Ironing Paper

From Betty to Arta
Betty signs her name BBJ for Betty Blanche Johnson
Alice put in an arrow and tells what BBJ means.

I had to iron a piece of paper this morning.

Let me back up.

I was with Michael, Alice and Betty last night.

I was reading the Pokeman Dictionary
with Michael.  That is not the real name of the book, but it is a compendium of all of the Pokeman characters a grandmother really doesn't want to memorize.

That is my punishment for taking it out of the recycling (off to the garbage) at Rebecca’s and bringing it back here for Michael. Already it was dog-eared from 7 years of use with Duncan.

Now it pages are being re-turned by him and I am the listener as he reads.

 He reads 4 pages.

 Then I read four pages.

 Betty was sitting to my right and I could see that she was making a card for me to take home. She doesn’t read. She doesn’t even know how to make all of her letters. But she needed to know “To Arta” and “From Betty”.

Apparently it is hard to get a picture to Grandmother just right.
A lot of crossing out going on here.

Alice was helping her. I thought everything was going fine. I wasn’t really aware of them having any trouble until their voices escalated and I saw Betty dramatically crumple up the paper into a large ball, yell at Alice and into the garbage the paper went.

I turned to Betty and told her that I didn’t know if I could go home without that paper. She often sends me home with a card, and I didn’t want to miss that one. I asked what had gone wrong.

“Alice scribbled all over it.”

A few scribbles on someone else's paper
and the colouring even goes sideways

“Take it out of the garbage. I will take it home and iron it and I will love looking at it. The creases will be gone.”

She brightened up.

Both girls smoothed the paper out the best they could.

And I had to iron a piece of paper this morning when I got up.

Arta