My Day Off

I had planned this Monday off in advance because my daughter is home from college for her Spring Break and had a medical appointment scheduled. I've always taken her to her "well baby" check-ups, so I just assumed I should make myself available this morning.

Upon arriving home on Friday afternoon she announced, "I will need the car at 8:30 on Monday morning."

"Oh," I responded, with a tilt of my head. "You don't need me to go with you?"

"Well, I'm 20 years old. Don't you think I should start doing these things on my own?" she asked. And I couldn't disagree because of course she should be flexing her independence.

As it turned out, she didn't sleep well last night so this morning she asked me if I could drive and drop her off, a comfy compromise for having versus not having your mom along. I was glad to be her taxi service, and eager to entertain myself at the Meadows Farm Nursery just down the highway from Sleepy Hollow Pediatrics.

Later in the morning, once we'd returned home from the appointment and I was headed out to Paul and Sharon's to do my annual clean-up of their raised flower bed, my daughter reminded me that she'd need the car at 2:00pm to pick up Grandma Kathie from the airport. 

"The clean sheets are in the dryer. Do you mind making her bed when they are ready?" I ventured.

"Sure. No problem," she eagerly agreed. When I got home, the deed was done. No reminder necessary.

"Wow," I thought. This is not the same gal who left home six months ago! 

From across the street on my neighbor's front stoop, I could hear the commotion of Molly and Grandma pulling up to the curb and tumbling out of the car, fresh in from Molly's first ever solo airport retrieval. They were still laughing about Molly showing up to Door #4 outside Alaska Air, as agreed upon, only to text her grandma and learn that she was upstairs at Departures while Grandma was downstairs at arrivals! So of course she had to circle the airport and try again.

Today I really enjoyed having a chance to follow my own agenda while Molly took care of the logistics.

The Bluestone

The Bluestone Inn Restaurant on Route 11 north of Harrisonburg has been a family favorite for decades. Many family occasions have been celebrated there, and it's the restaurant my brothers and I gravitate to whenever the three of us are together. Last evening was no exception. Like always, I ordered the grilled rainbow trout stuffed with crab. It is, after all, their signature dish.

Seafood abounds, both grilled and fried. They also have James River raw oysters and soft-shelled crabs in appropriate months of the year. Although the aroma of steak always tantalizes me on the short walk from the parking lot to the front door of the limestone structure, by the time we're sitting with menus I never seem to make it past the seafood offerings. (Who am I kidding? I never even make it past the first item: grilled rainbow trout stuffed with crab!)

But last night I did try a couple of new items. The first was a thinly-sliced cucumber salad with onion and fresh dill in a light sweet-sour dressing. The server suggested it as the preferred side salad, over coleslaw, and it did not disappoint. My second new venture was a dessert item called Hummingbird Cake, which I understand to be a Southern favorite that is made with bananas, walnuts, and cream cheese icing. It was tasty, somewhat reminiscent of Carrot Cake, but I was glad to share the gargantuan slice with one of my brothers.

If you are okay with a dark, noisy, rustic setting... deer busts lining the paneled walls and a stuffed turkey suspended above the bar, platform booths with high back privacy dividers, tables jammed so close together you can overhear the conversations around you... along with a 30-40 minute wait should you miss the Early Bird sitting at 4:30pm, then I highly recommend you try the Bluestone next time you are headed down Interstate 81. Take the Broadway exit, which is the last exit before you reach Harrisonburg, onto Route 11 South and you will find it several miles along on the right side of the road.

                               

Whoopsy Doozle

In my triumph at finding beautiful hellebores for a good price down in Harrisonburg, yesterday, I forgot to do my daily writing! In all honesty, if it had to be remembering to write, or finding the plant of the moment, I’m going with the plant every time. Not that it has to be either/or. But yesterday’s agenda was freeform. 

The day began with a couple hours of gardening, mostly spring cleanup of leftover autumn debris. While I’m leaving some of the leaves and stalks in certain areas, other areas need a more acidic dressing this year. So I’m going with a pine bark mulch from Green Street Garden Center that my neighbor introduced to me last fall. 

In the afternoon, Brother Robert and I connected the dots, nursery to nursery, on our way to Harrisonburg. After Grass Roots came through for me, we met up with Brother Donald for a rustic Bluestone evening filled with the swapping of ancient, shared memories. I enjoy comparing versions of the same family story, differing in perspective due to birth order.

It was such a full, wonderful day that I didn’t even realize I’d forgotten to write until I work up this morning. As my mother used to say when I was younger, “Whoopsy doozle”.

Busted

I’m relatively new at 8th grade TA, and I love the self-sufficiency of my brood. All but one of them screen-shared their slide show with great ease and began their conference today without trying to bypass the awkward introduction. By now they all know the drill.

Since two-thirds of my students made the A-B Honor Roll last quarter, most of today’s conferences were joyous occasions for parent and child. Several students had a bit of explaining to do about one grade or another, but one poor lad left his dad completely vexed about the total lack of conference prep as well as the abysmal grades in Student Vue. 

Student M is the kid who knows how to look busy and stay under the radar, nods along with the group, never meets your gaze, and does his own thing. I’m not surprised he was unprepared. He won’t accept guidance, and he’s not happy about school or life right now. But at least he’s finally getting to school on time most days and the quietly defiant hood-up statement has also largely subsided.

No way was I going to cover for him today. So he was basically laid wide open by his own undone deeds, but that needed to happen. The sub plot to all of this is the parents’ separation and consequent lack of awareness about the fact that their son has checked out of third quarter already. When email and phone calls go unanswered, a live conference becomes the big wake up call that Dad needs most of all. 

Together with the Flex TA Teacher, we came up with several action items to help Student M get himself back on track. But what I hope most of all is that Dad starts paying more attention to his namesake, because that's what the kid needs more than a polished slide show or stellar grades right now. He needs to know that he matters to his own distracted folks.

Is it Pie Day Today?

My across-the-street neighbor, Terry, is an older woman with a lot of spunk and a keen appreciation of fruit pie. For many years she adjudicated at regional and national Bridge Tournaments, an advanced player in her own right. Now that she is no longer working full time or traveling, she has a part time gig investigating whether or not players in an online league are cheating, or simply too novice to realize what they are doing. Her eyes sparkle when she tells me about her latest trail of intrigue.

Terry and I have an arrangement that began a couple of years ago, not long after her husband Tom passed away. I’m her fruit pie dealer, and I often deal in the stealth of night. At first it was Sour Cherry, a personal favorite. Then we moved on to Meyer Lemon and Key Lime, followed by Pumpkin. Earlier this winter we both tried the Pear with Ginger and Orange Marmalade. This evening I brought home Blackberry “with a touch of lemon” because the lattice was so intriguing. 

Sometimes I provide just a piece, particularly if there’s higher risk involved. But often I buy a whole mini pie which she insists on paying for. On those occasions I round down, charging her only what I know someone of her generation is willing to pay for a store bought pie. Mind you, they are ACME Pies from a Douglas Park neighbor’s Columbia Pike pie shop, not just any old store bought pies. I live in mock fear of the day she ventures over to the pie shop herself and my price-fixing cover is blown.

But for now I supply her with touches of affordable comfort, in the form of occasional pie. And it warms my heart to hear the eager compliance in her voice on those occasions.

“Hi Terry. This is Enid. Is it pie day today?”

“Oh, I think so! Anything but apple this time. You decide!”

All Cracked Up

Flossing is not typically a harmful activity, but the other night I broke a tooth doing my due diligence at bedtime. As a result, this morning I sat in a dentist chair getting the full treatment: novocain, x-ray, drill, impression, and finally a temporary crown. Turns out what had cracked and chipped away was a major portion of a reconstructed molar from 15 years ago. 

"Hmmm... You were my dentist 15 years ago," I mused. "Is there a warranty on that reconstruction?"

"Only for seven years," Dr. Oh replied with a chuckle. "The lifespan of a reconstruction is 7-10 years, so you did well with that one!"

Dr. Oh is a great dentist. Always calm and thorough, this morning he worked quickly but carefully to get the job done and send me back down Glebe Road for the second half of the school day. 

"See you in two weeks, Dr. Oh."

Over the past two decades he has systematically reconstructed almost every single childhood filling as they've failed me in one way or another. But let me tell you, even the best reconstructive work is apparently not all it's cracked up to be!

Read the Room

I am, by nature, a judgy person. I don’t like that about myself, but there it is. 

And here we are, three years into a pandemic that might be subsiding, or might just be hunkering down for awhile before another surge, a new variant, emerges. We don’t know. But suddenly mask wearing is a “personal decision”. At school, on school buses, at social gatherings in public places we are being asked to respect other people’s personal decisions to wear, or not to wear, a mask. Fine.

When I walk into a room full of people celebrating an older person’s retirement, a school library say, and everyone else in the room is wearing a mask - and I mean every single person - then even if I had not worn a mask all day, that is the half hour that I wear a mask. My personal choice involves keeping other people safe, even if I personally feel safe without a mask. As Nike would say, “Just do it!”

But no, not the only person in the entire school whom I know for a fact to be unvaccinated. That person does not wear a mask. Around elders, around colleagues who may, or may not, have situations in their lives requiring them to take no risks, around the retiring guest of honor who IS wearing a mask, and probably wants to enjoy his retirement Covid free, that one particular person does not wear a mask. 

Is that one particular person respecting others’ personal choices? Am I capable of respecting hers?