Cinnamon Love

Cinnamon is a Siamese cat, about 35 years old, and still in pretty good shape considering.  She belongs to my youngest daughter who would carry her around and tell her secrets and generally love up on her.  She was never treated badly and spent most of her life either sleeping on the bed or being carried around by her owner.  After my daughter grew up and grew tired of having 'stuffed animals' Cinnamon was relegated to a carboard box. 

Then 10 years ago she moved into West Virginia and had the run of the house - so to speak.  The loft bed was her kingdom and she only had to share with a slightly tattered Koala Bear and her baby.  The older grandchildren are boys and when they came up to West Virginia they relegated her to the floor or maybe if she was lucky she got to sit on the ledge looking out over the family room.

Ashby changed everything.  He took a liking to her and she became his dining companion.  Ashby doesn't like to eat alone, he likes to bring a friend to all of his meals, especially dinner.  This however is where the story of Cinnamon love starts a new chapter.  This chapter is about how a boy loves Cinnamon. 

Here is a snapshot of dinner with Ashby and Cinnamon.  All starts out generous - Ashby shares his blueberries and his mac & cheese and chicken. And we talk.  I talk for Cinnamon, Ashby of course holds up his end of the conversation.  He asks politely if Cinnamon would like a blueberry and of course Cinnamon says thank you.  After many offerings and thank you's, Ashby begins using the plastic bug catching tweazers that he is now using to pickup up his blueberries one at at time, and he plucks out her eye.  Looking at me he says, make her cry.  That means I make a little wimper and then snuggle Cinnamon up in my arms and pat her and say there, there, it will be alright. Cinnamon is a brave cat, so back she goes to dinner only to have her tail pinched and her feet plucked and her nose bopped.  Many pats and loves later (for Cinnamon), the tweazers decide to do good works,  Ashby removes splinters from her head and her nose even one from her eye.  By now dinner is almost done and Cinnamon is again relegated to an evening snoozing on the table or floor in the living room. 

Dinner is never going to be the same without someone to share it with!  And I am always amazed at how quickly Ashby can move a conversation from one idea to the next, changing fixed objects into multiple new ideas.  Poor Cinnamon now she sits on the table waiting to be carried back up to her perch where she gets to wait again for some little boy love to arrive and love her into life.

The best of days

Vacations are supposed to be days away from routine. Times when you can stay up late,spend hours on the beach,eat standing up, stay in your pj's until noon. This weekend has been a vacation. This morning West Virginia gave us a cloudless morning with a gentle breeze and cool temperatures that let me sit on the porch in my pj's with my daughter drinking coffee while my grandson used kitchen utensils to dig holes. In the afternoon his Dad let him water all the tree stumps and blades of grass.

I hope someday when he is a man and someone mentions vacation his distant memory of days being happy under a cloudless blue sky. That is where my mind goes when work closes in and escape whispers come and play.

Thank you Mr Ashby. You reminded me of all of the wonderful idle days watching your Mom and her siblings play.

You know you are getting old when

You go to the Beach Boys 50th anniversary reunion concert and park in handicapped accessible parking. And the Boys are getting old. When did the Beach Boys start wearing bling and driving Bentley's? It was a great weekend. Hubby flew up to meet me in Baltimore and we did the Harbour, had lunch with my sister and husband,shared a pretzel with our grandson at the street fair in Fells Point, navigated from our hotel to my daughter's house on the "Charm City Circulator", got kisses from Miss Madi and were awestruck by the Blue Angels fly over. We are heading home to Charlotte wondering if our next move should be to Baltimore Harbour. Could I really have it all? Urban, water view (no boat required) close to family, easy access to the airport. I just have to find the golf courses and the right neighborhood!!

And 4 became 23

"Tell me a story Nana about how our family grew." Once upon a time, a long long time ago, Nana was was a Mommy and she had four children. And then she met a man who was the Daddy of three children. Before long the children married and had children of their own, and our family grew and grew. Now there are 10 grandbabies and one more waiting to arrive in September. Of all of the men in the world I could have married I chose a man who could have been a cradle mate. He was born in Patterson NJ and my parents lived in Patterson but I was born in the next town over. But the coincidences don't stop there. Three of our children - in fact our oldest children - share a birthday. Mike, Sara, and Katie celebrate on September 20th. Son-in-law Mike and I share July 16 and grand-daughter AJ and sister in law Steffie celebrate on September 17. Now for the drum roll. Felix Gill arrived this week on brother-in-law John's 65th birthday. Completing the synchronicity - our 7 children would have been stair steps starting with Mike and ending with Peter, with Sara, Katie and Ted filling in the 10 year gap between Kama, Meagan and Peter. So welcome Isabel and Felix - Jon, Jason, Alex, Ashton, Teddy, Ashby, AJ, and Madi can't wait to meet you! Grant Lee when you arrive in September there will be a crowd waiting for you!

I thought I was braver

I have always thought I was pretty calm, not prone to dramatics, it was a self image I liked. Yesterday proved me wrong. There are scary things that leave me speechless and crying for help in a little squeaky voice. Yesterday morning while eating breakfast I got an email that there were problems on the project I am supporting, so I headed up to the office to log on and get to work. In about an hour we hear Zed throwing up. Not one little oops but several times and the he was a little quavery mess hiding under my desk. Near lunch time I finished up and headed down to the kitchen to clear the counter and get organized for lunch. What I was wearing: golf skirt, shirt, bare feet. What had arrived for lunch? A 3 foot black snake was snuggled up on the rug in front of the kitchen sink and because I was reaching for dishes on the bar I almost stepped on him. Act 2. I run to the other side of the counter and start "screaming" for help. Well not actually screaming. According to my hubby I was squeaking some sound that I thought was "help! Help!". The two guys amble down to see what was up. Finally seeing what I was pointing to they lept in to action. Hubby goes out to get a shovel. Son goes to get something to pin the snake down with. I maintain my role of being s quivering mess. The heroes return armed--- and the snake is missing. A search ensues. One of the heroes leaves for golf something. The son continues the search - under the dishwasher, in the cupboards. Not many places for a snake to hide EXCEPT the air duct directly under the sink. Act 3. I stand at the end of the counter staring at the vent while we exchange thoughts on ways to drive the snake back into the kitchen. I turn down the temp, turn on the fan, we put down cardboard, lay out bacon. No snake. I google options. No help. I call my Terminix guy. He can do ants but no snakes. The scene now has dishes on the counter no lunch me standing at the end of the counter one eye on the vent, one looking at my iPad time ticking away. Solution needed to to keep snake from sneaking back in. Pantyhose to the rescue. Son unscrews the vent, notices the space between the vent and the floor that leads to the crawl space, hope now arises that snake has headed home but to be on the safe side he slides the vent cover into the knee high pantyhose, knots it on the end and screws it back on. Ok it is tacky but I feel safer. And I now think the suddenly sick dog was probably the result of him licking a spot of (oh gross) snake slime that while not fatal is toxic. Today all is peaceful. Happy puppy. No snake.

Babysitting

Today my youngest son turned 30!  And he and his wife took me up on my offer to babysit while they went to dinner.  I got a quick lesson in putting her down for her nap and then got her up and we played while they ran errands.  That probably sounds easy to most everyone, but I hardly ever see her and was not at all sure what she would think when this strange woman appeared in her bedroom to get her up.  She was a trooper.  Her first reaction was - hmm but no tears just no smiles.  So we played peak-a-boo and slowly turned up the lighting until she was ready to put up her hands to be lifted out of the crib.  On to a clean nappie and clothes before going downstairs. 

 

We looked out the window at the men unloading a new water heater across the road, she wafted under the sheer curtains to look for something exciting but after a while and we moved on to playing with a few toys before I discovered her favorite game of snuggle wrestle. 

She would hide behind my back while I asked where was Madi - when she peaked around she would giggle when I swept her up and snuggled her.  We moved on to the stamp, stamp, wiggle, wiggle dance.  (I learned this watching Ashby's before bed show).  Tonight I got to watch her have a bath and hair dry before reading her two stories.  She is snuggled in her bed with Frog over her head and her blanket under her head sound asleep.  Now to see if I can stay awake until her parents come home! 

Dissed in the hood - revisited

Seems that somehow I deleted my blog post for Tuesday.  I wrote it on my IPad and must not have saved it correctly.  So now the whole purpose of the blog seems silly.  But in summary, I came up last week to help find new homes for many of my Aunt Jane's treasures and to clear out her apartment so the keys could be turned over to the complex. 

My aunt was a single lady who lived frugally, she loved nice things, but her apartment was not overly ornate.  She was also a fiercly independent and private person.  Very few family members had ever been inside her apartment, and her neighbors all described her as a truly sweet person who would never accept any help.  Over the course of several days family came to adopt different pieces of furniture, art and what nots by the end of five days everything had found a new home and it was time to sweep the floor and turn off the lights. 

The original blog talked more about seeing what looks like a familiar face but not knowing if it is really someone you knew or just someone who looks like someone you knew long ago.  When I am in Baltimore there are so many familiar sites, sounds and accents.  On Tuesday while I was waiting for a potential buyer for the remainder of the furniture I went over to Starbucks on Charles Street in an area where several girls from my high school had lived.  I had been thinking about one woman in particular who I knew from Facebook had moved  back to the area and wondered what she was doing now.  So it was probably just those thoughts that made me think that a woman standing at the bar reading a magazine might be just that person.  I haven't seen her in more than 40 years and we weren't best friends to start with but I thought that if she looked my way I might offer a smile and ask if she was Bonnie.  Despite my super power staring she never looked up, in fact she seemed determined to not look up.  Maybe she caught sight of me coming in and had no escape plan or maybe I am just too paranoid.  On the full disclosure side I have to admit I looked pretty scruffy.  My hair was back with a hairband, I had on jeans, an oversize shirt and sneakers.  Give me a break I had been cleaning and sorting - dusty work.