I Miss These Kids

These photos have moved from next to the kitchen TV to the top of a dresser in this bedroom.  Walking by this morning I caught sight of them and realized that, though I love my life right now, I miss these kids.  I know that I still have them and that they're absolutely wonderful adults and they call me at least once a week and seem glad to talk to me when they do or when I call them, but I miss them in my house and being busy and noisy and laughing and... and... and... mine.  I miss them.

Durwood's first half-bushel of tomatoes has been turned into tomato soup.  Ten quarts and seven (one's frozen in a zip bag because it was the end of a quarts batch) pints of luscious tomato soup.  Sunny Hill Farm is closed today (they're Seventh Day Adventists) but I'm confident that he'll be ordering another half-bushel tomorrow for next week.  There are two dozen (+ two) brand new quart jars up here already and I've only brought up a dozen pints so he's got a ways to go.  That big blue spatterware canning kettle was an excellent $3 buy from Goodwill in 1977, wasn't it?  We get lots of use out of it.  I'm liking this "team" method of canning; he makes the soup and I get it into jars and into and out of the canner.  It works and no one's totally exhausted. 

Yesterday the drysuit dad and daughter got to the store 2 hours earlier than they thought they would (Cross Country practice let out early--whew!) so we got right to fitting them.  It's a workout for me too as I have to help them get into an unfamiliar wad of neoprene and then pry them out.  Everyone's sweating by the time we're done.  I only had to measure the daughter so the "ick" factor was greatly reduced (it's hard with adult men and all their dangly bits to avoid).  They didn't buy drysuits but I think they will.  They did spend a bit of money so I felt okay with the transaction.  They were lovely people.  I think that's why I'm missing DS & DD today, seeing how much fun that dad and daughter had together, and they weren't putting it on.  I could tell.  Not quite long enough for me to get into and out of the bathroom after they left another customer arrived wanting to be shown an assortment of things and to rent some tanks so I worked right up until the stroke of 7 PM.  It was a good thing that I ate my lunch around 4 PM so I wasn't starving and didn't eat supper too late because it was nearly 8 PM by the time I got to knitting.  I was out of energy by then and still had soup to can, but got it done AND the dishes washed before I flopped in the chair to do the crossword puzzle.  I'm glad I only have yoga, lawn mowing, and granddog feeding to do today. 

September 14--Mesopotamia, Figurine.  The clay was cool and slick in her hands.  She sat on the other side of the willow break from the men digging in the clay bank.  In this part of the world men made the vessels and the charms.  They drew on the walls and painted stories to be passed on.  Women grew food and made garments.  Men didn't sow or reap or tan hides.  Women didn't draw or paint or make charms.  She knew she could make the small talismans better than most of the boys, she felt it in her fingers.  So she moved down the riverbank to a place where the pink clay could be dug with a stone tool lashed to a wooden handle.  She placed the dripping chunks in a woven basket and went farther from the village where she set bright shells and colored stones in her figures and she pulverized seeds and berries to color her work.

I was so tired that I never asked her name but I like it.  I slept until 8 o'clock (gasp!) this morning so all my day is late.  Now it's time for Cheerios, a banana, and to read the funnies.  Toodles.
--Barbara