If he could fling his arm negligently over her shoulder
(assuming he had an arm and she had a shoulder) in the style of teenage love
everywhere, I bet he’d do it.
The
non-stop gobbling is pretty impressive, too.
Earlier today when I was out gardening he and I almost had our own High Noon moment, staring each other down across the backyard.
I sat very still, thoughts of sharp turkey talons on my
mind, but he eventually took a left and cut past the garage.
I’m grateful to have grown up in a time period when tv was so new, parents didn’t worry about what it might be doing to their kids. Granted, for me it also helped that I was mildly neglected by my mom and so was pretty much left to my own devices.
First, to be clear – I have no, repeat, NO artistic ability.
Even my handwriting is so poor that I used to avoid writing on the blackboard
when I was a teacher.
But I
may have found my medium.
Just as
something for fun, a friend and I signed up for a pottery class. Outside of
those ashtrays (did teachers in the 1950s think that everyone’s family smoked?
Good thing mine did – like chimneys.) that we all made in elementary school, I
haven’t willingly put a pinky in mud for the past umpteen years.
But I’m
hooked.
Kind of daunting.
Then I rolled some of it between giant rollers remarkably like a big pasta machine.
But now what to do with it?
There was lots of guidance on technique, but we could make anything we wanted.
After they've been fired in the kiln.
Then dipping in the glazes.
And after another firing:
Now if I can just find a place for all the results.
The family had better watch out at Christmas.
Zoom call at 5:00 last night, as I kept repeating to myself all day, lest I forget.
I also kept checking email, because our organizer, Christine,
still hadn’t sent the link. By 4:00, what with packing to head back to
Massachusetts and cleaning and doing laundry, I’d forgotten. So at 4:45 I was
out in the garage sorting the car and gathering up the DampRid
(moisture-gathering bags to hang in closets) I’d stored there.
By the I’d wandered inside it was 5:15 and I had a text
reminding me to join the gang. I had of course just turned off my computer, so
I revved that up, checked its camera to see if I could be seen, and clicked “join
Zoom”.
It was another of the every-few-months-or-so gatherings of my
girl friends from Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Va. No particular
agenda, just a chance to catch up. The players are pretty diverse.
We know
me – Massachusetts resident, visitor to Florida, retired teacher, writer,
grandma of 5.
Chris
– Maryland retired college prof and historian, so Irish her mom had had a faint
brogue, Catholic elementary school and then enthusiastic convert to Judaism
after marriage, Bat Mitzvah and all.
Sheila
– West Virginian resident in a small art-colony sort of town, stained glass
artist who has had one of her works on the White House Christmas tree, three
husbands in the rear view mirror, and now barely eking out a living and on
Medicare.
Andrea – Hawaii, resident of Lahaina, whose home thankfully sat above the August 2023 wildfires, former tv producer, and who looks very tired, likely from caring for a husband who recently turned 101.
The conversation ran through politics –
we’re all unabashedly liberal; travel – some of us can, some of us now can’t; watching
old musicals with granddaughters; health (inevitably); and oddly, no
reminiscences about the past.
There may be time for that yet,
because by the close of the call we’d vowed to each other to meet in person. We made plans to get together next fall, in California to simplify travel for Andrea, with the subtext that
Chris and I would do whatever it took to get Sheila there, too.
Exciting!!
I figured one last indulgence before we leave would be a shopping trip. Florida clothes are different, and with all their bejeweling and glitter not the sort of thing that a Northerner like me would usually wear. Except for the fabrics. At home the tee shirts are heavier, thicker, and when Massachusetts hits the 90s, as it often does, it would be good to have something to cover as much of me as possible without buckling under the heat.
One small benefit of a bum knee and being unable to play pickleball is that I now lounge in the mornings instead of bounding onto the court at 8:30 a.m.
