And best card ever!!!!
Pie
MorePie
Fourth of July
Banjo Man
Glen the Banjo Man
mother’s day, past and present, in 2021
See the white plastic bag in the back? A bouquet of flowers was lovingly protected from the rain.
I went to town this morning and, boy, was it busy in the grocery stores! And you know what that meant: people were getting together with their families to celebrate Mother’s Day tomorrow. Families will be together again!
Be still my heart.
I remember one particular Mother’s Day here at the lake, when the boys were young (Will was two, I think, so it was 1979) and the four of us went down to the Denton Slough to “fish”. We mostly sat and played by the water on a warm, cloudy day. I have a picture of it somewhere. I am wearing a halter top and look undernourished.
That is a sweet and treasured memory from a very, very simple time.
There were two other Mother’s Days here in the last dozen years or so. One time I was totally alone and spent hours on the beach looking for arrowheads, drinking coffee and taking pictures of rocks. It was lovely and quiet.
Another time I was with Banjo Man, George and Sarge. I have a photo of the three of them looking a bit grumpy at a restaurant in town where we had lunch. Hilarious!
Last year at this time I had just buried my mother. We were in the midst of the Covid lockdown. I just asked daughter Nancy if she remembers anything about last year, but she said it’s a blank. I agree. I’m sure we stayed away from each other. Rhode Island was shut down, as almost every state was.
The year before that we had a crazy, miserable, insane family breakfast at Denny’s. My mother was not in a good mood, it rained buckets for what seemed like an endless drive to the restaurant, the breakfast took over an hour to arrive, I hadn’t told anyone about the cancer and was in pain. My daughter kept shooting me looks, the kind that say I know something’s wrong and you’re not telling me.
I spent the rest of the day in bed, under the covers, feeling sorry for myself and guilty for not providing my mother with the kind of Mother’s Day she had expected.
Tomorrow Banjo Man has offered dinner out. Or breakfast out. Or lunch somewhere. But I think I’d like to go down to the beach, drink coffee, look for arrowheads and take pictures of rocks. And maybe take a ride to the Denton Slough, just for old time’s sake.
I hope your Mother’s Day is filled with love and lots of hugs!
Posted in family, lake
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we are here at the lake for 2021
I’m so sorry for the delay in posting. An issue with WordPress is now solved and I am back on track once again.
The trick now will be to access my photos from the phone and for some reason this has become impossible. For now. But getting better. I may or may not have it under control.
Our trip from Boston was uneventful, but wearing a mask pretty much non-stop for 11 hours is not something I recommend. Even Banjo Man was grumpy and had a headache after the seventh hour. I’m usually the one who whines and bitches incessantly, but this time he joined me.
We arrived after 11 PM and spent the night in Spokane. The next morning? Groceries!
Stop #1.
Woods sausages at Stop #2.
And then, at last, the lake.
The water is down, but coming up a little bit more every day.
And a trip to the cabin.
And so it begins…and we are so happy to be here.
a few pictures from rhode island
We are packing up and getting ready to head west in a few days. Oh, the joy of it all!
Harley Chick brought me a present (she made it herself–I am so impressed with someone who can sew zippers).
This will be in my carry-on bag, of course. I love it. So pretty!
Finish #12, as of this morning. The binding is on, as is the label. The hand-stitching will have to wait until the fall, when I am on the couch watching Nebraska football. I thought it was pretty fifteen years ago, but now I don’t.
Almost finished #13. I’m not sure this will be completed in the next four days, but sitting at the machine keeps me from pacing, which is always a good thing. I call it “Piano Keys”.
And finally…
Banjo Man is putting in long days in the office. There are evenings when he can’t stay awake long enough to watch tv with me.
We have emptied our upright freezer (it’s on its deathbed) and have nothing left to eat but scallops, brussels sprouts, bacon and French fries.
I’m not sure how this is going to work, but we are definitely going out to dinner tomorrow night.
Posted in family, rhode island
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friday night lights
Friday night in Texas = football. And I was there for the Funny Grandson’s flag football game.
I flew to Texas on April 1st to see the kids, all four of them. Will picked me up Thursday evening after two easy flights on Southwest.
Note: How do you order drinks on Southwest? Holding up one finger = Coke, two fingers means Diet Coke, three is Seven Up and four is water. This is so you don’t have to take off your mask to order and therefore we all looked like we were using sign language.
Hysterical.
Friday afternoon we ate tacos and watched the new King Kong and Godzilla movie. I may have dozed off. And soon it was time to head to the game.
The FG predicted he would score a touchdown because his grandma was there watching. And on the third play of the game he did!
We screamed and cheered a lot. Like it was a Super Bowl.
It was cold and windy at the sports park. I borrowed my grandson’s favorite hat.
On Saturday Amber and I hit the grocery store for Easter supplies, then I made meatballs. The FG and I took a walk around the neighborhood. Uncle Will started a Nerf gun war. And we watched basketball (Go Zags!).
Amber bought one of these gorgeous appetizer “boxes” for us.
Easter? Here’s the party at Amber’s friend’s home.
These kids have been friends since they were born! And now they’re growing up way too fast. But they are so much fun to watch. I even ate dinner at the “kids table” so I could visit with them.
Then it was time to head back to Austin and the condo, where Will and I had to make some decisions about repairing the water damage caused by the upstairs condo. This happened long before the Big Freeze caused similar damage all over central Texas, but there were some glitches with the insurance company and the plumbers and now here we are trying to get a contractor to give us a bid for the job.
So far we’re not making much progress.
Will and I picked out new flooring, though. And we’re afraid the cabinets are damaged, which means a bigger remodel than we first thought.
So now we wait for the insurance people to come up with the money. But, I wonder, if they won’t come to the condo to assess the damage (Covid policy) then how do they know how extensive it is? And if I can’t even get a contractor to return my phone calls, how do I know how extensive it is?
Things get complicated in the Time of Covid, don’t they?
I will leave you with a photo of a Texas sunset. What a joy it was to be there!
Posted in austin, family, grandmother stuff, texas, travel
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easter vacation starts thursday
I have decided to go on vacation. Just a little one. Six days, in fact. Banjo Man declared he was too busy with work to make the trip with me, so once again I will head to Texas by myself.
Have cake will travel:
The infamous blueberry cake, the Funny Grandson’s favorite.
I’m not sure how this turned out, due to a different oven and different pans than what I use at the lake. This thing weighs about 20 pounds. It may or may not be edible.
I need to remind my Texans not to get too excited when they see it. But the Funny Grandson is very happy that it’s going to be in Grandma’s suitcase and probably won’t be too critical.
A couple of weeks ago, after Face-Timing, I decided that I need some hugs from a 10-year old with big brown eyes.
Speaking of traveling, Southwest once again changed our flights to the lake in April. This time they totally cancelled our flight from Providence to Denver. That was a bit of a shock. After a stressful hour on the phone with Southwest I booked a flight from Boston to Denver. We will connect with our previously-booked Denver to Spokane flight.
Getting to Boston by train is not easy on a Saturday. There would be six hours between arriving in Boston and then flying out of it, plus we would have five months of luggage with us. So, believe it or not, Banjo Man and I have hired a car to take us from our home to the Southwest terminal at Logan airport.
I’ve decided to call it our 50th wedding anniversary gift to each other.
Tomorrow marks 2 weeks since we have received our vaccines, so we are relieved and happy about that.
Over this morning’s coffee, we discussed burning driftwood on the beach while looking for arrowheads while the lake level is still low. In 26 days or so, we’ll be drinking coffee and looking at the mountains while we clean up our little corner of the lake.
And maybe even nibbling on blueberry cake.
thou shalt not kill
We’re really enjoying this series. It’s on Amazon with a Masterpiece Theatre subscription.
We have a lot of subscriptions.
Season 1 might also be available on Amazon Prime, but I am not positive about that.
This police drama is set in Turin, Italy and stars a detective who not only solves murders but is dealing with the mystery surrounding her mother’s imprisonment for murdering her father. It’s a compelling story arc and that, along with some interesting crimes, makes for a great night on the couch.
I was going to dismiss it due to having to read English subtitles, but Banjo Man and I adjusted within minutes and are now on Season 3.
Goditi lo spettacolo!
Posted in television
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beds, fog, spring and a meme
First the meme:
Yesterday morning we had the infamous Weather Watch. Why, you ask? Fog. Yep, we were fogged in and you know what that means? Spring!
It was all very exciting to look out the window.
Speaking of spring, yesterday afternoon I went out without wearing a coat or a vest or a sweater. I have been looking for daffodils but no sign of them yet. But I know they’re coming.
Today I’m going mattress shopping with my daughter. I did this a few years ago with my mother, who was 90 at the time. It was an interesting process. The salesman had Mom try three different mattresses and then pick the one she liked. The process continued, three at a time, until Mom was happy. It was something like getting an eye exam–“This one or this one?” as the lenses are changed–and surprisingly painless.
And although my mother was rarely happy with her purchases–returning things to stores was her much-enjoyed hobby–the mattress stayed in her apartment. Unlike the new recliner, whose return to the furniture store was a crisis and ended in tears (mine and the saleswoman’s).
Note: I do not intend to cry at the furniture store this afternoon.
If time and energy permit, I’ll pick up my new cell phone, buy blueberries, birthday cards and butter. And maybe Nancy and I will take a ride to Narragansett to see if the ocean is still there.
The joys of spring continue.
Lifeguard stands at Matunuck Beach await Memorial Day.
Posted in family, rhode island, shopping
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the new phone
Wednesday afternoon was historic in two ways. One, I received my second Covid vaccine and two, scurried to the Verizon store to buy Banjo Man’s new I-phone from Kyle, a shy young man who might have been new at his job.
I thought about joking around a bit, but Kyle was very, very busy setting up the phone with our account. Having had experience on the Verizon website I knew what a spiderweb of frustration that can be, so I sat quietly on my side of the desk and left him to it.
There was a moment, while setting up passwords and such, that I told Kyle that he didn’t know how lucky he was that my husband wasn’t here because this would take an extra hour and would require Kyle to answer, oh, two or three hundred questions.
He smiled politely, but he moved on to transferring info and files from the old Samsung to the new phone. And then he stopped. His eyes bugged out and he turned to me.
“I transferred all of his email over,” he gulped. And showed me.
“See what I mean about him not being here?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said and allowed himself to grin. “I’ve never seen that before.”
I wanted to say if you’re nasty to me I’ll send my husband in to ask you how to delete 72,000 emails.
But Kyle was a serious kid and I didn’t want to tease him. I waited to laugh until I was back in the car.
So I probably looked insane, a white-haired “elderly loved one” laughing by herself alone in her car.
It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last.
Posted in family, just for fun, rhode island, shopping
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pulling a plug
No, we’re not moving off the grid, though if Banjo Man has his way his cabin will be successfully off the grid by the end of September, 2021.
We’re not cutting the cord, either. I did the math on removing cable tv and we wouldn’t save all that much money, though if it was up to me I would happily exist with streaming content only.
It has taken two years, but I have finally convinced my husband to agree to eliminate one of our land lines. In other words, the home phone is soon to be no more.
6609, you know who you are and your days are numbered.
90% of the calls are spam and there are at least a dozen a day. Only four people call us on that line. We love those four people a lot, but I’m sure they can (a) dial one of our cell phones or (b) dial Banjo Man’s landline office number.
It ends in “1237”, in case you are confused about how to call him. Feel free to dial that line at any time. We are here. We are always here. We are rarely anywhere else but here.
Speaking of phones, I have also convinced my husband to switch to an I-phone. I’m arranging it for him today, immediately after I get my second vaccine shot. “Kyle” at Verizon Wireless is standing by.
I don’t know what is happening this week, but Banjo Man is uncharacteristically compliant.
I tested this by arranging a large display of Easter candy on the kitchen island yesterday afternoon. We have not had Easter candy in the house in fifteen years. He thought it was great.
He thought it was great?????
I think he has his eye on a marshmallow rabbit.
is there any more pie? 