Category: Family

I am babysitting my grandson, Jackson. I do the babysitting at his house because I have to do my laundry there while our drainfield is frozen.

Right now he is sitting in a laundry hamper with a stuffed bear, almost his size, and his blankie on top his head. I think he is tired and I could get him out and put him to bed, but what would be the point of that? I would need the jaws of life to extricate me from the hamper if I were to take my nap there. But I am sure Jackson will be just fine.

As soon as he falls asleep, I can  doze myself.

I have no defense for the the things that pop into my head. I like to say that we  have no control over the thoughts that come knocking at our door, but we can choose which thoughts we invite to come in and stay for a while.

Having said that, I was thinking about warped words that we make part of our vocabulary. Often these are words that our children speak as toddlers and we find them so funny and cute that we ended up incorporating them into our adult vocabulary. An example is “b’sketti”. That was given to us by our oldest daughter, Becky, when she was excited to see a plate of those long skinny noodles set before her with meatballs and sauce.

Another word, passed on by my mother’s sister, Rose, is “allabodies”. I have to include here the context of her use of the word. Whenever anyone would gossip about other family members or get into a family feud and try to drag her into it, she’d say, “I love allabodies.” Some day I will write a blog about my Aunt Rose so you can get the full flavor of this really interesting woman.

Another word used to be bantered about by my daughter Kate and her friend, Penny, when they were  teenagers. They’d say, “What a cowinkidink!”. It was used in place of “coincidence”, of course. I think I remember it because the two of them would laugh uncontrollably whenever one or the other said it. Someone told me recently that the word actually originated in a ’70’s movie, but I don’t really care. I just like saying it. I like the reaction of other people when they hear me say it. And I like it because, when I say it, I remember two teenage girls lost in sweet hilarity.

My daughter, Heidi, is the director of Visual Arts Minnesota. I dropped in on one of her events last week, unexpected. Bernie and I get most of the invitations that she sends out from VAM because we are her parents, but I don’t think she actually expects us to show up.

The invitation suggested that attendees bring a piece of someone else’s art work. I brought a necklace created by a young Colorado artist that my son’s family commissioned for my last birthday present. It has a tree of life with little rings and gemstone beads hanging on its branches that represent members of the family. When I got there I realized that the artwork was supposed to be from a Minnesota artist. In my haste, I hadn’t read the instructions carefully. So I sat there with my necklace wanting to share it, knowing that this wasn’t the appropriate forum. So, I took a hostage. The woman sitting next to me was old, a grandmother for sure, perhaps even a great-grandmother like myself. I showed her the necklace and told her its story. She had such kind eyes and listened with her whole heart. Relieved, I was able to yield to Heidi’s preplanned agenda.  

There were 10 people present at the event, all artists or lovers of art. The session lasted two hours and there was not one boring moment as people told the stories of the artists and the history of art in the area. Heidi’s facilitating was amazing. She had such a respectful way of bringing everyone into the conversation and a patience to let each have their say in full. Whenever someone mentioned a name or a place, she did a quick search on her laptop and information about such was projected on a screen on the wall.

I later thought about all the term papers I’ve written and all the hours I spent in libraries poring over books and articles, taking notes that I hoped would be relevant.  Here was instant research. If someone was mistaken in their fact sharing, the correction was there on the wall. If there were questions, up came the answers. If people wanted  information to expand on ideas brought up around the table, she just clicked away and magically, we were educated.

I suppose in time term papers will become unnecessary. Maybe I can finally throw mine away.