Wednesday at School

I can hear the voices of 2 dozen students behind me right now. I smell coffee and burnt toast. I am sitting on a fairly uncomfortable chair. I am in the Palm Beach Community College "cafeteria." There is a fairly unappetizing, cafeteria and a Dunkin' Donuts counter. Guess where everyone is buying food? Nate treated me to breakfast this morning--two plain cake donuts, a medium hot chocolate, and milk. He ordered and ate the better part of a coffee roll (like a glazed donut, but with swirls of cinnamon throughout). He also ordered a medium hot chocolate and breakfast egg-sausage-cheese-on-a-slightly-squashed-sandwich. He consumed a little of each of these. He's off to class--a success in college thing--that has had him produce a PowerPoint presentation entitled "Mechanical Engineer" and make a trip to his counselor for a signature verifying that he has looked beyond the end of this semester to the classes he needs to take to graduate. Because of which, I have listened to him express repeated and vehement disapproval. Because of which, he has had two very productive and positive experiences--which he will look back on with satisfaction in the years to come.

Using the word "squashed" reminds me of a short story I read last night by Ursula Le Guin. It has a tree talking about how the world around him changes as he figures out his roll as a young and then giant oak tree. He speaks of having to travel quickly from small to tall and then back to small again--as people pass by him. He loves a canter--ta-tum-ta-tum-ta-tum--as a horse approaches and then passes him. There is also the skill of appearing to come toward and then fade into the background of people passing from both sides at once. Something of an autonamus procedure--kind of like how we have our heart beating and our lungs exchanging waste gasses for oxygen as we breathe. He misses squirrels and birds when the dirt path beside him becomes a cement roadway. (Here he tells that the squirrels learn to leave the area or get "squashed" under the wheels of automobiles that he must rush toward and then pass behind in a jerking, breathless dash. He does not like it when this happens.) And he discusses his distress at the change required of him as cars (made things) come into use. It is a glorious glimpse into the psyche of a being that we take for granted as a "living-but-voiceless-and-unthinking" creature.

My favorite part is at the beginning when he tells of how, occationally, he needs to stand still and the humans come to him, sit and lean back on his trunk and rest. These few motionless hours he finds rewarding as people trust him with their time and bodies when they sit, rest and sometimes sleep. It is a sweet reminder of Silverstein's "The Giving Tree."

Lasagna Cooking in the Oven

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.

Leaf and Scarab Beetle that Megan made out of Sculpy clay.

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. 

It is Christmas time again.  There have been years when it was just Brent, Nathan and I and we didn't even bother to wrap our gifts to one another.  We just folded the tops of the bags over and taped them shut.  Everyone was happy--we enjoyed the presents and the fact that there wasn't any mountain of wrapping paper to clean up.  Christmas suppers were simple, too.  

One year I went to Honeybaked Ham

Caleb James Garcia and Brent James Hendry

I don't have a photo to start this one yet.  I was hoping that someone had snapped a picture while I was taking a nap this afternoon with Caleb in our bed.  Apparently everyone came in and took a look at us--Brent and Nathan worried that I had forgotten to put a diaper on Caleb.  Lauren and Robert couldn't believe that the two of us were both asleep.

La and Rob went to the temple this morning and so Caleb was left with just Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Nathan.  He is such a different person when the two of them are gone.  He doesn't whine for sweets or chocolate--in fact, he didn't really want much food.  There was ice in his sippy cup after our walk around the block--and I offered him some water/juice in a big person glass--which he finished up.  Lunch was a bowl of chicken noodle soup, a big spoonful of peanut butter and some granola bar.

With his mom or dad around, he is constantly being fed.

Different circumstances, different expectations, different actions.

I shall definitely miss him when they move.

The living room is already a quarter full of boxes packed up and ready to go.  Lauren is doing her best to get things organized as quickly as she can.  I admire her methodology--which I totally lack.  She remembers things--and where they are.  I think that she looks forward to having her own space where I am not constantly "rearranging" her.  They have been here for about a year and a half.  It seems as if they had always been living out in the casita--and filling the shelf between the kitchen and TV room with stuff.  The TV room has been occupied with Caleb toys, books, and paraphernalia.  Her instinct to impose order on chaotic situations has provided her with various gifts from me--a vertical bookshelf and Caleb's own armchair.  Lauren is constantly looking for things to make and do with Caleb.  They are odd sometimes--often then come from Pintrest, but often they come from things that Caleb likes to do.  They "make soup" from odd things in a big bowl of water.  Caleb has taught himself to swim--and can now handle a solo trip from end to end.  He loves to splash--throwing rocks and pinecones into the drainage ditches along side the road.  He loves to pick flowers and fruit and bring them to Lauren.  He has dozens and dozens of books memorized.  He has a passion for any animal that swims--especially any BIG animal that swims.  Finding Dory has been a definite influence on the things he values and loves to revisit over and over.

Lauren has kept a vast photographic record of Caleb's growth--thanks to her iPhone camera.  From Grandpa Brent's childhood total of (maybe) a dozen or so pictures--to Caleb's multiple photos and videos per day:  keeping records of childhood events has experienced a revolutionary explosion.  Not that I mind--for I also take more photos of the things around me through the lens of my iPhone.

I am tempted to look at the iPhone X because of the improved lenses for selfie and outward facing photos.  It is just so easy to snap a photo of a list, map, product I want to remember--and events.  I wish that Megan would send more photos.  She is so overwhelmed with her life undertakings:  3 children, Church callings, husband, house, healthy cooking--and managing all of this with too little money and too small a car.  I feel grossly opulent when I compare my life to hers.  She turns 34 tomorrow.

I remember turning 34.  I was young then.  I am 58 right now--I still feel 34.  That makes me fairly normal, I think.

Last week I dragged Nathan behind me to a job fair at Palm Beach State College.  I talked to the vendors there and asked them about job openings for myself.  So strange, almost 60 and talking seriously about career opportunities.  I think that my dad officially retired at 62 . . . to take care of mom.  Mom's been dead for 25 years.

Think of a time in the future, when time as we know it is done.

Just for the record, I love Brent so very much.  He is my idol, my example, my champion, my love and the reason for the enchanted life I have lived these past 35 years.  This year, we celebrated our wedding anniversary by cleaning up after Hurricane Irma down in the Keys.  Chain saws, hauling branches, shoveling mucky leaves, delivering food supplies--being there with him made it wonderful.   Just for the record.

Last Rabbit Down

On Friday night, I picked up Oops! to cuddle with.  When I got to my chair and sat down, I noticed that he wasn't trying to hide by shove his head between my elbow and my side.  He sat, immobile, not even manouvering his ears back and forth as I rubbed each side of his face.  His coat was so soft.  I felt his ribs beneath it.  He lay limp in my lap--relaxed sooner than usual.   I marveled at the miracle of this small being.  Someone came into the room and he stiffened up, looking about, but then returned to a creamy swirl in my lap.  When I put him back into his cage for the night, I noticed that he had begun to breath in great gasps.  I put my hand in to touch his face, but he retreated back into the far corner.

The next morning it was the same.  I tried to pick him up, but he resisted--it hurt for me to touch him.

Benjamin Oops! was the second rabbit to join our family after we arrived here in Palm Beach. His name came from the dribble of carmel-coloured spots fallen onto his back--in sharp contrast to the rest of his bright white body.  I had first gotten Peter, but he needed a companion while I was away at the doctor's, at school or in Maryland visiting Meg and her family.

After Oops! came two rescues:  Murphy and Roo.  At the height of our rabbit collection, there were four.  Roo died first, an infection in her brain left her without the ability to hold her head straight or to move forward.  Peter, my first love, had teeth that grew sideways and I made the mistake of having the vet remove them--Peter came home in a state of shock--as just a shell.  He was listless and would not eat or drink--two days later I repented of my mistake and had the vet put him to sleep.  Then went Murphy--he just got old and could not keep himself clean or dry--and so I paid for the vet to put him down, too.

Last of all was Oops!  The smallest of the four and the most timid.  I think that if he had been my only rabbit, he would have been happiest and more outgoing.  Alone, he finally came into his own and enjoyed the space and solitude that being single offered.  Surprisingly, he did enjoy being petted, wrapped loosely in a towel and sitting safely on my lap.  When I was gone, Oops! took Nathan up on his offer to hold him--something Nathan quite enjoyed.

Oops! had a double hutch, tucked safely away high on a table in the corner of the living room.  His food and bedding were kept beneath the table--everything easy for me to get to as I tended to him each evening.  He, unlike Peter, had a "delicate constitution."  Anything other than his timothy hay, timothy pellets, carrots and an occasional wild rose from our garden upset his stomach.  Peter had been able to eat ANYTHING:  apple, hybiscus, store-bought treats, Boston or romaine lettuce, craisens and raisens, rice cakes, and an occational salt-free saltine cracker.

Oops! is the only rabbit that my grandson Caleb will ever remember.  He loved putting his finger through the small spaces between the hutch wires and having Oops! gently "kiss" his finger--with the rabbit, I am sure, hoping, that the pink end of Caleb's finger was actually a bit of carrot being pushed into his space.

I don't know if Caleb will ever actually be able to pull images of Oops! from his memory--Caleb just celebrated his 2nd birthday.  Oops! will be there, though, as a small bit of the history that will shape the way that Caleb thinks about and sees the world.

I am sorry that Megan won't have been able to see Oops! one last time.  She is coming to visit Lauren at the end of the month.  I am glad that she is coming.  Visiting my brothers and sisters while I still had small children at home never occurred to me.  My mom used to tell the five of us that we needed to be better, smarter, more successful than she was--so that our family could continue to move forward.  I want that same thing for Meg, La and Nathan, too.  I think that Megan is going forward in a grand fashion--bit by marvelous bit--in taking time to spend with Lauren.  Meg wants to know all of us better.  I think that knowing her family members will allow her to better know herself.

Back to Oops!  In December, I took the pictures here.  I am glad that I did.  Meg's girl Kate wanted some bunny pictures--and so I took some of Oops! and emailed them for Meg to print off.

They will serve as a good reminder of our second rabbit in:  our last rabbit down.

Belated Christmas Thoughts

I start today with the current center of our Universe:  Caleb James Garcia.  He was about 21 months old when we had the "official" Christmas at our Florida home.  He is enamored of animals--especially any he can hold or touch.  Even though he is still very young, he is able to intuit how and when to interact with our two cats.  

Caleb, being cool while opening presets, Christmas 2016.

He approaches one of them when they are laying down on the arm or back of a family room chair and begins to croon "soff, soff, soff" until he has gotten close to Valley or Gypsy.  Then he lays his head gently on her side--as if her were trying to hear her heartbeat.  He then smiles blissfully:  "Caaa."  After a moment or two communing with the cat and the world around the both of them, he pick up his head and begins to touch Valley or Gypsy on the top of her head.  This time his soft, sing-song voice starts: "Pat, pat, pat."  After a few more moments, he turns away and hops off to do a puzzle or read a book with mom, dad, Papa (Brent)--or he will return to me with one of his plastic animals he wants to discuss.  

Caleb is amazing at finding ways to interact with all of us.  He will stand in front of his mother, who is sitting on the couch looking for new ideas of things to make for Caleb or make for him to learn.  He will fix her with his eyes, as soon as she looks up, he will begin opening and closing his fingers ("popping popcorn") and hopping up and down.  She will ask, "Do you want to sing the Popcorn Song?"  "Yes! Yes!" he replies.  From there they sing songs that he knows from Library Story Time, Nursery, and from Lauren.  They go through each one multiple times.  "Ninn!  Ninn!" (Again! Again!) is his chant when he wants to repeat something.  

Right now, Caleb and Robert are playing together--Robert watching while Caleb practices making baskets with any of his two dozen different balls.  When Brent gets home tonight, Caleb will follow him into our bedroom while he changes into comfortable clothes.  Then he will patiently trail him until Brent sits down in "Grandpa's Chair."  At that point, Caleb throws himself into Brent's arms and the two of them giggle and laugh together.  The wonderful thing is that, while Caleb is choosy about when and with whom he cuddles--after their play together, Caleb will settle down into the crook of Brent's right arm and lay his head on Brent's chest . . . a testament to the sweet bond between them.

To him, I am Nana or Ga'ma.  Different enough to allow Lauren the luxury of knowing that she has  whole claim to "Momma."  In a land where she has to share just about everything in this house with everyone else, it is nice to have something that is hers alone.  

While Robert has been in firefighter, and EMT training, their little family has been relegated to the guest apartment on the other side of the pool.  They spend their days--when they are not gone--in the "big" house with Brent, Nathan and me.  She has been doing the cooking for us almost every night.  They both clean the floors and bathrooms once a week for me.  For a time it was their only income--and I know that it must have been hard for them.  It was hard for me when we lived with my parents the summer between graduating from BYU and starting Drake University.  

Lauren and Robert--Don't know what La is looking at, but apparently she is pleased.

Brent showing off Lauren's artwork.

Me--one of the few good photos of me I have from 2016.  Fitting it should have been taken on Christmas Day.

Nathan--the ever-present, ever-patient, cat-charmer.  

It is now the last day of January 2017.  Lauren just put away the last of the Christmas decoration a few days ago.  Sad that I do not get "into the Spirit" of the Season by putting up fake evergreen boughs and having Nathan put the Lego train around the bottom of a tall, REAL Christmas tree--Lauren makes up for my disinterest.  

Truth be told--it is good to have someone in the house who actually CELEBRATES each of the traditional seasons by changing the way things look around the house.  I am just too distracted to want to keep up with the constant change.  

I have come to the conclusion that energy--desire to struggle forward--is also allotted to each of us.  Unlike time, which seems to have ben given to each of us in equal amounts, the spark that drives mortals to become MORE, BETTER is a fixed number of tablespoons that spreads itself like peanut butter over a piece of bread.  Some get a generous portion, others, not so much.  It is difficult for some to look around them and wonder why they do not find joy in every hour when those closest to them admit freely that they feel as though they abound in it.  

The inequity is easy to philosophize about to myself--harder to comfort some around me who I love dearly, but find joy and happiness, at least right now, in short supply.

Merry Christmas 2016!

always care

Happy Mother's Day!? A Short Report on Our Family.

Lauren makes these kinds of flowers herself, but these are on the Mother's Day card that Robert gave to Lauren.  Caleb found it and decided to bring it to me while we were waiting for dinner to cook.

Today was quiet.  During the Church block, the second hour of Primary was taken over by the Priesthood.  Young Women and Young Men manned the kitchen.  Even the Nursery leaders were pushed out of the room and the dads took over so that the three of us could be present at a luncheon and short program for the Relief Society sisters.  The food was so-so, but I got to sit with Lauren and so that made it very nice.

Nathan has braved the unknown and is taking an art class with me on Tuesday nights.

Nathan busy being an uncle to Caleb.

Megan, Jon, Gloria and Kate in a calm moment at home.

Dad and Cindy visited and posed with Gloria.  

Most recent photo of Jon, Megan, Anton, Gloria and Kate, the Rytting family all together.  This was taken on the day that Dad and Cindy visited.

Meg ties Gloria to her with a long, thin blanket while she and I have a piano lesson.  Meg asked me to be her piano teacher this year and so once a week we FaceTime and Meg shows me what she's practice.  Years ago I took piano lessons from Mom--and now I get to do that with Meg.  It feels strange--like when I look in the mirror and see Mom's face looking back at me--but nice.  

On Caleb's first birthday, we took family pictures.  This one is one of my favorite.

Lauren and Robert Garcia.  The Garcias are living with us while Robert goes back to school full time.  He just finished his EMT training (while still working full time as a manager for a automobile parts store).  He will be taking anatomy and physiology this summer in prep for Paramedic training that starts at the end of August.  When he finishes that--he will be ready to start the fireman's academy.  His ultimate goal is to become a full time fire fighter.  He is an amazingly dedicated husband to Lauren and father to Caleb.  He spends hours and hours studying for his classes.  He is originally from Peru and so English is his second language ... I could not even comprehend a way for me to go through these kinds of classes in Spanish.

I am also busy being a grandma.  Caleb is a fish at heart.

Our house is full.  My heart is full.  We are all doing well.

Peter's Obituary

Murphy--a rescue who delights in bumping his toys about his space.

Oops! was added to our family to keep Peter company . . . which Peter hated because he saw Oops! as competition.   He shows his displeasure at late dinners by filling his empty food bowl with toys.

Peter, this blog's namesake, has been dead for a few years.  I think about his earnest demands for attention--and how irritated he would become when I would try to get him to do a trick over and over again.  I have a few pictures of him.  My favorite photograph is a bit out of focus:  it shows Peter, burrowed between my knees, as I sit on the kitchen floor rubbing his head and body.  The photo doesn't show it, but Peter is completely still.  He is adsorbed in the joy of that moment--I am paying attention only to him.  I am focused on only him.

I don't think that I have ever been so loved by an animal.  I have had uncountable numbers of pets over the years--but have never felt so completely necessary for a small, fuzzy being's contentment.

I would write at this moment about how much Peter meant to me; how he came into our home; how he enlarged the scope of my life.  

The term for this is an "obituary."  But I could never begin to express my feelings about Peter in one of those: a dozen lines to pay final homage to the small being that inspired this blog's series of essays.  

Obituaries seem so cold and formal to me.  It is as if the deceased's spirit has gone, leaving only the husk of a body behind--and so all that was lively and real about him/her is also sucked out of anything written about them.  That is one of the reason I love the book Tuesdays With Morrie, written by Mitch Albom.  

Morrie Schwartz, a university professor who loves to eat and to dance, is slowly being debilitated by ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Mitch, one of Morrie's students, is reunited with this teacher twenty years after graduation.  Morrie wasn't just an instructor--Mitch details how he learned to write from Morrie . . . giving Mitch the tools he needed to become what he is: a sports writer.

During the last years of Morrie's life, the two of them meet once a week--as they did when Mitch was a student--and Mitch chronicles their conversations:  bit by bit, "line upon line" (Moses 1:35, Book of Mormon) the wisdom that Mitch had ignored in his struggle to become a commercially successful writer.  Through his words, we also are able to observe the painfully unrelenting process as Morrie's mind becomes incarcerated by his body.  

Though entirely different beings, Peter was also betrayed by his body.  His teeth grew to the right side of his mouth--by the time I understood the symptoms, major surgery was necessary.  (I know.  I know.  I go on and on about how people spend thousands of dollars keeping old pets with cancer alive--making them suffer needlessly.  But Peter was mine.)  He survived the surgery--but I could not get him to drink water--even from a dropper.  Baby food did not tempt him to eat.  

Three days later, I took him back into the vet and had them put Peter to sleep.

Originally there was just Peter--then Oops! to keep him company when I had to be gone.  Then I adopted two rescues.  For a few years there were 4 rabbits at our house.  

After 11 years at this house only Oops! and one of the rescues (Murphy) are still here.  Oops! enjoys being cuddled, but not very much.  Murphy endures being picked up, but prefers to huddle in the back of the enclosure and to have me reach in and rub his face and ears.  They both love treats--but don't like to interact with me as Peter did.  

I suppose that these lines about Peter--who was actually named after Beatrix Potter's character because he looked so much like her illustration of him--are more about me than him.  

But that is right.  Grieving over any thing or any one is mostly a matter of some one missing them--and the story of what will happen without them in our lives.  I am sad for myself--that Peter is gone.  I am also feeling guilty about all that I could have done; the time I could have spent; the places I could have taken him--while he was alive.

And now I begin to think about the death of my mother--19 years ago this August.  Thoughts too private to share right now.

Whatever you are doing Peter, please know that I am thinking about you.  I am grateful that I got to have you in my life--and for the bits of wisdom about love, impatience, and endurance that I learned by having you here with me.

Oops! understands that you are gone.  Murphy sheds much more than you did.  And every afternoon, as I clean their cages, I remember you and am glad you were "mine" for a few years.