Bloggily

Zuzu at the library

It's been a long time since I wrote here--since the beginning of September.  Have things changed much since then?  Not really.  I am no longer cleaning out The House (my mother's), but I am still involved with it in several ways.  Am I less tense about The House?  Yes, a little, but when I spent a week in Wisconsin with my son's family that includes two precious granddaughters and a daughter-in-law that is like my 3rd daughter, I had a bad dream every night about either my Mom or my Brother or both.  Am I more optimistic about my future?  A little.  When I got back from WI I called my Brother to find out if anything new had happened on the "finding someplace to live" front and he said that when he was on the phone with the Housing Authority talking about his impending homelessness, "someone" in the background said, "Oh, I think we can find something for him by then"--by then meaning October 31st.

Some things have happened.  A very sad thing--the beloved wife of an old classmate died unexpectedly and there is a memorial service for her this coming Sunday.  It still upsets me to think about that.

Zuzu is in striped skirt

And I visited my dear granddaughters, Alison and Zuzu.  I am much rejuvenated by being around them.  They are so sweet and loving, along with all the other things little kids are, that it rubs off on me and when I come home I am softer around the edges.  We had such a great time.  I was able to go to a library reading time and a music class with Zuzu and to dance classes with Alison.  Zuzu and I colored in many different coloring books making "colorful" kitties and doggies, meaning they were not one color, but many, many colors.  I helped cook dinner a couple of times and allowed Mama to take Ali to school without having to wake Zuzu up one day. I watched Zuzu playing Nick Jr. games on the computer and Ali attacking somebody on Backyard Monsters.

My son made wonderful blueberry pancakes, fantastic Chicken Tonkatsu and his famously delicious chicken enchiladas.  I discovered Bunny Snacks and drank Caribou Coffee.  We all went to the Crystal Cave and saw bats hanging from the ceiling.  We went to a "cheese store", a uniquely upper mid-west kind of place, and bought cheese curds.  I met lots of my daughter-in-laws friends, each one as concerned with their children and husbands and how they are doing as Irene is.  I listened to my son work from home, attending cyber-meetings, expressing his opinions in intelligent terms that made me proud.  At one point my daughter-in-law thanked me for raising my son so that she could find him and fall in love with him.  That made me glow.  Later I told my son about that conversation and though he doesn't show his emotions much, I'm sure it made him feel pretty good, too.

Ali is at the far left.

I came home with stories for my husband and a new way to pronounce my name--Zuzu used to call me Nama Fistine, but now that has evolved into Gramma Chrit-stine.  She never called me just Gramma.  So I took to calling her Granddaughter Zuzu.  And she has a wonderful way of showing her distaste for something--she growls out of the corner of her mouth.  Alison has stopped being Silky, the imaginary cat, and is now a Cheeta and she has learned how to run like one.  She still is obsessed with animals, particularly cats, and we played Animal Doctor many times.  I got to meet her best friend, Grant, who wears glasses and looks like a blond Harry Potter.  These kids are too young to have started the Harry Potter books yet, but I predict they will be favorites.  Alison loves to draw and had just been introduced to the works of impressionist, Joan Miro.  We looked at his paintings on the computer and she did several of her own versions of his style that were wonderful.  I wish her parents had allowed me to take one home with me, but they were taped to the wall before I left.  One day Zuzu was preparing to get dressed and put her clothes on the floor in the order she was going to put them on.  Ali was inspired and quickly drew head and hands to put on the clothes.  She wouldn't let Zuzu get dressed until she was done and until we had taken pictures.

The fake girl is in the middle

It was a lovely trip and I came home to all the dishes washed, the house tidied, lists of plans and a pile of mail.  Life goes on.  And I start up again, taking care of moving money into an "estate account" for my mother, trying to figure out what to do about all the paintings she left and what remains of the china and antique books.  I sold some of her glassware and two pieces of furniture to her old friend, Denis Hausen, who owns a large antique store in Silverdale.  I know Mom would have approved of that since she bought so many things from him long ago.

The future?  Trips, lunches, book club meetings, the Fall start-up of our writing group, a writing retreat in November and isn't it time to start thinking about the "holidays"?  Yikes!  I wish us all Good Luck with that!