Yesterday was my Grandmother's 60th wedding anniversary. My grandfather missed celebrating it with her by 5 months. I only just realized that she is now my one remaining grandparent. It sounds lonely. My mother sent her some flowers, and I sent her a rose. My uncle is still visiting, and was careful to keep her very busy yesterday. The result was that she didn't actually receive any of the flowers until today. I just got a call from her.
The conversation turned to pictures. She has requested not to be in any. She says it's harder to think of herself looking like she did in the 40's when she is staring at a picture of a wrinkled old lady. I reminded her that if she comes across the picture of her rowing the boat during her Senior trip (high school) that I want a copy. That reminded her that she had, in an old book of my grandfather's, come across a picture of him that he had given her when they were dating. She had received two at the same time, one of him in his bomber jacket, and one of him in civilian clothes, but his Air Force cap and a pipe. On the back he had written, "Women trust a man who smokes a pipe." Isn't he funny? But now she is on a quest to find the other picture, the one in the jacket, so she can give it to my brother, who is now the owner of said jacket. We laughed for a while about her suitcases full of photos (apple doesn't fall far from the tree...or would I be a grand-apple?) and then she told me some good news! Once, when he was younger, my grandfather was at a dinner for Charles Lindberg, and he kept the menu. We (my grandmother and my mother and I) spend lots of time in her attic looking for it, with no success. But recently, while looking for this other picture, she found the menu in the bottom of a box of letters that my grandfather had sent to his own mother during the war. Now she can have it framed as she had always planned to. And she says she plans to spend this winter sorting pictures.
I kind of wish I could, too. At least join her for a few days. I can see us building a fire in the fireplace and making a pot of tea...or maybe just the kettle, as she drinks coffee. We would sit on the floor in our sweaters and go through stacks of pictures, and I could bring her some gallon zip lock bags to label with dates and names and we would cook... But what would my children be doing, all the meanwhile? Daydream over.
Maybe I will start a book today. Do I seem like I need to read a book to you?
I don't know when I missed a call from Josh today, but when I called him back I didn't get an answer, and still haven't heard from him. Hope that isn't a bad sign.
I don't know what this weekend will be like. Josh says we have plans. ??? This either means that his mother invited me or all of us somewhere and he has yet to tell me the details, or he has an invitation from someone like Chris or Johnny and he's going to act like it is a family event, but I will likely end up staying home to watch the kids. But I won't know until I get a hold of Josh.
Abbie is beating two linking logs on the ground saying, "I wanna taiko drum."
Today, if I won the lottery,
Well, maybe I'd better just go and take care of my kids.
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