TheBanyanTree: Together

[Margaret R. Kramer]

What is better than waking up in the middle of a king-sized bed snuggled up
against my husband and on my other side there is a big, black dog snuggled
up against me?  As for my feet, a black cat is protecting them from the
chill.  Finally, sleeping on Ray’s big pillow is our 20 year old cat,
Cinnamon.  If Axel the beagle could jump high enough to reach the bed, he
would be snuggling with us, too.  But because of his short legs, he’s
confined to the floor.  Yes, we have lots of togetherness during the night
and that’s pretty darn nice.

What isn’t so nice is having to work on the weekend.  I tend to be fairly
organized and try to stay ahead of the curve, especially at work so I don’t
have to work on the weekend or put in a lot of long hours, but the team I’m
working with now let a lot of things go these past months and are now trying
to tie all the loose ends together by Wednesday, September 26.  They’re good
people and we’re supportive of each other, but it’s been hell trying to
figure out why all this effort has to be done at the end of this stage of
the project.  Anyway, they’re all working today and I’ll work, too.

I’m going to try to work from home, but I’m not sure if I got all my papers
with me, so I might have to go in to the office.  My work is hanging over my
head like the big assignments in college did.  It’s going to be a beautiful
day and I’ll be working.  Whine.  Whine.  Whine.  Well, it’s only one
Saturday and once it’s done, there’ll be clean-up stuff to do, but the big
effort will be over.

We had a potluck lunch and baby shower at work yesterday.  One of my
co-workers is due with a baby girl in the middle of October.  This is her
second pregnancy and she’s been kind of whiney about it and that gets on my
nerves.  She’s a healthy young woman with no reason to whine, but I think
she likes the attention and even though her big belly is an attention-getter
on its own, whining seals the deal.

But the shower was nice.  And as women do in those situations, we shared the
stories of our labors and children.  The poor lone man eating with us turned
red several times and finally fled to the safety of his cube.

I enjoyed doing a bonding activity with other women.  I do so few of them
now.  I get all excited about female friendships and then after a while,
they begin to wear me down, so I withdraw.  My life is less cluttered and
more comfortable for me without intense female friendships.  I know now to
enjoy a baby shower or a gathering of women for what it is at that moment
and not have high expectations that these kinds of positive feelings will
continue beyond the event.

We watched our youngest grandson on the night of big thunderstorms while his
mother took his older brother to the emergency room.  Quincy has been sick
all week and it broke his heart to miss school, because he’s very focused on
perfect attendance and participating in all school activities.  But when you
throw up in class and then spend another day with your head on your desk,
school attendance isn’t a great idea.  Anyway, it turns out he had
pneumonia.

So we watched the younger one, which is quite a treat, because we rarely see
him alone without his brother.  Or is it a curse?  He’s a talker and man, he
’ll talk me to death!!!  I start losing my voice, because I’m not used to
talking that much.

The first thing he did was show me his front top tooth flapping in the wind,
hanging on to his gum by a thread.  It’s his first loose tooth and he was so
proud of it.  After we picked up his mother and brother from the hospital
and were driving to the pharmacy to get Quincy’s medications, he told us his
tooth came out.  We were all excited as he handed his tooth to his mom,
except his brother, of course, who was passed out in agony on the backseat
of my car.

As his mom went into the drugstore, Ashlin told me his reaction to losing
his first tooth, “It just wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be.”
Then he said, “I can’t make the S sound now,” as he slobbered his way
through several S words.  He wondered if he looked weird without his tooth.
I assured him that he looked like many six year olds, because it’s common
for kids that age not to have a lot of teeth, especially in the front of
their mouths.

He seemed to be OK with this.  I’m sure he’s OK now, because his dad told me
the Tooth Fairy left him $5.  Gosh, I only got a quarter for each of my
teeth!

As for the older boy, he’s doing all right.  I’ll call later today to be
sure.

My plans for today include cutting the grass, washing clothes, and then
doing some job-related work.  To keep me going, I’ll just think about the
coming night of togetherness in our big bed.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can
steal.
~Author Unknown