Yesterday morning, as Bill and I ate delicious apple turnovers just out of the oven, he asked me if I had any patriotic music on my playlists. I admitted that I did not. So we asked our faithful, yet oh-so-mostly-unhelpful Google Home, if she could play The Star Spangled Banner. She declined, as is usually her response, indicating she didn’t have that in her music library. The National Anthem? So I’m suspecting Communist ties. However, she did offer to play other patriotic music, and suddenly our house was filled with the sounds of Stars and Stripes Forever, followed by Anchors Aweigh, and then by the Marines’ Hymn.

And then she just stopped, apparently believing that we had heard about enough of patriotic music. Seems fishy, doesn’t it? She didn’t even play the Army song As the Caissons Go Rolling Along, and that was the branch of the military in which Bill served.

Anyway, when Stars and Stripes Forever came on, I will admit to you that I immediately started to cry real tears. I don’t find that song particularly moving, though it’s quite peppy. The reason I started to cry was that it immediately reminded me of Bill’s mother, who passed away in April. Wilma was a music lover, and when we would visit, she would often play one of her CDs on her little boom box. And the one she played most often was a free CD featuring patriotic music she received thanks to a contribution to some veteran’s group, led off by Stars and Stripes Forever. And she would play it loudly and would tap her feet in time to the music. And sometimes sing along. She had a sweet voice.

My dad served in the United States Navy during the later years of World War II.

Memorial Day, of course, is celebrated in honor of the men and women who died on battlefields to keep our country free. Originally called Decoration Day, I learned recently that it wasn’t declared a national holiday until 1971. Wow. Of course, I believe it was Google Home who told me that, and she could have just been trying to send me off course.

Every Memorial Day when we lived in Columbus, Mom would cut flowers from her yard and take them out to the cemetery, where she would arrange them on the grave sites of her mom and dad. Then we would troop over to the memorial garden where my dad’s mom and dad were laid to rest and do the same.

Every single Memorial Day that we have been in town, I have brought flowers to Dad’s and Mom’s grave site. One year we brought a patriotic wreath that Bill had made. I worried about that one, because it was made from artificial flowers, and Mom HATED artificial flowers. I expected her to haunt me all year. The fact that she thought Bill walked on water and he had made the wreath is probably all that protected me. It’s been fresh flowers every since.

Jen came for the barbecue I held yesterday, and she and I went out to the cemetery together. I never feel called to go more often than once a year, because it’s a national cemetery so it is always pristine, and I know Mom and Dad are in heaven. But I try to go once a year, mostly because the cemetery looks so pretty, what with the flags on all of the graves and all….

While both my dad and my husband served in the military, I am pleased that neither one of them lost their lives fighting for our country. Still, their service, and the service of everyone who has served or is currently serving, makes me proud to be an American.

So proud, in fact, that I baked this pie….

Happy Memorial Day!

This post linked go Grammy’s Grid.

When I was growing up in Columbus, there was a flower box on either side of the front steps of our family home, and another flower box that went the width of the living room picture window above the fitzer bushes. In the flower boxes on both sides of the front porch Mom put purple flox. In the window box beneath the picture window she put a variety of things. I remember that there were roses for a time, probably until she realized that roses were a pain. (Or maybe I’m externalizing my personal experience with roses.) But for many of the years we lived in that house, she planted geraniums in that box. Good ol’ red geraniums.

Our Columbus home many years after we moved away. The tree to the left was a linden tree when we lived there, and there wasn’t grass growing in the driveway or the sidewalk. In fact, there wasn’t even a sidewalk!

Even though the flower growing season in the mountain towns of Leadville and Dillon, Colorado, where they lived for the next 15 years or so, was short, she always had a pot or two of geraniums. Red geraniums.

And then when they finally really retired (instead of calling working an 8-hour day where you get a paycheck from someone else being retired) and moved to Fort Collins, there were always geraniums in the flower box next to the driveway. Red geraniums.

So it isn’t surprising that the one constant in my flower-growing experiences for the 37 years or so that I have been a home owner has been geraniums. Mostly red geraniums. Once in a while, when I’m at a garden store that offers a variety of geranium colors, I’m tempted. I have occasionally succombed. But in the end, my favorite geraniums are red.

I always, always — every single time — think of my mother when I plant my pots of geraniums. If they didn’t have geraniums in heaven before she arrived, I’m certain they do now. Mom could be quite convincing….

Have a great Memorial Day weekend.

For a lot of Court’s elementary school years, I was a single parent. If I sound like I’m whining, then shame on me. Because while there certainly are single parents who have a lot about which to whine, I wasn’t one of them. Court’s dad was involved in our lives even after we signed the divorce papers. We shared custody, and he was generous with his time and pocketbook.

What’s more, I was lucky enough to have a boss who believed in the importance of family. As such, I never had to miss a school performance or a teacher conference. I could take my son to doctor’s appointments without having to use my own personal paid time off. I could volunteer in the lunchroom.

Nevertheless, after working all day, coming home and preparing dinner, helping with homework, and (when he was still young) getting him ready for bed, including books and prayers, I was very tired and ready for bed myself.

And I only had one child. One.

So I look at people – even two-parent households — who have two or three or four kids (I simply won’t let myself think about more children than that), and can’t even imagine how they manage. Even if there are two parents, and even if one of the parents doesn’t work outside the home, the simple physics involved in getting each child to the place where they’re supposed to be seems nearly impossible and must involve a spreadsheet. How else do you keep it all organized?

People have asked me if I volunteer now that I’m retired. At first I would say no. And then it occurred to me that the correct answer is that yes, I volunteer – with my grandkids. It’s one of the things I miss most when we are in AZ for the winter. Because trite as it may sound, it really does take a village.

Since we’ve been back – we returned to Denver just over a week ago – I have been to a birthday party….

….watched a field day, kept 3-year-old Cole for a day while his mommy volunteered….

….cheered at Addie’s volleyball game….

….watched Kaiya’s bridging ceremony (during which she actually walked across a little wooden bridge in a park near her house symbolizing her move from being a Brownie to being a Junior Girl Scout)….

….and watched Addie perform magnificently in a play…..

All this in addition to my own doctor’s appointment, x-ray appointment, and eye doctor appointment.  No wonder my days sometimes seemed long in AZ. Whew.

The other day, all of the grandparents got an email from Jll early in the morning. Calling all grandparents, she said, though not in those exact words. Something had come up that required her attendance that evening, and each of the four kids had an activity. And none in the same place. Can anyone help, she wondered.

And everyone that could, did. Not only did I attend the volleyball game, but I was the ride home. Bill might have taken Alastair to his baseball game, but it was rained out. Grandma Lynne handled Dagny’s dive practice and Maggie Faith’s school concert.

Whew.

I assure you that I’m not complaining. I love every minute that I spend with my grands. Even time in a car. And while Cole is very busy, he’s also very funny. My grandkids all make me laugh, and it’s good to laugh. And thankfully, Cole wears himself out, as indicated by his falling asleep in a nontraditional spot under the coffee table in our living room….

So children, keep me on speed dial when in need of help. It will help keep me young. Now if I could just figure out a way to use Star Trek technology and get myself to VT to help with the grandkids there!

This post linked to the GRAND Social

There are a few smells in life that will pull in a person in from the back yard or rouse someone out of bed in the morning. Chocolate chip cookies in the oven. Marinara sauce simmering on the stove. Coffee brewing, or even better, a cup of coffee placed under your nose when you’re barely awake.

And one of these smells is that of bacon cooking. I remember waking up on Sunday morning when I was a small girl to the smell of Mom cooking bacon in the kitchen. Mom didn’t cook breakfast for us that often since she worked almost every day at the bakery. So Sunday morning bacon smells were special.

Bill said his mother made his father breakfast every day of their married life. And every day that breakfast consisted of bacon, eggs, and white toast. Rex probably was used to that from growing up on the North Carolina farm, although my guess is the white toast was biscuits when he was a child, North Carolina and all.

When Mom made bacon, she laid the slices of smoked meat in a skillet, let them cook a bit, turned them over, let them cook a bit, and then repeated until the bacon was cooked through and crispy. She laid them perfectly straight and in a row in a skillet.

All of her kids thought everything that Mom did in the kitchen was perfect, so it was with great surprise the first time I saw my brother cook bacon as an adult. Rather than laying it carefully in the skillet as I did in imitation of Mom, he simply tossed the entire pound of bacon in the skillet until it began to cook. At that point he separated the slices and continued cooking. Heresy. He’s lucky Mom always liked him best.

The first time I cooked breakfast for my mother-in-law Wilma, she watched carefully as I broke some eggs into a bowl. Before I could add any liquid, she casually asked, “Do you use water or milk for your scrambled eggs?”

Gulp. “Water?” I asked more than said. Ding ding ding. It was the right answer. Dodged that bullet.

When I first met Wilma, she cooked her bacon in a skillet like my mom. In her later years, however, she would cut each slice of bacon in half and place them on a paper towel; she would then cover the bacon with another paper towel and cook them in the microwave. The bacon always turned out perfectly.

My daughter-in-law Jll does the same thing. She always (or at least always when I’m there) cooks her bacon in the microwave and it always turns out perfectly. I have tried it my friends. It is safe to say that it has never – NEVER – turned out even close to right. Here’s what happens every single time: I lay the bacon on the paper towel and cover it with another paper towel. I set the timer for the correct amount of time (there is a formula for how many minutes to cook based on how many slices you’re cooking). I check the bacon and it is limp and undercooked. I cook it for another minute. I check it and it is undercooked. I cook it for another minute. I check it and it is undercooked. I cook it for another minute. I check it and it has disintegrated into a dust that formerly was known as bacon. Sigh.

So I continue to cut my bacon in half in imitation of Wilma and cook my bacon in a skillet in imitation of my mother.

Bill and I enjoy the bacon as part of our breakfast. And here’s my dirty little secret: One of my favorite ways to eat bacon is on buttered white toast. There’s something about the butter mixed with the bacon grease that is just good, if it isn’t healthy.

And, also like my mother, I cook my eggs in the bacon grease, breaking the yolk on one for Bill…..

And, while I’m not a huge breakfast eater, there is hardly anything better than bacon and eggs and white toast, just like Bill’s father ate every morning of his married life.