Off to Mexico

We're going to Mexico for a week (not Jaurez). We're meeting three of my sisters and their husbands. We're all sharing a villa--the former vacation home of President Santa Ana, who led the Mexican troops at the Battle of the Alamo.

Childlike Defiance

Now that I'm recovering from a broken leg, I get scolded every time I stand on the step-stool to reach something on the high shelf.  "Mom! Get down! Ask Dad to get that for you!"

This brings back a memory of Mom and me. Two or three years ago, Mom came out in the kitchen while I was on the step-stool.

"Oh," she said, "I need to borrow that." A frail 97-year-old lady needs to borrow a step-stool?

"What for?" I asked.

"If I tell  you, you won't let me borrow it."

True enough. She eventually confessed that she wanted to clean the tops of her kitchenette cabinets. 

"Mom, I can do that for you. I don't want you getting up on this thing."

"Why not?"

"Because you could fall and break something."

"Anybody could fall and break a bone," she countered.

True enough.

"Besides," she went on, "I have never fallen." She forgot she'd already told me about the time she landed in the rose bush while cleaning the garage window, back in Meadville.

To demonstrate her agility and superior sense of balance, she stood on the lower step and flapped her arms defiantly. She looked like a bird about to take flight. 

"Mom, get down!"

She got down, pleased to see that she had riled me up.

She did not get to borrow the step-stool

Games Our Minds Play

This is just crazy!

Yesterday morning I was reading about Mrs. Clarence Thomas and Liberty Central, her new political-action group. As a former employee of the federal government, I remembered that we employees had certain restrictions on our political activity. (Not that this has anything to do with Mrs. Thomas, mind you. I'm just saying.) I asked my soon-to-retire husband the name of the act that limited our politicking. 

He couldn't remember. 

Then the strangest thing happened. 

The mental image of a guy I knew at work floated into my mind, but I couldn't remember his name either! 

Just then, my husband hit on the answer. "The Hatch Act!"

Yep. My mental image was that of a guy named David Hatch. I ask you: why must our brains play hide-n-seek like this?

Toddler Endears Himself to His Cousin

(Nearly Two Years Ago)

 Margaret with 2-month-old nephew, Nathaniel, and son, Andrew, 5

This weekend we celebrated our son-in-law's birthday with a family dinner at our house. Our two little grandsons were there, of course. For the first time, they appeared to play together, despite the age gap. Andrew is 7 and Nathaniel will turn 2 on March 10th.

Christmas was the last time the cousins saw each other because of colds and major snowstorms. Andrew looked very happy when his little cousin called him by name for the first time on Sunday. Nathaniel is building his vocabulary day by day. How sweet that one of his first hundred words is "Andrew."