breakfast pie 12/10/00

It was grey and wet outside today, but it felt sunny from where I sat in the big chair in the living room.  Kayla and Nokia came by again for a pre-Christmas workshop.  I would tell you what they made, but their main project is going to be a present, so I better hush.  I can tell you that we had a merry late morning and early afternoon, the girls working away at the coffee table, yours truly holding court in the big chair, and Elsa running back and forth to the kitchen to keep her guests well supplied with pretzels and orange juice. 

Breakfast this morning included a piece of Acme's pumpkin pie.  I am persnickety about my pumpkin pie, but the Acme pie is generously spiced and the crust is short and dark.  Wonderful.  I was first introduced to pie as a  breakfast food by Mennonite friends of Papa's we visited when I was a young girl.  My eyes must have been as big as saucers when I first saw the breakfast spread - eggs and bacon and toast, as you would expect, but also other meats including lebanon bologna, and different types of pickles (several types of both sweet and sour), and various muffins and biscuits and jams and jellies, and my first helping of breakfast pie.   What a delight to discover it was not just for dessert.  I have been a fan of pie for breakfast ever since.

Doris Pendleton told a great story about breakfast pie.  Apparently, she and Phil were visiting in "Pennsylvania Dutch" country, staying with a Mennonite family.  The lady of the house asked Doris is she liked squash pie.  Being a direct Glenn lady, she said - politely - no, that squash pie was not to her liking.  The lady then asked Phil the same question.  Being the fine gentleman he was and not wanting to hurt the woman's feelings, he replied that yes, he was partial to squash pie.  He ended up eating his words, because she served Phil a generous slice of squash pie every morning at breakfast and, of course, being the fine gentleman he was and not wanting to  hurt the woman's feelings, he ate every bit - even though he disliked squash pie every bit, if not more, as much as Doris did.

How lovely to roll off to bed thinking of two delightful young ladies and two much missed friends.  

 Nite nite and God bless - Grammie Kay

A Guy's Gal 12/06/00

A reporter from the Inquirer called Elsa to do an article on her craft workshops. How exciting.  I enjoy them so much myself - whether it was the women coming by to work on the Freshmen boxes in the summer or the Childs' kinder toiling over the living room table on Christmas projects.  It was a shoo in to be a fun article. 

What the reporter is interested in is the "For Men Only" workshop scheduled for next Friday night.  Elsa thought it would be a nice opportunity for guys to make a handmade present for their gals - wife, sweetheart, mother, daughter, whoever.  No one has signed up for the 12/15 workshop.  I feel like getting down on the floor and kicking and screaming with disappointment. Hey, fellas, there is still time.   Get in touch with your creative, non-power tool self.   

Forget the article - Elsa's never gone into this for honor, glory and gain.  Instead, think of me - pining away for what I had hoped would be a couple hours of a male majority in the house. 

What a tidy segue into thinking about what a "guy's gal" I am.  I love being around men.  The Lockhart household very much revolved around Pete.   It is

what I miss about not seeing more of Peter ~ it is why I am delighted that he is

coming over tomorrow for a visit!  It is what made my heart do a leap reading a "Family Circus" cartoon that Mim cut out to send me - one of the children told the Grandma that she wanted her to live forever;  the Grandma replied she couldn't because she had a date with an angel.  That is how I feel about Pete. 

As I get ready for bed, I am having a high old time thinking about the men in

my life, of the roles they have and do play in my life - my sons, Peter,

Michael, and John;  my grandsons, Scott, Reynolds and Chad;  my nephews Bob,

Jack, Jim, Gil and David;  dear-to-my-heart men like Gareth Acton and David

Zeigler. 

Yes, I would have basked in an influx of men into the house on December 15,

but the spirit of these beloved men are with me always.   

What lovely thoughts see me off on my slumbers.   

Love - CyberGram

Medical Bulletin 12/04/14

John was an angel today.  I had to go to Holy Redeemer Hospital to have a chest x-ray and to my GP right afterward.  It was all very rush-rush - - my doctor was worried about my swollen legs (they look like they could belong to a full-back), shortness of breath and low energy.  He wanted that x-ray done and done right away.

My dear s-i-l did not grumble about having to leave his drawing board (he is deep into a 2nd assignment).  From the moment we left the house to when we came back, he gave me his total attention and loving care.  After we left Dr. Litt's - he diagnosed water around the lungs - John swung by the pharmacy to pick up my medication.  He fussed over me after we got home and made sure I was comfortable. 

The medication has me feeling better tonight.  I promise to take good care of myself, but I am ninety, after all.

When I got home, I called Elsa to let her know how it went.  She suggested I touch base with Peter and Mim (she had left Peter a message about my symptoms, but had not been able to connect with Mim).  I also got Peter's answering machine, but Mim picked up the phone and we had a good talk.   

She seemed very alarmed, which took me by surprise.  John and Elsa have gotten so familiar with my alarums and excursions, they take it all pretty much in loving stride.  In any case, she said she will call back tomorrow, which I look forward to.

My dear daughter-of-the-heart, Leslie Adams, called.  She is a nurse, so had some thoughts on my symptoms - - like Dr. Litt, they worried her.  As the Ausies would say, she is a "bonza" gal!.  

As I have said before, the fixtures and fittings are breaking down, but it is not cause for worry.  My life is touched with so much love and caring from so many people, every day is a new blessing.  

 Love to you all - Kay

Christmas Guru Workshop 12/03/00

What a delightful day.  Kayla and Nikiah Childs came to a "Christmas Guru"craft workshop this morning.  Elsa was dubbed the Christmas Guru by Leah Heinrichs Rose a couple years ago.  She certainly was this morning.

A special treat was having the girls dropped off at 11:00 a.m. by their grandmother, Mary Parker Grubb, who looks like a girl herself.  It is difficult to fully grasp that Mary is a grandmother.  I have known her since she was in high school and she is still beautifully young - it shimmers from her.  It was special to have a few moments to talk with her. 

Kayla and Nikiah are already dear to our hearts.  The two of them came to Elsa's Christmas craft workshops last year.   Elsa offers her workshops to any child, at no cost, and for the second year in a row, the only ones to nibble at her offer were these two delightful young ladies.

Because there were just the two girls and they were not baking (that will be the 12/17 workshop), Elsa worked on the coffee table in the living room, giving me a ringside seat.  She covered the coffee table with a giant piece of holiday wrapping paper, so it looked Christmasy as soon as you walked in. Today's workshop was on "angels."

It was a pleasure to watch Kayla, who is 9 and Nikiah, who I think is 7, watching as Elsa gave directions on making an angel from a plain paper plate.  Their eagerness to get started and in picking out color schemes and embellishments was something to behold.  They worked side by side but neither got in the other's way.  They respected each other's territory.  

 I was impressed again this year that each girl has a  strong sense of personal style.  After they were done with their angels, which were both gorgeous, they cut out and decorated butterfly ornaments and made tiny colorful cardboard heart boxes.  Those little heart boxes are amazing to me.

 

The rule of thumb at Elsa's workshops is that the children can do whatever they want As she said whenever one of the girls asked if they could add this embellishment or use that color, "You can do anything you want."  Another phrase you hear her use time and again is "Be bold!" 

Elsa played Christmas music, Kenneth Coy's "Seasonal Improvisations" and lots of Boston Pops.  The two hours flew by.  I enjoyed it all so much, I wore myself out and nodded off for a few moments right there in the big chair in the living room.

Robin and Amy picked them up.  It was wonderful to have an opportunity to get to talk to the two of them - I came to know Robin from when he was in Australia.  I got to know Amy as an adult (she was in Elsa's third class when she taught 6th grade, way back when) in a very unusual way that I will share with you sometime.   

We came to know Robin & Amy as a couple last winter, through Kayla and Nikiah.  I remember Robin last year asking Elsa why they had been so lucky as to have her put on three or four craft workshops for their daughters.  I still can hear her simple, unembellished reply, "They were the only ones that signed up."  

I am sorry for the children who did not leap at the chance last year or this, but am so very happy that Kayla and Nikiah did.  They - and their parents - have been blessings in our lives. 

A happy Grammie is heading up the wooden hill to bed, filled with happy thoughts of three generations dear to my heart.   

Love to all - Gocky