My grandchildren were here when I arrived. Or at least, their bodies were. They had their noses in dual laptop computers playing World of Warcraft, sitting right next to each other without fussing. (They can only do this at Mommy and Denis's house because the laptops belong to Mommy and Denis.) Basically, they came up for air long enough to eat and (eventually) go to bed.
Sunday was our Valentine's Day with the children. We started off the morning with heart-shaped, pink pancakes that Megan made special. Both children got V-Day cards with a little cash in them, and a heart-shaped box of chocolates each. Robin got cute little heart-shaped pink crystal ear studs, and Ryan got a big Ripley's Believe It or Not book, just chock-full of weird things to look at (right up his alley). A little later in the day, Megan and Robin made homemade chocolate-covered strawberries. Yummy! As we were taking the children back home in the early evening, we stopped to pick up Robin's new glasses, which are already defective and have to go back.
Megan and Denis have a new baby--a young cat that they adopted from a shelter. She's probably five months old or so, and spent most of her young life in a cage. She had to be "fostered" for awhile because she was afraid of everything, until Meg and Den brought her home. Now, she's just afraid of me--Big Bad Grandma! She'll play with me, and she'll even come and sit with me if I curl up with Megan's blanket...but the rest of the time, if I even so much as move, she runs. We had made pretty good progress in the cat-human relationship department until yesterday. She was walking on the edge of the kitchen sink. I went to move something out of her way. That spooked her, so she jumped up into the wall cutout between the kitchen and the living room. That sent everything from there clattering down into the sink, including her, which spooked her even more. She leaped to get down, and my effort to catch her backfired. She did a flip in the air and landed on the floor on her side. She got up and gave me THAT look--like "See what you made me do?" and ran off. The rest of the day, she wouldn't have anything to do with me. Back to Square One.
In my absence from home, some not so cool things have happened. The father of one of my dear friends died. He had just been put under hospice care due to cancer...given maybe two or three months to live. He made it maybe a week. That was sad.
Then, too, my former stepson is battling serious cancer. He met with his doctors this week. The word is that they will do surgery to remove his gall bladder, bile duct(s), and half of his liver, but they haven't been able to reduce the toxins in his blood stream enough yet to do that, in spite of a couple of stents designed to drain the nasty stuff off. Please put Eric on your prayer list. He is way too young to have to deal with this!
One bit of GOOD news from home, however, comes from a young couple (both former students of mine who live in Plainfield). Their 2-year-old little girl was diagnosed with cancer of the kidney (Wilm's tumor) and had a kidney removed last week, with chemotherapy and radiation to start soon. After the surgery, the doctors and pathologists back-tracked a little, and sent tissue to Chicago to be further tested. It turned out that the tumor was PRE-cancerous and that the child is now free of cancer and will NOT have to go through all of the rest of the rigamarole. I just had a good feeling about that one!
When I'm visiting in the Northland (Grayslake, IL), I try to keep busy by helping out however I can. I usually don't clean, but I do help organize. I'm not asked to do anything, but I don't like just being a lump when everyone is at work, ya know? Most of the time, I do fix the supper meal and clean up the dishes afterward. I also try to keep up with the laundry so that we all can enjoy the weekends without having to worry about those mundane little things. The last time I was here, I tried to organize the food cupboard. Big mistake! The cupboard is deep and stuff gets buried. The bottom shelves are too low, and the top shelves are too high. Now, I usually just ask Megan if she has this or that. It's easier than trying to dig through everything!
Right now, I am watching the cat run all around the living room being a cat. If I try to pet her, she'll poof. Stupid cat! Which reminds me of a story. My former mother and father-in-law, Helen and Artie, lived in a nice place with a big patio, years ago. There was a cat that kept coming around, so they put food out for it. Helen was kind of a prickly person, God love her, but she was offended that everyone seemed to be able to pet that cat but her. It wouldn't come close enough for her to pet. One day, we all watched through the patio glass to observe her go out to try to make friends with the cat. Sure enough, as she reached for it, it turned and started to walk away--at which point, Helen reached out and grabbed the cat by the tail and yanked it back to her. Of course, that was the end of that! Artie mumbled under his breath, "Well, there's your problem, dumbass." We all laughed. Thankfully, Helen didn't hear him through the glass. It was just such a Helen thing to do. Pity the poor cat!
Enough for tonight!
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