Checking in on Doral

I keep checking in on Doral about his health concerns, which are largely centred around sarcoidosis. He had what I thought was going to be the final appointment with his doctor before they start treatment of some kind. But when I called Doral tonight, he told me that the dr wants 4 more tests and Doral has a new date to go see the doctor later this month. The tests are an EEG, a breathing capacity test, some blood work and I can’t remember the fourth. But I do remember Doral saying, if these tests are inconclusive the two of them will wait another month and see how much healing his body can do on its own before starting a regime of something like steroids.

I am learning that in the case of Doral’s health, one appointment leads to another. One specialist wants to check with another so that no wrong diagnosis happens. I congratulated Doral on doing what many middle aged folks can’t do and that is – talk to their doctors and then follow the advice they give. Doral says it is easy once the system picks you up and carries you along. If you go to the appointments there will always be another set of tests to be done.  At least so far in his case.

Arta

Checking in on Betty

I do like to see Betty when the other kids are at school. I went over to sing with her a few days ago. She sat on the chair beside me for less than a minute, and soon she was roaming in the halls or playing house in the kitchen with one of her dolls. I just pretend that she is ignoring me and continue to sing, repeating the words and the melody as though she is sitting right beside me. Soon she is filling in words that I am leaving out and then she will come back to sing the song one final time with me. Ahe is good at that performance so I am going to judge the singing time as a win.

I did check in on Miranda to ask a technical question on another morning and Betty was alone upstairs.

She was snuggled into a comfy chair and watching cartoons. She had the large container of brown sugar by her side, and a ¼ cup measuring utensil, scooping sugar out of the acrylic jar and tossing it down her throat as though it were a chaser.

I asked her where her mom was and if she was she allowed to eat brown sugar like that.

“My mom is downstairs,” but by that time Miranda was upstairs saying to Betty, “I told you, you can’t eat sugar like that.”

“But it is your fault for not putting it back far enough on the counter,” Betty replied, handing the large container of sugar back to her mother.

Well, not really handing it over. More like, having it taken away from her.

Piper Takes Recess

Piper and Alice are both in Grade One this week. Alice told us that it is easy to mix up the recess bell and the bell for lunch.

Piper doesn’t line up to go back into the school after recess. It wasn’t good timing for her, so she stayed outside to play a little longer. The school monitors found her and told her she had to go inside. She explained to them that she would be taking a longer recess. They explained to her that she would have to go see the principal if she continued to take a longer recess. She went to visit the principal. He sent her back outside to practise listening for the bell and then going inside. She did that twice ad then returned to her classroom.

Today is Saturday. Her mom took her back to the school so that she could practise six more times, listening for the bell and then getting in line.

The lesson for the first week of school?

Recess is only as long as the principal says it is.

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 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

The Blue Recycling Cart

A few mornings ago, Michael called down the stairs to me that the pancakes were ready to eat. I had been up a couple of hours doing some work at my computer and I walked up the stairs thinking I would follow him to his house. But he had their blue recycling bin and was clumsily carrying it to the larger recycling bin at the back of my house.

“Their bin must be full,” I thought and then I changed my mind. I had no idea why he was using my cart instead of theirs but in the end it doesn’t matter – it was all going to be recycled and I can use their bin if mine is full. I followed him because it is fun to chat with little 7 year old boys.

As he dumped stuff, I watched what was going in the bun, checking off what is allowed since I am still learning myself what is allowed and what isn’t: clean paper, clean glass jars, tins, aluminum foil, cardboard … and then I saw a large African cover for a queen sized bed drop into the bin. I reached in and pulled it out, saying to him, “Whoops, I bet your family doesn’t want this any more and I can use it. I will iron it up and Mary will love it in her new home.”

“Can you take it out,” he asked.

... saving the green truck ...

“Sure, just like this,” and I reached in and pulled the throw out. Then his eyes fell on a plastic truck that had dropped into the bin.

“Hey, my dad is throwing out my good toy that I still love.”

“Well, it looks like he doesn’t want it at his house. How about we keep it in my garage until you don’t need it anymore,” I said, going on, “I think we could wash it up and it would look just fine. We could have a whole box in my garage of things you are saving but that your folks don’t want at their house anymore.”

“And look, here are my ear buds. Why are they being thrown out?” he asked, grabbing them out of the bin and beginning to untangle them.

I don’t know much about electronics, but I can help with untangling them. But it is not possible to help Richard’s and Miranda’s kids. Once they get started on a job and I try to get my hands in there, my hands are pushed away. I am not used to having that happen so when I can feel that physical rejection of my hands as they shove them away, I also feel an amazement at their independence. They are not going to ask for help until they really need it. This is not just true of Michael, but it is true of Alice and it comes in spades for Betty.

As we walked back to his house, carrying the recycling bin, I tossed the bed throw into my house and down the stairs. Michael walked along, still untangling the white chord and Richard stepped out of the house and onto the porch.

“What are you doing?” he called to Michael. “Did you take that out of the recycling?” When I put stuff in there, I mean for it to be in there, not coming back into the house. Now you get that right back into the recycling. Those earbuds are broken and they aren’t coming back into the house.”

I knew we were both in trouble. Well, I had thrown the evidence of my recycling the recycling down my basement stairs. So I was good on that count. And I had left the truck by the garage door, so Richard couldn’t see any evidence that I had participated in this venture. But Michael’s hands were still busy trying to detangle the white wires and Michael couldn’t stop his hands as fast as Richard wanted him to.

I didn’t know if this was the time to speak up and say that I had started this, or if it was just better to let Richard finish the early morning rant about how the recycling should be taken out. I thought maybe I could bring this up a long way down the road when Richard was feeling a little less judgemental about our interference in the path that the recycling should take.

Actually I did know what to do.

This was not the time to bring up my participation in saving the universe by recycling the recycling. 

Still, it was hard on me to let a 7 year old take the blame.

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.