So, here it is. Here’s the deal. I posted last weeks letter-story this morning, a full week late, and I am sitting here in front of my ’puter with a notebook full of more stories to tell you! And if you hated last weeks, you’re probably not going to be all that excited about this weeks either.
First let me tell you that my current desktop is a photo of Kathryn’s shrine. I keep it here beside my computer at my work station and look at my beautiful daughter often. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that she’s dead.
Even though life does go on and has gone on, even though I don’t cry hardly at all anymore, I’ll never stop missing her. This melancholy lives inside of me and I spend a little part of each day visiting it.
My little shrine probably won’t stay there forever. I anticipate that at some point in time I will be able to put it away but for now she rides there on the dash, even when Mike is driving us down the road, and she’s not even stuck down!
I know, right!
Mike is a good driver. He doesn’t like things to fly around so he corners slowly and most of the time Kat stays just like she should, Once in a while she’ll fall over and I’ll say so, then I’ll reach and right her. It is never the framed photo that falls over, it’s always the keepsake urn with her ashes in it that falls over.
The time is getting later in the year now, and for a few minutes in the morning, the sun comes in through those tiny little windows in the top of the garage door and shines down on her. The first time I saw it, it took my breath away and I grabbed my camera. The stones or glass in her broken necklace caught the rays of the sun and cast little pinpoint rainbows on everything. It was pretty.
Our little grandson, Andrew came to spend a few hours with us this past week. Pat, his other grandma, is his sitter while mom and dad work and she had an appointment she needed to keep.
Kevin called me. “Can you watch Andrew until I get off work?” he asked.
“Sure,” I readily agreed.
So it was all set and Pat dropped Andrew off on her way through and we got to keep him for about three hours that day. I had been working on my letter when he got here so once I collected him and we got back into the RV I needed to save it and shut it down. I wouldn’t be working on it while he was here, that’s for sure. Andrew sat on my lap while I did this and as soon as he saw my desktop photo he pointed to the eye on the toy and says, “Baby eye.”
“That’s right,” I tell him.
The he points to the rock and says, “Rock.”
“Yep, it’s a rock,” I agreed and I lowered the lid of my computer. “It’s this rock right here, see?” Then I opened my computer and showed him that it was the same rock.
Then Baby Blue jumps onto the dash and the chase was on. Andrew climbed from my lap and went after her, but she managed to stay just out of reach. Andrew really wanted to hug on at least one of our pets so he turned his attention to Ginger, who had jumped into my lap as soon as he was down. I know Ginger doesn’t like to be held by Andrew but she tolerates it. I picked her up and handed her to Andrew, who giggled with glee. He enjoys it much more than Ginger does. Do you think that makes me a traitor?
Ginger is eight pounds and Andrew can’t hold her long, so he started looking for a place to put her down.
“Pop-pop,” Andrew says and walks Ginger over to the couch where Pop-pop takes her from him.
Andrew has learned to not get too close to Itsy, she snips at him. I don’t think she ever really hurt him, but he doesn’t like to be snipped at. Who does! And Itsy has learned that Andrew is afraid of her so if he gets close to her she takes a step in his direction and he takes off.
“Bite me,” he says hugging his arms tight to himself.
On this visit he found my sticky note pad. He was evidently happy at his find and pulled a piece from the top of the pack. He looked at me and I smiled at him. He pulled another few sheets off then a few more and a few more.
I should stop him, I think, but I don’t. I just watch as he pulls the whole pad apart. Lots of thoughts run through my head. For one, I can put them back together after he’s done. Two, it’s just a few pennies, heck, I buy him toys more expensive than that. Three, how will he learn if he isn’t allowed to explore? And lastly, letting him explore takes the mystery out of it.
Then the next thing Andrew chose to explore was the flyswatter. He obviously knew what a fly swatter was for and he cast around for something to swat. I saw his gaze fall on Baby Blue.
“Don’t you swat that cat!” I warned him. He knew he shouldn’t so he complied and started looking for something else to swat.
An imaginary fly on the table. Another on the floor.
“Andrew, let’s go outside,” I suggested and Mike decided he’d go out with us, fly swatters and all.
Guess who got to play in the puddles in the parking lot again?
Yep. Can you stand all this cuteness?
Andrew explored the results of slapping the water with the flyswatters.
At first kind of easy then harder and harder.
“HEY!” I yelled when water hit my foot, and that was all it took! Andrew laughed and laughed and then it was a game to splash and make me yell. I played along and even if I didn’t get wet, I yelled a few times just to hear him laugh.
He really did get some serious splashing going on.
About this time one of Mike’s old cronies came into the parking lot to see him so we headed to his office (the Adirondack chairs under the awning) and sat down.
While Mike visited, Andrew found some dried grasses in a flower pot and picked one. He touched his finger to it…
“Owww!” he yells and looks at the ‘wound’ on his finger.
“You’re silly,” I told him.
Andrew picked another one and said, “Two.”
“That’s right, Andrew! You have two!” I gushed at the brilliance of my grandson.
Then he picked another one and said, “Two.”
Oh well.
Then Andrew held that old dried up grass in front of him and blew on it as if it were dandelion fluff.
I smiled. “You’re a silly boy,” I told him.
Then Andrew tried really hard to blow the fluff away and I had to laugh right out loud at his antics.
“Why don’t you take Andrew for a ride in the golf cart?” Mike suggested. I guess we were interrupting their man conversation with our silliness.
“Andrew, tell Mimi to take you for a ride in the golf cart,” Pop-pop told him.
Andrew drops his dried grasses and slaps my leg, “Mimi, Mimi,” he says. “Ride,” and points to where the golf cart is parked.
“Okay, let’s go,” and off we went.
Andrew is perfectly happy riding around in the parking lot for hours and if you drive him through water puddles, he is in heaven.
“Baby water,” he says indicating a small puddle and we drive through the little water puddle barely making any splash.
“Big water,” Andrew says when he sees the big puddle ahead of us.
I floor the gas peddle and go as fast as I can, which, I have to tell you, isn’t all that fast when the batteries are low. Andrew does the roller coaster thing here. Up go his arms and he screams, “Wheeee,” as we ride through the water and it splashes up on both sides of the cart.
He’s so funny.
This is a game we play a lot and one Andrew loves. If Pop-pop is with us then Andrew is tucked in safe and secure between us as we drive through the puddles. If I’m by myself with Andrew then I use the Mommy Seatbelt Method to make sure no harm comes to me beloved grandson. I’d sooner die then let anything happen to this precious little life.
We rode around for a bit then I pulled up in front of where Mike was visiting with his buddy and Andrew sees his forgotten fly swatters, climbs down and gets one. He brings it up on the cart and is busy slapping things with it. He’s happy. He’s making some noise but not hurting anything. I let him be.
Then he drops the swatter and finds some screws in the glove box. Those screws have been in there forever and he plays with them every time he gets on the cart. He’s busy putting the screws into the tee holders molded into the dash of the golf cart, taking them out, rearranging them and putting them back in again. I feel a tickle on my arm and look down.
“Oh my gosh! Andrew look! There’s a little spider on me.”
Andrew stops his play and turns to look. This is a really little jumping spider and it takes him a few minutes to spot it.
“See him?” I asked using my finger to poke it and make it move.
Boy! Did he! He bends down and picks up the fly swatter and makes to swat it.
Did I tell you it was on my arm?
“HEY!” I yell at him in mock anger. “Don’t you swat my spider!” I move my arm and the spider out of his reach and with my free hand I tickle his belly.
Andrew laughs and pushes my tickling fingers away, then he makes to swat the spider again. Of course I yelled and moved the spider out of reach again and tickled him some more. Now it was a game. One I happily played with him. After a few rounds I say, “Okay, let me take his picture.”
My arms are not long enough for me to get the spider far enough away to focus my camera on him so I had to put the spider on a weed before I could take his mug shot.
This is the spider Andrew almost killed.
You might be thinking that I take a lot of pictures and you would be right. I take pictures most every day. Well, I probably don’t go out as much in the winter. I don’t really know, but I can find out. I checked and last January I took photos twenty-two days. February and March I took photos on twenty days each. April was twenty-eight days. So I guess I don’t slow down all that much. I back my photos up to a mass storage device and I had to go out and buy my third one. The old one was a My Passport one terabyte external storage device and it took me two years and eight months to fill it up.
I wonder how many thousands of photos that is?
Hmmm. It would be time consuming but if I ever need to kill a few hours, maybe I’ll figure that out for you (and me).
If my device ever becomes corrupt, I’ll lose all those photos, I think. Then I think I should print the best ones so I have a hardcopy, but somehow, I never get around to doing that.
My new storage device is a two terabyte Toshiba and I wonder how long it will take me to fill it up.
“Today is Wednesday and this eight page letter-story has barely scratched anything off my note list,” me glancing at my list says.
And...
I see Kat is still on my list for next time. Something I forgot to tell you from before when I was writing about her.
Every time I write about her I think it will be the last time, but then stuff happens. So if you ever get tired of me talking about her, let me know, would ya?
This photo is Kat on the phone with Kevin in the foreground.
Lots of memories.
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