My, How Time Gallops!

Where have the days and months gone, as this country and too many others descend into increasing violence, deceit and oppression.

On the home front, life with Ember continues to be both joyful and challenging. I’m as thrilled as ever that she’s here with me, and gratified she’s getting caught up academically and socially. As I’ve said, she’s resilient and adaptable, mostly happy and always bouncy. The hardest part is dealing with homework, but the meltdowns seem a bit less common while successful efforts have increased. It’s hard to believe the semester will end before too much longer. The plan is for her to go home for most of the summer and then come back to Albany for her last year of elementary school in the fall. That way she can keep getting the educational support the schools here provide, along with much greater Covid-safety than exists in virus-denying Chico. After that, I give her back.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying my good fortune. Having a kid under my roof again can be tiring sometimes for this nearly-68-year-old, but it also keeps me on my toes. Never a dull moment, and I’m always learning something. She’s excited at the prospect of fifth grade here and already has picked out a teacher she likes. “He’s funny and just gets me and knows what I’m feeling.” I’ll put in a request for him and see what happens.

Predictably, since January we’ve had our ups and downs. The first couple weeks were pretty much our usual love-fest:

Ginna: I love you, Ember.
Ember: I love you more.

As school began to get underway and I had to enforce bedtimes, the eating of healthy meals, homework-doing, screen-time restrictions and candy limitations, her attitude shifted a bit:

Ginna: I love you, Ember.
Ember: Oh, okay. Cool…I guess.

By the time we’d powered into February, she was totally over the novelty of Mama Ginna and her rules. Though I’m quite flexible usually, she can’t help but resenting authority sometimes:

Ginna: I love you, Ember.
Ember: [No reply.]

But lo and behold, over the past month we’ve cycled back to our former level of mutual affection. 

Ember: I love you, Ma-Gimma [what she called me before she could pronounce it].
Ginna: I love you more.

Like me, poor little thing has had significant dental work scheduled over the past months, including some extractions, but that’s almost finished and she’s been incredibly brave. She also endured a persistent ear infection and two antibiotic treatments. A number of times she’s been exposed in the classroom to Covid—last week it was her seat-mate—but so far we’ve been very lucky. I suppose eventually it’ll come for us, especially since the school district has lifted (foolishly, if you ask me) the mask mandate for students both indoors and out. But most kids are still wearing them, and there’s weekly pool-testing to catch any cases that pop up.

Here are some other things we’ve done since I last posted.

We sewed a snake (the pattern called it a “danger noodle”):

We went to the Oakland Zoo (it just ain’t right that they charge $50 for the experience):

We planted a flower garden that some kind of varmint invaded the very first night, tearing the Agribon cover and digging holes into the zillion dollars’ worth of soil and seeds:

After Em returned from a nice visit with her Chico family during her spring break, we went to another AirBnB, this one a farm in Pilot Hill where we slept in the loft above a barn. A very pregnant mare lived adjacent, and every time she saw us walk toward our lodging, she clomped over to her open stable door and gazed after us longingly as we progressed up the stairs.

We got to play with all kinds of animals, including the silliest-looking bovine I’ve ever seen.

Em was happy with the place until evening, when she noticed the Gold Rush-era cemetery 50 feet from our balcony. She was convinced we’d be seeing ghosts by nightfall, but then wondered if it might be a pet graveyard, in which case there was nothing to fear. It seemed wise to agree with her, and all was well.

She started piano lessons, just a block away.

Despite her mortal terror of murky bodies of water, she ventured out into the San Francisco Bay last weekend on a little sailboat at her preschool friend’s birthday party.

She can really make me laugh with her unexpected sense of humor. Moments ago she called me urgently from the kitchen. “Mama Ginna! There’s water running from the dishwasher!” I raced in, afraid at what I’d find, fearing another expensive repair. Instead:

“What made you think of that?” I asked after I’d stopped laughing, seeing the fleeing cans of sparkling water. “I just saw my sneakers on the shelf.” But of course; who wouldn’t think of that when looking at a pair of shelved shoes?

And her curiosity about the world inspires me. She’s always asking great questions whose answers I don’t know, generally about why stars and rocks and plants and animals and people are the way they are.

We had lots of fun last weekend. The Easter Bunny (of course Em’s too old for that nonsense) set up a treasure hunt that led her to a Slinky, a balsa glider plane, a tiny Swiss Army knife, and tons of candy.

My summer has already filled up with plans: a journey East with Lulu to see Small, two camping trips (one north, one south, wildfires permitting), two visits from Ember while she attends week-long summer day-camps, and possibly a late-August jaunt to the Yosemite High Country, my beloved old stomping ground that I haven’t seen in nearly 20 years, assuming it’s not burning by then. I’m glad I have all that stuff to look forward to.

In the meantime, I’ll try to check in here a little more often.

Before I sign off, I’d like to show you something. My sister Kate sent me an envelope filled with mysterious strips of paper, which I arranged here by date.

She’d found a huge stash of Dad’s old Dean Koontz books in her house in West Virginia, where my parents used to live. In every volume Dad had written his name (sometimes Ma’s joined his there) along with the date he’d finished reading it. Whoever Dean Koontz is, he’s as prolific a writer as my father was an obsessive documentarian.