Logan (6) stayed with us two nights while his parents were in the hospital for Shawn’s knee replacement. I woke up at 5, and as usual when waking in the night, turned on a lamp and opened the devotional booklet. There was a slight noise which sounded quite close. Maybe I was hearing a cow in the pasture, but when I turned, I saw a small body in the recliner.
My first instinct was to scoop him up and put him in bed with me, but I knew I couldn’t lift him. I covered him with a down throw and went to consult with John. We decided to leave him there, thinking he needed the sleep. I went back to bed and don’t remember sleeping. At 6:20 there was a thump. By the time I sat up, Logan was talking cheerfully with John in the next room. He claimed he wasn’t asleep when I covered him and proved it by saying I went to the bathroom. My question is, did he sleep between 5 and 6:20? Surely he did. For his teacher’s sake, I hope he did.
As for the photo, the little toy camera lives on the bedside table at night, where my pockets are unloaded. I never expected to need a camera in the middle of the night, but it was eager to be involved.
Who knew first grade homework could be such a challenge? John was going to oversee the reading.
I thought I could figure out what to do with a printed sheet. We failed. I wrote the following explanation in Logan’s notebook for the teacher to read:
We’re the neighbors and definitely feeling like subs. Logan read silently, so we don’t know how many pages he covered. He said he did a chapter. It has been 68 and 69 years since we were in first grade, and we didn’t know what to do with the paper. Logan said, *sigh* “I have to do the parent’s homework for you.” *sigh* He cut up the pictures, arranged them perfectly under the three columns by “o” sound, and put them in the plastic bag. Hope we do a better job next time. Teachers have our utmost admiration.
The next day started off early. Logan got up at 6:15 and found John in front of his computer.
“I thought you’d be out walking,” Logan said.
John reassured him, “No, we would never leave you alone in the house.”
“Don’t you always go walking early?” Logan asked.
John replied, “When you aren’t here, we do. We’ll walk later after you’ve gone to school.”
He must have been a bit worried about being here with us. We think it remarkable that this was the first instance of his showing it. He is only six years old!
After school, Logan’s notebook was open on the kitchen table. Guess what! WE GOT A STICKER!!! “Well done,” it said.
The teacher wrote, “A sticker for all your help and support for Logan and his parents. We all appreciate you.”
Grandparent subbing doesn’t get much better than that.
We went walking with Abigail Adams and Dolly Madison this morning. Yes, for real! They let us call them Abbie and Dolly. There wasn’t a hitch, although there were two leashes involved.
Neighbor Shawn had her second knee replaced this morning. Bob brought Logan over as they left for the hospital, and we had about an hour before taking the boy to the school bus. It was a lively hour. We had breakfast with son $, who was using our place as his base for a camping trip near Purchase Knob. That is one of the mountains we see from our house. After breakfast we did a half-morning walk with the dogs, almost to the stop sign.
We knew years ago that the way to meet people in the neighborhood was to have a dog or children. Today we had the dogs, and we met a neighbor while we were out on the road. The red van stopped, and the people inside said they didn’t know we had dogs, having never seen us with any.
“They aren’t ours,” I explained. “They belong to the neighbors across the street.”
At that point, my Southern manners failed. I knew who the passenger was, but I failed to introduce us. Rats! Undoubtedly, Angie knows our names from the good old Southern grapevine, just as we knew hers. When she heard why we were walking the dogs, she said, “Please tell Shawn that Angie hopes everything goes well for her.”
As soon as the car stopped this afternoon, Logan jumped out and streaked home to let the dogs out. He went right to their food, put some in each bowl, and added just the right amount of water. He walked the dishes carefully back to the crate without spilling a drop.
Logan said he got pink at school, meaning he was well-behaved. I was relieved. The other day he was over here asking for a snack, and he said he would love a cupcake with chocolate icing. We never have cupcakes on hand, but I made a dozen today. They were up high where he couldn’t see them, along with the square cake from the leftover batter. If he had been naughty, he wouldn’t have gotten one.
The day after John’s 75th birthday, there was a knock on the front door. You could almost feel the excitement before John opened the door. Neighbor Logan came dancing in ahead of the still-warm cake Shawn had baked. What a surprise! They set the cake on the counter, put the candles on it, and lit them while I raced to the other room to get the toy camera. Normally it would have been in my pocket. There was no time to compose a shot. I was lucky to get everyone in it, even if their faces didn’t show.
Shawn cut generous pieces, which we enjoyed at a leisurely pace on the back porch. The dish was called “Do Nothing Cake”. I thought it was a misnomer, because it tasted like Shawn had done lots of special things to it. However, we did nothingbut sit there and gobble it up. Delicious! We loved having a chance to visit with them after the busy summer we had in both households.
The story of the evening that I remembered best was Bob’s rescue. They lived in Florida at the time, and Bob and a friend were near a canal. It was a deep thing, complete with alligators and snakes. A woman driving a large car was not paying attention and drove into the canal! The men jumped in the water and tried to pull her out. It seemed to take forever for her to get the seat belt undone. She was not a small woman, and they were pulling her through the window. Her foot got caught in the steering wheel. Bob kept pulling up as his friend twisted the foot free. As soon as they pulled her out, the car went glug! glug! and sank out of sight. What drama! Isn’t it special that we live across the street from a real hero?
When John said he smelled smoke, we all thought we might need a hero on site. No, the candles had not set anything on fire. I suggested he go to the front door and sniff. The smell was there, too, and Bob remembered their next door neighbor was having a party. Maybe they had a cake with lots more candles than ours. We sat back in our chairs and watched white clouds glow behind the mountain, lit by the full moon rising. What a lovely end to John’s birthday celebration!
Our son, John $, declared that we could not let John’s 75th birthday slide by without some signature celebration. Other family members were far, far away, so it was up to us. The night before the big day, $ sat with us, phone in hand, to plan it. He remembered John’s mentioning that he’d love to have a prime rib dinner with horseradish again some day. That came out several weeks ago when he was talking about working in London in the 80’s. Two steak houses went on our mental list. Because of John’s love of history, we knew something historical needed to be the focus of the day. I had already faded at that point, so the next day I got up not knowing where we were headed.
North Carolina narrows to a point on the western end, and we live in that triangular area. By driving north, we came to Tennessee. The mountainous scenery on the interstate was spectacular. A few minutes after putting gas in the van, John asked, “Did you hear that? What was that?”
I thought a noisy car had passed us, but the fellows felt the sound had come from our vehicle. Every once in a while we heard it. To me, it sounded like a few pebbles dropped down and hit the underside. The road out of our area was recently graveled. Maybe we had picked up small stones that were dropping. The noise was irritating but not worrisome at that point. As we drove through Johnson City, I asked where we were going. Our destination was Rocky Mount, one of the earliest homes in the area of the Southwest Territory, which later became Tennessee.
We saw no other cars or any sign of life at the visitor’s center. $ tested the door and found it open as another couple pulled in. A friendly receptionist explained that the tour would take about an hour and a half, so if we’d take a bathroom break, she would get the introductory film ready. What a lovely experience we had! The five of us had individual attention from the docents who had donned period costumes and assumed characters of the 18th century while guiding us through the old house. A daughter of the family showed us the great room with her mother’s desk that had a secret compartment. The one chair in the room was reserved for her father, although her mother was found napping in it once in a while. Going upstairs to her parents’ bedroom, she explained that an important visitor was with them, so he was given their room. They slept across the hall where their children and grandchildren normally stayed.
We were handed off to her daughter who showed us her grandfather’s dark study. The place was self-sufficient, since they lived far from the village of Jonesborough. They made their own ink from black walnuts. Going into the dining room across the dog trot, she explained the purpose of a two-tined fork and a knife at each place setting. The fork was for holding food steady on the plate. You used your own knife that you wore at your waist to cut the food. And the table knife? That conveyed food to your mouth! Although shaped like a knife, it had no sharp edge. The daughter said it was hard to learn how to eat without making a mess. Adults ate alone with one child in attendance to wave a fan, keeping the flies moving. There were only two meals. Breakfast was often fruit and cream, and dinner would be a simmered stew.
The daughter took us to a separate building where a black slave showed us how she cooked. Baking was done only one day a week. She showed how to prepare the brick oven. First thing on the list was bread that took the hottest fire. Loaves were put directly on the coals! After that came pies, and cakes were last because they took less heat. It was her opinion that many women died when their long skirts caught fire in the huge fireplace where all the cooking was done. Roasting a turkey or other meat in front of the fire was done only once a month. The butter was churned by hand as she sat in a chair rigged with a foot pedal. The pedal moved a cloth over her head to keep the flies away. As we left the area, she pulled various herbs from the garden, telling us how they were used. One herb worked as a laxative, so on the way to the outhouse, you grabbed leaves of lamb’s ears in case there were not enough corncobs. I giggled to myself, knowing there were more lamb’s ears in my garden than any other plant.
Daughter of the house, John, John $, the cook, other tourist
We spent quite a bit of time in the museum after the tour. Surprisingly, John was ready to go before I finished looking at things! He was aware of the time and knew we needed to eat a light lunch if we planned to eat dinner at a reasonable hour. We found a fast food place in Johnson City and then drove on back roads to Jonesborough. The car made funny noises again, but we weren’t going far. There seemed to be more racket when we were out on open roads. Anyway, $ had wandered around Jonesborough early this year and thought we’d enjoy it. In stark contrast to $’s other visit, the town was bustling with cars driving through and people walking on the sidewalks. This town was the first settlement in the area, becoming the center of government. It still boasts a large stone edifice for the county courthouse. I loved seeing the outside of the International Storytelling Center. That seemed to be the main attraction of the present day. There were numerous bed and breakfast places, antique shops, eateries, and two candy stores. I took a photo to show John enjoying a birthday phone call from sister Barbara and Thom.
The Johns on Jonesborough’s Main Street
On the way home, we got on the interstate where the car sounded like something was going to fall off. $ wondered if we had mudflaps that were doing more flapping than mud slinging. We pulled off, and he walked around the car, looking high and low. He could see nothing out of place. Back on the road, John exclaimed, “I know what it is! There is a rubber piece over the door that the wind is catching.”
We went to the nearest town, checking Walgreen, a convenience store, another large drug store, and a supermarket. Finally they found duct tape, and we were shortly on our way in peaceful silence.
We ended up at J. Arthur’s, a steakhouse in Maggie Valley. Surprisingly, the parking lot was full, having only two empty spaces. There were also about 20 motorcycles parked there. Maggie is a magnet for motorcycles, probably because bikers love mountain roads. There is also a biking museum in the town, “Wheels Through Time.” Although the dining room was almost full, we were immediately seated at a booth at the far end of the room. As the waitress came up to our table, she said, “Just want to let you know that we are out of prime rib and mashed potatoes.”
Happy 75th Birthday!
Oh, dear. The specials included fried oysters, which tempted John for a minute, but he and $ agreed to share a rib eye steak. If the birthday boy had meat on his mind, steak would be the second choice. $ asked if they had horseradish, and our waitress brought it out immediately. The day was saved! We didn’t save room for dessert and toddled off homeward, sated and happy. It’s just as well we didn’t want a sweet, because I hadn’t bought it yet. The request was for angel food cake, which was on the shopping list and not yet in the house. We brewed a pot of coffee and sipped it while chatting on the back porch. There we rehashed the day, talking about the things that we had enjoyed. I loved a gizmo in the dining room of the Rocky Mount house. It was a wrought-iron rod with a handle at one end and a curved U-shape at the other. We couldn’t guess what it was, so the docent demonstrated. Her grandfather loved hot coffee, so he would hold the rod in the fire. When it was hot, he plunged it into the coffee in his cup. Ah! Better than a microwave!
Gardening at dawn sounds like an extreme sport, but it isn’t at our house. Before I go into the garden, we take an hour’s walk to the creek and have a leisurely breakfast on the screened porch. My goal was to expose all the boundary stones before the first frost. We inherited this garden with the house, and I had no idea how to take care of it. The owner said all I’d need to do was keep it weeded. That was a challenge, since I could not distinguish weed from prized plant. The solution? Wait a year to see what bloomed nicely and what seemed exceptionally greedy. In that period of time, and probably before we moved in, some plants took advantage of my ignorance. The worst two I later found out were creeping thyme and that wicked wisteria covering the pergola. By waging war on the wisteria, I seemed to keep ahead of it this year. Thyme had crept everywhere – sneaking into the two rose bushes, threatening a young crepe myrtle, obliterating a stone pathway, and totally hiding two rock gardens. Low-growing evergreens had jumped their stones, too. That’s where this onslaught began when sister-in-law Beth and grandson David helped expose the triangular boundary.
I don’t remember how I found the stones that must have originally been rock gardens. I don’t consider myself powerful, but believe me, I had some pull when it came to those areas! They looked quite raw and will be that way until I decide what to do with them. Meanwhile, the creepy herb will waste no time trying to reclaim the garden and take over the porch while it is at it. Vigilance is the name of the game.
I’ll include a sneak preview of the water feature that John and grandson Nathaniel installed this summer. The photo was taken from the side, because the front is not ready to be shown yet. It looks a bit raw, since the surrounding plants have not filled in the area. Don’t suggest it. Creeping thyme could have done the job overnight.
This day needed to be marked as a major milestone. All of the stones laid out by the first owner have now been exposed. This reluctant gardener has a lot to learn, but I think the over-eager plants have met their match for the time being.
I don’t like spiders. I’m racking up no phobia here, but I could live without those critters. When I stepped out of the shower, I happened to look up and saw something on the ceiling. We have tall ceilings, so there was no way I could identify what it was without glasses. Meanwhile, I would stay out from under it.
That gave time for introspection and a little philosophy. The reason I won’t sit under the pergola, topped with the wicked wisteria, is that you never know what might drop down from above. There is no telling what all could be living in those leaves. I brought the focus back to the bathroom. Do I want that brown spot to be a spider or a blemish on the ceiling? If paint had peeled or a nail come loose, wouldn’t it be better to wish for a spider? A spot would bother John, and fixing it would require ladders, tools, and paint. Project Repair could take months and involve real cleaning. I surprised myself and voted for the spider! It won’t stay there forever, and if I don’t hit it, it won’t leave a lasting mark.
When I put my glasses on, I found the brown spot was a little flying insect, not a dreaded spider. It will be gone by the time we come home from church.
Our neighborhood group had not been together since the Fourth of July. Summer was a busy time for us and some of the others, as well. I loved Joyce’s response to my text message, “You say party? I am there!” You can’t beat that kind of enthusiasm.
Two households had prior commitments, and one was nursing their post-op dog. That left four homes to do all the partying. Food, coming in first ahead of the people carrying it, was plentiful and delicious. Read and drool! In order of appearance we had homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers, homemade applesauce, Brownies, Asian coleslaw, more vine-ripened tomatoes (never too many), and deviled eggs from backyard chickens. Of course, we had the usual burgers , brats and potato salad. Amazingly, the food didn’t seem to stop our talking.
Logan was very well-behaved, eating his meal and chatting with all the adults before being excused from the table. He and John looked at a Lego airplane that might have belonged to our son or grandson.
We talked of many things from personal history to amusing anecdotes – all fun and interesting. I picked one to share. Bob and young son Logan traveled several hours eastward to take some furniture to his daughter and son-in-law. They recently relocated nearer the coast and had not amassed much furniture in their married life. Bob said they had a chair in the living room and a crate in the kitchen. Just so you know, Bob is a man of few words, but the words he chose COULD have been exaggerated.
Logan added, “We took them a TV set, too.”
That statement started the complete story. A few days ago the young couple saw a TV on the curb and took it home. It wasn’t a good sign when water poured out of it when they tried to turn it on. Out it went to their curb. A short while later they saw a car stop. A big man got out and loaded the TV into his car and drove away triumphantly. Doesn’t this take recycling to a whole new level? I had visions of it traveling about outside like the proverbial Christmas fruitcake inside, re-gifted eternally.
The first night John’s sister Barbara and Thom came, we sat on the porch catching up on news. Now that they are retired, they walk in the morning like we do. I have a picture to prove they went to the creek with us.
Yes, she is a New Yorker wearing a subway map.
At the top of the big hill, we found Logan eagerly waiting for the bus. It was the second day of school, but the first day for him to be on the bus this season. He ran, and Bob rushed to catch up and speak to the driver.
That afternoon John noticed Logan standing at the edge of his property while we sat on the porch across the street. His whole body leaned forward, willing John to invite him over. John called him, and he ran to get permission. Barbara, a born teacher, went inside to get a book for Logan to look at. She expected him to look at the pictures of the US presidents, but he began reading aloud, “George Washington….”
She brought out another book with pictures to look for, and Logan was instantly glued to it. She promised to leave it at our house for him to look at, which she did. I think she felt sorry for me after hearing that I forced myself to play checkers one day to entertain him.
Barbara and Thom were interested in feeding the horses for a photo op. One of their granddaughters rides regularly and would enjoy seeing them with the animals. I went in the house for an apple and found son John $ with a cut apple in his hand, ready to bring it out.
Barbara feeding DW
On the way back to the house, Barbara spied a black snake in bushes beside the house. I was amused that three of us were eager to catch it, but only with our cameras.
See the black snake we were watching?
Our activity for the day was going to Cherokee to see demonstrations of Indian village life in the 1800’s. On an overlook there was a sign with writing in English and Cherokee. $ knows a lot about the Cherokee nation, and he said they are the only American Indians with a written language.
We saw demonstrations of weaving, beading, making bows and arrows, making blowguns from bamboo, and hollowing out a log for a canoe. There were traps for animals, houses of various styles, and the lodge where everyone in the community would attend meetings. We all enjoyed talking to a young man with an accent. He came from Scotland to the US to study, and met and married his wife. Unlike the US government, which requires proof of blood relationship, the Cherokee clan accepts him as a full member. We enjoyed the group doing traditional dances. They laughed, teased each other, and paid special attention to the girl in the group whose birthday was that day.
Bear Dance
For dinner, we went to a place called Butts on the Creek. We all liked the BBQ. Barbara had to try something none of us had ever had – fried corn on the cob. There was a light batter on it that was crispy and good.
Our sibling reunion was lots of fun. Barbara and Thom were on their way to visit her and John’s sister Chris and Steve in SC. John had the idea of our meeting for lunch in Columbia, SC. It worked nicely, with all of us driving part of the way. We were on the late side of the lunch hour, so the staff did not mind that we sat and talked in the empty restaurant. All too soon it was time to leave. We headed toward an empty house, and the other four continued the party in Summerville.
Siblings Barbara, John, and ChrisSiblings with Thom and Steve
The question I asked myself for the umpteenth time was, “Why do you always wash an apple before you feed it to the neighbor’s horse?”
I have laughed at myself any number of times for doing just that – rinsing off an apple before holding it out for DW or Vixen. Well, there are two correct answers to that question. The first is, I do it out of habit. I always wash fruit before serving it, even though half the time the horses drop the apple. I have no compunction in picking it up off the ground and holding it out again. They eat off the ground 99% of the time, anyway! The second correct answer is that my companion, 6-year-old Logan, will likely take a bite out of it before the horses do. That is exactly what happened today. Thank heavens I didn’t deviate from habit!
Today was a big day for Logan. We knew school was starting today, and Bob stopped the car when he met us on the road. Shawn lowered the back window so we could see our cutest neighbor and wish him well. John told the boy to come see us after school and tell us all about it. A bit later Bob sent a photo they had taken at their front door. We always took pictures of our children on their first day back to school, but ours always looked last-minute, not carefully planned.
John was out running errands when there was a loud knock on the door. There was Logan, bursting to tell about his day. We sat down to talk, which was amazing in itself. He said he had breakfast at school, which was normal, and that he had pizza for lunch. I was surprised at that, knowing it was a half day. He chose to sit by Titus, and they played outside ,except not on the grass. I never know when I have heard him correctly, so I didn’t pursue that.
Logan told about the teacher’s rule for raising hands in class, which I think is priceless. He demonstrated that if you need to go to the bathroom, you raise one hand with pointer and middle fingers crossed. If you need a drink of water, you raise both hands and lower them with your fingers waving, like rain falling. Brilliant, don’t you think?
Pure talk didn’t last long. Logan wanted to play checkers, which I did very reluctantly. I am not good at the game and prefer not to play at all. He was the first to have more men than I did, but we ended in a draw. That means he played at a 10-year-old level, and I had the best game of my life. After feeding the horses, Logan announced that he was hungry. Via text Shawn gave me permission to give him Craisins. We were on the porch when John came in. The boy played on the exercise bike and is likely a couple of inches taller than when he last rode it backwards. He has been riding a real bike without training wheels for a couple of years, so I should not have been surprised at his coordination. If you can see the video, note that he wasn’t tall enough to hold both handles at the same time.
My name is Suki, my human is a writer, and this is about my world. The world according to Suki The Cat. My humans smell funny, look weird, and I can't understand a thing they say, but they feed me, so hey, what are you gonna do?
Mehrling Muse 