Something to Laugh At (or: The Cost of Friendship)

Some years back, a female cousin of my husband told me a story of when she was new to parenting. The cousin, and her husband, had just purchased their first home in a new town and as a stay-at-home mom, she found herself bereft of friends, especially "mom friends." Out one day doing errands, she ran into a former classmate from her alma mater, Knox College. The classmate, like the cousin, was married and a new parent to a young, under nine-month-old baby and also, a "stay-at-home-parent."

"Oh, come and visit us!" begged the cousin's former classmate. "I'd be so pleased. And honestly, I could use the company right now."

A specific date and time were chosen. On the prescribed day the cousin packed up and toted her baby, and all of the considerable accoutrements necessary to traveling with an infant on a 20+ mile journey to visit a dear old acquaintance.

They had a nice visit, she remembered. They laughed and cried at their shared old and new predicaments.

The original plan had called for a mid-to-late-morning visit so the babies would be in their respective homes for lunch, and their all-important afternoon naps. But, heck, when you're having so much fun...

"Do stay for lunch! I have plenty of food for your baby. Does he eat chicken and carrots and applesauce and such? Great! I have plenty. You and I can have grilled cheese and soup. He can sleep on the drive home."

The lunch, extra time reminiscing with an old friend and sharing tips on parenting was most enjoyable, but all good things must come to an end. The cousin helped her friend clean up, then packed her baby and his regalia. Home they went. Of course, her infant son fell asleep two minutes into the thirty minute commute home. When she attempted to transition him from the car seat into the house he promptly woke, baby-refreshed and she was unable to coax him back to sleep. But heck, and so what!? It was worth an abbreviated nap to hook up with an old comrade, and more importantly, a possible new “mom-friend.”

She basked in the joy of the reconnection for a couple of days. "Isn't it nice to have a good friend so close?" she thought to herself. "Maybe we can find a baby class at some mid-way point that we can sign up for together. I think I read that the YWCA has a mother-tot music/movement class and that's about 1/2 way between our neighborhoods. Or, maybe the big new library has a story time for little ones? How fun it will be to have an old pal with whom to share with such experiences!"

A couple of days later her son took his morning nap, she stepped out onto the porch to retrieve the mail. "Oh how sweet!" she noted. "A letter from my friend! And only just yesterday I sent her my thank you note. This is looking really positive for me finding a 'mom friend,' " were her thoughts at the time.

Inside the house she quickly slit open her friend's envelope. She was confused at first as she looked at the contents. It took a minute, she confided to me, before her brain was able to make sense of it. Even then it didn't really make any sense at all. Inside the envelope was an invoice, an invoice for the jars, partial jars yet, of baby food her infant son had eaten a couple of days earlier, as well as her share of the soup and grilled cheese. "Oh, it must be a joke?" she thought. "I'll give her a call and we'll have a good laugh."

But, it wasn't a joke...

***

The story from my husband’s cousin popped back into my head when I saw the blurb about the 5-year-old British boy who parents were invoiced for "missing a birthday party." I'm certain you've seen it. It's been all over the internet and television news. Anyway the young boy's parents assented to his attending a birthday party, which was to be held at a ski resort. At a late moment they recalled that they'd previously agreed to the boy spending the same day with his grandparents. The grandparents trumped, so I say good for the parents' judgement on that matter. (I'm just saying ;) ) However, the boy's parents later receive an invoice from the birthday child's parents for what they termed a "no show" fee.

***

I don't get penny-pinchers, not these kinds anyway. How do you justify sullying an attempt at friendship, be it for yourself or for your child, with a request for money? And maybe I've watched one-too-many Judge Judys but I fail to see any basis, in law, for such an unreasonable and petty demand.

But what I really don't get, in this recent case, is the invitee's parents who then took the whole matter to the internet in a somewhat hostile manner, not as a laugh to be shared with the world. They were offended and angry, angry enough to include a photo of their 5-year-old son for the world to see, and perhaps as a lure for empathy. Apparently, currently, the way some people handle such matters is to look for on-line support. But come on, do you have to post a picture of your child?!

Better to be like my husband’s cousin and keep it as a funny story to share with friends and family.

Thinking back now, I cannot recall whether the cousin paid the invoice or simply ignored it. At any rate, I do recall that she recognized an all-important red-flag when she saw one and dropped any idea of developing a new "mom-friend" relationship with her former college classmate. 

It wasn't a joke… Oh but, indeed, it was!

Feeding a Monster

"Smoking is wonderful," says Bebe on an episode of the sitcom, Frasier.

"Bebe, what is so wonderful about smoking?" asks psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane.

Incredulously, she turns to look at him, "Everything."

She then replies, with a faraway look, as she slowly and passionately explains:

I like the way a fresh, firm pack feels in my hand.

I like peeling away that little piece of cellophane and seeing it twinkle in the light.

I like coaxing that first, sweet cylinder out of it's hiding place,

and bringing it

slowly

up to my lips,

striking a match,

watching it burst into a perfect little flame,

and knowing that soon that flame will be

    inside

    me.

I love the first puff,

pulling it into my lungs,

little fingers of smoke

filling me,

caressing me,

feeling that warmth penetrate

deeper,

and deeper

until I think I'm going to burst!

Then PHWHOOOSH,

watching it flow out of me in a lovely sinuous cloud

no two ever quite the same.

***

I don't smoke, but I find Bebe's description deeply amusing. And she’s right, habits can become sensual indulgences that excite, incite, stir, exhilarate, and enhance the anticipation, and later the memory, of a guilty pleasure. There is something about the habitual repetitions of simple movements that become an embodiment of the pleasure itself.

“Guilty pleasure” -the key word being guilty, indicates that you should, at the least, feel a modicum of contrition for your inability to deny your desire, be it a cheap romance novel, a tub of ice cream, slot machine gambling, online pornography, midday martinis, incessant video gaming...

at some point the boundaries, the guide posts we put up to keep ourselves in check begin to dissolve as we seek more and more pleasure.

Or, in my situation: a monster appears.

***

I wake up at my usual 6 a.m., even though I am physically in a different time zone. Weird, huh? I find myself in a house with, including myself, eight occupants, -six human and two “canis lupus familiaris,” you know, domestic dogs, all of whom continue slumbering. I mean, who wakes up before the dogs? Me, I guess. Our guest room is in a wing separate from the rest of the house. I amble to the kitchen, clutching my IPad. What I’m most interested in at the moment, what drives me to the kitchen, is my endeavor to find a cup of coffee. The last time I was in this home for an overnight visit there was a regular coffee pot sitting in the corner of the kitchen where my eyes now scan.  In its spot is a smaller version of what resembles my daughter’s Keurig coffee machine. I’m somewhat familiar with how that machine works, so I opt to give it a whirl. It beats me having to drive somewhere to find a brewed cup of coffee. I know that the local Starbucks is only a couple of miles away, but I also know that I will probably wake the dogs, and thus the entire household, simply by opening the front door to get to the car.

I follow the customary Keurig steps: turn the machine on, make certain there is sufficient water in the reservoir, insert a fresh pod, hit the button for the cup-size I’ve chosen, and heat milk in the milk frother (which this family owns -heck, they introduced me to frothed milk.) My efforts result, just moments later, in me sipping a cup of the finest coffee I’ve consumed in quite some time.

A bit later Usually Frugal Husband saunters sleepily into the kitchen and asks, "Where'd you get the coffee?" I nod toward the small set-up and urge him to give it a try, "It's just like Keurig, only better." Frugal Husband, a former Navy sailor, drinks only ‘black' coffee. He follows my instructions to operate the machine. He selects the larger of the cup-size buttons. Both of our “coffees” have a handsome amber foam atop, crema, I’m to find it’s called. Usually Frugal Husband samples his brew and declares it to be “pretty darn good.”

It turns out we are drinking espresso, mine with frothed milk added, making it actually a latte. A short time later our hosts waken and prepare regular coffee for us, from the old pot I remembered from past visits, the pot pulled from a covered ‘bread box,’ of sorts. But, come the next day, and the next, as I continue to wake ahead of the household, I chose to make my initial drink a cup of espresso with frothed milk. It is the beginning of my new affection for espresso-laced morning beverages. Usually Frugal Husband is equally intrigued by the espresso experience.

We contemplate using the gift cards we received over the holidays to purchase, what we consider to be, a somewhat expensive espresso machine. “Let’s sleep on it,” we decide.

***

On a recent return from a regular round-trip to and from Chicago, a minimum two-hour commute, I found it necessary to make a restroom “pit stop” at the half-way point, the Belvidere Tollway Oasis. As we stretched our legs and walked past the Starbucks I asked Usually Frugal Husband if he still carried the Starbucks gift card we used to share a few years back, before we retired from our respective workplaces.

“Yup, I have it in my wallet.”

“Should we get a latte or espresso?”

“You know, I just read that Starbucks has a new drink they’re featuring. It’s called a ‘Flat White.’ In fact, today is its debut. Do you want to try it?”

“Okay, but let’s check with the barista first and see the total funds left on the gift card.”

Usually Frugal Husband asks the barista for the balance. She scans the card and says, “You have twenty dollars.” 

Plenty of money, I think and thus order, “Two Flat Whites, please.”

“What size?” asks the barista.

“The smallest size you have.”

She busily prepares the drinks and shortly hands us one, “Here is the first one.” As she passes over the second she says, “That will be nine dollars and three cents.”

As Usually Frugal Husband hands her the gift card, we look at each other somewhat surprised. I snicker and stuff a dollar in the tip canister.

It’s been a while, maybe three years or so since we’ve ordered coffee at Starbucks, and so somehow we’ve lost our immunity to shock at Starbuck’s prices, four dollars and fifty cents per cup of coffee Flat White. As we walk to the car we laugh at our naïveté.

But, as we sip our drinks on the road, it is evident to both of us that this ‘Flat White’ is clearly a winner. The very next week on our round trip from the city we stop again at Starbucks for two “FWs,” as they are properly called. And again we thoroughly enjoy them. “Do you think we could make FWs at home?” asks Usually Frugal Husband.

***

Two days later the door bell rings. It’s Mike, our regular UPS delivery guy, with a package. Usually Frugal Husband and I open it together. He hands me the separately boxed Aeoccino Plus milk frother, part of the ‘bundle’ we’ve purchased, “You take care of this,” as he proceeds to open our beautifully boxed, Nespresso Pixie Carmine Red. I look at my husband as he holds the boxed machine, “That’s a nice name. We’ll call her Nessie, for short.”

“Welcome,” says the card, “By choosing Nespresso, you join a passionate, global community of coffee lovers. There are many advantages to owning a Nespresso machine, and delicious coffee every day is just one of them.”

The sleekly produce material accompanying the machine is just a tad too slick and I feel a tiny chia seed-sized pit in my stomach. What have we gotten ourselves into?

The previous day I’d done my Flat White research and felt confident I could make a drink close in taste to Starbuck’s. Usually Frugal Husband cleanses the new espresso machine, three times as recommended. “Did I just hear Nessie say, ‘Make me pure and pretty!’ ?” I ask. Usually Frugal Husband chuckles as I rinse and prepare the Aeroccino frother. 

We clean of a corner of the kitchen counter top just for Nessie and the Aeroccino. She is pretty, I think. Petite and slender, like many women wish to be.

Oh, and did I tell you, Nessie requires special bottled water? None of that stuff from the kitchen faucet for her. It reminds me of one of my grand-dogs who drinks bottled water from a special, stainless-steel, anti-bacterial bowl, due to her allergies. Did our Nessie come with special built-in sensitivities?

Nessie also requires occasional ‘descaling,’ sort of like I just got from my biannual visit to the dentist. We’ll have to purchase a special kit to aid us in Nessie’s biannual cleaning. 

With our pre-heated ceramic cups at the ready, I press the power button on the back of Nessie’s head. Her cup-size selection buttons immediately pulse to life, like two hearts beating in tandem. An additional light emanates from her abdomen. In 25 seconds she has fully regenerated, as her now-steady lights indicate. I could swear I hear her say softly at first, then more urgently, “Feed me.”

“Do you hear me? I said ‘Feed me!’ ”

Nessie arrived with a colorful assortment of pods, so I pick one up. “Lift the lever, you imbecile!” she cries out. I do so and gently place the pod inside her gaping mouth. She garbles, sounding much like me when I try to talk to the dentist when her hands and tools are in my mouth, but I can make it out: “Duh! Now close the lever, Nitwit.” I do so and hear her guttural sigh of satisfaction as I press the cup-size button on the left.

In a few seconds I have a perfect, and I do mean perfect cup of espresso. I follow the Flat White recipe and add, not frothed, but densely foamed and heated whole milk in exactly a two-to-one ratio. I pause a moment to enjoy the beauty of the beverage, the white, amber, tan and chocolate-brown colors combining as if a work of serpentine art. And like Bebe noted, I think, “no two ever quite the same.”

I carefully carry my FW art-in-a-cup to the kitchen table where I pull up a chair. I venture a sip, closing my eyes to give my whole being over to the experience, mindful consuming they call it. I make a purr, like a cat, as I allow my mouth to observe and absorb the aftertaste. “A perfect Flat White!” I announce

“Really?!” asks Usually Frugal Husband, “Is it really as good as Starbucks?”

“Every bit,” I promise as he hastens to prepare his own espresso.

***

In a couple of days we’ve whittled Nessie’s initial assortment of pods down to half. She’ll We’ll need more, so we place an initial order for 200 pods. 200!?

“How long do you think 200 will last us?” I ask. Usually Frugal Husband projects about ten weeks, if we ration ourselves to one a day each, five days per week. No more of this two per day indulgence we’ve been allowing ourselves. We’ll drink regular coffee a couple of days per week.

We drive into town to purchase six gallons of ‘special’ water for Nessie. When I received the confirmation email that Nessie’s 200 pods are on the way, I felt a relaxation come over me. Funny, I hadn’t realized I felt any strain until the tension began to ease, knowing that the monster's food was on the way.

“We’ve created a monster!” I wailed to Usually Frugal Husband.

“Yes, but look at it this way,” he reasoned, “It costs us about 75 cents per cup to feed her, a lot cheaper than four-fifty per cup we were feeding Starbucks.”

***

I am not having espresso, espresso is having me.

Our bundle packet

Media that feels too slick

Nessie's own corner

Beautiful expresso crema

Feeding in a pod

An after and before pod, (notice Nessie's teeth marks on the left)

"…no two ever quite the same"

This ad appeared on my computer (shortly after an FW search) ;)

My Electric Body Can't Carry a Tune

My Sensibly Frugal Husband has scaled back our satellite television subscription to the bare minimum. I guess I can hardly blame him since even when we were spending two or three times as much on paid television as we were recently, there wasn't enough that could hold our interest for a suitable time. Sensibly Frugal Husband enjoys live sports and history shows. I prefer foreign films, old classic movies or, any old-time television shows from my youth.

New Year's Day 2015, the SyFy channel had an all-day Twilight Zone marathon. I was able to view it because we spent the day at our faux-condo in the city, where we have access to many channels. On this New Year Day I watched a couple of episodes of Twilight Zone.

I hadn't watched TZ in years because a couple of spooky episodes managed to stick in my brain and on occasion these scary shows return to haunt my mind, 

( http://topeacenquiet.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-haunting-of-my-house.html )

like Talking Tina in the "Living Doll" episode, or the peculiar perpetually-returning guy in "The Hitchhiker" which gave me nightmares as a child, or the one (title escapes me) where someone gets trapped overnight in the store with mannequins. I have goosebumps right now as I type in this paragraph.

But, what I'd forgotten and now recalled, as I watched a couple of episodes that evening, is how often Rod Serling, the narrator, and often writer, of the program would work in parables with moral lessons on subjects such as war, greed, prejudice, conformity, paranoia and fear.

Rod Serling seemed able to broach and then air topics to which American television broadcasters, or more importantly corporate sponsors, might otherwise take offense and thereby censor. He was able to bypass censure by having the taboo topic occur on a different planet or an eerily other-wordly dimension in time or space, (or as he put it on his weekly introduction "...another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind.")- no need to worry or become alarmed, as it happens somewhere else. 

Rod's shows often featured surprise endings or strange twists with which he drove home his point. Mr. Serling wrote at least half of the 150+ episodes of the show during its five-season run.

A couple of my favorite parables (if you want examples of Rod's television preaching style) are "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," and "The Shelter."

This day I saw an episode I didn't remember from my childhood. The title, "I Sing the Body Electric," caught my eye. I knew this to be the title of the lyrical poem by Walt Whitman. A poem that celebrates the beauty of the human body, a body that  a soul uses to traverse to (and from?) the physical world.

This "I Sing the Body Electric" was a Twilight Zone episode written by Ray Bradbury. It begins with Aunt Nedra cautioning her brother (or maybe brother-in-law), who finds himself suddenly a single parent of three young children, that "Babysitters and nurses are not the same as family care." And that his children are currently, "like flotsam and jetsam …without guidance."

"How do you buy guidance for your children?" the father asks himself, later reflecting on Aunt Nedra's  advice. "Do I put out an ad on Craigslist? (Okay, actually it was just called a classified ad back then ;) ) 'Wanted: some kind gentle soul,' " his voice drifts off, then softly he utters, "to care…"

His son later shows him a Modern Science magazine advertisement from a company called Facsimile, Ltd. whose motto is "I Sing the Body Electric." 'If you are concerned with the moral and social development of your children, the article indicates, just buy one of our electronic data process systems in shape of an elderly woman. A woman built with precision and able to give loving supervision to your family.'

In other words? A mechanical grandmother, "a robot, if you will," explains Dad.

"I don't know," cautions the older daughter, "this doesn't sound right."

At this point the show pauses and Rod Serling interjects,

"They make a fairly convincing pitch here. It doesn't seem possible,
though, to find a woman who must be ten times better than mother in order to seem half as good,
except,

of course,

in the Twilight Zone."

"Come in we've been expecting you," says a voice at the door of Facsimile, Ltd. Inside they are met by a somewhat-creepy store salesman (substitute the image of a somewhat-creepy used car salesman here), who gives a quick run down on how the process works. Somewhat-creepy salesman tells the man and his three children that they will be able to pick out all of the specific appendages of the android, thus she will look just the way they want. All they need do is select the body part of choice and drop it down a chute. -And here is one of many funny parts -the younger two kids don't bat an eyelash at this instruction.

"I want her to have soft brown eyes like my agate marbles," says the boy.

"I want long hair, like Mom had," says the younger sister.

"I don't want her. She's not real! She's just a machine, just old junk," shouts the older sister, as she runs out of the building. Her father chases after her. The other two children shrug and carry on with the business of picking out their grandmother.

"I want thin fingers," says the boy. The younger sister then runs over to choose ears, complete with earrings already in the lobes! (I got a hoot out of this scene!)

"Do you want slender or sturdy arms?" asks Somewhat-Creepy Salesman, encouraging the two to keep choosing, "Do you wish short or tall stature?"

Finally the two get to the choice of a voice. Here they push a set of buttons ranging from high to low, each button emits a corresponding female voice recording, which utters a line from Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric." Together, the younger siblings choose a medium voice.

The scene fades out and back in, when a few days or maybe weeks later, here comes Electric Grandma bopping down their block, swinging her handbag, just as carefree as can be.

The boy recognizes her first, "Her eyes! Just like my brown aggies!"

Grandma knows each of their names.

"What should we call you?" one of them asks Electric Grandma.

"Any name you wish, Sylvia, Melvina-

"Grandma!" the two younger children shout in unison.

"Is that a kite?" asks Grandma. "Yes," says the boy, suddenly pouting, "but we have no string."

Electric Grandma magically produces kite string, right out of thin air. The younger two are elated.

Meanwhile, the older child refuses to accept the android woman and so it goes, younger two delighted, older sister abhorred at the whole matter. At some point the father apologizes to Electric Grandma for his older daughter's behavior. Softly, EG (Electric Grandma) answers, "Don't worry, there is no rush. She'll accept me in her own time, and in her own way," or something to that effect. She finishes gently, "A child's heart is very deep within and thus difficult to reach."

One day in a fit of pique, over some minor incident, the older girl runs out the front door. Electric Grandma goes after her. She catches the child and begins a talk with the girl about accepting the death of her departed mother.
"She left me!" shouts the girl.
"You mean she died," softly, but emphatically, counters EG.

Until this point the child had always claimed that her mother deserted her/them. So, now the viewer knows that the mother did not abandon them, but rather died. The girl isn't ready to confront the truth just yet. She turns and runs into the street, directly in front of speeding van. EG, with her lightning reflexes,  pushes the girl forward to safety, but in the process EG takes the full hit by the van.

The father has finally caught up to the pair and, logically, bypasses EG to pick up and comfort his daughter. The driver exits the van and looks on in fretful horror at little old Grandma lying motionless on the street. A few seconds later you see a close-up of EG's right pinkie finger moving, then her ring finger, then her whole hand and the EG magically pops right up, none the worse for wear.

The child, of course, now realizes the error of her ways and hugs Electric Grandma. "You're alive! You won't go away, like Mom, right? You won't die? Promise?"

"No, my child, nothing can hurt me. I cannot die. My job is to live forever."

The story flashes ahead to when the children are young adults heading off to college and saying their good-byes to EG.

The conversation goes something like this:
Pleadingly, "Oh, please don't go, Grandma. We love you and still need you!" 

"I must go children. You are grown now, ready for college and the world. And besides another family may need me."

"But, what will become of you?"

"Oh, I'll go back to Facsimile, Ltd. I'll either be sent out again or perhaps my parts will be redistributed. My soul will go to a room full of the voices of other grandmothers in storage. We will share the knowledge of what we've learned. I will tell them all that I learned from you three."

"From us?! But, we learned from you, Grandma. You taught us. You couldn't have learned anything from us, Grandma!"

"Yes, yes! You have taught me much," insists Grandma and "I will share that knowledge with others. And someday, oh I don't know, maybe after 300 years, I will gather enough wisdom to become alive." (I think old Electric Grandma maybe crossed her fingers or something here, as she looked hopefully up at the heavens.)

So, it had this Pinocchio twist ending. "I love it," I thought, as I laughed out loud. Then Rod Serling broke in to say in his serious voice,

"A fable? Most assuredly.

But who's to say at some distant moment there might be an assembly line producing a gentle product in the form of a grandmother, whose stock-in-trade is love.

Fable, sure 

-but who's to say?"

***

Who's to say that I am not an Electric Grandmother trying to earn her way to a real human body by being "brave, truthful and unselfish?"

do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-ding*

(*At this point I tried to put a link to the Twilight Zone intro music I successfully downloaded, but the instructions lost me at step two. I just bet that Electric Grandma could have done it in a blink of her android soft brown "aggie" eyes.)

Welcome to the Twilight Zone!

Sensibly Frugal Husband assures me I have put in my 300 years and earned my right to be a real person. 

***

Check out Rod Serling's Twilight Zone if you have access to Amazon Prime or any such of those instant video companies.

I Can't Stop Blinking! or The Boy Who Grew Up Too Fast

"You blinked again," accuses my dear husband.

***

Just a few months ago when my younger grandson's age was measured only in weeks, I noticed that he rarely blinked. As I held him, comforting him as he seemingly resisted easing into sleep, "Why does this child not blink?" went through my mind. A few minutes later I gently placed him in his crib and hurriedly scrambled to my IPad to google a query about infants and eye-blinking. It turns out that infants, in fact, do not blink very often at all. Who knew? Well, actually probably a lot of pediatricians, eye specialists and such knew this, but I didn't and I'd raised three children. But, I always felt that my grandparenting skills are far more acute than my parenting skills were back in the day.

***

"Believe me, Hon, I try my best to never blink."

***

My first grandchild, lives almost exactly 1,000 miles away, via the U.S. highway system, which is usually how we travel to visit him and his younger sister. He used to live just 14 miles away. Fourteen miles! Did I appreciate this proximity at the time? You bet I did. From the moment each grandchild was born, I have treasured each as the rare gems they are and tried to spend a reasonable amount of time in their young lives, without being an overbearing pain-in-the-neck to their parents. "Be helpful and not a hindrance to the parents" was my mantra (in other words: Keep your yap shut and don't offer a single word of advice unless your opinion is specifically requested.) Anyway, it seems to have worked for me.

>-Blink-<

One day, when I was ten years old, I was walking on a sidewalk in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, when I stopped stock-still with the thoughts: Where will my future take me? and Will I remember this exact moment of standing on the block, where I live, and being ten years old? Where will I be at the age of twenty? Gosh, that seems so awfully long from this moment. Where will I be at the age of thirty? forty? fifty? Will I even live to be sixty?

>-Blink-<

We are married with two young children in a two-bedroom apartment, toys splayed across our living room, as we pour through newspapers looking for houses for sale in the area. Dear husband walks toward me with a listing, "Hey, look at this one! It's not far from here, it looks perfect and it's in our price range." As he holds the paper forth, he trips over a toy, shakes his head and laughs, "How did this happen to us? How am I tripping over toys that belong to my children? How am I looking to buy a house? It seems just yesterday I was a single man and I just met you. In a blink, the time has passed."

>-Blink-<

I join a "baby playgroup" after the birth of our third child. A mother with older children comments, "Well, Dan and I have reached the half-way point of our time living with Matthew," (her, then, nine-year-old son.) I do a double-take, "I'm sorry, I don't-" She explains, "Well, if Matt goes to college at the age of eighteen, as we plan, he probably won't return home after graduation, because he'll get a job. So, logically, the age of nine is the half-way point of his life spent residing with us."

>-Blink-Blink-Blink-<

"Hey buddy, Grampy and I are going to be selling our house in the city and moving to that house we bought out in the country. I need to work on getting the city house ready to sell, so I'll only be coming over once a week from now on."

He looks surprised and quickly says, "Okay, but you'll always come one day a week, right? Always once a week, right?"

>-Blink-<

"Do you want Grandma to tuck you in?"

"No, I'm fine."

He must notice the surprise on my face, as I once noticed it on his.

"Well, okay sure, you can tuck me in."

"I guess you're getting too old for this." As I plump up his pillows and rustle his thick hair I ask, "Hey, do you remember back when it was time for your nap that we used to play a game about a mouse with a magic eraser, who could make any mess, or dirt disappear?"

"Um, no."

"Oh well, that was a long time ago. Anyway, if we made a mess when we were playing and forgot to put the cushions and toys away or we tracked sand into the kitchen, or forgot to wipe the dog's muddy feet, the mouse would wave his magic eraser and restore everything back to neat and clean." I make the gesture he made with his hand as he played the important role of the mouse.

"Wait! I think I do remember that," he says laughing.

As I walk from his room it is not lost on me that he is now nine years old.

>-Blink-<

I sing a litany of songs to my newest grandchild, whose age is now measured in months, as he begins to doze off for his nap. Every single time I get to the last part of "Puff the Magic Dragon," he fusses. A couple of times, when I get to this part of the song, he sleepily waves his arms as if shooing something unpleasant away. He does this with no other song. It's the part of the song that goes:

A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys

Painted wings and giants's rings make way for other toys.

I mentally delete this song from my list of nap-time songs, thinking maybe the baby hears sorrow in my voice, or something.

>-Blink-<

We took the older two grandkids to see a movie and in the theatre's long series of trailers, was a preview of "Pan," a re-make, of sorts, of the tale of Peter Pan. It's a story I never much cared for, either as a child or as an adult. (Although I did like the part where Wendy gets separated from and reattached to her shadow.) Barrie's touching inspiration for the story came from the death of his older brother and its devastating effect on his mother. Anyway, we all know that as much as we sometimes wish to figuratively "freeze" children so we can watch them age in some kind of slow motion, that it would be selfish to do so. Even if it seems as though children grow with the ferocity and tenacity of weeds, weeds germinated and sprouting forth in warm, rich, loamy soil, weeds fertilized and well-watered, weeds upon which the sun ever casts its rays of energy, weeds...

>-Blink-<

"Dear, I think you blinked again. It's 2015. Happy New Year."

"Yes," I sigh, "I'm pretty sure I did blink."