TheBanyanTree: Late Afternoon

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I rarely write when the sun is setting, because my mental abilities decrease
with the light of day, but I enjoy late afternoons, especially at this time
of year.  I can understand why afternoon tea is important to the British.
It’s a pause and a good time to take stock of the day.

Our warm day from yesterday disintegrated in a chilly and windy day today.
I didn’t beat out my cold after all.  It exploded along with the chilly
weather and I’ve spent most of today massaging my nose with Kleenex.  I’m
not super sick, but semi-sick.  I’m sick enough not to have enough energy to
go work out, but not sick enough to lay in bed all day.  I have a pot roast
simmering in the crock pot and bread baking in the bread machine. My stuffy
nose isn’t so stuffy that I can’t smell that wonderful aroma of baked bread.
I’ve read the Sunday paper and finished a book.  I started Nathaniel West’s
Miss Lonelyhearts, which I read years ago when I was 21 years old and really
didn’t understand it.  I didn’t have enough “life” under my belt.

We tried having the grandsons over night last night, but it was a disaster.
It started out OK.  We had the older one on the couch with his toys and
crayons and paper within reach.  But his painful fractured leg got to him.
I put ice on his lower leg and gave him some Tylenol, but it didn’t help.
The younger one was bouncing off the walls and he couldn’t stop talking.
His babbles are important and he says a lot of worthwhile things, but it
comes out so fast and congested, my mind can’t absorb what he’s saying as
fast as he’s saying it.

We had pizza (and the goofy pizza driver couldn’t find our house, which
really made me mad) and began to watch “The Empire Strikes Back,” but by
that time, I had called my son and told him that it wasn’t going to work.
The older one was in too much pain.  I felt bad, but he really needed to be
with his parents.

It turned out that the bandages around the splint were too tight and that
was causing the pain.  Asher and Susan loosened the bandages and he’s been
fine ever since.

How did he get hurt?  Well . . . the older one has a habit of kicking the
driver’s seat while he’s in the car and when my son is driving, he’ll jerk
the front seat back, and they go back and forth like that, kick and jerk,
kick and jerk, but on Friday night, my son jerked back, and Boogie’s leg was
locked and snap!  I guess that’s the end of that game.  He has two small
hairline fractures in his lower leg.  Ouch!  I don’t like that kind of rough
house stuff, because there’s always a risk of someone getting hurt in a
stupid way.  I know my son feels bad.  End of story, I hope.

The sun has set and the sky is a dull orange.  I can see some cardinals
hitting the feeders for the final time tonight.  I’m listening to a Joshua
Bell CD.  And it’s almost time for dinner . . .

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be
careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.
~E.P. Powell