Tag: family

Grandma Judy Calls the Roll

~ Judy ~ 1 Comment

Maria
I went to Maria’s softball game this week. This is her first year playing fastpitch, and I’m thinking she may want to work on her self-confidence in the batter’s box. She appears as likely to wait for the walk as to swing at any given pitch. Not a bad strategy actually, and one I can relate to, but connecting bat and ball seems sort of core to the game. On the other hand, the girl can run once she gets on base.

Christian
Christian, who turned eight this week, is feeling miffed that his march to adulthood hasn’t equated to something more than bigger sneakers. As he told his mother, doggone it, he is old enough for the 12-inch sub at Subway now.

Grace
Grace was at Maria’s softball game, although she wasn’t exactly in thrall of the action on the field and as a result spent a good part of the time capturing the local color with my camera. Which is how I end up with photos like this of some random bald guy…

and the now ubiquitous, but always riveting shot of Gracie’s feet…

Cosette
Cosette spent the week fixating on her birthday, still three months away but why wait till the last minute. It was the subject of numerous phone calls, with instructions on finding Thomas the Tank Engine toys (Aisle 2 at Target), the theme for her cake (Thomas the Tank Engine), and where to park when I get to the party (not in the street but in the driveway next to the neighbors’ flowers, Daddy will show me where).

Bret Jr.
Toddler Bret remains as exuberant as ever. Recently he conked me in the head with a cookie. (I know it shouldn’t hurt, but it did.) We were at a birthday party where they passed out big hard cookies in plastic bags, an open invitation to reckless cookie swinging and I should know better than to bend down to talk to a toddler in those circumstances. It wasn’t as painful as the time Toddler Christian broke my nose, or even the time Toddler Maria clobbered me with a hair brush, but it smarted. So don’t go giving toddlers potentially harmful cookies in plastic bags. Just don’t.

A small bird has built a small nest in the ivy growing up a pillar outside my front door, and now I can’t get up on a ladder to pull the wayward ivy off the house without risking being pecked in the eye. And so it goes.

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Dumb Wildlife

~ Judy ~ 2 Comments

For the third day in a row I’ve had to pull a pile of twigs out of my newspaper box. Some clueless but determined bird fills it up about as quickly as I can empty it. While I don’t mind a persistent bird as much as persistent hornets, who continue to try to establish a hive in the eaves over the kitchen window despite the fact that I keep blasting it off with the hose, obviously I cannot allow wildlife to nest in the newspaper box. Even if I had the carrier throw the paper in the driveway until the baby birds had hatched and flown away, the mailbox is part of the whole setup, and I can’t have some territorial mother bird dive-bombing the mail carrier. I am not going to the post office to pick up my mail just because a stupid bird can’t figure things out.

One fall some Swifts built a nest in my chimney. They made a racket up there and, convinced it was a raccoon, I sent up an exterminator, only to find out that Swifts are protected and cannot be removed from your chimney no matter how much they annoy you. You just have to put up with it until the whole family picks up and flies away. Forget about having a fire.

I don’t know why the creatures of this earth want to torment me. There was a turtle in the garage last week. It had parked itself under the car and I was afraid to back out, because the last thing I need to come home to is a dead turtle. I think it’s the same one that’s been hanging around since Mother’s Day, when daughter Jessica spotted it in the driveway and made her boyfriend John reluctantly put it in a bucket and then transfer it into a plastic kiddy pool to show the grandkids; except that it looked so pathetic trying to scramble up the sides of the pool that they let it go and it crawled off into the raspberry bushes to hide, which was ridiculous because any one of my grandchildren could have been the inspiration for Lord of the Flies. Well, not Grace.

Since then I have seen the turtle plowing through the grass, parked on the front walk and lurking in the rock garden. Yesterday it was back in the raspberry bushes. At least I think it’s the same one. They all look the same, green and neurotic. Stalked by a turtle, besieged by things that fly. No wonder I’m a mess.

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Not My Coat

~ Judy ~ 4 Comments

Something is wrong. I have this full-length black wool coat. I’ve probably had it for three to five years. I pulled it out of the closet a couple of weeks ago, put it on and said, “This is not my coat.”

For one thing, it felt too big. And there were three buttons down the front, while I’m pretty sure my coat had two. Also, there were little flaps on the pockets and a belt in back that I don’t recall being there before.
 
This must be Jessica’s coat, I thought. She must have taken mine and left her coat here by mistake. I called my oldest daughter. “You have my coat,” I said.
“What?”
“You have my black wool coat. You must have gotten it confused with yours the last time you were over.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I just dropped my coat off at the cleaners.”
“You mean you dropped off my coat at the cleaners,” I said. “Thanks.”
“No, I remember the lining and the hole in the pocket.”
I pressed on. “Well, does it have two buttons or three?”
“I don’t know. Two I guess.”
“Is there a belt in back and flaps on the pockets?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Gees.
She took a shot:  “I think Gina has a black wool coat. Maybe the one you have is Gina’s.”
“Maybe,” I said, but I figured she was just looking for a way to hang up.
 
I called daughter Gina. “You have my coat,” I said.
“What?”
“You have my black wool coat. You must have gotten it confused with yours the last time you were here.”
“I don’t own a black wool coat,” she said. “I have a black leather coat.”
“Really?” I said. “Because the coat I have is too big for me. Also, it has three buttons down the front and a belt in the back and little flaps on the pockets.”
“Sorry, not mine,” she said.
I had to believe her.
 
I wore the coat to work and stood in front of my coworkers.
“I don’t think this is my coat,” I said.
“What? Why?” asked Linda.
I explained about the buttons and the belt and the little pocket flaps.
“That is not your coat,” said Ann, who has opinions on things. “That coat is too big for you, and yours was better material.”
“Right!” I said. We agreed that Jessica must be mistaken. Or trying to pull a fast one.
Linda was noncommital. You’d think she didn’t care.
 
Last weekend my middle daughter, Jill, stopped by. “Do you have a black wool coat?” I asked.
“No.”
“Because I have this coat and I don’t think it’s mine. My coat had two buttons and this one has three. And it has a belt in back and flaps on the pockets.”
“Maybe you’re getting Alzheimer’s,” she suggested.
“What?! No!”
“I could use a new winter coat,” she said.
 
I got a voicemail from Jessica saying she had picked up her coat at the dry cleaners – same lining, same hole in the pocket. I had to conclude that it probably wasn’t mine.
 
I took the coat I have out of the closet and tried it on again. It might be my coat. But I don’t think so.

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Baby, Baby, Baby

~ Judy ~ 2 Comments

My fourth grandchild, Cosette, is four years old now and into babies. She’s been telling her mother for some time that they should get another baby (“they” in the broadest sense of the word). “God gives the babies,” her mother said. So Cosette prayed for a baby. She prayed until God said, “Okay already, Cosette!” It was a surprise to all of us.

I said, “Great. Now she thinks God will give her anything she asks for.”

So there’s this baby coming, and Cosette calls me regularly with the latest breaking news on the baby-to-be… the baby is 4 inches long, now he’s 5 inches long, now he’s the size of a baked potato. She insists it’s a boy, and given her apparent access to the Unknown, I suspect she’s right.

Cosette has a doll she named Baby Alla (nobody knows why). Baby Alla has every accessory a newborn could need – tiny diapers and wipes, a little plastic bottle, changing table, playard, baby carrier, and a pacifier tied to her wrist with string. She wears one of Toddler Bret’s old onesies for pajamas.

Last week we were playing in Cosette’s room when she had to leave to use the potty. My instructions in her absence were to give Baby Alla a bottle. So I did. I sat on the floor, held the doll and stuck a bottle in its mouth. Cosette looked around the corner. “Talk to her,” she ordered before leaving again. So I did. I sat all alone on the floor, feeding pretend milk to a pretend baby and talking baby talk to it. Lunacy. Baby Alla just laid there of course. That’s all she ever does.

Anyway, come late summer I will have a sixth grandchild. It isn’t something I ever thought about or imagined, and frankly I don’t know if there’s enough of me to go around.

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January ad nauseum

~ Judy ~ Leave a comment
READY FOR SOME WINTER FUN

Why, yes, it is snowing again. I’m ignoring it.

July 24, 2009 – The Garage Sale, Part 2

The garage sale progresses as well as you’d expect, only worse. The mountain in the garage is rapidly encroaching on my parking space and the kids keep dropping things off. I can’t open the car door all the way and have to step on bed rails to get out.

Gina, hubby and toddler spent last weekend at my house so she could sort through her stuff. She didn’t finish, and if she finds one more thing she wants to take home with her, divorce is imminent.

Jill brought several things over to sell but never looked at her pile of belongings in the basement.

Jessica found a number of household items her paternal grandmother gave her, but we can’t put them on the garage sale in case they turn out to be valuable.

Also, I’m getting some pushback on selling the formals. One daughter might want to dress up as a lounge singer for Halloween. Another thinks she may again fit into that dress she wore to the 1993 Homecoming Dance (once the baby weight is gone).

More garage sale treasures found:
sweater stone
inflatable palm tree
cowboy hat cleaner
5 Christmas wreaths

Meanwhile, I have several closets and drawers to go through. I overdid it last weekend – now I have a sore back and two tennis elbows, and I figure the chiropractor’s bill will probably eat up any garage sale profits.

Coming up: The Garage Sale, parts 3 to 6