I was somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 years old when I could no longer ignore the advertisements for Art Instruction Schools in whatever magazines I perused. I knew in my heart-of-hearts that I had the chops to be accepted to that school and become a great artist. What’s more, I was certain I could get the scholarship that they dangled in front of my face.

So I did as the advertisement instructed. I drew Tippy the Turtle…..

Remember Tippy? I’m sure you do. Art Instruction Schools advertisements were ubiquitous. They were in children’s magazines and in any adult magazine that a child might pick up with curiousity. Maybe not Playboy, but certainly McCalls or Good Housekeeping. I think there were other options to draw, but Tippy spoke to me.

I got out a piece of paper and a pencil, and I carefully copied Tippy. I filled out the necessary paperwork, folded it up, found an envelope and a stamp, and put my drawing in the mail.

Perhaps you will recall the scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie watches the mail every day for his Orphan Annie secret decoder ring. Well, that was me. Every day I would sort through the mail, eagerly awaiting word on whether or not I had been accepted to this art school.

At long last, the eagerly-awaited correspondence arrived. Lo, and behold, I HAD BEEN ACCEPTED! It was disappointing to learn that I hadn’t received a scholarship, but it didn’t matter that much. Once Mom and Dad learned of the talent that their second-born child possessed, cost of the program wouldn’t matter. After all, Art Instruction Schools promised that there were jobs galore for those gifted few who qualified for their education.

Unfortunately, Mom didn’t quite see it the same way as I. And not being of the School of Gentle Childrearing that now exists for our grandkids, Mom said something like, “Don’t be ridiculous, Kris. Art Instruction School is nothing but a racket. Anyone who applies gets into their school and they charge a fortune for the art classes. And YOU DON’T HAVE TALENT.”

There went my art career. Not to mention my self esteem. Parents didn’t really worry about self esteem in those days. But dang it anyway.

The other evening, I was watching Kaiya, Mylee, and Cole for a few hours at their house. Cole came up to me, pencil and paper in hand, and asked, “Nana, can you draw me a horse?” My Art Instruction School acceptance immediately popped back in my head. I had another chance to display my artistic ability.

“I would be happy to, Cole,” I told him, Googling how to draw a horse even as I spoke. Here’s what came up…..

I can do this, I thought. I know I can. Here is what I drew…..

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what I drew, but it certainly wasn’t a horse. Look at the back left leg. What the hell is that? Look at all the legs, for that matter.

About this time, Mylee wandered into the room, and asked me what I was doing. I explained that I was drawing a horse for Cole. She peeked over my shoulder at my drawing. She was quiet as she studied the drawing. Here was her assessment, word-for-word: “It’s actually not too bad, Nana. But the head is a bit…..awkward.”

That was certainly nicer than what my mother would have said.

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it.
My hair.
I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy,
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty,
Oily, greasy, fleecy,
Shining, gleaming, streaming,
Flaxen, waxen,
Knotted, polka-dotted,
Twisted, beaded, braided,
Powdered, flowered, and confettied,
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied! – From the 1970s musical Hair, Gerome Ragni, James Ragni, James Rado, and Galt MacDermot

Every Sunday at 9 o’clock Mass, Bill and I sit behind the same family. It might be a Catholic thing, but in every Catholic church I’ve ever attended, people sit in the same spots every week. This is so true that whenever Bill and I attend Mass at an unfamiliar church, I always wonder just whose seats we are taking. Because I am certain there is someone giving me the evil eye from a few rows back because we’re in “their seats.”

One of the members of this family is a little girl who is maybe 2 years old. She has been an only child, but as the weeks have gone by, we have watched pregnant Mom get larger and larger. Tick tock.

Yesterday the family arrived uncharacteristically late. And the first thing I noticed is that the little girl’s hair was different. She always wears it with part of her hair pulled into little pony tails on each side. That’s the way she was wearing it yesterday, except that the pony tails were pretty loose and oddly close to her face, while the back of her hair didn’t appear to have been combed at all.

And then I noticed that Mom was no longer pregnant, and there was a baby seat occupied by a brand new baby. Brand new. This past week sometime. God bless those parents for venturing out to church.

But then I understood the little girl’s odd hairstyle: Dad had stepped in to do her hair while Mom did that thing that new moms do with teeny tiny new babies: tread water and try to survive.

This little girl is always pretty, well, let’s say busy. It doesn’t bother me a whit, and I completely understand why they don’t go to the Cry Room. Children have to learn to be good at Mass, and sitting up front is one way to keep them interested. Except that the only thing this little girl was interested in yesterday was flipping her head back and forth and up and down and spinning around because her pony tails were so loose. The loose pony tails were a barrel of fun to flip around. At one point, as Dad was holding her new little sister, she appeared to be preparing to plant a sweet kiss on the top of the baby’s head. Instead, she flung one of her pony tails in the baby’s face. Because why not?

It got me to thinking about dads and little girls’ hair. I remember when my brother was newly single and the father of two little girls with long blond hair. I assume he struggled for a while trying to keep the girls’ hair under control. By the time they came to visit the first time after his divorce, he had discovered a hair implement that involved wrapping it around the hair and then flipping the hair back through it. As I recall, their hair looked pretty darn cute. I assure you that it was the only hair style they ever wore when they were with their father.

Lack of hair knowledge is not limited to fathers, however. I gave birth to one child, and he was a boy. The only thing involved in managing his hair was getting it buzz cut once a month or so. So when I am responsible for the hair of any of my granddaughters — all of whom, I might add, have long hair — I am stumped. This is what they look like when their mothers do their hair….

It’s better now that they’re all older and can mostly take charge of their own hair, but man alive, when they were little, I discovered I was completely incapable to doing anything to their hair beyond basic low pony tails. And I’m afraid they looked pretty much like the little girl at church.

I learned recently that Mylee gave me away to her other grandmother. “Mylee told me that you aren’t good with hair because you only had a boy — her dad,” she said with a smile.

True story. But at least my granddaughters didn’t use their misguided pony tails as weapons. At least I don’t think so.

My almost 8-year-old great nephew Austin is a Big Time Chicago Cubs Fan. He’s learned it from his daddy, who grew up in Chicago and has loved the Chicago Cubs his whole life. You can imagine how excited they were a couple of years ago when the Cubs won the World Series. Here’s how excited he and his sister Lilly were…..

The other day, Austin and his dad Mark went to see the Chicago Cubs play the Arizona Diamondbacks. The two of them were rooting for the Cubs all the way. At some point a foul ball was hit by second baseman Ben Zorbrist, and it landed in Mark’s glove. Oh, the excitement! Oh, the joy! when his dad handed Austin — who, by the way, knows every word to the Go Cubs Go song — the ball…..

His happiness made me happy too.

Have a great weekend.

I’m Mo Bettah
Guess what? For a change, I remembered that today is Thursday, and Thursdays are the days I have some thoughts. Disregard Monday’s Thoughts. They weren’t that thoughtful.

Before and After
I promised that I would give an update on our new windows, and I can finally do that. The process started back in August, and while they got most of the windows completed in a few days, they “measured incorrectly” and it required them to reorder some of the windows. How do you “measure incorrectly” when your entire job is to measure windows? Anyhoo, they finally — FINALLY — came back Tuesday and finished up the last window. And so, here is the great unveiling, before and after…..

Doesn’t the big picture window in the living room look beautiful? We’re very pleased. Now for window coverings.

Oops
In the course of everything that has been happening this past month or so, Bill remembered last weekend (after driving his car to Fort Collins to celebrate Jen’s birthday) that he forgot to send in the necessary paperwork and payment to renew his car registration. He’s been an outlaw all of these weeks. Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? I’m happy to say that a quick visit to DMV and a $25 late fee later, and he’s back in business.

65 and I’m Alive
By the way, I did, in fact, accomplish what I hoped to accomplish the other day, and am now fully signed up for Medicare. A proud senior citizen helping drain the system of money. Hold the applause.

Bon Apetit
The morning of Allen and Emma’s reception, Bill and I stopped over at Dave and Jll’s house for breakfast. It was prepared by Master Chef Extraordinaire Alastair McLain. Despite the fact that he is only 13 years old, don’t envision our breakfast consisting of Apple Jacks and Pop Tarts. Nope. It was Eggs Benedict all the way…..

How many teenaged boys could prepare such a breakfast, with even the parsley and paprika flourishes? It was delicious. I should have known way back when that he would turn into an accomplished chef…..

Ciao!

It’s about this time every year that I start yearning for fall. Those are difficult words for me to write because autumn invariably leads to winter, and winter invariably leads to cold and snow, and cold and snow invariably leads to me being cranky. Well, crankiER.

Nevertheless, sometime about the middle of September, despite the cloying presence of All Things Pumpkin, I start wishing that the leaves would begin to change and the nights would be chilly enough to require use of my beloved comforter. This year, Mother Nature is not cooperating in the least. In fact, last Sunday’s home Bronco game was the hottest game day in the history of the franchise — a sweltering 92 degrees at kickoff.

In fact, the official first day of autumn is September 22, at which time there are exactly 12 hours of daytime and 12 hours of nighttime. According to timeanddate.com, however, the scientists are really kind of Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire. It has something to do with the fact that sunrise is considered the time that the sun just peeks above the horizon in the morning and sunset is when that last little bit of sun sinks behind the horizen at night. Apparently, this period of time takes longer than 12 hours. I wonder how mountains impact those definitions, but I don’t wonder enough to look it up.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a bit of a cold spell. The highs were only in the 60s, and the nights were plenty chilly. I kind of got my hopes up. Though I wasn’t foolish enough to drag my comforter out of the linen closet, I did put an afghan on my bed. I used it for a few nights, and it felt pretty good. In order for it to be bearable — even on those chillier nights — I did need to leave our bedroom windows open. Even so, it felt like fall was in the air.

I haven’t put that afghan back into the linen closet as of yet. I’m optimistic that the nights are going to cool down once again. It’s true that by time I crawl into my bed to read at about 9:30, the temperature is generally in the neighborhood of 79 degrees. Still, it doesn’t take long before the afghan is kicked on to the floor, even if it’s only been folded at our feet. And yet, it remains at the foot of my bed.

I checked the long-term forecast, and it appears that cooler days are not expected until sometime around September 25, just after the Fall Equinox. Hopefully by that time everyone’s pumpkin toothpaste is dried up and their pumpkin Cheerios boxes are empty.

As for me, I made chili last night. I got tired of waiting until the weather turned nippy. What’s more, my brother has given me blanket permission to make beef stew and chili and pot roast no matter the weather. “I never understand why people think they can only eat certain things in cold weather,” he told me. “Eat what you want when you want.”

And so I did…..

On my birthday in December, I will turn 65. That means I will be eligible for Medicare. How this happened, I don’t know. It was only a few years ago that I was 15 years old and Dad was encouraging me to come out from behind the refrigerator to face the young man who was taking me to the Freshman/Sophomore Hop. I remember what I was wearing: a black velvet miniskirt with a white high-necked lacy blouse and white lace tights with black patent leather (of course) shoes. I don’t, however, remember his name. He shouldn’t feel bad about that; I barely remember my grandkids’ names. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember mine either. Our relationship only lasted five hours.

There aren’t a ton of good things about turning 65 (beyond the fact that it is definitely better than the alternative). Medicare seems to be one of the few benefits. So is finally being eligible for the senior rate on light rail. The cost of a day pass will be $2.60 instead of $5.20. We seniors take whatever breaks we can get as we dine on our cat food.

Ever since the strains of Auld Lang Sine died down at 12:05 a.m. on January 1, 2018, I have been receiving mail from just about every existing financial institution begging me to get my Medicare Supplemental Insurance from them, them, them. I have tossed them all away, knowing that I would eventually need to make a decision, but that the decision would probably be supplemental care from my pension plan. PERA wasn’t quite as desperate as the others, and my information packet only came a couple of weeks ago. Their laise a faire attitude appealed to me.

For the past couple of weeks, however, I have vowed each morning that I would take a look at what I need to do to get registered for my Medicare Part B and get my supplemental insurance set in place. I know that when I finally tackle it, I will find that it is easy. Still, it involves numbers and decisions, two subjects that are on my THINGS MOST FEARED list.

Here is a list of things that I would prefer to do rather than researching and signing up for Medicare and my supplemental insurance:

Go geocaching…..

Take Cole out to lunch…..

Go for a hike with my sister…..

Go to a concert featuring Keith Urban…..

Make pies with Dagny…..

Celebrate Allen and Emma’s wedding with family…..

The list could go on and on. It’s been a good summer. Alas, the real world must catch up at some point, and today, my friends, is the day. By the end of this very day, I will join the ranks of baby boomers who are draining the system for our kids.

You’re welcome.

Now I need to arrange for my cataract surgery…..

Four Days Late
Bill has been on the pump now for a week. He’s doing great; I, however, am completely under water. I can’t seem to get organized. I’m such a mess, in fact, that I completely forgot about Thursday Thoughts this past Thursday. So, today you will find my Monday edition of Thursday Thoughts. See, I CAN have thoughts over the weekend.

Friday was my sister Jen’s birthday. We typically cook for one another on our respective birthdays. This year, however, we went out to eat Saturday night at a wonderful Italian restaurant in Fort Collins called RARE. I have no idea why all of the letters are capitalized, but I try to be cooperative, so I capitalize them too. We were joined by Jen’s son B.J., and we all had a wonderful time. We started out with the charcuterie plate…..

….and then had a fun selection of foods that we shared ranging from risotto to a delicious pork chop prepared with crispy polenta. Bill surprised us by secretly ordering a round of limoncello after dinner…..

Jen was the designated driver, and it was a good thing because MARTINI, WINE, and LIMONCELLO!

But There’s More
Oregano’s is an Italian pizza restaurant originating in AZ. In fact, up until recently, the restaurants were only in AZ. It is our favorite pizza in the Valley of the Sun. Recently, they opened up their first non-AZ restaurant in Fort Collins. Up until yesterday, they were only open in the evening. Bill had accepted the fact that he was not going to get a chance to eat there this visit to Ft. Collins. However, on a lark, he checked Sunday morning to see if they were opened for lunch, and we were thrilled to find that they opened at 11 — the first day of offering lunch since they opened. We dutifully went to church, gave thanks for all our blessings, and booked to Oregano’s. We were standing at the door when they opened…..

It’s Better to Be Lucky Than Good
The Broncos pulled a win out of their you-know-what yesterday afternoon against a conference rival — the Oakland Raiders. While the rivalry is not what it was in the good ol’ days of Mike Shanahan, it’s still sweet to come down on the winning side of the game. We led for exactly six second in the entire game. Luckily, they were the final six seconds. And Peeps, how Demaryius Thomas keeps his job is a complete mystery. He drops more balls than a professional bowler!

Scrub-a-Dub
My latest creation — soon to be offered on my Etsy page — are these adorable scrubbies. They’re colorful and 100 percent cotton, making them machine washable as well. I put a dozen or so in a cute basket and gave them to Jen for her birthday…..

Ciao!

I mentioned in one of my blog posts this past week that a bake sale was going to be held at Kaiya and Mylee’s school. The bake sale took place Thursday and yesterday, and appeared to be a rip-roaring success. The money will be used to help pay for a camping trip in Estes Park that the 5th graders take each year. You might recall that I donated cookies to the cause…..

Yesterday morning I drove to Willow Creek Elementary to patronize the bake sale. I bought a couple of goodies for Bill and me, and then sat back and waited for Kaiya and Mylee to arrive at school. About 7:50, I spotted Kaiya walking with a friend. She grinned when she saw me. I handed her a five dollar bill, and told her to spend it at the bake sale. She tucked it away for later.

I then wandered to the third grade classroom where the kids were waiting for the bell to ring. I greeted Mylee, and handed her a five dollar bill to be used for the bake sale. Well, money doesn’t burn a hole in Mylee’s pocket. There was no tucking away involved in HER five spot. She ran around to the other side of the school where the bake sale was taking place, and began shopping. Oh, the thought that went into her purchases. She finally decided on some chocolate chip cookies that were shaped like a heart and had initials piped in frosting on them. She looked and looked for an “M” but alas, there were no Ms to be seen. She made do with an “N.”

By the way, I lobbied hard for her to buy a bag of the cookies I made, but it was a no go. Not even slightly interested in a cookie with no chocolate.

After school I got a text message from their mother, who said Cole joined in the shopping spree after school. According to Alyx: Cole was so excited, he was shoveling things into his arms. We had to get a bag to hold everything.

Looks like he thought my cookies looked pretty darn good…..

Have a great weekend.