Handled With Care

 A certain awesomeness pervades a room filled with four generations of the same family. Guests, from the youngest (often the center of attention) to the oldest (often the most staid) seem to take on greater significance than they would have as single visitors.      

When my brand new grandson Patrick Lawrence visited my home for the first time last week, relatives (whose birth dates spanned from 1927 to 2011) greeted him. The age span of those of us seated around the dining room table was one month to 85 years.

More than a few times I overheard someone say, “I can remember when .  . ..," question, “Where does the time go?”  and declare, “It seems like only yesterday.”  Time seemed to stand still as Patrick was carefully placed into his Great-Grandmother’s arms, the matriarch and the infant sharing the distinction of the most fragile in the room.

The one-year-old at the get-together didn’t seem to mind no longer being “the youngest,” as she toddled from room to room, her Nonni following right behind. The child was too interested in knobs she had never turned and steps she had never climbed. My own memories of being one of the youngest in a gathering such as this have faded, but I can recall each of my nieces and nephews' welcome-to-the-family visits , along with, of course, my children’s. All but one of these took place over twenty years ago.

It was a member of the younger (as opposed to youngest) set  – Patrick’s mother’s cousin -  who asked, “And what is he to me?” No question as to who is an aunt and who is an uncle. Easy figuring out first cousins too. But Patrick’s family tie to his parents’ first cousins -- and then the first cousins' children -- is where the nomenclature starts to get tricky. Are they second cousins? Or third? Are they cousins once- or twice -  removed?

The toddler's Dad said “I don’t like that “removed” thing . What's  he being removed from?” I thought he had a point.

“I think he’s my second cousin,” another first cousin to Patrick’s Mom offered, before we all went back to ooohhing and aaahhing and passing Patrick from one eager pair of arms to the next. I'll have to look up the terminology. I've done it before - but it never sticks, In the meantime, "sweetest little cuz in the whole world" will do.

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All in a Day (One)

Some days usher in more lessons than others. The most-inspiring ones are pretty obvious, like sixteen days ago when my grandson Patrick arrived. Everyone in his extended family – from his great grandmother to his cousins to even my cousins’ children (which would make them his cousins twice removed) took pause that day, awestruck over the miracle of  life’s beginnings.

Some of us were reminded of life's ending too, especially remembering those who could not be with us for Patrick’s birth. I wonder what my very dear friend thought, after hearing I had just become a grandmother. Just a day or two earlier her father passed away on, believe it or not, the same day he was born . Just hours before his 90^th birthday party was about to begin.

There are days that speak in more subtle ways. For three of those days now, I’ve been nursing a pulled gluteus – of all muscles! This has made me a grumbler more than a wonderer. The malady has kept me from seeing my little grandson, making me a very unhappy cramper (one whose muscle is cramped :/).  I’ve had to relegate myself to the first floor of my home and, at night, to a recliner instead of a bed -  which would be even more uncomfortable to try to sleep in. (As if sleep were really a possibility in the recliner).

Though I had a difficult time last night, partly swigging water and two extra-strength Tylenol twice in twelve hours, partly in a tub of warm water, partly propped awkwardly atop a  heating pad, partly in the already mentioned recliner, and partly pacing the floors, which was more comfortable than reclining in the chair, you can imagine my surprise when mid-afternoon today, I began to feel just a bit better. Enough, that is, to reduce the painkillers down to one every four hours and feel as if I had reached a threshold of sorts.  The worst of this pain in the rear (and down my leg) was over. I’d be back to my routine and able to see Patrick in a day or so.

I began my celebration of sorts by starting to prepare chicken fingers for dinner. It felt so good having some interest in preparing a real meal again. (Cereal, yogurt, and bananas only go so far when you are convalescing). Egging, coating, and placing the breast tenders in a pan seemed as comforting as the meal it would provide.

I had just put the chicken in a small toaster oven when my daughter texted a four-tiered message to me from her home just 50 miles away - an answer to an earlier text from me , followed by some more attention-getting news.

 There was a storm brewing - and an unexpected day's lesson riding on its tail.

To read Part Two All in a Day post, click here.

Hansel and Gretel and Patrick

My hand holding the eggplant hybrid

I never grew Hansel eggplant until this year. Since my little garden is so limited, I thought I would try a miniature variety. After dainty purple flowers bloomed, the fruit came in looking like  dark purple grapes, then fingers, and now  an eggplant that thinks it’s a cucumber. I had a feeling this  variety was a real find  when I came upon it at Meadowview Farms  in Southwick, MA this spring.

According to one garden site , Hansels (Solanum melongena) tend to be less seedy and less bitter than the orb types. The fruits are ready to pick when finger size or about 3" long. They grow in clusters of 3-6 fruits and mature relatively early in about 55 days from transplanting.

Come to find out, just today, that there's a Gretel variety with the same characteristics, except that it's all white.

 I planted my single hill (made up of six seedlings) the first week in June and this weekend, the harvest is popping. What's really nice about eggplant Hansel is that if you don't get around to harvesting the fruits at 3" or 5" or 7"- as so often happens with me - they will remain tender and non-bitter up to about 10" in length. This was the right summer for such an amenable plant  - with my brand new grandson Patrick about an hour away (you knew I couldn't write a blog without mentioning him - didn't you?) and my writing directing me to Danbury CT a few days this week and Florida last month.

Haven't been as faithful to my little veggie patch as I would have liked to be. If my plants were babies, they'd be very cranky, with me not having been able to get myself into a gardening routine the last couple of months. Luckily, my daughter and son-in-law are better at infant parenting than I am at tending plants . Even though this is Em and Ry's  first stint, they've got Patrick  into a routine that rivals the phases of the moon. Nice going Mom and Pop.