happy End of 2018! 

Saying Goodbye

We painted ceramic figurines, Grandma and Mama and Granddaughter, while Grandpa watched and smiled.

We sent the Granddaughter on Secret Missions - sneaking up on her parents and kissing them on their knees and their noses.

We held the Grandson and tickled his belly and watched his 5 month old eyes take on depth and meaning.

We slept until there was movement above us, and stayed up until we couldn't keep our eyes open any more.

We watched kid tv and The Good Place and avoided MSNBC and CNN and any financial news.

We took Thomas the Wonder Dog on walks around the neighborhood, marveling at the decorations and the fact that Grandma could keep up with everyone, never needing to stop and rest her not-really-that-achy-anymore hip.

We basked in a dinner table filled with in-laws and out-laws and children of all ages and sizes.

Our hearts are full; it's a good thing that we don't have to pack them in our carry-ons.  They wouldn't fit.

The Weak Prince Who Became King

Dear Denizens,

Harold Zisla's acrylic on board spoke to me this afternoon at the South Bend Museum of Art.

Perhaps it will say something to you, too.

Fondly,
Your blogger who is trying to stay non-political this holiday season... and failing, it seems

The Day After

There is frost on the ground - that's as close as SIR will get to his White Christmas.

Giblet is going through his next growth leap, according to the parenting app his mother relies upon - he's too excited to sleep.

The Warriors lost to the Lakers - Big Cuter is trying to make his peace with the result.

The stock market......... - TBG is trying to forget that his retirement is in danger, trying to focus on the love and the family and, for the most part, doing a good job of it.

The in-laws joined us for dinner, followed by HQ and The Good Place.

There are piles all over the house, piles of presents and candy and science experiments and fairy gardens and winter coats - I'd help if I only knew where she wanted things to go.

FlapJilly received a pink and purple kid's camera - her Elbow Series made us laugh.  Her hair's in a french braid, she's sporting fancy new socks and a multi-colored manicure, and she's quite pleased with the total effect.

We have plans for lunch - with burgers, fried cheese curds (this is Indiana, after all), and milk shakes with extra cherries - and the art museum in the afternoon.  

So, why did I have my first ever mass shooting dream last night?  There were kids, a school, me hiding in a corner under a white blanket, a bad guy asserting his will.

I put on my sweater with the pompoms to brighten my mood.  I played Barbies.  He does not get to ruin my vacation.  No.  He does not.

Merry Merry and Happy Happy

As always, here's a tune to brighten your day.  

Think of Daddooooo crooning off-key as his children cringed in the corner.

It Doesn't Get Better Than This

jpetersenphotography.com

Everyone is here.

Life is good.

Wishing you a wonderful week as TBG and I bask in the warmth of family.

Attacking the Giant Weeds

Apparently, those gigantic, healthy leaves are invasive plants. They've been lying dormant in the soil, waiting for the amended soil and irrigation to bring them to life.

  They were nearly as tall as the kindergarten kids.

It took many hands working in concert

and then all they got were the tops of the stems.

There was much discussion about the strength of the root system, about the tap root and the smaller tendrils, but not much concern for the plants themselves.    

Destruction was so much fun.

With Grandma's trowels (a new word for us)

and after lots and lots of digging, 

more digging than any of us expected,

enough digging to share the trowels,

the roots were exposed 

and displayed with pride

We smoothed the soil over the few remaining scallion tops,

and then picked marigold blossoms and put them in our hair.

It was a lovely day in Grandma's Garden, 

even if some mallow and wild mustard had to die to make it so.

The Scary Old People

 Hubs and I have cleared three houses full of stuff, the pictures were always the hardest to deal with. Eventually we decided that slides were out, pictures of people we didn't know were out and that lightened the load. 

That's Allison's comment on yesterday's post.  She didn't mention the additional conundrum G'ma and I faced, one cold February afternoon, as she reclined on her bed and I emptied the crawl space in the attic storage behind her.

Decades old corsages were easy to toss.  The portraits, not so much.  There were about a dozen of them, painted, in rotting wood frames.  

Ever practical, G'ma wondered if I knew who any of them were, because she certainly didn't.

She didn't even know if they were from her family or Daddooooo's, and this was well before her dementia robbed her of my name.  

Well, there's no one left alive to ask.  Toss 'em.

But, Mommy, they're.....

They're what?  Look at those farbissener punim.  

And they were ugly, angry faces, screwed up, not a hint of happiness or joy in any of them.  Did they know that they'd spent 5 decades in my mother's attic?  They looked eminently capable of haunting us.

Do you want them?  Don't give them to your sister, they'll just take up space in her basement.  Besides, look at them!  They're terrifying!

And so, the scary old people went out to the sidewalk, and G'ma and I found something to smile about as we removed the last vestiges of ourselves from our house.  And that's a very nice thing that the scary old people did for us, and for that I thank them..... more often than you might think.

Photographs

All Little Cuter's images live in the ether.  Some are printed on her professional grade machine, some come in books through Shutterfly, some I print out and pick up at Walgreens, but all of them are in the cloud.

Apparently, all of my pictures are there, too.  Google Photos reminds me that before I was perforated I was climbing mountains - and it does this without my having to lift a finger.  If I want to explore my children's childhoods, however, I have to go through the giant box of pictures stuffed in the back of the library closet.

It's a chore that nags at me. I have albums and embellishments and glue dots and archival pens at the ready, but the task just never seems to get done.  It wasn't making itself known until our Halloween visit to the grandkids.  FlapJilly liked sitting in between the couch and the cabinet, perusing her mother's old photo albums, pointing out the people she recognized, making up stories about them, nodding sagely over whatever was going through her head at the time.

And I though of that giant box of photos, just sitting there, waiting for her.  There are empty pages in all those old albums, and she's old enough to put them in herself.  All I have to do is collect them, then sit back and watch the fun.

So I must pull out the boxes blocking the giant box.  I must not get distracted by the items I've dislodged.  I must be ruthless in culling the wheat from the chaff; I don't need six shots of the same scene so five of those photos will go to the trash can.

It feels harsh, but I have to do it.  If I don't, my heirs will curse me as they assume the task.

The more I think about it, the more this becomes more than just a gift for my granddaughter.  It's a kindness I'm doing for my children.

I can't motivate myself to clear out the detritus from the closets for my own benefit.  Perhaps the kids will be the impetus I need.

As I leave

Milestones

Giblet can turn over.  FlapJilly wants chapter books.  My little girl has two little ones of her own.   I am a grandmother.

On the phone last weekend, Seret and I spent all together too much time discussing the fact that we are as old as we are, and wondering how we got here.

I'm sending brownies to the children of people I knew as children themselves.  My niece wants us to meet her boyfriend. 

My high school class's 50th Reunion Committee just emailed a list of housing options.  I remember Graduation Day vividly: McDonalds between the ceremonies; shock that I'd failed the Math 12X final and still passed the course; hissing the Salutatorian (it's a long story, but she deserved the opprobrium); saying goodbye to the A-Ba kids I'd sat with for 6 years in homeroom, not realizing that, for some, 5 decades would pass before I saw them again.

I can call up the emotions I felt that day without any effort at all.  It doesn't seem possible that fifty years have passed since I cried in anticipation of missing my boyfriend.  I haven't seen him since Thanksgiving that November; thinking about it still leaves a hole in the middle of my chest.

Little Cuter and I talked about creating an annual Christmas adventure for FlapJilly and me.  Nannie would have loved taking her littlest granddaughter out on the town; I'm determined to have that memory with mine.  It has to be something that will age well; Barnes and Noble followed by frozen yogurt comes to mind.

And perhaps, someday, fifty years from now, the four year old will create an adventure with a four year old grandkid of her own.

It seems that I'm making a milestone.

The Home Stretch

Although Little Cuter and I shared a moment of Oh, dear, I haven't bought enough for them pre-Christmas panic, we were able to report that we'd resisted the temptation to shop.  She was waiting for one cousin to replace his not available in your size request; I was finished.  Or so I declared.

As always, there are more brownies to bake. 

There are thank you notes to write.  The dining room table still resembles Santa's Workshop on Dec. 26th, although it is hidden behind the 60% off plastic floral stems from Michael's.   I've given up on poinsettias, without much of a struggle.

My landscape looks more like Bethlehem, anyhow.  Trying to turn the desert into a Bavarian forest has not worked out for me.  I now eschew the too-tall-for-me-to-decorate-without-a-ladder fir tree entirely, choosing smaller,

 craftier,

kitschier,

table-top models 

Somewhere in the garage is a box of more ornaments.  Right now, I'm satisfied with these.  I can conjure up an image of Nannie's Santa dirigible, of our Hawaiian sand filled globe, of the silver bells I never polish before I put them away...... and the images are enough.  Decorating is much easier since I accepted the fact that whatever I put out I also had to put away.  I'm down to two big boxes of stuff, and that works fine for us.

The us is important.  It's my holiday by adoption, it's TBG's by birth.  I want to be certain that I touch all his tender spots; Grandpaw's sleigh bells hang from the back door.  Abadee and Abadooo,

 our first ever ornaments, one for each of our cars, live on the fireplace surround.

There are pillows and stuffed, musical, Santas on the furniture, and some trinkets on the mantle and the end table, but mostly, this year, I'm decorating in my mind rather than in my house.

I'm in the home stretch; I'm trying to enjoy every moment.

Good Friends

It is exactly as I imagined it to be. 

She's wrapped up in the cashmere blanket, wearing one polar fleece and leaning on another, only her face exposed.  "Do you want another blanket?  An herbal hot pack?  A hot toddy?"  

No, she said she was fine and I knew that she meant it because we've been friends long enough to know, and to ask for what we need.

He put pink packeted sweetener in his ice tea and I wondered where he found it.  "I lived here for a week," he smiled back at me.  So later, when he wasn't thrilled with the blue cheese dressing, he claimed that he hadn't been offered anything else.

"No, you do not get to know where I store my saccharine and yet be unable to open the refrigerator to search for salad dressing.  It's the same thing,"  I told him, and he agreed, because he's been in my kitchens since 1974.

Besides, they are living here, albeit part-time.  They're around on a random Thursday night for burgers and football on a come anytime you're ready basis.  Their house is a convenient way-station in mid-town; I have a key.

And they have one to our house, too.  If you know anything about TBG, you understand the magnitude of that statement.  His home is his castle, and he protects it vigilantly.  Yet he was enthusiastic about sharing access with them, because you never know........

But I do know that it is wonderful to have them here, just as I imagined it in 2006 when we moved here, expecting them to follow, with the Golden Gopher and his bride not far behind.  Two-thirds of us have established a beachhead; we're just waiting for the others for things to be absolutely perfect.

Big Kids and Home Grown Produce - A Snippet

The fourth and fifth graders were in the garden when three high school girls strolled by. 

We offered them some scallions (we have lots of scallions) by waving them, enticingly, over the garden wall.  The big girls giggled and demurred..

We laughed at their timidity.  We chomped on leaves-of-something-we-planted as we wondered why they weren't as brave as we were.  They were powerless to refuse us: they shared a giant scallion

And then we let them in on the secret: they had bad breath!

After we showed them how to capitalize on their new super power, they ran off with their faces close to one another, laughing Hello! How Happy I am!, huffing their scallion breath all over the place.

We looked on with amusement, content that we had taught the Big Kids a thing or two.

Grandma's Garden is a powerful place.