I would not have purchased this coat.
I have worries about spills and stains.
It is a no brainer that white is not a practical colour.
But it was a gift and soon I was wearing it everywhere, and washing it when needed.
This is the coat I brought with me to Montreal, minus the hood.
I was only staying three weeks. Catherine and Eric have made the welcome so warm, I have been here half of October and won’t return until January 9th. I need that hood.
I am outside often, walking Hebe home from school or going in and out of the subway 2 to 6 times a day. Hanging onto the banisters as I climb double flights of stairs, leaning my arms on well used chairs, brushing against the turnstile, leaning aginst the Opus card on the electrical reader, having the hem of my coat drag on the floor (as I sit on the chairs of the bus), all of this is as I am showing its toll. Still, I have no idea why dirt has climbed from the ring around my coat sleeve, up the inner seam of the coat and to the armhole seam.
Last night I was applying Naptha (the purest of soaps) to the long zipper and both sides of the coat, wondering if my knuckles could take the rubs that my mother used to do on a washboard.
This morning the coat looks as white as fallen snow and more clothing is in the wash, though a new crisis has arisen.
Eric and Catherine are on cleaning duty at the church. Catie, Rebecca and Thomas have gone to help someone paint their house. Hebe and I are alone. Alone and now the electricity has gone out. There was enough noise about it upstairs that I thought someone else had come home. But no. Hebe was working out her consternation at having the Gods of Electrical Power trump her happiness on the computer. She listened to me explain why I am powerless to get the electricity back.
Having her at the screen this morning was a joy for she was asking how to spell words that come up in games. I am going to make flash cards for those words – the words that lead to happiness when there is power. And these will be words she really needs to know (pirate and formal – she also needs to know what the word means, which is even more to the good).
Being home alone with her is fun. She is so mad about the power being out that I have once again become the dumbest grandmother. Hebe has closed the baby gate and shut the door to the basement to keep me contained in this lovely suite downstairs. When I went upstairs to check on her and found that out, I was laughing so hard that I had to lean against the wall. Closing a baby gate to control grandmother!
I am going to respect her boundaries.
Please, please, next time let me stay home from cleaning the church again and watch Hebe.
Arta
Catherine put the Messiah on today. She was sorting through old music: music Catie had written, old choir music of her own, old choir music other people had given her, collections of songs from old musicals absolutely unknown to her children (Cabaret, South Pacific, etc.), Easter music, concert music. It would be no lie to say that if every piece of music were put on top of the next, that the pile would be three feet high, maybe even four feet high.
ReplyDeleteWe took music out of old binders and duo tangs and folders, trying to save anything that might have to be repurchased down the road. Christmas cleaning time takes us into unusual corners of our homes.
I could have mailed you the hood but too late now.
ReplyDeleteI have a good black hat and some gloves. As well, I bought some eternity scarves -- two of them that are warm and cozy. I know why the eternity scarves work now. A scarf that is loosely tied around the neck goes flying off in the wind. So unless the ends of a scarf are tied together, a person has to walk and always be either catching the scarf or having it blow around and past their eyes or over their eyes while walking.
ReplyDeleteI am not walking today until other people have trampled down the ice on the roads and on the sidewalks. A person has to watch for just the right time to take a walk.