Mary drops in ...

 

Front Row: Betty
Back Row: Michael, Mary, Alice

Usually Mary is with her kids, or visiting her mother-in-law, or taking care of me.  So here is the rare occasion when she visits Michael, Alice and Betty Johnson.  

A rare photo.

I am going to use Mary's height to approximately measure how tall the kids are getting.  I might have missed at least 4 inches of growth in each of them this winter.  

Oh that spring were here and we were out running by the stream or bounding down the lakeward steps.  That will come soon enough.

Tell me, Mary, were  you picking up hides to tan, ort was this just a friendly visit?

Arta

Going from long hair to short

Who cut your hair?

... that was me ..

I am curious when someone chooses to cut their own hair.

I shouldn't be surprised, for lots of adults to it.

But when  seven year old cuts her hair, then I don't know the appropriate question to ask her, so that I can find out why the scissors took off her golden locks.

... Alice learned to love to read in Grade I ...

The best after-answer that I heard from Alice was that now she looks like Aunt Rebecca. 

Alice is right. 

Shorter hair at the back and something around the ears is a cut that Rebecca has worn for years.

And now Alice has it, and she cut it herself, much to the surprise of her parental unit.

Well, that saved a trip to the hairdresser.

Arta

Flip Flop

... pegs are numbered one to nine ...
... the die rolled 5...
... I can flip down 5 or 4+1 or 2+3 ...

Bonnie introduced us to Flip Flop, a game she bought at a fair where people were raising money for some good causes.

The game is beautiful, partly because it has the charm of both wood and fabric in its set-up.

“I think this game will help with math,” Bonnie said, so I roped in Michael.

It wasn’t long before Alice was leaning over my shoulder, since there is plenty of laughter in rolling the die and sorting out which pegs will add up to that number.

The game is easy: flop down the peg when the roll of the die can add up to that number or is that number. And then what is left when you can no longer flip down the markers, that number is the score you get against you.

... all the pegs have been flipped down ...
... and I get 10 points subtracted from my score ...
... what a joy! ...

Now what was fun about the game is that it wasn’t long before Betty was by our side, watching how to do that and even roping me into playing a game with her on her own.

I always see so many hands when I play: three pair weaving over and under each other, reaching for the die or to flip down a peg, or one of their hands policing the hands of the other.

I often bend the rules when someone young is beside me. In this game it is not so much the score, but the fun of combinations of numbers.

I am sure there must be other math games like this one, but this is the first time I have learned to love the combinations of numbers up to twelve.

I am a late-to-the-joys-of-math grandmother.

Arta

In the cool of the evening

Red light, green light
as the shades of night creep across the lawn..

This evening, Grandmother Joan Turnbull was over giving the kids supper and having playtime with them.

Richard and Miranda were cleaning up after another flood.

They have had so many floods that they no longer try to ascribe guilt to any party, though this time Richard says it was him who forgot to turn off the water from a slow drip he had on it to the lawn.

At any rate, I slipped over to dinner, which I never would do if I had remembered that it was Joan's night with the kids.

After I had finished eating, I played "Here to Slay" with Michael and Joan went outside to watch the girls ride their bikes up and down the street.

I am  not good with modern board games, but Michael is so young that I can get him to play both his hand and then help me with my hand, so that is satisfying for me.

Simon says, "Turn around."
Fun to watch Betty's hair fly in the wind.
Observe Alice's feet.  Is she headed east or west?

When the shade finally began to cross my yard, we went outside where the girls plays on the swings and the two grandmothers had Michael say everything he wanted to say.

Then all of them wanted to play on the lawn with the grandmothers.

Play is not good for me if I need a cane to stabilize me, so I watched and Joan played What Time is it Mr. Wolf, and Red Light, Green Light.

A grand evening was had by all.

Arta

Games – Buckle Buckle Mr. Bean

We continue to play "Buckle, Buckle Mr. Bean" at our house.  Last night Michael, Alice, Betty and I played it while their mom was engaged in the game, Arboretum, with Aunt Bonnie.  

“The moms are going to play a board game for the next few minutes in the living room.  No children.”  

Those are the words said by Aunt Bonnie and those words left 3 chagrined children looking almost bereft to be left behind in the kitchen.  Even tablet time wasn’t enough to fill the early evening sorrow of being cut out of the lives of those two women for the time it takes to play a board game. 

I left the other 2 children behind  in the kitchen and took Betty to my bedroom to sing, “Come All You Play Mates”, a song based on a popular song of 1894: H.W. Petrie’s “I Don’t Want to Play in Your Yard”.  (Interested folk can find the song at #169 of Sally Go Round the Sun.) 

My mother taught that song to me; now I teach it to my grandchild.  But just one for she is the only one whom I think I can interest with it.  When I had mined all of the time out of Betty’s interest that I think she can give, I take her back to be with the other kids.

There I turn to read from the Secwepemc Lands and Resources book of Indigenous stories, to the story of “Coyote and Fox”. 

“Dumb story”, said Michael after the first 2 paragraphs.  I agree with him, but only dumb because I haven’t practised reading it – it was a cold call for me, and I agreed with him (poor performance) and kept reading until the end of the story.  “Tomorrow I will try to make sense of this story”, I thought.  But with all of the strangeness of the story, I did keep Betty and Alice by my side, listening to its end.  So I gave myself 100% on engagement, if not performance.

... 1 1/4 inches wide ...
... representing another world of truth ...

Then I remembered how often the children ask to play Buckle, Buckle, Mr. Bean. 

They will play it all day if they have an adult with them.  

Betty still has to have an adult in the room with her when she hides the object of my choice: the bronze Witness Blanket Coin.  

It is just a little bigger than a toonie, though not as shiny.  I choose that object so as to get it into their hands, trying to imprint some ideas about Witness Blanket Theory, I think to myself, though I am pushing the point.

Betty still has to be coached to hide the coin in a place where all can see it.  “Betty, can you see the coin yourself, right now?” 

The answer is no.  She has dropped it inside of a roll of masking tape which is too high on the kitchen counter for her to see herself.

“Then let’s try another place.”

She can hardly stand it when Michael and Alice join her in the room and start their search.  She can’t even give them 30 seconds before she starts coaching, “You’re getting warmer, warmer,” even though they aren’t even close to the coin, nor have they asked for her help.

The best part of the game is that it keeps all of their interest and they have forgotten that their mother and favourite aunt are on the other side of the kitchen door, having their own fun.

Thank you, thank you, "Buckle, Buckle, Mr. Bean" (or as my family of origin used to call the game, "You’re Getting Warmer, Now Colder").

~ Arta

"Chicken Run - Larch Haven Style"- Act I (For Blogging)

OThe Setting: Eggs were purchased and hatched in the Spring.  It is now mid-summer and there are 3 chickens and 3 roosters that belong to Miranda, and the three children: Michael (8), Alice (7) and Betty (5).

Alice (running into the front room, frantically calling):  

"The chickens are lost. The chickens are lost.   They are all gone.  I can't find them anywhere."

Grandmother: (calm but remembering that she has seen the Wood's sheep dog, Reno, chasing the chickens around through the trees half an hour previously.  She also remembers seeing Owen Wood chasing Reno, then capturing the dog, and then dragging it back home by its collar to its leash which is on Lot five.  At that point Grandmother is also remembering the 12-year-old boy down low, a toss-up as to whether the boy is dragging the dog, or the dog dragging the boy -- it might be the first is the case, and then it changes back to the other is winning and so forth.)  

"Don't worry.  Chickens know how to hide in the woods."  (She is thinking to herself, maybe the chickens have scrambled over the hill and are down on the road and on their way to the beach.

Alice: (throwing hands in the air and then onto her head and then back into the air.)  

"No.  I have been looking everywhere for them.  They are lost.  Really lost.  Someone has to come and help me find them."

Grandmother: "I think they will be OK."

(Alice goes out to the porch.)

(Suddenly through the front door comes a chicken, being chased by a dog, the dog is chased by Owen Wood.  Owen and the dog are chased by Alice, then Michael and Betty.  All appear to come through the door at the same time.  The chicken flies high toward the ceiling, hitting the light, then falls and perches on top of the round table that is between the two couches.  There are the 3 fake Inuit soapstone carvings, one wire basket and a chicken on the table now.  The dog is in pursuit, climbing with its paws on the couch that butts against the end table.  Again, the chicken takes flight, but it can't get out through the window.  With its wings beating madly against the window pane, it can't gain height and it slips down behind the couch.)

Alice (yelling): 

"Save the chicken, save the chicken!"

Owen (Now behind his dog, all the while pulling on the dog’s collar, trying to back him up, but the dog is not trained to back up.  It is in forward motion, trying to get that chicken that is trapped behind the couch.  He is yelling out to no one in particular, for no one has said anything.):  

"Sorry! Sorry!"

(Owen looks up from his crouched down position with the dog, at Miranda who has now entered the room):  

"Sorry! sorry!"

Miranda says nothing.  She strides up, takes the dog in her arms full on, then switches the dog off to her side, under one arm but it is a big dog.  The boy is willing to take the dog, but she does not hand it over.  She walks calmly out of the house and down toward the creek.  

Grandmother is wondering if Miranda is going to drown it.  

Alice is gathering up the chicken in her arms.

Grandmother: (not saying anything to anyone in particular, but thinking): "I’ll bet there is a trail of feathers and chicken shit to be found there behind the couch."

(She knows Michael has just hand mopped the whole marble floor this morning, for she has been supervising him, so she knows how clean this floor is/was.  Grandmother is also laughing, for she has just been an actor in an event that could not be staged.  She can't stop laughing, even though she can see that no other actor in the scene is finding this humorous.  Alice is still yelling out words about the chicken's close call with death.  Alice takes the chicken out of the front door.)

(Grandmother goes in to report all of this to Aunt Bonnie Wyora who previous to this, needed a quiet rest, long before all of this action takes place, so she has missed it all.)

Bonnie Wyora gets out of bed, goes to the front room and begins to move all of the furniture to see if there is any chicken shit behind the couch.  There is.  

She begins moving both couches away from the window, and tries to move the end table.  It may weigh 100 pounds. 

She can remember Grandmother upon buying it had said, 

“This is either real wood or concrete.” 

Bonnie Wyora really doesn't want any help cleaning. Nor does she want an audience for the way she is going to clean and tells this to Grandmother, who leaves the room, since Bonnie says:  

"I can’t clean while you are watching.   Go away.  Go blog this." 

Grandmother (speaking aloud but quietly and to no one): 

"I can blog this but I don't think I am quite capable of doing it so close to the event."

 (Still, she goes to try.) 

(Betty has needed to get right there in all of this action.  She now wants to see the chicken shit, since she has heard these two words together with a new emphasis.  She gets her nose right in the corner, close to the specimen.  The spot is easy to find, marked, for there is a feather also, seemingly a placeholder – as though to make chicken shit easier to find.  Betty comes up with her nose wrinkled saying): 

"Pee-yew." 

Grandmother (speaking to Betty):  

"Your chicken, your chicken shit.  You clean it up, Betty." 

Betty: 

"No, it is Miranda's chicken. She can clean it up." 

Grandmother (again): 

"No, your chicken. Your chicken shit."

(Betty shakes her head.  She is not going to clean it up. She cleans up other things, but not this. Her nose is still wrinkled up from the smell.)

Miranda comes back and the 3 women gather to try and make sense of what has just happened.  

Michael walks through the door for the first time.  He is ashen and can hardly move. 

Aunt Bonnie Wyora (notices Michael and turns to him): 

"Michael are you all alright?"

Michael is as stiff and still as a statue: 

"I am going to be OK.  Just don't talk about it." 

Aunt Bonnie Wyora: 

"No, you need to talk about what is wrong with your mother."

(Tears well up in Michael's eyes, his lip trembles more.  Aunt Bonnie Wyora and Grandmother start backing up.)

Aunt Bonnie Wyora: 

"We will go into the other room and take Betty with us".

(Betty is the five-year-old who likes to be a spectator in all dramatic scenes.)  

Bonnie (still speaking:) 

"You call us when you are ready to have us near again." 

(They back up, taking Betty with them.  Michael moves toward the arms of his mother.)

(Bonnie Wyora later comes to find Grandmother with a pair of pink shoes in her hands, from which she is going to wash off the chicken shit.) 

Bonnie Wyora (to Grandmother):  

"By the way, the Rogers have just phoned.  They have a chicken down there at the beach and wonder who it belongs to."

(Meaning the question is no longer "why did the chicken cross the road?" but is "why did the chicken cross the railroad tracks"?) 

The End...?

Addendum:  No chickens or dogs were killed in this, Act I.

Have I felt strong wind gusts?

Annis Canada: Severe Thunderstorms Watch

Michael reading Wings of Fire by Tui T. Sutherland
while he waits for the strorm to develop.

I heard a ping, the sound activity on AccuWeather -- one of my phone apps.

I looked at the screen: Warning -- conditions are favorable for the development of severe thunderstorms that may be capable of producing strong wind gusts, large hail and heavy rain.

At the same time there is a knock at my door.

I know it is one of the three little children from the cabin next door. They live in my pandemic bubble.

I try to stay socially isolated from the rest of the world -- in my room here, except for those in my bubble, and three of the six will be wanting entry this morning. Other cousins have left and they are alone. I don’t generally have them in the room.

Alice trying out Grandmother's bed and 
wondering about the idea of reading

Especially in the early morning time when I can do my best thinking. But today is different.

 I let Michael in first, telling him that I am typing but that if he wants to lay quietly on my bed and read, that will be fine.

 It is only a few minutes until Alice comes.

It is harder for her to lay still, so I shared with her the morning forecast, of which she wants to know what “strong wind gusts” might mean.

"Have I felt strong wind gusts?" she asks

If Alice curls up, so does Betty.
... monkey see, monkey do ...
the rhyme we are learning together
from Sally Goes Round the Sun

She doesn’t think so, though I know I have called her to the porch on other great storm days.

She also wants to know what is the difference between heavy rain and large hail.

Sometimes I have to put my hand under the falling water to tell the difference myself. There is that moment between hard rain, soft slush and heavy hail where I am uncertain too.

That is why my door to the deck is open. I have decided I will enjoy the 3 hours of severe wind, rain and hail that Accuweather has alerted me to.

I can hear the heavy rain already, – on the deck, on the boughs of the trees, pinging off of the round table on which I might eat breakfast on a clearer day.

I hear the sound of the crows calling to each other, so it is better that I keep my door open and pay attention to that gift of water from the heavens and all the sounds that it brings.

... the rain drops wash the patio table to a new level of clean ...

The heavy cloud that hung over Bastion Mountain, half-hung, has dissipated into a fine white midst, through which I can still see the mountain, but only barely.

Like through a glass darkly.

I change out of my morning’s summer clothes into a heavy denim jacket and heavy thread-count jeans.

I need to be warm to enjoy the gift of a storm through an open door.

Arta

How to make a Bird Comfortable

... how to make a dead bird comfortable ...

"Was there a funeral for a bird out at the lake?" 

Rebecca Johnson wanted to know more after seeing the photos that will be in this blogpost.

Yes, a dead woodpecker, found in cabin and the bird had made a mess.

Children had different ideas about what to do.

At first the bird was going to be buried in the lawn and then some adult sent the kids into the trees with it.

Previous to this I had extended the wing to let the kids see what it looked like.

Then the kids weren’t allowed to touch it with their hands.

Michael wanted to bury it right away, but we thought we’d wait a day.

The next day Alice put on gloves and asked if she could touch it.

I said that would be fine.

I was gardening and at one point looked over and Betty was pulling up the moss/grass near the tree with her hands.

This looks like it could be a riff on
Ophelia floating down the lake. 

I asked her what she was doing and she said she was digging a hole.

I told her I thought we should do it over by the trees and with a shovel.

Alice said no, she was trying to make the bird comfortable. She was collecting flowers and leaves to put around it.

Then there was a discussion (argument?) between Michael and Alice. Michael wanted to bury the bird and Alice wanted to make it comfortable.

... the bird in the hole ...

We settled on putting the bird into the hole (it turns out Michael had dug a small one the day before) and then letting Alice cover it with leaves and flowers.

It think the bird was very comfortable.

I forgot how small the hole was for the grave.  I think Michael must have dug it with his hands. There were no tools around.

~Mary

Alice Reads to Grandmother

Technology is amazing.  This is Alice reading to me.  She is at living in Annis Bay, B.C. right now.

The title of the book has something to do with Kittens and the book is from an "I Can Read" Series, for she is still in Grade I.

There is a picture of me in the far bottom left hand corner.  I am listening to her in Calgary.

You are looking at Richard's phone which is connecting to Miranda's.

Technology is amazing.

Arta

Borrowing Dental Floss

Richard dropped by yesterday to borrow some dental floss.

"Take as many packages as you need," I said, continuing, "I never run out of dental floss."

"I just need enough to help Alice pull out her tooth."

"There are easier ways.  Just let her bite your finger as hard as she wishes."

"Nope.  She wants the traditional way of using a string."

I didn't know how that all worked out until Richard sent me this picture.

I can't figure out why there is so much blood given the very small size of that tooth.

Arta

Alice Comes By to Read

.... Alice and Betty sharing a toy lll

Alice slipped over to my house to see me today. She said that Michael wasn’t coming. She didn’t know why.

Moiya had called me just as Alice walked in the door, so we had a three-way conversation, before I sat down to read phonics with her.  Moiya at the Shuswap and Alice and me getting ready to read.

Alice was listening carefully to Moiya’s questions. When Moiya quizzed Alice about the Chinese New Year Party last week, Alice didn’t have much to say until Moiya asked her what was the most fun of the party.

... Alice on Christmas Day ...

“Going home,” said Alice.

Moiya was laughing pretty hard and said that shc could hardly wait to hear what Wyona would say to that.

 Then Alice told Moiya that it was the red envelopes at the end of the party: the ones filled with money. The bags that she could take home.

Yes.

That was a sweet part of the party.

Every party should finish off that way.

Arta

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

Graffiti in My Sink

On instagram Richard asked "Who left this bit of graffiti in my sink."



Someone who had looked at the graffiti asked him, "Who the heck is Alice?"

Richard answered, "Some 6 year old with impulse control problems that sleeps just down the hall from this sink."

Who is Alice?"

She is this little girl who likes to eat tomatoes.
As well, she sleeps down the hall from the sink.

"

Marcia Bates suggested, "Just leave it there.  Later on it reminds them of how mischievious they were (are)."


Richard replied, "I don't know if I can remove it.  I use permanent markers at work.  She found one that came home in my pocket."

Miranda closed off the conversation with "I think the person who brought home the marker might take responsibility for the graffiti.


Reposted by Arta

A Bad Doll

Yesterday Betty and Alice were sitting at the drawing table. Suddenly Alice was hunched over crying. When Miranda asked what had happened, Alice said that Betty had smacked her with a Barbie doll.

I was thinking about that Barbie doll hit on Alice since sometimes I hear Richard talk to Michael’s feet or Alice’s hands. For example, “Michael’s feet? Michael’s feet?”, I hear Richard call. And then Michael runs over to his dad to see what Richard wants. So I was quietly wondering about Betty’s hands that had let her anger at Alice run through them into a good smack with a doll.

Alice letting her mom braid her hair
Summer 2019

A while later the children and I were all going outside.

My goal was to have Alice practise putting chalk on her hands every time she uses the monkey bars.

Alice’s hands are so wratched up from Alice moving on the monkey bars that I am worried their family is going to be reported for abusing her somehow when someone outside the family gets a peek at those hands.

Anyway, we have been putting lotion on her hands, and Miranda has her carry the chalk bag in her back pack to school to use when she is on the monkey bars there.

I checked Michael’s hands to see if the same callouses are there, but he told me no, he plays tag at recess. He doesn’t go to the monkey bars.

At any rate, I am trying to put all of this together. I told Betty she couldn’t come out and play with the other three of us, because she is the owner of a mean Barbie doll and she would have to stay inside with that mean doll until it learned to be nice again and not hit her sister. Of course Betty didn’t like that.

Now I am not down on Betty. But from my interactions with her, it would seem like it. On the plus side for me, I took her cardboard home of her Corgi Doggie back to my place last night to glue it. Miranda told me that glue would not work to keep it together. Still, I glued it, but this morning I could see why Miranda told me that glue wouldn’t work. While the glue is keeping the cardboard together, I could see that Betty’s little hands are going to pick at the underside of the cardboard dog house and work all of those pieces apart. That is just the nature of Betty’s brain. She wants to see things come apart. So while the glue is working, I am going to take Miranda’s idea and use tape that will be very difficult to unpick.

Watching these little people has brought to my mind one of my own earliest memories. The story came back to me because Mary told me she has transported a cactus off of the plains of Lethbridge and into her house to watch it grow, but not before someone else tried to pick a cactus up and got spiked with it. I can only think that Mary can take care of the cactus best by never watering it and by letting gales of air blow on it, maybe from a floor vent.

At any rate that reminded me of one of the first memories of my childhood. I was looking out a window and picking off flies that were buzzing on the low window pane. I would grab one and then put it on my mother's cactus which was also down low. I used the cactus to hold my flies there while I grabbed yet another one.

The reason I can remember this is that Wyora bawled me out and I couldn't really figure out why she was mad, even after I got the lecture. Was it killing the flies? I had seen her kill flies.

I just didn't get the idea that my mother didn't want a cactus decorated in pilloried flies. I didn’t figure that out until I tried to write some of the earliest memories of my childhood.

Now this is too long for a blog post, but here it is, so I will see if I can draw this together. I think I am saying that watching these little people is so much fun. I can see why some older people really like watching little people. What the little ones are going to do next is such a mystery, as is why they are going to do it.

Who wouldn't want to watch a reality show like that.

Arta

Gravity

For some months I have been aware that one of my chairs is falling apart. When I would grab the top of it to swing it to a different spot in the room, off would come 4 pieces: the top bar, 2 side poles and a decorative middle which has a gentle curve to it. I asked Richard about repairing the chair. He would ask me to produce some wood glue for him, which of course, I couldn’t.

So I bought some glue last week at Home Depot and decided that it is time for me to learn to repair my own broken furniture. I watched Catherine make repairs at the lake in the summer of 2018. I had lined up jobs from many previous years, some which seemed too complicated to do. Still, I couldn’t throw the old pieces of furniture out. One was a small side table that had a lovely marble insert as a decorative feature. I had brought that back from China and there was no way I could throw that out no matter how damaged it was.

And a small side story.
This is the day the three Johnson children played
Toss the Bean Bag.  By some strange chance
Betty's bean bags always scored points
and the bean bags of the others went "sideways".

This is Betty's victory cheer.

That summer I watched Catherine take wood glue, some clamps and a few bungee chords and just about everything I had lined up in my garage as being impossible to repair, got put back into my house, as good as new. Or at least as good as a repaired object can look, including that darling Chinese side table.

I asked Catherine if she had taken classes to do this. No. Necessity had been the mother of invention, she reported. Stuff falls apart at her house too, and that is where she learned all of her skills, though she did say that having watched Leo a few times at work with her things had given her the initial courage to try it on her own.

Here is the thing with my experiment fixing my chair. What can be that difficult about gluing the equivalent of three sticks into three holes in the seat of a wooden chair. And it wasn’t that hard to fill the holes in the seat of the chairs with glue. Nor to put the sticks in those holes. What I hadn’t counted on is the glue that I put in place in the bar that was to go across the top of the chair. For some reason, I had imagined it had the viscosity of peanut butter, even though that had not been the case with the glue in the lower holes. When I turned the bar upside down on the other three poles, the part gravity played with the glue was over-whelming to me. I had glue everywhere -- all over the seat of the chair, all over my hands, all over the side poles and all over the floor.

I put everything down and walked over to Richard’s house that Saturday morning saying, “I think I need help and I need it now.”

“Come on, Betty, I think we have to stop what we are doing, walk next door and help Grandmother,” he said.

And they did, even down to mopping up the glue on the floor.

Really, it was gravity that licked me.

Arta

Three Racoons and a Bear

At about 6:30 am, Janet Pilling heard a commotion in their plum tree Saturday morning, She guessed it was a bear but when Glen got out there all he could see was 3 raccoons. After giving them a warning shout that he was about to shoot unless they got out of his plum tree, he had to deliver the first shot which took down the first racoon. He went to get another bullet for the second raccoon and the noise was still going on. No one had left, and now a black bear was at the tree, trying to get the other two racoons.

Again he gave another warning shout. This time to the bear. The bear looked at Glen. Glen looked at the bear. The bear stared back. The bear seemed very big to Glen. Glen says that the closer you are to a black bear, the bigger it seems. Then the bear took heed of the warning and left, so only three racoons have to be disposed of.

... the tree outside of Michael and Betty's cabin ...

I have no idea how it could grow apples,
since it branches held those children so
many times this summer

Dave Wood says that for the past few days his compost has been smelling like bear scat, and now he has no more apples on his apple tree.

When Alice heard that she told Dave he could borrow some apples from their tree.

The apples hadn’t been ripe enough to pick when she left, but she is sure they would be ripe by now.

Dave does like to gather the apples in the fall and turn them into apple juice.

 For sure there will be one tree less juice this year.

Arta

The First Day of School

... Alice says hello on the first day of school ...

Yesterday Michael said a number of times, “The last day of freedom”.

He was outside with the girls.

They had a book and were sharing the pages, drawing characters in it in a Dungeon and Dragon like fashion.

Betty is sitting at the table on the first day of school.
She is having her hair brushed out by her mom.
It is a tangled mess.
She is not even in kindergarden yet.

“The last day of freedom.”

He said the phrase again as we were eating our thick yellow squash soup with its gentle taste of ginger and onions.

I thought about school and how it is going to go on for him for another 9 to 13 years. I tried to make something about it sound good.

“Your mom and dad pay thousands of dollars for you to go to school.”

Michael declined having his picture taken this morning.
So this is one from yesterday.
Notice, Rebecca, he is wearing one of the pendants you make.
He often has this on.

They had no idea that school is funded by their parents. Why would they know that?

The first day of school.

I was thinking about all of their cousins who are going into colleges or universities or other post-secondary schools today.

Yes, the last day of summer freedom for some.

For most, a privilege.

Luzia, a preview

Bling from the Cirque de Soleil show, Luzia, in Calgary

I had a plan for Friday night.

I was going with Richard and Miranda’s little family. to see Luzia, the Cirque de Soleil show that is playing in Calgary

But at Thursday, midnight my hip pain was greater than my ability to keep it submerged in the back of my mind, being ever so present that I called the first ambulance of my life – at least the first one that was picking me up as a patient.

When the paramedics asked me where you are on a scale of one to nine for pain, I only found myself at a 3.

I can think of something worse than the pain I am in – like maybe if someone were torturing me by putting pins under my finger nails as well, or perhaps my arm was cut off as well.

So I have to keep that pain number low in case something else might happen and I have room to bump it up.

... a back shot of Alice's new wings ....

However, my blood pressure was way up and I told the paramedic that once we got to the hospital, I would be begging for morphine.

“You don’t have to beg,” she said, “I am giving you a shot right now. I usually give people over 65 only 2.5 mg, but I am going to double that for you.”

Well, in a few minutes the pain was gone and I thought to myself, “I should hop out of the ambulance for I am cured already.”

Then I remembered that they would be leaving with their morphine, and I wanted to stay within easy reach of it.

My plan was to go to the hospital quietly, not bothering anyone with my extra-ordinary pain load, but Mati had heard me come up the basement upstairs to check the back door.

“Leave your door unlocked and a light on for the paramedics if they are coming up through the alley,” the dispatcher had said.

So I checked that the door was unlocked.

Now for 50 years it has always been unlocked so why would it be locked tonight, but I didn’t think that out and save myself the trip.

I just was working on checking that the door was unlocked as the dispatcher had said, and it was that quiet opening and closing of the door that alerted Mati that something was just a little different in the house.

He came out to the kitchen in time to see that yellow light on the top of the ambulance flashing as it slowly rotates.

Betty, modeling the new jacket her mother made 
for her to  wear as they watch the 
Gay Pride Parade tomorrow in Calgary.

Mati has enough email addresses that he could alert some in the family that I was off on a journey on my own, so it wasn’t long until Richard was at the hospital, restless sleeper that he was that night.

“What are you doing here,” I asked Richard when I saw him, as though both of us had separate reasons to come to the hospital.

“I am fine,” I went on, “ I have slept about 4 hours here in the chair waiting for my turn to get a bed in admitting.”

“Well, that is strange,” he said, “given that you have only been here for about a half an hour.

Morphine works in mysterious ways, its wonder to behold.

I didn’t stay long at the hospital.

I had an x-ray of my hip done by 8 am, made it to the appointment with my family doctor’s locum by 9 am, had pills for more morphine by 10 am and was referred to a joint injection clinic for a steroid shot in the hip by 2:30 pm.

Look how long Betty's legs are growing.
Is it any wonder she is a meat eater?

That is about as good as it gets for same-day medical services.

Now I am in the queue to get my hip done, hopefully a little closer to the top of that line up.

I was sorry to miss the Cirque de Soleil, but the girls showed me the costumes they bought after the show, Alice, one with feathers, and Betty, one with butterfly wings.

I had gone out and seen the show on you tube a few days ago, in preparation for going to the event, getting myself ready to see what was happening, as in a cirque de soleil show, there is so much to be seen that I can’t keep it all together without a pre-preview and then a preview.

I almost feel as though I saw the show with them.

Arta

Pancakes and …

Alice in her work clothes,
going out to help Richard change the oil in the car.

We had pancakes this morning and savory squash cheese bread for supper tonight.

The pancakes were toasted a golden brown and served with maple syrup.

As Michael said, “Maple syrup is the usual topping for pancakes.”

He ate three.

I wanted to eat three.

 Tonight we had Savory Squash Cheese Bread. I asked Miranda if she could ever make it that good again. She said yes, but that is hard for me to believe for I was tasting something that was already a moment of perfection.

 Add to that, the 6 of us ate 6 ½ large elk steaks. I asked Richard whom he thought had eaten the most, since he was cutting it up and delivering it to people. He pointed to Alice and Betty – two big meat eaters.

 “What is so good about elk steak,” he went on, “is that the taste lingers in your mouth long after you have swallowed the meat. “

And yes, I have three little carnivores it would seem,” he said, adding Michael into the mix of the three people who went after the elk steak tonight.

Arta

The Water Pik

"How do I unravel this tube?"

When I purchased a new waterpik in the spring, the unit from Costco came with a travel pack.


I didn’t have a use for it but wondered if the kids next door might use it and get used to that feeling that usually only comes when the dentist rinses out someone’s mouth.


After my mentioning it to him, Michael has been dying to try it.

"I can hardly wait for my turn."

I didn’t have the energy yet to have water shooting at the walls and up onto the ceiling as he learned so I kept putting off the evil day of teaching him how to do it.


But it wasn’t like that at all.


This morning, after each eating a Haagen-Daz bar today we got out the waterpik to practise rinsing out our mouths.

"It looks scary to me, Grandmother."

Actually that was the afternoon treat, but we moved it up to the early morning since they are like me – if there is something really fun going to happen in the day, let it happen earlier rather than later.


Now to go back a step, in the past few days, we have been reading some poems from Free to be You and Me.

My favourite poem from the book is “Boy Meets Girl,” but the kids have been wanting me to read Shel Silverstein’s “Ladies First, Ladies First” over and over.


Even though they know how the poem is going to end, they enjoy the ending each time as though they are hearing it for the first time.

"I think this will fit between my teeth."

So to begin using the waterpik this morning I reminded Michael, ladies, first, ladies first.


He stepped right back and let the two girls at the sink, remembering that in the end, they might get eaten by tigers by going first.

"I see leaning over the sink is best."

It didn’t turn out exactly that way.

"I am afraid for when it will be my turn."

We had no tigers to face.


But there was lots to be learn on first using a water pik: how to change the 6 different choice of tips, where and how to turn the on and off switch, how and why to ramp up the speed that water enters the mouth.


A lovely time was had by all.


I shouldn't have been so reticent to bring it out.

"Now that was fun."

Arta