My Table Diary

On a recent visit from my sister she remarked on how scratched up and marred my dining table was. Never having noticed that before, as I looked closely, I had to agree that the tabletop was not the smooth, shiny surface that it had been a dozen years ago when purchased.

Sitting at the table, running my fingers across the pitted top I remembered how the slow decline of the table top occurred.

-Train track ruts, from a model set that Jim set up one Christmas to the delight of the grand children

-Scissor marks from little hands learning to cut

-Veneer chipped off where glue was left to dry and then scrapped off with a fingernail or blunt knife.

-Coffee and cocoa mug circles where long talks resulted in solutions to life's' problems.

-Inch-long marks where reports were collated and stapled together.

-Scuff marks from plastic bins of research, books and journals being pulled across the surface in order to find the correct citation for a doctoral project. 

-Memories of grand daughters creating memory books as high school seniors, spending hours upon hours, days upon days, writing, cutting, remembering, and gluing. 

-Memories of family celebrations filled with laughter and story-telling, events that even when repeated repeatedly never ceased to amuse as details are remembered and/or enhanced.

-Scrapes from heavy glassware being shifted from place to place to form the perfect mock-up for a candy buffet at a grand daughter's wedding.

Six chairs are covered in white and raspberry upholstery material, purchased down the street at a yard sale for five dollars and self-installed.A black dot on the white part of one chair brings memories of a Sharpie that got away from little hands.

People use the expression, "If these walls could talk?" In my case I would say, "If this table could talk?"

Replacing the table and chairs has crossed my mind in the past few years, more tired of the style than anything else. But now, after moseying down memory lane, I might have a difficult time parting with this fifty pound diary.

And that's what I think about it.

"If you find yourself a widow..."

At a national convention this week, I ran into a class mate from the seminary from which we had both recently graduated.

He was with a friend, his best friend from childhood.

Mike, the friend, is a minister, and single. I had never met him thus the requisite introductions to my husband who was with me.

Singleness became the subject of our conversation after the talk of graduation and post-grad possibilities had run its course. The four of us stood around laughing uproariously at Mike's trials during his life at attempting to find himself a wife.

I mentioned that I had an unmarried daughter which peaked his interest. His energy toward this conversation led me to ask how old he was. Too young for my daughter I said. Maybe not, he countered, he was fast running out of possibilities in his own age bracket.

This kind of back and forth went on with peals of laughter all around and my wondering what's wrong with him that this seemingly delightful young man couldn't find a spouse.

As they were leaving and the echo of their laughter was fading away he turned around and gestured to me, remarking, "If you ever find yourself a widow, give me a call."

We all doubled over in laughter...well, three of us did. My husband, standing next to me, failed to find humor in his remark and shouted back, "I'm feeling good right now."

Unsatisfied Grandmothers

This is not a happy blog post.

Usually when I go to my swim class at the YMCA a half hour early, I fall into easy conversation with other women who are early. We float around chatting about life waiting for the instructor to bellow out our first exercise. Usually those chats are light, surfacy kind of conversations with little emotion and less depth.

Not so today.

I found myself caught in a trio, me being the third, of grandmothers, two of whom were having mild to severe grand kid issues with grand daughters.The grands are in their early twenties.

The first has a grand daughter getting married next week. What a coincidence. So do I! We had that in common but there the similarity stopped. In asking about the venue, rehearsal dinner, etc. she told me she had no idea what the plans were. She had not been invited to a rehearsal dinner and thought perhaps there wasn't one, but in thinking that through, felt that there might be and she and her husband had not been invited. She is clueless about the big event and was both hurt and upset that no one had at least given her some basics about the day. She went on to say how she had spent a lot of time with this grand daughter throughout her life and felt shut out now. She felt it had something, like a lot, to do with her daughter keeping plans and events to herself.

When the first grand mother paused for breath the second began and wasted no time in telling us what an ungrateful little snob (my words) she had for a grand daughter. There was, what we call in the church world, a "come to Jesus" meeting at Christmas where the grand daughter accused her of liking her grandson better than she liked her and doing more for him than for her. Instead of denying it, like I would have, she proceeded to tell her grand daughter why that might be so: the grand son calls when he doesn't need anything, visits when he doesn't need anything, hugs her when he doesn't need anything, and on and on.

I felt a little sorry for the first grand mother. I felt a little scared of the second for the more she talked the more agitated she became and the more awful the grand daughter became. And the swim class would not start for ten more minutes.

Yikes! I looked around for the swim instructor to begin the class and save me.

When the rants had subsided, grand mother one looked at me and said, "You do not have these issues with your grand daughters." She said it as a fact, not a question. I guess I've been talking about them now and then.

As I sit here typing, my husband has come in with the mail. Included is a thank you note from our soon to be grand-son-in-law thanking us for "being so generous and taking such good care of us. You two are truly appreciated and loved."

How blessed I am. I almost always recognize blessings but realize the magnitude of them when I listen to others' experiences and then hold in my hand a hand-written expression of thanks.

But then I had a brilliant idea...one of these lightning bolts that one wonders 'where did that come from?' Why not offer a seminar for grand daughters on how to treat grand parents? Girls of 12 and older could be enrolled to help stave off some of this animus of  the later teen/early twenty years. The YMCA, the Girl Scouts, and churches, could offer this training. Who would teach it? Why, these four grand daughters of mine of course.

And that's what I think about it.

"Another Doofus"

This morning, after five inches of torrential rain yesterday, I drove to a rural road that had been closed overnight because of flooding. The 'road closed' sign had been put off to the side of the road which I took to mean that the road was no longer flooded and I headed my vehicle down.

Remember the parting of the Red Sea special effects in "The Ten Commandments"? Up ahead of me a pick-up truck was recreating that scene and ahead of him another vehicle copied the parting.

Four low spots on this road create four lakes of water during a downpour, overrunning the deep ditches on either side of the road. None of the water had soaked into the ground overnight.

I completely forgot, or ignored, my post from yesterday and with abandonment drove into the parade of water spewing vehicles making their way through the flood. I could not see left or right because of the wall of water my tires had thrown up.

It was kind of like being in a car wash.

Yesterday, I called these people doofuses. Today I joined their ranks. Don't judge.

And that's what I think about it.