Not A Creature Was Stirring

Jack and I expected to spend a very quiet Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  My son and his family have flown to San Francisco -- a few years ago they decided to try a new tradition of being away as a family for Christmas.  Their school breaks overlap, the only vacation time of the year when they are all free, and when they are here in their home state, they are pulled in a million directions during  Christmas break.  They didn't travel last year because of Covid-19, and made this year's plans when it looked like we were over the worst of it.  Of course, this week we are hearing scary stories about the newest variant, and they thought about cancelling but decided to go ahead since they are all vaccinated and so is the friend they will visit there.  I am happy and excited (and of course a little bit worried) for them.  We will have our Christmas get-together, and our traditional chocolate fondue, on New Year's Eve after they get back.  Jack's younger son and daughter in law are busy both days with her family, and his older son is working.  We thought that his daughter would enjoy her son's 1st Christmas with her little family.   But her boyfriend decided to go to Florida to visit his mom and grandpa over the holidays, so we got bonus family time, and we are delighted.  Now instead of just two grumpy old people on Christmas Eve, Grandpa gets to be snuggled down this afternoon, and just as the poem promises in The Night Before Christmas, not a creature is stirring.  

I hope all the people I know are as lucky as we are, and also having a peaceful Christmas Eve, with people you love.

Still Thankful

It has been a long time since I last posted.  Somehow, when George came to town, either I got busy or having a baby around sucked the energy out of me just like when my own were little.  We have been entertaining him several times a week and we love it.  He is a serious little guy and seems to be carefully evaluating - and judging - the world, but he always always has a smile for his grandma.  He is at an age when he doesn’t like it a bit when  his mother leaves  him with anyone else, but he is fine if I am there, which is a sweet feeling for me.  He reaches for me and hugs my neck when I pick him up; nothing could be sweeter.

Meanwhile, this year I have finally, finally been able to see the older grands a few times a week, too.  Although they are much too big now for me to pick up and cuddle, they also always have a smile for their grandma.   I love our conversations, I love hearing what they are thinking about, and I am amazed at how much smarter and more perceptive and creative they are than I was at their ages, or maybe ever.   And   all of this makes me very happy, if a bit worse for wear.   I am amazed lately at how quickly I tire. 

  

Meanwhile, we all getting older.  We were sad to get the news that one of Jack’s  younger brothers died. Our last photo of all 7 siblings together was taken at our post-wedding celebration 2019, and we knew then that Mark was in poor health, but we had hoped he would be with us for many more years. 

In more ordinary news, I’ve sewn an assortment of things since last I posted.  Jack bought me an early birthday present of a 1937 Singer Featherweight.  She had a single owner, someone’s Aunt Esther, who recently died at 94, and that is the name I have given her.   I got her over a month ago and by now, the week before my birthday, I’ve learned to maintain her and have already made a little crib quilt top and a few odds and ends.  At only 11 pounds, she is so small that I am able to bring her into the living room and then carry her back to the sewing room when I am done.  Sewing in a different location has been kind of fun and what they say about these machines is true — she sews a beautiful stitch.   I’ve been happy to have her because my “good” machine, the Solaris, has broken down again and Babylock took her back to the factory because the dealer has already replaced every replaceable part and she still refuses to cooperate.   She is too expensive to have been this much trouble and has been an ongoing frustration.   

Today is Thanksgiving.  We will have dinner at my son and daughter-in-law's house today and I need to get going to make the mushroom lasagna I am contributing to the meal.  We will have another Thanksgiving, with Jack’s kids, on Sunday, here at our house.  Christmas is just around the corner!  Jack's kids are all local and we plan to spend time together over the holidays but have decided not to exchange gifts this Christmas, so I will put away the things I’ve made for them until their birthdays instead.  My son’s family will be busy on Christmas, but we will get together before or after for our exchange.  My daughter is in Louisiana, where she continues to struggle with her personal challenges; we wish we could visit her but pandemic numbers continue to make that seem unwise.  So it will be a fairly quiet holiday for us.  Maybe next year we will finally be able to visit and travel and gather in larger groups again, but at least this year we are able to have small visits with our local vaccinated loved ones.

For the first time ever, I decided to “rush the season” and not wait until after Thanksgiving to put up the Christmas tree.  Jack thinks it is too soon, but this year I feel like I need as much Christmas as I can squeeze out of the year.  Between the seemingly endless pandemic, my 72nd birthday next week, and the sad loss of Jack’s younger brother, I see no reason to limit the simple things that bring me joy.   Oddly enough, those sparkly lighted trees fall into that category.

Life seems a bit bittersweet these days, but there is always much to be thankful for.  Our young ones are healthy, Jack and I have both gotten the Covid booster shots, and our own home is comfortable and peaceful.  Life is always changing, but it is good.

Turtles and Flowers

With no schedule or internet resources today, as I stay away from my home, I explored a park in town.  Our town has a lot of flowers in public places, including a whole corner lot nearby with tiered rows that are tended every year by volunteers.  The property is called Dahlia Hill.  Each row holds different varieties of dahlias, all labeled with their name and sometimes with the name of someone in whose memory they are planted.  There are hundreds of them, different shapes and colors, and although they are not yet fully in bloom it is already beautiful.

I also took a walk, longer than my feet approved, along a river.  On the other side, along two ends of a fallen log (only one end pictured here), was a row of perhaps 20 turtles.  My grandchildren suggested (by text) that perhaps it was a Turtle Council, which might, I suppose, if the turtles are in charge, explain why useful changes take so long to happen.

So all in all, it was not the best of days.  Definitely not.  

But it was not the worst of days, either.

My Grands are Stars

 One of my artistic grandchildren, who adorned themself with a handpainted star.   This photo makes me happy.

Time to Hang Up My Oven Mitts?

I am 71 years old and, I tell myself, coping well.  But today caused me to rethink my abilities a bit.   Tonight we went out after dinner to a local dessert spot because Jack wanted a slice of sugar free cherry pie, and only one place in town serves it.  When we discovered that they were closed, I promised him that I would make him one instead.   Easy peasy.  I mixed up frozen cherries with a sugar substitute and other ingredients, popped them into a refrigerator pie shell, pulled out a cookie tray to set it on in case it bubbled over and put the whole shebang into the oven.   I set a timer and sat down to wait.

Twenty minutes later I was disturbed by an odd smell so I went to the kitchen to investigate.  I opened the oven and, under the cookie sheet, this is what I saw.

Don't even ask because I have no idea what it is, except that it is plastic.  I can only surmise that maybe a cutting board was stuck to the bottom of the cookie sheet?  It doesn't exactly look like a cutting board, so I honestly don't know.  All I know for sure is that our house filled with the smell of melted plastic,  we both lost our appetite for pie, and I was just glad we didn't have company coming.  We think the oven and maybe even the cookie sheet can be salvaged -- the plastic peeled off the oven floor in a whole sheet.  There is some slight waxy residue but not much, and we are hopeful that we can get it off.  The racks, on the other hand, are a lost cause, and new ones are on order.  But the real question is, this is Jack's fault, right?

Other than that, it has been a perfectly good, if unproductive, week.  I have two quilt tops sitting idle  that can't be finished until the border fabric on order arrives.  Since nothing much was going on, we decided to go away on a long weekend, in fearful anticipation of Covid non-compliance shutting things down again soon.  But when we arrived at out first destination, we realized that there were no superchargers in that part of the state and that we would need to drive half-way home and then back up again if we wanted to go to the second destination on my itinerary.  So we scratched the rest of the trip and had a very nice one-night stay.   When we got home I felt like all I had done was drive and eat, and I was not even a little bit rested, so it was a valuable learning experience.  I will plan more carefully next time.  I underestimated how quickly I would need to charge again when we were driving mostly on back roads instead of on the highway.  I knew going in that this would be a negative factor with the Tesla, but it seems to me an acceptable trade-off for not using fossil fuel, and I am sure more superchargers will be built as time goes on.  No regrets.

So instead of a long weekend, we visited a lovely local museum and an overpriced local quilt shop, and spent one night at a golf course that also contains an Elk preserve.  We learned a lot about Elk, their habits, their life cycle, and their benefits.  It was really quite interesting.  We saw several elk but the photo opportunities were disappointing because, although the elk roam freely within the several hundred acre preserve, the preserve is fenced, and fences do not make good photos.  Of course, if it were not fenced, we would be unlikely to see elk at all, but seeing them this way was not very different from seeing them at a zoo.  There are several hundred wild elk in Michigan, but they are susceptible to the bovine tuberculosis that threatens our much, much larger whitetail deer population.   Until a few years ago people could create food plots for the elk to improve the chances of a sighting, but those group feeding areas spread disease and have been outlawed now to protect both the elk and the deer, as well as livestock in the area.

After the elk tour, we were taken to a lovely cabin in the middle of the property and served a nice 5 course dinner,  including a pork loin crown roast, prepared on a wood stove, along with surprisingly drinkable local wines.   It was fun, but since we exposed ourselves to strangers, we are now quarantining for a few days before we see George or other family.  We do not expect to be infectious, but we don't want to take any chances, either, because the virus is clearly on the upswing again.   I am trying to stop hoping that we will get to take another trip before things shut down again.  Now I am just mostly hoping again that we can all stay well.  Thank goodness stupidity isn't contagious, because we are exposed to an awful lot of that these days.

Vaxxed and Relaxed

It has been hot the past couple of weeks, with temperatures in the high 80's, something we didn't use to see  until late July or August.  But yesterday we had a robust thunder storm and a temperature drop of about 20 degrees, so this morning is pleasant and more in keeping with what mid-June "ought" to be.  Given the brutal weather that much of the country has experienced lately, we feel lucky to be in mid-Michigan.

Baby George and his mama are expected to arrive next weekend, and Jack is doing the final work on getting his 'old' house ready for them.  New carpet and flooring was installed this week, and house-cleaners are scheduled for Monday.  I am shopping this weekend for a pack n play to keep at Grandpa's house and for a diaper stash to tide him over until the baby-daddy arrives a week later with all their gear.

It has been so nice to experience some vaccination freedom!   Jack's younger son and wife came for dinner last weekend for the first time since the pandemic started.  I freely stop by to visit with my grands whenever I am in their area these days (School is out for them, and Ray got a cute new summer haircut!  I love hearing about their lives again!).  And I visited my sister this week; she is about 3 hours away and it has been nearly two years since I've seen her, so the pandemic-delayed visit was long over-due.  She is unsteady and weak, but in good spirits, and we had a nice visit.  We drove to Marine City, on the St. Clair River, where we spent much of our childhood.  When we parked and started to get out of the car, we realized that she had forgotten her cane, and so further progress was impossible.  Fortunately we were able to find a drugstore not too far out of town where I picked up a flamingo-design replacement.  We had lunch and visited a candy store before driving back to her cute little condo.

I have been sewing little things, too many to picture, including secret Santa gifts and bits that will eventually become Christmas gifts.  I feel pressured to get as much done as possible.  Once the baby arrives we expect to be busy!  And my secret Santa gifts need to be packed and mailed by the end of the summer, so those are on my priority list.

Oh -- and after much angst, I spent a chunk of my children's increasingly meager inheritance:  I bought a Tesla.  I have been in the market for a new car for a few years now, although there was no hurry.  Honestly, at this point in my life, there was also no genuine need, but I am not ready to give up my 'independence' yet.  I was looking at perhaps another Suburu, but Jack has been driving a Tesla for a couple of years, and he is a mighty believer in going electric for the sake of our grandchildren.  If we don't do it, he reasons, who will?, and we both see the need for alternatives to fossil fuel.   My car should arrives just around the time that George does, so lots of excitement expected soon!  Neither of my original grands is driving yet, but I am hoping the new car might be a little fun for them at some point down the proverbial road.

Meeting George

Jack and I flew to D.C. this week to meet George Jack, first child of Jack's daughter Abi, and first child of any of Jack's kids.  As babies tend to do, he completely charmed us.  We held him more than he needed to be held and took a million identical photos.  It was a good trip and hard to leave him, especially for Jack.  Abi and her boyfriend Ben are planning to move into Jack's 'old' house sometime this summer, so they will be close-by soon, but at this age even days seem like forever.  Abi's mom still refuses to get vaccinated, even knowing that she might not see her only grandchild until he is old enough for the vaccination, which could well be years away.  It is incomprehensible to me and very sad.

George is wearing silicone forms on  his ears because one of the baby-doctors concluded that his ear shape was not picture perfect (although George's parents couldn't see anything wrong with them) and these sci-fi forms are supposed to correct that.  They don't seem to bother him and are expected to come off before the next time we see him, so it will be like meeting him all over again.

We did nothing else on this trip; just flying and having to be in buildings with unknown strangers seemed risky enough.    Abi's mom had promised to get the vaccine and to be there during George's early weeks to help, but of course that didn't happen, so the kids have not had any help until now.   They've done a good job, as most new parents do, but for sure George's mommy and daddy (like most new mommys and daddys) are flat-out exhausted.  We spent each day with the baby, watching him so his parents could sleep.  Jack spent one over-night on the couch in his daughter's tiny apartment so that he could take over the night feedings, which was both exhausting and fulfilling for him.  I didn't hear from him until  nearly 11 am the next morning; clearly George has not yet figured out the day/night schedule of this new-to-him planet.  On the last day before we left, Jack pretty much forced them to unwrap (i.e. take the ribbon off and unfold)  the quilt I made and gave them on day one so he could get a picture, but they didn't look at it well enough to see that it had a heart pattern.  I was sorry that he felt he had to press the matter.   I did get a nice photo of the baby wrapped in his great aunt's quilt-gift, the first she ever made, by wrapping the baby in it myself and trying to explain how important it would be to her to feel that it was appreciated.   The young parents are too tired and overwhelmed, I think, to notice much of anything that isn't absolutely necessary right now.

I was glad to get home.