Want to know about my life?
No?
Okay.
Well, how about, let’s say, two days? Then I will stop.
After Grandson and I had taken Momma to work, after we had breakfast at Elmers, after we drove out of town to an old Christmas tree farm where I used to buy trees, hoping Grandson Dear would nap as he gotten about 5 hours sleep, we found the trees to be a forest. After that we drove to the Christmas tree lot one-half mile from our house.
There a lovely lady sold us a Noble fir for $10 less that it
ought to be, and grandson cruised the lot about 50 times, smelled the trees,
got rosy cheeks from the brisk winter air—not autumn air, winter air, as it has
turned artic around here. We loaded the
tree into the pickup, climbed into the cab, and jacked the heat up to Momma
Bear.
And then came that car seat again, a resistant child, my inaptitude with the
buckles and getting a limp child strapped in. “Okay,” I said, “We’ll stay here
until you are ready to get into the seat.”
We were toasty warm, the
heater outlet was hot enough to make coffee proven by the temperature of our
drinking water. Grandson horsed around for about two hours, ate left-over
pancakes, played with the coins in the ashtray, I read about 15 pages of Dean
Knootz’s Odd Thomas to him—nothing gross.
He was fascinated that Odd said nothing would happen until the cow exploded.
(Horrors) Grandson moved onto more play, and I read “How to Write Action
Screenplays,” until I was fried.
The trouble was we overstayed our time, and getting home neither
of us could get to the bathroom fast enough. Grandson ran into the house
letting the dogs out into the front yard where I had to corral them. Peaches had used
a Puddle pad because we were gone so long, (she was still asleep when we left)—I
removed that. I chased down Grandson before he climbed on anything wet as he
was. I changed the cat litter box, that the cat used again before I got the
litter outside. I threw myself into the bathtub, and then had to wait for the
dog outside as she was having digestive problems. I stood in the artic air with
a towel wrapped around my wet hair and observed that Circus performers only
have to keep five plates spinning…
And come evening as I
drove to pick up his mother, Grandson, strapped in that that drives-me-crazy
car seat, fell asleep.
And now today, Friday—snow! Everything is white, and the curb has all
but disappeared. Grandson ran around as excited as an otter on a creek-bank,
with Bear running a close second. I do believe that snow is a Newfoundland dog’s natural habitat.
The trouble is we have no snow clothes. I have rubber boots, but Grandson has
none, so he was stuck with sneakers, and the jacket loaned from Auntie
mysteriously found its way back home, so we stacked on sweaters, and with no
gloves, we used socks that didn’t work well on a four-year old.
The excitement warmed him for a while as we slid, ran,
played, poked, while dogs sniffed out the new landscape over to the pond where
duckies swam on slush and Grandson reached
his limit. He said he had never been so cold in his entire life.
We beat-feet back home, threw aside wet clothing, and made French
toast the way his mother used to make in Hawaii, We melted butter atop the
toast until it ran like syrup, sprinkled, no poured on, powdered sugar, and then
came the good part. We squeezed a fresh lime until it pooled juice and soaked
up the sugar and the butter into a sugary sloppy topping fit for a Prince. Not
quite as good and our limes taken from best lime-tree-in-the-world in
Hawaii, but it ran a close second.
Four years ago on December 1 we left Oregon, pursued Hawaii,
then California, now we are back in Oregon, and now daily I bow to the goddess of central heating…View of the yard (Yard?) and street.
The below plant will burst into glorious azalea fuchsia blossoms come spring...hope for the future.
The sun will come out tomorrow, oh, tomorrow's today.
Which way mom?
However, I'll own up to it, it's my blog.
