Focal Points

We had two points of interest this week – Hurricane Florence and Logan’s getting on the bus.

The hurricane was a non-event in our area, unlike the flooding in eastern North Carolina. We noticed one 10-mile-per-hour gust of wind that lasted 30 seconds. Big whoop! One full day of steady rain made Jonathan Creek rise. I was texting with friend Karen when John walked in and asked if I wanted to drive to the creek. We rushed there and took a few shots to share with her. Karen is one who usually walks to the creek with us when she is here, so she had a vested interest in it. We caught the water at its highest point.

John checked the rain gauge when we were sure all the rain was over. Despite being warned that we would have 10 to 20 inches of rain, we could muster only 4.

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A video clip of our street at 7:40 would show everyone converging at the bus stop. We try to time our walk to be there, and Marla comes out with dog Albert. Logan jumps out of his car, not so much to join us, as to run circles around us. In the photo, Logan had already greeted us at Marla’s driveway and run onto the neighbor’s lawn around the telephone pole.

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Logan is the blur to the right of the pole.

Logan circled around to pet Albert as we began to talk to Bob in the car. There was a pause as we watched the boy leap onto the bus, and we scattered as quickly as we gathered. Another day was off to its proper start.

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John’s Birthday

To celebrate John’s birthday, we went to the restaurant where grandson Nathaniel worked for the past two summers. As the camera came out, son John $ adroitly offered to take our photograph, thereby getting on his preferred side of the camera. I took comfort in knowing I could erase anything I didn’t like.

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John likes that restaurant for one particular dish, which they do well. All their food is good, but I go there to bask in reflected glory. One of the owners generally cruises the dining room, and John lets her know we are Nathaniel’s grandparents. Last year she beamed on us and told us what a marvelous worker he was. This year she called over the other owner, and he joined her in praising our favorite chef-in-training. Their words were glowing, and I took in every syllable. I looked at my plate and took myself down a notch. If Nathaniel had been working there, he would have peeled the potatoes.

Later we had John’s favorite dessert, angel food cake with strawberries and whipped topping. As we sat on the porch, we told $ that we’d heard coyotes howling in the pasture the night before. We’d never heard them so close or so persistent before. Although we were not frightened, he assured us that no coyote had ever killed a human.

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The next morning, John saw the single candle left from the night before and stuck it in a biscuit. It was his official birthday, after all. Normally I cannot do two things at once, but I did that time. I pulled out the camera to take a shot of this shady character, and I sang Happy Birthday.  $, right beside me, declined to sing. If you listen carefully, you can hear his silence.

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New Shoes for Logan

We (well really, it was I) puffed up the steep hill on the morning walk. John simply sauntered up without breathing deeply. We expected to see neighbor Logan (8) waiting for the bus and Marla chatting with him and his dad. The street was empty. We wondered if they all overslept, but soon Logan’s car came rushing down. Marla appeared at the same time, and the street was peopled as it should have been. We learned a while ago that daybreak is not a stellar time for either Bob or Marla. They manage to bear with our jocularity and puns without hitting us.

Logan jumped out of the car with his usual energy and bounded across the street. John spotted a square tag on the boy’s shoes, as I noticed they were not the neon-green pair. Bob rubbed the sleep from his eyes and said he probably shouldn’t have worn his new sneakers. Logan submitted to John’s cutting the tag off before jumping the ditch.

“Your shoes aren’t tied,” John said.

Logan sat down to demonstrate that the laces were not long enough. He gave a halfhearted attempt at tying them and jumped up to run again. John wouldn’t give up so easily and verbally wrestled him to the pavement. I think Logan got the shoes tied as the bus pulled up. So began another school day.

My day, too, began in typical fashion, as my camera demanded to record a sweet scene.

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Cat 2!!

When we stopped by the little produce shed to buy tomatoes, the woman behind the counter said excitedly, “It’s a Cat 2!!!”

For once, I heard and understood a message that John missed. As he started to ask about it, I said, “The hurricane is now a category two.”

With weather apps, we watched this storm change course, slow down, get stronger, and dither about in the ocean. Its projected landfall was about 350 miles (563 km) from us. A week ago, we watched a reporter dramatically walk in the tiny waves breaking over his toes, trying to scare us. It was too much too soon. We cleaned our house and put clean sheets on all the beds in case friends or family needed a place to stay. I even had time to clean up the garden! I estimate we had enough food on hand to feed eight people for two days. It would have been a great way to clean out the refrigerator. Though no clouds were in sight, grandson Nathaniel’s classes were canceled in Charlotte, 200 miles from the coast.

I was on that woman’s wavelength, ready to hear news of a storm on the move.

We were so ready for the storm, that John said it might be a good day to drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway among fluffy white clouds. He was right.

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We are home again and will wait another two days for the rain to begin.

Mamaw, Where did You Come From???

I was shocked to see a photograph of my mother’s mother in the newspaper. Mamaw died at age 89 about 39 years ago . Why would her likeness be published in a paper 450 miles away? John had already seen the picture and remarked on it. Brother Bob agreed that it looked much like her.

Look at these photos to see my real maternal grandmother in her early 80s.

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Mamaw at 81 with our daughter Lise

 

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Mamaw at 83 with our daughter Kate

Do you agree she looks a lot like Sadie Berry below? Sadie still works five days a week in Swannanoa, a town out from Asheville. She turned 100 years old the day after Labor Day.

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Sadie is roughly 18 years older than Mamaw, as pictured. People really do age well these days, don’t they?

Face Time with Logan

Neighbor Logan (8) came over and asked if he could stay with us while his parents went to a meeting at their church. Of course, we were delighted. He and John played two games of checkers until we heard a storm approaching. The boy was very patient with me and the camera. I tried to focus on the bullet-boy as he ran on the porch, and he rushed up with a big grin on his face. I’m going to keep the image handy whenever I want to be infected with laughter.

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Logan ran one of our radio-controlled cars as we waited for the storm. He put it up to his face to feel the wheels spinning. I caught the smile, but not the action.

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We first heard the heavy rain, and then watched as it approached from the mountain. For a few moments it was raining on Logan’s house and not ours. The fellows continued to throw a tennis ball back and forth until it escaped into the dripping bushes. Logan was all for chasing it, but John stopped him with a simple no.

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Our ritual for a visit with Logan is hiding a granola bar for him to find. When we first began three years ago, he would ask for help after five seconds of looking. These days he is more observant and keeps hunting. I warned that this one would be difficult to find. Can you see it? It’s on top of the fire extinguisher.

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Logan looked everywhere with his eyes before he began to climb on the counters. He moved things gently and searched thoroughly. I avoided looking at him, knowing my eyes would be tempted to glance at the hiding place and give the game away. He finally asked if I would tell him how high it was, which I indicated with my hand At last he ran toward us at the other end of the room.

“I found it!” he exclaimed. With bewilderment he said, “There are three others in the cookie jar.”

The response in my head? Aaaauuuggghhh! That had been my hiding place for all the bars since grandson Nathaniel found Friar Tuck in an antique store. Logan also spotted the bar I had hidden. It’s back to square one for Anne!

An Odd Day Alone

John’s weekend at the train club was on the calendar, so his leaving didn’t take me by surprise. This one started earlier than expected. He usually leaves around six, but I heard the ice rattling at five and didn’t go back to sleep. The previous days had been busy. I didn’t plan anything special to do, knowing that days tend to fill themselves up without my help. When I got home from walking, I realized that I did all the talking – to myself. Evidently I was just as nice to myself as John would have been.

I was tempted to take the day off by not allowing any sentence to begin with “I ought to ….” That didn’t work. While eating breakfast, I saw weeds dancing in the wind, taunting me. I rose to the challenge and sadistically enjoyed seeing them wilt in the cart.

Reading email and blog messages took hours. Even though people have asked how long I stay glued to the monitor, I have resisted timing it. They may need to know, but I’m sure I don’t. With words flowing in and out, I wasn’t aware of being alone.

Toward evening I listed accomplishments – weeding, cleaning the coffeepot, reading the newspaper, cleaning the fountain that had run faultlessly for months until today, doing two bank recs, and washing dishes. Now was the time to unwrap the book that NY friend Nancy sent me several weeks ago. Could it have been a year since I held a novel in my hands? Blogging friends read several books a WEEK, and I sometimes manage one a year. Shameful! The author’s preface drew me in, and I was engrossed with the first chapter. A blank page made me realize I was sitting in a chair reading, not living the story of an 11-year-old girl. After a pause to eat a tomato sandwich, I became a college student and middle-aged widow. Whoa! I lost myself in that book! I was virtually the main character for hours with no thought that I existed. No wonder I don’t read very often. It’s an act of supreme irresponsibility. I must not pick up the book again until I’ve done something useful tomorrow.

Logan’s Unflagging Energy

Neighbor Logan (8) came over to visit, and we got a good geriatric workout. He was looking for something active to do after reading a book with John. His eyes lit up when he saw the red balloon in my hand. John and I remained seated as we batted the balloon around, while Logan was on his feet. I’m always surprised at how much energy it takes to reach out for a wild shot or kick the balloon up from the floor. I missed a few as I aimed the camera, trying to catch the action.

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Logan didn’t miss a thing. His bare feet were slapping on the hardwood floor, running first one way and then another. He made dramatic saves to keep the balloon from touching the floor, something like a man sliding into first base. It was amazing that he didn’t run into furniture or slam into a wall. The balloon was a blur in this shot, taken without a flash. Logan was a blur to us as long as the balloon was in the air.

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When John called for a break, Logan played with a radio controlled truck left out on the credenza. He made it zip around and under every piece of furniture in the room. For added excitement, he put the balloon on the floor and herded it with the truck. To our delight, the balloon moved in unpredictable ways.

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Logan’s parents will be pleased to find out that he said without prompting, “Thank you for having me.”

College!

The summer season ended for us today when grandson Nathaniel left for college. We had the mirror ritual after breakfast. All summer the mirror had been set for Nathaniel, high on the wall, hanging on a hook from the former owners’ clock. He was the one who moved it, and I was the recorder of the Mirror Rite.

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Now it is back where everyone but Nathaniel can use it. Well, he could check his torso, not his face.

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Nathaniel has always been known for light packing. Grandson David didn’t take the kitchen sink to college, but he did have a refrigerator. These photos contrast their styles.

One last photo – ready to go!

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Logan Begins Third Grade

We missed Logan’s boarding the bus on the first day of school by two minutes. We were walking up the steep hill and saw his feet as he sprang in the bus. We were a bit earlier the second day, in time to get a picture of him. He was so proud of his new sneakers that he actually stood still.

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As the bus chugged up the hill, he was a blur as he ran to the end of the road.

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Signs say STOP.  Logan says GO!

Retrieval systems came into play after school. John used a pole to extricate an airplane, while Logan had a stick to get back a tennis ball he had thrown.

Checkers gave John a chance to rest after all the activity in the yard.

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Today is quite different from the exuberance of youth. We are saying goodbye to neighbor Dave and thinking of peace and rest. I last talked with him as the neighborhood celebrated the Fourth of July. His health went downhill, and he couldn’t win that last battle with pneumonia. We will miss seeing him with Connie on their porch, hearing his ready wit and interesting stories, and knowing a big-hearted man can only love us from afar. This is my favorite picture of him, taken on our back porch on Memorial Day, 2016.

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