Photos Before the Wedding--Libby, Brent, La, Rob, Lix and (of course) Charlie

Brent and his mom on the beach--November 2013

Brent, Meg, Libby on the beach, Juno Beach, FL

Megan Rytting, Libby Hendry, Lix Garcia

Charlie, Lauren, Rob and Lix at the Busch Wildlife Refuge

Lauren and Rob decorating for the reception.

I am late--last week was Rob and Lauren's one month anniversary.  I have been lazy about writing what's going on with the family.  Meg's children are growing so quickly--and Lauren's life has been turned around after meeting Rob at a Young Single Adults dance.  She is married now and the wife of a wonderful man.

She was talking on the phone yesterday and she said "This is Lauren Garcia."  It wasn't until then that I realized she was really and truly married.  I still think of her as Hendry--but then I have written Anton Hendry (instead of Rytting) on a letter I sent.  There are some things that will never change within my mind:  everyone will be a Hendry and a Wagstaff--no matter their given last names.

I even think of Lix, Rob's sister, as a Hendry.

Grandma Time With a Splash of a Cold

Megan's signature self portrait. 

Last week I was with my daughter and her family in Maryland.  One of the charms of her home is its proximity to extensive wooded areas and a small lake with wide paths around its shores.  I think that she and her husband decided to buy the home because of the natural areas--one path leading right past her tiny back yard--rather than because of the home itself.  

Lakeside view.  Greenbelt, MD.

Meg is a firm believer in "outside time."  When her two children are cranky or out-of-sorts, she does not park them in front of a movie--like 99% of the mothers I know--she packs them a snack and they go for a long walk.  

 

Megan Christina Rytting.

Her 4-year-old Jon has a Nature Box where he can keep anything that he finds outdoors.  During the walks we took, Jon would pick up cool looking rocks or leaves and tell us about them.  Then, in a tone that indicated he had deliberated carefully, he would announce that he was NOT taking the item home to put in his Nature Box.  

Megan would then respond "That's OK!  It's OK to pick up something and look at it and then put it back."  

Kate, two and a half years old, teething and with a cold.

During most of these walks, Kate was sick with a bad cough, runny nose and congestion--on top of having her last two molars coming in.  When she could breathe and wasn't coughing, she would chew on her fingers (sometimes gagging herself and then throwing up).  So Orajel was added to the routine and that, along with a little frozen hand chewy, made life a little more bearable.

On the first morning I was there, we went shopping.  Jon and Kate got to pick out a toy (Jon's was a monster truck and Kate's was a trio of small Hello Kittys, just the right size to fit into her hand.)  When Jon was not looking, I picked up a box that contained 5 small monster trucks.  He did see it after we had checked out--and even carried it home, worrying aloud the entire time who would get to have those trucks and if they belonged to everyone and when would we open them?

Jon with his new monster truck, Monster Mutt.

For Jon, coming surprises cause an internal agony, rather than a happy anticipation engendered in most of us.  Uncertainty in any form is  horrible--he is only content when he knows where everything is, knows who is going to be around him, and knows what is coming next.  

My own son Nathan shares that same characteristic.  For years the most important issue of the day was "What are we having for dinner tonight?"

My original reason for starting this essay was to explain where I got flowers for a Botany class I'm taking on line.  I found myself in Maryland during October--with no flowers at all around Megan's home.  

BUT!  Outside a restaurant we went to on my second night there, the grounds people had planted hedgerows of small, fragrant rose bushes.  I helped myself to a few of them--reassuring Meg that I didn't need to ask the restaurant for permission since they would have no idea who actually planted them.  The corporate owner's hired grounds keepers would have planted them, . . . and I rationalized that we were contributing to the financial coffers of the corporation by spending money for 4 at one of their renters . . . it would most probably not cause major problems for whoever was in charge if I snapped four of the tiny roses off of one bush.

I know, I know . . . if everyone took 4 roses, pretty soon there would be no roses at all . . . 

One of those philosophic issues that keeps me from picking flowers in national and state parks or from picking up a pebble of petrified wood from the ground when we were at the a petrified tree site near Florissant, Colorado.  It would also keep me from taking anything (but photographs) from a place like Stonehenge.

Anyway . . .

I had five wonderful days and now I have been home three days and am laying about in a gray fuzz because I have caught whatever flu or cold that Meg and her children had when I was there.

Thank goodness I am not teething, too.

Dinner Cooking

I haven't done any cooking in . . . well . . . I really can't remember when.  While we were at the store tonight, I was suddenly seized by the urge to beat Nathan to the weekly question "What's for dinner tomorrow?"

So . . . lasagna is cooking.

Tomorrow I am also planning to wear two of Megan's creations to Church.  They were attached to her Christmas present for her dad a few years ago.  Amazing children I have that spend such time and effort on a mere name tag.  

In Santo Domingo, I had a girlfriend who spent hours and hours on the package for any present she wanted to give.  For my birthday, she gave me a very nice pen suspended inside a glass soda bottle--which was wrapped from top to bottom in very thin cotton yarn--about the size of embroidery floss.  I kept the bottle for years. Of course I lost the pen within a few weeks.  

I usually don't do well with details. Major things like bleeding knees, burnt hamburgers, crying babies, rotting fruit in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator--I get these things and take care of them.  But the little things--like a hurt look when I've said something thoughtless—-birthday cards, Father’s Day cards, Thank you cards (all occasions that deserve recognition); I buy them, often even address and write in them, then forget to send them.  I miss the non-emergency, quiet signals that I should see and take care of.

There is actually a pile of Father’s Day cards that I bought for this year:  for my husband, my father, Brent’s father, the father of my grandchildren—cards for the kids to sign and send. 

I here honour and give thanks for those around me who do pay attention to the details.

And wear one of these symbols to Church today.

And try to become better at this by cooking dinner for the first time in a long time.

People, People, People: Eyes, Eyes, Eyes

This morning I am all alone in a house that has become accustomed to many people and lots of different schedules.  At the back of my head is the nagging tick that I have forgotten an appointment . . . or need to make an appointment.  I had my eyes lasered almost 10 years ago--after almost four decades of astigmatism and extreme short sightedness, I was able to see everything clearly.  My lifetime of hating the glasses whose hinges caught my hair and pulled it out; whose bridges slid down my teenager-oily nose; whose lenses needed constant, careful cleaning--REJOICE!--was over.

I didn't let the warning that at some point in the future I would need glasses again penetrate my accessible memory.  I think I do that with a lot of information.

Now, at 54, by the end of a day spent working on math, computer, reading--even watching TV--I cannot see anything clearly.  I go to bed with a fuzzy headache--that is gone the next morning--but that I know will be back soon.

If I could just spend the day outside:  weeding, planting, fussing over new seedlings, scolding the cats for eating my new seedlings, and standing by the pool, dripping, after becoming over-heated and flinging myself into the water to cool off . . . the fuzzy headaches wouldn't bother me.

Nathan saved his money and, when he was 21, got his vision laser corrected.  I talked to the doctor who took care of him--could he re-correct my vision?  Without even a careful look at my eyes, he answered that, no--he could not.

Megan and Lauren as pre-schoolers

Megan has never wanted to have her eyes changed in any way.  She is an artist and sees the world--its colours, shapes, perspectives--in a way that she can express with her hands.  After her first semester of college (Columbus College of Art and Design), she talked in a new, foreign language.  There was not just "colour."  There was hue, form, value, degree.  Her world had changed as she had learned a new vocabulary with which she could discuss it.  I tried my best to keep up--but I was not driven to master this new way of perceiving the visual impulses transmitted to my brain.  I have fallen far behind.

One thing puzzles me about Meg--she has a new home now with huge, high walls--and four years of fabulous creating, rendering, printing, painting--stacked in her closets.  Yet, her walls remain barren.  When I have my way, the walls of our home are covered--from side to side and top to bottom--with the artwork of Brent, Meg, Lauren, family and friends.  A few pieces are historical--the top panel off a seat cushion that my mom's mom made each of her daughters work on.  There is a plate from the mixed up set of odds and ends that my father's mom gave to my parents when they were first married:  the Correll of the 1950s.  One is an immense, framed oil colour that my mother's aunt (I think?) painted of the park by her apartment.

In our family room, I placed photographs of our family, Brent and me, solidly, with nary an inch between any of their frames.  My history and the recent history of each of my children--a constant reminder that I had accomplished something good in raising children who had become capable adults with talents and interests and lives of their own.  I loved this room's full walls.  Brent felt cramped by the clutter surrounding him.  After clearing everything off, filling the holes and painting over the evidence of my desecration of the space he preferred--he has declared that nothing will be hung on the walls until we get together and "decide what we want to hang up."

It took me a week and a half to get him to put up a clock.

Back to eyes--Lauren would have hers lasered in a moment.  Her contacts (the softest and newest available) give her problems.  At one point, I threatened that if I had to hear her complain about how her eyes hurt, then the contacts would go back to the doctor and I would only pay for glasses.  I think that they do still bother her--but she keeps it to herself.  I think that she keeps many other things to herself--that I wish she would feel free to speak about.  Old habits . . .

 The eyes of the future:  Kate (above) 
                              and Jon (below)

Late Night Swim

Even though it was late--after 9 pm--Nate, Lauren and I had promised that we would go swimming before we quit for the day.  It was dark an hour before we got in the pool, but I still wanted to take photos of us.  About a year ago, Brent got me an indestructible camera that does everything, goes everywhere and still lives to tell the tale.  (This is my second one--the first gave up after a valiant, two year fight for survival.)

Nathan underwater

One of the settings is for underwater. We only have one in-pool light  . . . so it was a new experience (for all of us and the camera) to try and get decent pictures. 

I was fun to be out late, no early plans tomorrow.  La will have her wedding reception dress cut out by tomorrow--and begin to sew.   It is going to look beautiful on her. Since the reception is going to be at the house here in Florida, she wanted short sleeves for the reception--if it is really hot, I imagine that she'll wish she had shorts on, too.

Nate can keep water from going up his
nose just by pulling
his upper lip against the bottom of
his nose.

 Nathan starts school again soon.  He's taking Statistics--I don't know how much help I'll be.  He's also taking an Accounting class, which should be easy with his head for numbers.

Nathan adds his own comment on
the seriousness of the moment.

I'm keeping this pic small since, when they are bigger, La does look a little cross-eyed.

I like this one of Lauren and me.  He did a good job of getting both of us together. 

I like the photo below because it is silly--and La does silly with great panache!

 It is actually the morning after the swim.  Even though I took my meds late last night, I couldn't last long enough to finish putting all of these up.  

Lauren made me promise not to put a couple of photos on Facebook--but OK-ed others just on my blog.  I think that she is counting on the limited readership of my blog to keep them fairly obscure.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

!

Crown for a Moment

While I was at Megan's, I French braided her hair after she washed it--and after two days it was dry.  When she undid the braids, her thick, gold-brown hair cascaded down around her shoulders:  beautiful. It got me thinking about the years that I spent learning how to French braid my own hair . . . and about the few times that I actually did it into a crown around my head.  I took about 10 minutes this morning and, after 25 years or so, tried to do so again.  

Of course it turned out horribly; but, it was a new thing to try after so long.  Before I took it out, I had Nathan take a few pictures of it.  They turned out about as well as the braiding did--but it was a good experiment and the photos give you an idea of what I ended up with:

Today is Lauren's birthday and so we are packing now to travel to her birthday wish tomorrow:  Disneyland.  As a family, we never did go as a family--I hate long lines, the glaring sun, and throwing up on rides; Nathan gets heat sick (actually, so does Lauren).  I also hated spending the money on such an inane endeavor.  Despite all of this, for her 28th birthday, Lauren wants to go to Disneyland--and so we are going. Brent is planning to be the dog-sitter and carrier-of-things-we-need-carried.  I plan to spend as much time in the shade or inside where it is air conditioned as possible.  I think that Nathan is hoping that we will forget him and so he can get lost inside the Lego store.  I'm not quite sure what Lauren is planning on--but I'm sure it will be good.

My plan is to bring an umbrella (there is a 51% chance of rain and it has been raining--no, pouring down buckets of water--for the last two days) and try not to eat anything before we plan to try roller coasters or the teacup ride.  I will also braid my hair up and off of my neck.

Definitely NOT in a crown--but definitely to keep it out of my face as I repeat to myself:  "It will be over soon.  Do not throw up.  It will be over soon.  Do not throw up." as we are pulled up the first hump of the roller coaster.

Wish us all luck. 

  

Grandma For a Week

OK, I am actually always a grandma.  The last 7 days, though, I visited my grandchildren at their home in Maryland.  It is a new place for them--small and perfect.  Part of a planned community built back in the '60s, they have one of the units in a line of town houses:  unit F.  Upstairs, downstairs, and basement--room for all their stuff and then some.  Three bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms . . . 

and a flowering dogwood tree in the front of the house.

            

After less than half a year, they already know all of their neighbors' names (parents and kids) and what they do . . . a feat that Megan could have not have even attempted when she was in high school.  I remember walking down the hall with Megan when she was 16 or so--as we passed other kids, I heard a continual stream of "Hi, Megan!"  "How ya' doin', Megan?"  "Gettin' out early today, Meg?" from students we passed by.  From Meg, however, I heard nothing at all--her eyes on the ground and her mind on whatever drawing or piece of art she was working on at the time.

Marriage to Anton and her two children have allowed her to grow more fully into her potential.  It is wonderful to see her so happy.

The most thoroughly grandmotherish thing that I did was to push Jon and Kate on the swings.  

While I was there, we made ice cream and cookies and pizza and went out for chicken at a strange restaurant with Meg and Jon and Kate.  We went to an incredible park by a river and waundered through the acres of forest that backed the rear of their small patch of property.  We went swimming at the community rec center and attended a Kale-a-Rama where we had sweet and sour "chicken", collard greens (I actually didn't taste any, but Meg and Anton both raved over them) and mac and cheese (made with cream cheese) which Jon would not touch, but which I loved.

To end?  Some gratuitous pictures of my very intelligent, charming, kind and beguiling grandchildren, my incredible son(-in-law) Anton and my talented and beautiful daughter Megan.

Kate (almost 2) and Jon (4 and 4 months)

Anton and Megan Rytting

Enough superlatives for the evening.  I am home in Florida now and recovering from a severe sunburn on my back, getting ready for a trip to Orlando to celebrate Lauren's birthday at the end of the week.