The Johnson Snow Fort

 

New Rubber Boots

Betty and Alice got new rubber boots.
Betty wants everything to look like foxes, including rubber boots.
She has a foxy dress, a foxy blanket and a foxy stuffy.
Now she has foxy boots.

Here Betty is wearing her foxy boots with her foxy shirt.

Alice's boots used to be plain black boots as well.
Now she has a ladybug on one boot and a butterfly on the other.

Photo Credit: Mary Johnson
Boot Artist: Miranda Johnson

Richard Misses his Kids

... Alice, Betty and Richard on a Shuswap Trail walk ...

Richard was wondering which is the better parenting split – to be working in the city from 7 am to 7 pm, or tending the kids near the forest and the water 24 hours a day.

A hard call.

He said that every year, what he knows about parenting changes.

Last year he had a 7, 5 and 3 year old. Now he has an 8, 6 and 4 year old but there doesn’t seem to be any carry-over.

Each child is in a new age and what worked for one four year old, isn’t working with another.

and speaking of love
... a forester leaves a love note on the trail ...

He is still on a high parenting curve.

Every year, he says, he learns something about an age group he thought he had nail, but now there is something new that he hadn't anticipated.

Only one thing seems to be unchanged, he says.

The sooner that a parent learns that having children is just like living with a very messy room mate, the sooner good parenting can start.

Arta

To Nimony

Mary says of this picture:

"to nimony from Alice"

That was the cutest note ever on the table from Alice to Naomi. 

Alice had coloured a dragon picture and then given it to Naomi.

I love how much she loves writing.

She doesn't care about making mistakes.  I am not even sure she knows there are mistakes.  She just loves sending notes to people.

And recipe she wrote for pancakes… priceless. 

2 kinds of flour. 3 cups each. 

Visits from Friends and Family

Michael and Betty with the new hot air popcorn popper

The map of the world has come down from the wall.
The periodic table is up

I am not up to having visitors yet.

But the children next door do come over to see Mary.

They like to come and play Lego on the table with her.

Either that or do crafts which involve a lot of cutting, gluing and taping.

I can sleep in the other room so I don’t even hear any of that going on.

Betty has been making me pictures, which I have been taping to the headboard of my bed.

My headboard: a child’s art gallery.

I told Betty I would be taking the pictures down and putting them in a binder. She wondered why. So I am not taking them down.

I will wait until she is completely out of space on the headboard and I can negotiate a transfer of that hanging art to a binder.

Arta

Just one more cousin activity

From Mary

Alice and Rhiannon both love to read. 

One evening they decided to read together, 
taking turns reading a page each and then switching.
 

Betty wanted to be close by.

Betty was more interested in building and toppling a tower of paper cups.

On reading Returning the Feathers

Returning the Feathers: Five Gitxsan Stories

By M. Jane Smith, Illustrator Ken N. Mowatt

I printed off some of the pages that Rebecca referred me to in M. Jane Smith’s dissertation, Placing Gitxsan Stories in Text: Returning the Feathers: Guusx Mak' Am Mik' Aax.

I took a lot of care to put them into a binder that will work for me, one with purple shining see-through pages, and I made a table of contents so that I can find the stories quickly. As soon as I start making an investment of time into photocopying something, the product reaches a new level of interest for me. I don’t want to have wasted all of that time by not doing something with it.

For myself, one evening, I read the "Story of the Blue Jay: and the "Story of Mosquito", getting ready to read them to Michael, Betty and Alice.

The childen occasionally drop in, the last one reporting that the first two are over here without permission.

I wanted to read to them. I knew they would want to play with toys.

First I cleared off the table. Then I spread out their Christmas Lego, and made a sidebar of the food they like (olives for Alice and cheese for Michael). Then I would just read, read, read, I had decided.

Betty was the first one in the house. She asked me if I had any Dilly Bars. I was laughing inside. I never have Dilly Bars – only when Wyona drops by the Dairy Queen with half price coupons and I am in the car with her. Still, just the thought I might have a Dilly Bar entices Betty to come over to my house.

I have the Gitxsan stories printed now: 52 to page 77, and that is 12 point, single space and no pictures. A long read out of that shiny purple binder. At one point, Michael did ask me how long the story would be. I told him that it was a long, long story, so he just continued to listen.

The narrative is about three supernatural children: a lot of stories cobbled together.

I could have stopped reading at any time.

I had to do all of the imaging with my voice since there were no pictures. – keep the tones low when Nuhlx was whispering to his sister, I thought to myself. “The man has lice on his head, the man has lice on his head””, and gradually getting my voice louder and louder, trying to catch the horror of what the little snot boy was telling his sister.

And now I have given it away. He wasn’t a normal child, but made from the mucous what came from her mother’s nose as she was crying and crying during puberty and at the same time finding out that her village had been mysteriously deserted.

Well, now you have too much information. But it didn’t seem like too much information to them. They would lean forward over their Lego pieces on the table, eyes wide, bodies still and the they would relax and lean back when the story got less frightening.

Sumin came downstairs during the story, stayed for a while and then went back upstairs. Later Mati told me that Sumin likes to peek in when the children are over. She had come back up to report that Arta was reading and that the children were in all sorts of positions, but still listening. The girls were on the treadmill, Betty making the belt move by the sheer force of her might, feet pushing back on while Alice swings back and forth on one of its handles.

Michael was in his chair but in a questionable position: his back on the seat, one leg pointing toward the ceiling, the other toward a wall, one of them going north and one going east. Mati told me that in Nepal those children would have been swatted and made to sit in their chairs circumspectly in a chair.

I don’t think that method of reading to kids would have worked for me or for them.

Richard did tell me that he was up all night, a few nights ago, every few hours, with Betty’s night terror dreams. He needed to be beside her, rubbing her little back and telling her that it was OK and she could go back to sleep. But that can only be blame on Christmas fun, for I hadn’t been telling Gitxsan stories to her yet.

Arta

Single Parenting

Alice likes to play with other set of toys 
besides the Nativity, Alice asked 
if she could have Lego for girls for Xmas.
So here she is with the Pool Party.
Betty looks on with great interest as to
how to construct the slide to the pool.

I have a small Peruvian nativity with the figures dressed in the national costumes of Peru.

I keep it out year round as well, hoping that Alice will play with it.

She does.

In fact, she broke the head off the donkey, but that was easily fixed with a glue gun.

I, however, dropped the figure of Mary, and smashed it to smithereens, yesterday.

I thought I had a good hold on it, but it just dropped out of my hand.

There is just no hope of getting it back together with a glue gun.

I wondered, is it better, while trying to downsize, to just throw away anything that is not in perfect condition anymore which would mean throwing out the whole set.

I opted instead, to keep, rather than throw it away, leaving it on the lower shelf in the china cabinet, and in the days ahead, Joseph shall just have to do single parenting.

Preparing for Remote Access to my Computer

... Splendor at one side of the table. 
Also a game of Uno at the other side of the table...

I needed to have some long distant secure remote access help when I was figuring out how to set up my new-to-me computer.

When that kind of assistance is given from a Help Desk there is a statement read, one principle of which is that you can stop the session at any time, and you are warned that the person coming in remotely can see what is on your computer.

... Michael prepares to beat his grandmother at Splendor ...

The last statement wouldn’t bother me, since I lead a quiet life with nothing on my computer that I couldn’t show anyone.

So in the person came, and as their cursor was moving around my desktop I saw a file that was called Torture Files.

I couldn’t remember what it was that I might have put in such a file, but I determined to look deeper into its contents when the session was over.

So here is what the contents were: pictures of me playing board games.

... Alice's hands control the cards ...

Yes.

Torture to me.

But I am drawn to board games since they present an excellent way to interact with my grandchildren.

I watched Doral’s friend, Pam Dirk, this summer.

When the games with children began Pam dove in with all of the excitement of a newcomer about to have the best moments of the day ahead, rolling the die and making her moves with such joy.

... a meal first and then cards ...

I am trying to follow her model.

But I can’t quite do it, can I?

I am at about 98% able to show excitement.

... Betty with her cards laid out in front of her ...

It is just that little 2% in me that has to label the file “Torture”.

Arta

Patrons of Seussical: the Musical

... Alice waiting for the show to begin...

I heard music during dinnertime – music that I recognized.

“What is that? Cats?”, I asked.

The kids laughed and said, no it is Seussical the Musical.

They have a new radio station and they can hear all of the great musicals plus music that just caters to their tastes. 

And all of us have a new-found love of the musical that Naomi was in.

I can’t say exactly what it is that draws me to live performances of musicals.

... Michael ready to go out and buy his popcorn ...

There is no doubt that they can be put on TV and the editing can make the performances flawless.

Live, there will always be changes to the text, sometimes the music overpowers the singers, the amateur actor doesn’t always have the diction, nor the projection of the professional. 

Still, I love going to high school performances.

On enquiring of Naomi, she knew more about the plot and about her character’s attributes than I might have imagined.

She launched into more than a two-paragraph explanation about the theory of the show.

Betty, Arta and Michael standing in the hall beside
the fabulous murals of the musical we were about to see.

“What would you think she would say?",  her mom explained. She has been doing this for 2 ½ hours every night after school for three months.

And that might be what comes across, when I go hear this charming musical.

All of that work.

I am lucky.

I got to see it first with Gabe as Horton, the elephant and then with Naomi as he Cat and the Hat. Truly memorable performances.

And as a follow-up, we got to hear the music today, coming over the radio: melodies that are now familiar to us.

Nice.

Playing Azul, Uno and Chatting

"Can we play one more game, Grandmother?"

Tonight, I played Azul and Uno with my grandchildren.

I chat as we play.

Sometimes I chat.

Today I yelled.

When too many hands get into the tile pile and I can’t tell which hand is hitting which other hand and sending the tiles spilling all over, that is when I yell.

That was a surprise to them.

In 8 years I have never raised my voice. But I can’t have one set of hands taking over before another set of hands has finished and I had exhausted all of the other ways I know to tell them that. Michael looked a bit surprised, but then he has had the longest stretch of quiet (eight years) of any of them.

Alice wearing a new necklace from Aunt Rebecca.

I also had to raise my voice when I was dealing out the Uno cards. They just can’t leave their cards all in a small pile until I get 7 dealt out to each one. I didn’t yell, but I laid down the law and told them that in some jurisdictions, people have been shot over picking up their cards too early. I don’t tell the kids that this happened in the lawless west hundreds of years ago. I try to make it a present and potential threat.

Their voices are so sweet as they tell me about their parents.  Why would I ever raise my voice.

Richard has gone hunting today. Michael said that he hopes his dad brings home two, even three deer.

I asked why. Michael told me that they have finished eating all of the deer jerky from last year’s hunt.

I asked him how that happened. He said that the three of them believe that their parents are getting up and eating the deer jerky as snacks at night and that is why it has gone so fast.

"I would like to eat just one of these, Grandmother."

Rebecca has been staying with me this week while court has been going on. We slip over to the Johnson’s for evening meals if we are home. Rebecca takes with her, a story telling power and the girls asked to hear the Indigenous tale of Cannibal Boy. Michael doesn’t want to hear it. He has heard it so many times he can tell the story himself. But the girls still want to hear it from their aunt. Rebecca comes to the part in the story where Cannibal Boy is on Coyote’s shoulders and is sucking liquid out of the boil on Coyote’s back and Rebecca is making slurping sounds and acting as though she has a straw in her hands to suck up the contents of the boil. And Rebecca is licking her lips. Slurp. S-l-u-r-p! Rebecca elongates the vowel sound and gives sibilant sounds on the “s”es and bounces off the “p” at the end of slurp. Betty could not take her eyes off of Rebecca’s face but Still Betty needed the defence of putting her fingers in her ears. Perhaps that muffled the horror of the sound a bit. I don’t know.

I think Azul is a good game, but it is for ages 8 and up.

But Michael is getting so that he needs a challenge – one bigger than the games for 4 and 6 year olds.

Alice is sure she can play it, and perhaps she can, for she beat Michael both times in our beginning tries at the game. Alice sits on a chair beside the treadmill.

"Both Alice and  you beat me in Azul!"

Sometimes she swings her body through an open space, hanging onto the handles of the treadmill.

Back and forth she goes as though she is hanging on a monkey bar.

Sometimes she gets on the treadmill and make it go by the sheer force of her legs (no electric motor on).

When I saw her on top of the table sitting in that Asian fashion where her posterior is barely off the ground and her knees are high in the air, almost around her ears, I thought to myself, how much better for me to be attentive to how hard it is for Alice to stay still, then for me to tell her that none of the above is appropriate.

And if she can do all of this, and beat Michael and me at the game, then who am to tell her what to do.

I told the kids they could not come into my house until it was dark, for our second round of games for the day.

I have so much paper work to do after the court case has finished, I just needed time alone to work.

"I want to eat this as well?"

But they kept opening the door and asking much how much longer.

I told them not until it was dark.

Betty had heard me say that would be one more hour, but she reported to the kids, just one more minute.

Ha ha. I had said no enough times.

In they came and we played gams.

Arta

Capitol Hill Community Association Christmas Party

Michael keeping a straight face while his
mother is trying to make him smile.
Hard work!

Here we have Santa hat on a pokemon.

Rebecca and I were the guests of Miranda and Richard at the Capital Hill Community Association Christmas Party last night.

The community party had all of the hallmarks of church parties of my youth: fun, everywhere for everyone.

Michel and Alice were running up and down the halls, playing tag with their friends.

Betty was under the banquet table and I could feel her moving around under my feet as though were were a little dog.

There was lots of food on the banquet table, platters being moved to and from the table with regularity.

I had to laugh at Rebecca.

The platter of meat before us was removed just as she went to take some and that a second platter didn’t come back until long after we had gone to another part of the building to sit and eat.

Alice asked her dad if she could have some money to buy a Coke at the bar. He said no and she ran off skipping, as happy as if he had said yes. There was a band playing music in the other room and occasionally people were doing karaoke with a keyboard when the band took its break. Face painting was going on – Christmas symbols painted on foreheads and cheeks of small children. Someone had a stripped candy cane on their cheek. Betty’s nose has been dressed up to look like Rudolphs, his antlers weaving up through her eyebrows and onto her forehead. The craft table was a big hit – crafters coming out of there with bangles on their arms full of tinsel and tiny ornaments. As well, Alice had on a reindeer hat which she had both blued together and then plastered with sparkles.

... the legs of this ornament used to be on
coils just about as short as the arms of the ornament.
Well, that was "before".
No one can recoil slinky springs.

Miranda, Richard, Rebecca and I sat at a table with comfortable chairs and chatted for longer than would have ever been possible if we had been at home.

We laughed about our own favourite parts of the day – this time there was no pressure felt on any of us if we were picked last to give our best parts of the day. My favourite part of the day was about a Christmas ornament I have. Or would that be had.

A jolly bread-dough Christmas creature with legs on small slinkies that dangled, either from a tree or because the ornament is hooked to something on a wall.

Betty was only out of my sight for 30 seconds, but in that time, the ornament lost the spring in its legs – never to recover them, I think.

The best part of Miranda's day is that she had moved a couch from the upstairs to the downstairs, single-handedly, and she had survived.

Heave-ho and into Christmas.

Tears for a Stuffed Animal

I made a four year old cry today. I am not really proud of that. Here is what happened.

Michael, Betty, Alice and I were sitting at the Lego table. Michael asked if I would like to play a game of Dungeons and Dragons there. I was pleased for I had come over in the evening afraid that the hour was too late and that the children would already be in bed. All were still up.  Only their father was ready for bed.

I sat on a low stool and said to Richard, “I think this is the last time I will be able to sit at a low stool near the Lego table. There is no way I am going to be able to get off of this low stool when the time comes for me to get up.”

I had already planned a way to go down on my knees and then roll over a bit to where I could lean on something and get up. Richard pre-empted my plan by coming over and giving me a hand up and onto a regular chair.

So the children and I went back to planning our game. Michael was to be our dungeon master and Alice, Betty and I divided the table up into thirds so that we would each have a place to play. Our space was limited, and Betty’s animal, Foxy, wanted to sit on the table and kept getting in our way. I told Betty that no animals could be on the table – only pieces of lego. I shooed Foxy off of the table but he came back up to sit on it again. For the second time, I told Foxy to get off again and he didn’t move. For the third time I initiated Foxy’s departure and still Foxy stayed under and then on the table. So I grabbed Foxy out of Betty’s hand and with sleight of hand put him underneath me while seeming to throw him right through the plate glass window and out of the house.

Betty searched under my arms, in my pockets and behind my back, and not finding him each time was casting her gaze to the window, really worrying if the stuffed fox was now outside somewhere.

Betty and Alice in happier times playing Retail Business

Alice has a store full of  My Little Ponies stuffies.
Betty has come to buy some of them.
Her blue purse (lower left) is full
of money with which to make the transactions.

I gave a lecture to all of the children telling them that Dungeons and Dragons is a communal game with a space in it for all (well, excepting Foxy), underlining we have to keep some rules, and so the play began, Michael acting as the dungeon master and Alice and I going from room to room.

He did a grand job.

At one point he asked me what my race was.

I told him Caucasian.

He said no, he meant elvish, gnomish, etc so I changed to one of the options he gave me.

Behind me I could hear Betty negotiating with her mother, trying to get Foxy back, as though Miranda could help her, but what other recourse did Betty have.

I could hear Miranda saying, “If Foxy comes back, you will have to take him downstairs and go to bed with him.” I didn’t know what else was going on back behind me but after a while I thought it was time to make the sound of a fox howling at the moon and soon, beside me was Betty.

I looked down at her. By now I had Foxy out from under my thigh and was putting him in Betty’s hand. A small drop of clear mucous was coming out of one of her nostrils and a drop of water was rolling out of her tear duct and down the cheek on the opposite side of her face.

As I said, I made a four year old cry tonight and I am not proud of it.

Arta

The Ward Corn Boil

What could be more fun than a quarterly party at the church. Mary once told me that her favourite part of growing up was the parties where the kids could run around the church. What else are halls made for? Oh, on Sunday the halls are made for reverent walking, but at a ward party the halls and the stage seem to be free for everyone who likes to either run, or bounce a basketball on the stage or stick their face out between the cracks of the red velvet curtain, or come out and make a mighty jump from the stage to the floor.

The kids seemed to know who could do what. The Johnson kids have no trouble with gigantic leaps, since they make them often from monkey bars.

Matt Racine selling corn to High River residents July 2018
High River online.com

Taber corn was about 90% wiped out this year. 

But the Tom Johnson farm was saved from the hailstorm that ruined the rest of the crops, so the corn for the party was brought to Claresholm by the farmer and then Dave Williams went and picked it up there and brought it back to Calgary.

Now that I think about it, I wonder who shucked all of that corn, and then who boiled it.

When I saw it, it was already on the buffet table beside a bucket of melted butter. I had described to the kids how corn is wiped along the top of a pound of butter, really twisted into the butter, but for this party there was just a full dipping into a tall bucket of melted butter.

The Johnson kids don’t like corn. I told them only take from the buffet what they want to eat. Michael had a hot dog and two small carrots. There was a vegetarian feast available (as well as the hot dogs).

Yesterday I told Michael that in the far distance past of his grandfather Johnson’s time, at corn parties, people were challenged to eat their height in cobs of corn.

At the party, I showed Michael how to chew down one row of corn without stopping. He was amazed as he watched me and he asked, “Can all grandmothers do that?”

Joan Turnbull was there so I turned to her and she said, no, that was a skill she didn’t have. She showed him how to take one small bite at a time. Since he doesn’t like corn, he was not about to try either way. I didn’t really think about the way to eat corn using perfect etiquette. I am sure it is not fashionable to use your teeth to run from one end of the corn to the other without lifting them off of the cob. I wondered about the corn I had eaten – I was given a smaller cob. Wikipedia says that “the average ear of corn has 800 kernels, arranged in 16 rows. There is one piece of silk for each kernel. Each tassel on a corn plant releases as many as 5 million grains of pollen”. I have to say that ins formation me a new respect for corn. And a new respect for the 800 kernels that I had consumed one complete row at a time.

This morning, I wondered what was wrong with me last night, only eating one cob. At our table, since 3 of the kids didn’t touch the corn at all, there might have been at least 3 cobs extra. What was delivered at the party wasn’t just ordinary corn. This was sweet, delicious Taber corn.

I thought the desserts would be a big sell. Joan did too, and told Michael he could only take 3 of them to start with. But when he got back to the table, he wasn’t that interested in any of them although we explained to him the origin of Nanaimo bars. That couldn’t have been that interesting to him, given he wouldn’t have even know where Nanaimo was.

Michael left his desserts and ran to play again on the stage or in the halls. Alice came back frantic at the very least in the evening. Betty was lost. Or if not lost, nearly lost for she couldn’t find her. Joan and I told Alice to take one more tour of the church and if she couldn’t find her, both grandmothers would go looking for Betty.

Alice did find her and bring her back, and was bawling Betty out.

“Why did you nearly get lost Betty?”

“Because you were going too fast for my legs to catch up.”

And that ends my story of the ward corn boil.

A good time was had by all.

Arta

Hang Down Your Head

Alice waiting or her ice cream bar.

Today the Johnson children moved from scary stories around the campfire to songs about murder.

One of the first guitar songs Bonnie is learning to play on the guitar is Tom Dooley.

We were looking at phrases about fright; stabbed with a knife, bound to die, and hanging from the white oak tree.

We also had to consider the topic about why a man might want to hang down his head, or in the case of Tom Dooley, had to hang down his head for he didn’t make it to another county, and so will have to pay the price.

Betty half way through her ice cream bar.

When I asked Alice what was going to happen to Tom Dooley, she put her hands around her throat, made her eyes bug out, made a strangling sound with her throat, and put on the finishing touch ending with her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth. I guess she got it.

Singing happened down in what Bonnie coined “The music café.” All of our songs are played in the key of C major or G major. These may not be the keys that are the easiest for us to sing it in, but that is all Bonnie knows how to do on the guitar so far.

When the songs were done, Alice suggested we all go up to “the cafeteria” (the kitchen).

Michael with as much chocolate on his face 
as his grandmother gets on hers.

We had some ice cream.

We also took a look at the song “Worried Man Blues.”

I asked them if they had ever seen their mother or father worried.

Michael said, “not really.”

That was funny. It just goes to show you how little children really know about their parents.

Traveling by C-Train

My kindergarten teacher is always
saying, "Comb your hair, Alice"

Even though I live next door to them, I don’t have Richard and Miranda’s children often.

I can see why this is a good idea on their part.

If I am babysitting them in the evenings, I am the first one asleep, which is not the way that is supposed to go.

I am not that worried about watching children that way, since I recognize the phenomena as one that helped me raise my own children.

Sometimes sleeping is better than seeing what they are doing.

But back to Monday?

I was watching Betty and Alice, walking down Capital Hill Crescent and we were so close to the C-Train that it seemed a shame not to push our boundaries from the distance we can walk, to the distance we can ride.

... one foot up because I have clicked the picture
when she was swinging around this pole ...

I have a yearly bus pass.

I never stop to wonder if it is really worth the cost.

That is because it is worth it to me – just pay that $130 and then be free to travel whenever and wherever I wish.

I do imagine that I will set aside a few days for travel around Calgary, acting like a tourist.

... "I am afraid of the doors, Grandmother" ...

When I do there is always an adventure, like the time I took the 67th Street line, went right to the transit barns and found it was a day when all of Calgary could tour the facility.

But on Tuesday, I was just taking two little girls on a trip and letting them make choices.

“Shall we go south or north?”

... within arm's reach of a pole ...

They didn’t care.

I did.

We took the line that was coming first. No use standing on a platform and waiting for the train that wouldn’t come for 13 minutes. I thought I could also teach C-train etiquette, but that just wasn’t going to happen.

It was mid afternoon.

There was no one else in our car.

....Alice close to two poles, stops for one pose ...

I let both girls hang onto the centre pole as the train went through the tunnel past the Brentwood stop.

The wind whooshed through the car, blew really, both of them facing it and their hair flying behind them in the wind.

I pulled out my camera but had missed the moment.

Then Betty remember that she is afraid inside of any unit where the doors open and shut. That is because she was left behind on an elevator at IKEA.

The elevator only goes 2 floors – up to the second and then back down to the first.

Miranda stepped off the elevator, Alice behind her, and she thought Betty was following, but no – this was a moment when Betty stalled.

Just that split second when a child sometimes lingers a little too long, so back down to the first floor Betty went.

Miranda knew instantly that she was missing one child. A high pitched scream from inside an elevator tells all.

"I can stand when the train is moving."

The elevator moves slowly, not one of these from “floor 2 to floor 27 in 5 seconds” elevators, like some of the ones in the buildings at the centre core of the city.

The IKEA elevator is a freight elevator and lumbers along – and so it did, Betty’s scream high-pitched, shrill scream piercing the air.

Miranda grabbed Alice’s hand and they ran down the long flight of stairs fast enough to greet Betty as the elevator doors opened.

But that period of time was memorable for Betty.

There is no way a person could loose her now. She sat by me in the train and at each stop as the doors opened and closed she held on tighter, her body trembling and she would said, “I am scared.”

Alice is a different kind of soul.

She always has her hand on the monkey bars at school and on the geodome poles in the backyard at home.

I hurt inside when I have to apply a band-aid to the broken blister in the palm of her hand because she has come to me with its pain.

I want to chastise her. “No more hanging from the bars until these blisters of healed”, but there is no way that is going to happen.

Hanging from a bar is like breathing for her.

Alice had quickly figured out how to hang onto the centre poles, the poles of the side panels in the train, and the back bar of the seats, swinging faster and faster between them in rhythm with the jostling of the train that took up speed between each stop.

She had tried to reach for the hanging handles but she is just a bit shy of being able to reach them, thank goodness.

It was the perfect day.

Not another person in our car which consists of three parts for those who don’t ride the light rail transit (LRT): those who are sitting going forward, those of us who like the side benches, and those who ride backwards. These are the less desirable seats and are almost always empty except at rush hour. Since I had my cell phone out, I thought that perhaps I should phone Miranda and tell her that our walk was now extended.

I spend the whole day applying sunscreen to
that little nose which is going to burn and freckle this summer.

I didn’t think she would be able to hear anything over the noise of the train, so I just held the phone in my hand.

It wasn’t long before the phone rang. Richard was on the line.

“Busted”, I thought. ”How did he know I had gone away further than usual with the kids.”

Richard didn’t know where I was. He was asking if there would be any chance for childcare for the next two days. “Are you kidding? I love getting my hands on those kids.”

Next adventure in my mind? Dairy Queen for supper!

Arta