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Our oldest daughter and I are on the deck of a rented lake house eyeing kids scattered on the shoreline below. They, in turn, are eyeing three bright red kayaks.

“Not one of them has experience,” she says.

I nod and the trees around us nod, sending a flurry of burnt orange leaves to the ground.

“They do have life jackets,” I say.

Our son appears on the shoreline. His appearance doesn’t exactly trigger a sigh of relief.  He’s not known for holding back.

“The water is incredibly cold,” she muses.

“And who knows how deep it is,” I say.

The kids cluster around one of the kayaks below.

“Those things can tip so easily,” she continues.

“So easily,” I echo.

A cheer rises from below as our son shoves a kayak holding his 9-year-old into the water.

“Has he kayaked before?” I yell down.

“Once!”

There it is again, the balance and counterbalance of safety and risk, moms often tilting toward safety, dads toward risk, differences somehow complementing one another.

The kid in the kayak may only have been out once before, but he has mastered the hang of things. He cuts through the water, paddles dipping in and out in a smooth and graceful rhythm.

A short while later, his 7-year-old brother shoves off, followed by their 11-year-old sister. It is a first for them both. They quickly get the hang of it as well, though a bit later the 11-year-old tips her kayak close to shore. It seemed intentional. Maybe she just wanted a practice run with disaster in shallow water. She laughs all the way up the hill to change into dry clothes.

A 10-year-old, who has been standing on the shore quietly watching, announces she’s ready. She buckles up a life jacket, climbs in and takes off. In and out, in and out, paddle right, turn left, paddle left, turn right. She learns by observing.

Her twin learns by doing. She, too, is soon in a kayak, paddles slapping the water, the water slapping her. She sticks close to the shore and a few minutes later is climbing out of the kayak, trekking up the hill to the house, her entire backside soaked to the skin.

When you lift the paddles too high, water runs down them and into the kayak. Don’t ask how I know this. A number of trips were made up the hill for dry clothes and not all of them were made by kids.

By the next day, nearly everyone has been out on the water, adults and older kids in kayaks, little ones with moms and dads in paddle boats. The one who learns by watching now moves with ease. The one who learns by doing ventures farther from the shore. The one who first rolled her kayak has now tipped three times in shallow water, enjoying each bit of drama more than the one before.

They all leave with damp clothes in backpacks and duffel bags savoring a new layer of confidence known as the reward of risk.

I’ve always been sorry I don’t know more about the stars and galaxies.

I was especially sorry a few weeks ago when I went out early one morning and saw an incredibly bright light in the eastern sky. It was so brilliant I wondered if it was a UFO.

Good thing I Googled it when I went back inside instead of phoning it in. It was Venus.

I am downright envious of people who can confidently point out the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. Sometimes I think I’ve found them, but then I link all the stars and wind up with two slotted spoons instead of dippers.

One of the grands who lives in the country where stars blaze deep into the dark showed me where the family stretches out on the deck at night to watch the space station.

“It starts over there,” she said, pointing to the top of a fir. “It crosses this way,” her fingering tracing an arc overhead, “and we lose sight of it over there at the top of that tree with the bag webworm.”

Maybe that’s what I need for star gazing, a house in the country, a 30-foot-long deck and trees with bag webworm.

I had opportunity to learn about the stars as a kid when I was selected to go to a 2-week summer space camp. We made papier-mâché planets and astronaut helmets from empty Baskin-Robbins ice cream containers. My most vivid memory of space camp is the smell of mint chocolate chip.

Learning about astronomy is something I’ve been “gonna get to,” but somehow never have. The first obstacle is overcoming the embarrassment of checking out books from the children’s section of the library. I should probably start with one of those touch and feel books without words and work my way up.

The second obstacle is that my wobbly sense of direction on land is magnified 500 times in space. The North Star, also known as Polaris (and I hope that impressed someone), is an enigma.

People point it out to me. I gasp. Then I ruin the moment asking for proof they are certain. Do you look north to find it or straight up?  What if you’re looking for it from the Arctic Circle? Do you look to the south to find the North Star? I weary my tutors and often find myself standing alone in the dark. Under the North Star. I think.

I am finally getting serious about the stars having downloaded the SkyView Lite app. I trained it on that early morning eastern sky four days running, and it confirmed the bright light as Venus.

“I’ve found Venus!” I shouted to all the sleeping neighbors.

I’ve also found a warrior wielding a sword and another fella armed with a bow and arrows. Apparently, there is as much fighting going on in the galaxies, as on the earth.

Progress is slow, but I now know the North Star is part of the Little Dipper. There’s rarely a night I don’t look at the stars and wonder – if there’s mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer.

There are two kinds of grandparents in this world—those who love personalized gifts emblazoned with adoring messages and those who do not. Naturally, the husband and I are opposites on this matter. I believe the Bible refers to this as “iron sharpening iron.”

Yesterday, the husband opened the kitchen cabinet, coffeepot in hand, and announced there were no coffee cups. I counted six. He said he couldn’t use any of those because they were special gifts, coffee mugs with pictures of grandkids and loving messages on them.

He says if he uses them, they could wear out. My thought is, how can they wear out if he never uses them, but I have learned not to exacerbate our differences with logic.

Because he enjoys personalized gifts, he is the absolutely most fun grandparent to buy for. He has T-shirts with photos and clever sayings on them (most never worn, sitting in a drawer), socks with photos of grandkids’ faces on them (sitting in the same drawer) and ball caps emblazoned with declarations of love. Those he wears.

I am the grandparent known for practical. I have no photo mugs, socks with faces on them or ball caps declaring my greatness.

What I do have is a garbage table. You read that right.

It was a gift handcrafted with love by our oldest grand, a young lady of 11.

It took considerable time and effort to build and she reminded us the last time we visited that it was ready for us to take home.

A garbage table will not fit in a drawer.

Her two younger brothers helped me lug it out of the workshop. We were doomed halfway up the hill to the car, whereupon the husband lugged it the rest of the way and loaded it into our vehicle after folding down the rear seats.

The garbage table principle is simple: you eat on the tabletop, then lift the lid and throw your garbage in a trash bag secured over the frame below the lid. Apparently, I am not the only one who sees my life as a never-ending cycle of cook, eat, clean-up, repeat.

The garbage table is 3-feet tall, with somewhat narrow legs supporting a 21-inch square top. She did a fabulous job installing the hinges as well as the crafting the tabletop consisting of eight chunks of 2 x 4s fitted together. The tabletop is heavy—as in potentially lethal. Of course, people probably said the same of Michelangelo’s “David.”

If you lower the tabletop to the back, the table falls backward. If you close the lid and carelessly let it fall, you and your broken fingers will be speeding to the ER.

It is the thought that counts, which is why I will display the garbage table proudly, anchor it securely, and make sure it always has adult supervision when in use.

If the husband ever decides to break out a personalized photo mug, I will insist he enjoy it standing at my very delightful, highly practical, one-of-a-kind  garbage table.

One of the grands sent a self-portrait she created for art class. The top half of the portrait shows her hair parted in the middle with one of her signature hairbows perched on the side of her head. Her big brown eyes peer through her glasses.

The bottom half of the self-portrait is a bright blue face mask with colorful flowers, cheerful like she is. It is a clever art project; the face mask is an overlay. The mask is removable, but we received her picture with the mask on. Such a sensible child, protecting her grandparents.

Her eyes look a touch bewildered. Who hasn’t looked a touch bewildered in recent months? Fortunately, I think I know what the problem is. The child needs to work on her smize.

Fashion model Tyra Banks coined the term “smize” several years ago. A smize is a combination of smile and eyes; meaning to smile with your eyes. Models can make their eyes smile without moving their mouths. Of course, models can also pound concrete in stilettos.

Smizing is big right now. It’s hard to convey friendliness when the smiling half of your face is covered. Restaurants are coaching wait staffs to perfect the smize behind face masks and retailers are coaching sales staffs.

Two exercises can help improve your smize. First, practice crinkling your eyes.

Go ahead, try it. Hold your mouth still and squint so your eyes crinkle.

No. That looks like you need you find your reading glasses.

Try it again.

No, not that either. That looks like you just took off your sunglasses and are waiting for your eyes to adjust.

Again.

Better, but it looks like you don’t understand what is being said.

I had on a face mask and tried my smize on the husband. He asked why I was glaring at him.

The problem is intersectionality – of wrinkles and crinkles. It is hard to crinkle when you already have wrinkles.

There are fundamental differences between crinkles and wrinkles. A crinkle is self-made; a wrinkle is time-made. A crinkle is temporary; a wrinkle is permanent. Well, unless you intervene with products like wrinkles schminkles, or skin therapies to help smooth them out. Otherwise, they are permanent, though there’s no shame in having a few wrinkles to show your wisdom as you grow older, even if they do interfere with crinkling.

The second part of a smize is to use cheek fat to help push your eyes up from the bottom to create a smiling effect.

I have cheek fat, but for several years now it has been bent on a slow downward movement, not upward. My cheek fat attempts to respond to my facial commands and only serves to intensifying the glare.

Like most people, I can mask and smile at the same time, but my eyes can’t smile without my mouth. They have an unbreakable bond.

Too bad we often can’t see one another smiling these days because smiling is like yawning-highly contagious. Contagions of smiling, kindly acknowledging one another as fellow human beings, wouldn’t be the worst thing to sweep the nation. Go ahead, smize or smile, whatever you can muster. Spread it around.

A financial planner on the radio said we should all patronize our favorite restaurants now, because in two months they’ll probably be out of business. I asked the husband what his favorite restaurant was.

“Mama Carolla’s,” he said.

I pointed out we had not been to that wonderful little Italian place in years. If the restaurant industry depended on us to keep them afloat, they all would have gone under long before Covid-19.

Still, having seen business after business in our area paper over the windows and now sit empty, we noted three restaurants to visit in hopes of helping them stay put. Two are small breakfast spots we can walk to and the third is a few miles down the road, part of a burger and shake chain the grandkids love.

Priorities mandate our first visit be to the burger place. We pull into the drive-thru line and see a big sign on the window: “Free Fries with Every Burger (Per Person).”

This is exciting to the husband who loves a special. He orders two burgers, two fries and drinks. The voice in the box announces the total, then instructs us to pull forward.

The husband hands over the credit card at the window. He says the total sounded high and asks if we got the free fries.

The young lady says, “Did you ask for free fries? You have to ask for them.”

He said he didn’t know you had to ask for them. A second lady joins the first lady at the window and says, “You have to ask for the free fries.”

Again, he says he didn’t know that.

The ladies close the window, eyeball the receipt and start pushing buttons on the cash register.

I tell the husband the point in coming was to support the business, not get free fries. He says the point is the sign says free fries. I restate my point; he restates his point. And so another happily married couple is jabbing one another with sharp points.

I then suggest he tap on the window and tell them we are happy to pay for the free fries.

He says his arm won’t reach.

Meanwhile, the ladies inside are hammering the cash register with new intensity.

Finally, the younger lady opens the window and says they adjusted the bill. I lean into view and say we only came to buy lunch in hopes they don’t go out of business and lose their jobs.

She flashes a big smile, tosses back her head and says, “I’m not going anywhere!”

We pull around front and a few minutes later someone brings out our food. We open the bag and discover the burgers are doubles. I don’t know that I’ve ever eaten an entire double burger, but I ate every bite of this one and it was good.

The double burgers might have been an accident, or they might have been deliberate because they were glad others are rooting for them.

Considering the free fries, it was probably a wash for the burger place financially, but we’ll make it right. We’ll load up two vehicles and go back with grandkids.

The gravel path leads up a small rise and cuts through tall grass. At the path’s end a wooden deck protrudes into the pond, which provides a sort of entertainment in the early evening hours.

The deck is bordered by rushes and cattails – corndogs as a grandson calls them. Tall flowering plants with long legs and big feet submerged in muck beneath the water gently wave from side to side in a soft breeze.

The water’s surface is covered with a thick layer of green algae that makes one leery of leaning hard against the deck railing. The algae, disgusting in appearance, host a myriad of wonderful properties and marvelous uses.

The beauty of nature out here has been accented by the beauty of romance; carvings dug deep into the wooden railing around the deck.

My eyes flit across the many declarations of love but pause on “Meg loves Zack.” Nice lettering. But the question lingers—does Zack love Meg?

They’ve probably had their first disagreement by now. One can only hope they discovered decent communication skills when the euphoria began to wane.

The sky slowly turns hues of pink and peach and the music of romance rises from the water. It is a deep baritone, the male bullfrog announcing he is in search of a mate. The bullfrog is the Italian opera singer in the world of frogs.

One sounds as though he is right by our feet, another to the side, still others directly ahead. They take turns and begin overlapping rapid-fire. It is speed dating for frogs.

The bullfrog has a unique voice. Some say it sounds like a cow with a head cold. Others claim the baritones are calling “jug-o-rum.”

Some bullfrogs sound like wooden chairs dragging across the floor. Or light sabers. Really, really powerful light sabers.

Bullfrogs can also sound like the tuba section in a middle school band. Or a beginning cello player.

If you have a mate that snores, the bullfrog may sound familiar—like that low growl from the throat that often precedes the full-fledged window-rattling snore.

Not that you wanted to know, but the difference between a green frog and a bullfrog is this: the green frog has a ridge that runs from the back of both eyes all along the rim of the back. The bullfrog has ridges, too, but they curve downward behind the eyes.

After listening to the bullfrogs in concert, the husband begins imitating them. Soon it is difficult to separate the legit from the impostor standing next to me. The frogs are calling back to him. He makes a good frog man. He’s had years of practice snoring.

The sun has dipped below the horizon and the light is quickly fading, but music of the last days of summer still dances through the night.

“Stop the show,” a grandkid says. “I have to use the bathroom.”

They are watching Jeopardy. I don’t know that they’ve ever seen Jeopardy but they are seeing it now and liking it, especially the 2-year old who seems taken with 17^th Century Monarchs.

“We can’t stop the show because this is television,” a grown-up explains.

We are at a house with a television without streaming capabilities.

“Can you rewind it when I get back?”

“We can’t rewind it when you get back. It’s plain old television.

The concept of plain old television where programs play whether the timing is convenient for you or not is foreign to these kids. They are the children of Netflix and Amazon Prime.

“Can we finish watching Jeopardy after dinner?” another asks.

“Jeopardy won’t be on after dinner,” I explain. “Wheel of Fortune with Pat Sajak and Vanna White will be on after dinner.”

“Wheel of what?”

Such poor, deprived children. “Fortune!” I snap. “Seven letters, three vowels!”

This is no help either.

The tekkies among us begin explaining the mechanics of old school television when something unbelievable happens. A commercial begins. There are no commercials on Netflix. This may be the first commercial some of them have ever seen – it is the equivalent of man seeing fire for the first time.

Instantly, the kids glue to the screen.

It is a commercial for Snackeez —“The all-in-one go anywhere snacking solution,” as though the ability to snack and go places at the same time is a problem in need of a solution. Somehow, I think we’ve got this one covered.

One of the kids excitedly asks if this is another television program.

“No, it’s a commercial.”

“A what?”

An explanation commences about how commercials are time segments companies buy to advertise their products in hopes that viewers will . . . it doesn’t matter. No one is listening.

The man in the commercial is filling brightly colored Snackeez containers with beverages, then topping them with little bowls filled with chips, chicken nuggets and fries, all your basic food groups. He then rolls them on the floor, tips them over and nothing spills.

“In the car! On the go! Perfect for parties!”

A cheer goes up from the crowd.

“But wait! It’s buy one, get one free.”

Another cheer goes up from the crowd!

“I want a Snackeez for my birthday!” a 5-year-old yells.

Their eyes grow bigger and bigger.

“But wait! There’s more! Buy two and get two free! But wait! Buy six and get six free.”

Dinner is ready, someone clicks off the television and kids head for the table shuffling their feet because the Snackeez guy was still talking. And still hawking.

These commercial-deprived children have learned something many of us have known for a long time.

Commercials are often the best entertainment on television.

 

We are still recovering from the birthday party of all birthday parties.

It was a child’s birthday party. There were no pony rides, hired clowns or professional party planners. It was the birthday girl who put it over the top, the one turning four at a full throttle.

We thought it was going to be the usual—a few presents, some candles on a sloping cake accompanied by an off-key round of “Happy Birthday,” followed by a sugar surge.

We were wrong.

The second we entered the house, her older sister whispered in my ear, “She’s been in trouble ever since she woke up. It’s been a rough morning.” When a five-year-old says it’s been a rough morning, you know it’s been a rough morning.

A flash of purple shot through the room. It was the birthday girl blasting up the stairs, down the stairs, rocketing out the front door and back in again. She hurdled her baby sister in a single bound and somersaulted across the floor, yelling, “It’s my happy birthday!”

I regretted not having a lid for my coffee. And a padded suit.

In post-party analysis, the husband says it was to be expected. She’d witnessed a string of birthdays for others all summer long. At each and every celebration she was front and center when it was time to blow out candles, her little face wedged beneath another kid’s armpit waiting and longing for when it would be her turn to be center stage.

Time after time, she watched as someone else opened the gifts and someone else blew out the candles. She’d bottled it, suppressed it, contained it, then she woke up, knew she was four and simply exploded like spring coils bursting open from a closed can.

They corralled her to open gifts, which is when the falling unicorns began. She loves unicorns. She opened a unicorn beach towel, shrieked with delight and threw it toward the ceiling.

She ripped open a large box containing a stuffed unicorn, squealed, and hurled it skyward. A unicorn nightgown was launched, followed by a unicorn headband.

“Heads up!” people yelled.

“Incoming unicorns!” others screamed.

Baby unicorns ricocheted off the ceiling.

“Somebody cut the ceiling fan!”

She bolted toward a straight back chair, climbed on top of it and began jumping up and down.

“Do you want to go to the ER on your birthday?” someone snapped.

Depends. Does the ER have unicorns?

She made a beeline to the table and stared at the candles on her unicorn cake. If intensity alone could have ignited them, they would have been shooting giant flames. She momentarily stood still while the candles were lit. Poof! The candles were out and she was off again with a jet stream trailing behind her.

We heard that Flash began sputtering around 7 that evening and was out soon after. It was such a memorable celebration we may start a family tradition of throwing gifts in the air.

____________________

There is a buy one, get one free sale on “What Happens at Grandma’s Stays at Grandma’s” for a few days. Why? Well, when my wonderful literary agent quit the business, I began self-publishing because it was easier than finding a new agent. The Grandma book did so well in my own limited launch that it has been picked up by a publishing house. (Yay!!! Wild cheering!!!) It will be released nationally (with a new cover) March 2021. Terms of the agreement require that I stop selling my self-published copies September 1. If you’re interested, click on the shop tab at the top. All copies personally signed. Free shipping. Orders must be placed by midnight Aug. 31.

 

A well-known love sonnet begins, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” The poet then goes on to express the height, and depth and breadth, molecular density and kilograms of her love. I may have made those last few up, but you get the idea.

Her love is eternal and exists everywhere.

In times of global pandemic and quarantine, love is expressed in material goods that are in high demand and short supply.

We were down to six coffee filters when the shutdown began. I looked in store after store and online to no avail. I mentioned we were down to three coffee filters, and not looking forward to a new routine of chronic headaches, when a neighbor offered us some of hers.How do I love thee? Let me count our new supply of coffee filters.

A friend could not find whole wheat flour anywhere. On the rare occasions when she bakes cookies, she uses whole wheat flour. She didn’t want cookies at that moment, but if we were locked down for ages and ages, she’d want cookies eventually.

She pulled into our driveway late one night after checking on her mother-in-law. Wearing a mask, gloves and having double sealed the whole wheat flour that had been in my freezer, I set the package on the driveway and quickly backed away. She sprang from her vehicle, swooped up the package and shot back into her car.

It was like a clandestine money drop in an action thriller movie.

How do I love thee? Handing off whole wheat flour at 9:30 at night.

Our daughter-in-law, and most of the nation, was not able to find yeast. It is still difficult to find. The world goes into quarantine and immediately starts baking bread. Yeast was at the top of her “Most Wanted” list. I had purchased a large jar of yeast shortly before the Covid-19 outbreak. I kept a few tablespoons for myself and gave her the bottle for Mother’s Day.

It took a global quarantine and interrupted supply chains, but I’m finally finding just the right gifts for special occasions.

Our daughter put out an all-points bulletin for a specific spray bathroom disinfectant cleaner that she has always used and cannot be found anywhere. She texted a picture of the bottle to family members so we can all look for it whenever we are out.

Her birthday is next week. I don’t want to give away any shopping secrets, but it pays to bend down and check bottom shelves that look empty. Let’s just say she’s going to love her birthday gift.

Years from now she can tell the story about how her mother loved her so much that she gave her disinfecting bathroom cleaner for her birthday.

How do I love thee? Let me count the sprays.

 

When our son, daughter-in-law and their five children moved in with us for a temporary stay, they brought five guitars, four banjos, two mandolins and a dulcimer along with them.

And five violins, although that’s not what they call them.

In their world – the world of folk music and bluegrass where fingers and bows dance like fireflies in the night air—a violin is called a fiddle.

Look at the 11-year-old who plays fiddle, call it a violin, and she will look like she has no idea what you mean. Then she may pick it up, play a few lively bars that sound like a steam train barreling down railroad tracks and sweetly say, “Did you mean the fiddle?”

There are few greater gifts than music in the home. I should qualify that as we once had a beginning violinist and two budding percussionists under our roof. What I meant to say is music that doesn’t hurt your ears or stand your hair on end is a gift in the home. Of course, every gift is a work in progress.

Round a corner at our place today and you may happen upon a kid having an online music lesson. Step out the backdoor late afternoon and their momma may be on a small bench plucking a tune on a banjo.

Our grandson is sitting on the front porch early one morning when I step outside and sit down in a chair. He strums a little of this and a little of that, looks at me and says, “What would you like to hear, Grandma?”

He says it with the confidence of a seasoned professional packing a vast repertoire in his fingertips, though he’s only been playing for two years. Confidence may exceed talent at present, but there’s no saying talent won’t win the race.

I mention a beautiful but sad song I’d heard him play a few days ago about a blue moon and a broken heart.

“Blue moon of Kentucky keep on shining
Shine on the one that’s gone and proved untrue”

He plays and sings with feeling even though he is only 9 and is far more interested in the dried snakeskin he found at the creek than a sweetheart who has proved untrue.

“Blue moon of Kentucky keep on shining
Shine on the one that’s gone and left me blue”

There’s a high note at the end of that line. He goes for it and comes real close. An unbridled lunge for a grand finish, at any age, is a thing of beauty.

The boy singing about heartbreak has dirt under his fingernails, 37 bug bites on his legs and sand between his toes. Somehow it all mixes together and sweetens the sound.

They are leaving soon. We will miss the chaos and laughter, squabbling and curiosity that makes us feel our age, as well as the music that crosses the barriers of time and distance, age and youth, plucking the strings of the human heart.