TEA FOR THREE

Postage Stamp with bells to commemorate HOW WE MET.   See ANNIVERSARY on yesterday's post.

Thank you all for the e-mails, the comments, the good wishes on our Anniversary-of-the-Day-We-Met.  We did, indeed, as they say “Meet Cute,” I suppose, and it’s been quite a lively wonderful ride for these twenty-nine years.

And as for the “quiet moments” of reflection mentioned by one Dear Commenter---the day began with a laughing, almost-rowdy breakfast of said Quik/Malt and cinnamon toast, with Ganner’s reminiscences of his own childhood breakfasts with slightly different containers on the table.

On through the day expecting a blast of snow, which began at three, just as we were driving to pick up Sweetpea.  We headed on, as the downpour increased to The-View-From-Ten-Forward.    When we got out of the car, his black vest and my red cape were immediately encrusted in jillions of little not-snowflakes, but tee-ninecy white bits which looked like fairy mothballs, and melted away before we could get through the lobby.

(My phone had rung just as we got to the school, with DD in GA recounting a lovely time of making SALTED CARAMEL SAUCE with our three GRANDS, as a lesson in saturation and crystallization and melting in one of their classes.   She and I had a lively long conversation over who’s doing what, and reading so WELL! and learning about weather and math and other subjects.   They’ve been home-schooling for several years now, and it’s just a marvel to me how one person can cover subjects for so many grades at once, but she does it, and remarkably well, too, with wonderful visits to zoos and museums and art galleries and other interesting places.   These young folks just do beat all).  

We'd skipped lunch, intending to go to Early Bird Dinner at four (yep, we fit right in), and so we drove way back past home in what felt like a blizzard to one of those rompin’ stompin’ places with peanut hulls on the floor, the scent of sizzling steaks in the air, and a general atmosphere of fun, including loud encouragement of YEEEEEHAWWWWWs from all present at intervals.   In the wide doors, stomping a bit ourselves, as we cleared our shoes on the damp concrete of the vestibule, and cheerily shook bushels of the melty little bits from our coats and hats into the shining puddles on the floor.

Sweetpea slid into our booth and  started “peeling” us all peanuts---“Now you see this little crack here---you squeeze it right on the sides.”  On finding a thin papery skin on one set, “Now you just squeak it like this, and that comes right off.”  We were immediately engulfed in bits of hull, peanut, skin, paper napkins, and plates and drinks all up and down the table---you’d have thought we had ALL the Grands in there at once---Don’t I wish?

And that kid knows her way around the roll-basket, she does.   Didn’t eat a bite of her dinner when it came, though she and Ganner DID do quite the lively spoon-fencing over the bowl of Molten Chocolate Cake and scoop of ice cream. 

We laughed and talked and clapped for birthdays with all the rest, and brought home WAY more food than we ate-—much to the benefit of her Mommy, who was famished when she got off the plane, and of Caro, who had a nice half-rack of ribs and most of a Bloomin’ onion for breakfast after work today.  

And so went the romantic Anniversary Dinner---boisterous and fun, dusty with crumbs, way too much food and noise and merriment for any three people.

I often think of one of my favourite stories about Motherhood, quite possibly because I grew up in the final breaths  of the Seen-But-Not-Heard generations: 

  A young woman was visiting a friend, whose little boy several times interrupted the conversation to call his Mommy away to see what he was doing, or reading, or just because.

The visitor asked her friend, “Does it not bother you to be constantly ‘on call’ like that?”

And the Mom replied, “I brought him into the world, and the least I can do is to let him SHOW it to me.”

YEEEE-HAAAAWWW, Y’all!