Sunday Selfie - Scrabble

My sister visited with her son this week. He had elbow surgery.  She lives in the Southwest. And when someone who lives in THE Southwest, is visiting someone who is a four hour drive from her Mom, well, that someone drives down with son in tow.

My nephew is a grown man of not yet 30, (I'm not sure how old he is). He works as a cook in a fine restaurant. He can talk knowledgeably and in depth about almost anything in the world and he has the darkest deepest brown eyes. He sports the rich red hair that his mother and several other of my siblings all have - red on the verge of auburn - and all of them have brown eyes of different shades.

His mother is a listener. I called her not long ago and when I got off the phone, my husband asked, "Did you let her talk at all?"

So, this listening sister, our mother, and I played Scrabble.

A cup of tea and the kind of easy chitchat that comes from knowing each other all of our lives was punctuated by the groans from a mix of vowels with no consonants and vice versa.  My listening sister worked on a yarn project. I repeated grand kid stories. Mom let us know about far flung relatives and friends.

We made words, big and small. The score never matters to me. I can never beat Heidi at Scrabble and Mom still holds her own. Seven letter words got applause and clever placement of the biggies (X, Z, Q) brought cheers regardless of who played them.

I missed the Hand and Foot tournament that happened at my Mom's house the next night. Another sister, a niece and another nephew showed up to play. Mom had two decks of cards to the Hand and Foot collection. The cousins talked about music and social media. My sisters shared photos of their pets. They don't have grandchildren - yet.

So, today, with the relatives from afar returned to northern lands and from there to the wilds of the Southwest, I walked over to Mom's and lost at Scrabble, yet again.

Someday, in the far future I hope, I will not be able to play games in my mother's dining room. But until then I plan to play as many games with as many members of my family as possible.

With every tile that we lay down, we spell the same word over and over again. That word is "Love".

Happy Birthday, Mom

I parted with a big bag of fresh picked green beans and a copy of The Soldier's Wife by Margaret LeRoy today as I gave them to my Mom for her 85th birthday.  My Mom is a Mom among Moms.  I think she might stand 5 feet tall if she throws her shoulders back.  I'm about 5'5".  One of my brothers is 6'5".  Every one of my Mom's kids is taller than she is and we all were by the time we were 14.  Tiny as she is, my Mom is a wonder. She is, hands down, the sweetest, happiest person I know, even after bringing nine children into the world, making a home for two Cuban teens, and a couple of foster babies.

The bunch of us got together and gave Mom a Kindle for her birthday.  It was Mariane's idea, but she was urged to action by Heidi and our sister-in-law, Gail.  Mom is thrilled with this new gadget.  She is an old hand at Skypeing, since the youngest of the clan lives in Japan with his wife and two sons.  So, even though she bothers her sons, daughters and grandchildren for help in getting things done, there is no moss growing on my Mom technology wise.  Her cell phone is even nicer than mine!

I didn't forget my Dad today.  I took him my ARC of Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff. I want to read the book myself but I got caught up in Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli which is a slimmer book and has gotten a lot of attention in the enewsletters I read.  I am quite taken by memoirs of people who are younger than I.  Hmmm, just wait til they get to be MY age - or better yet, my mother's age.  They'll have stories to tell then.

At Story FUSION, this past Spring, there was an opportunity for people to record their life stories on DVD.  I think we called it Life Stories.  I was too busy being a volunteer. to take advantage of it.  Next year, I think I'm going to drag my Mom and Dad into the booth and get some of their tales down.  My Dad's a willing raconteur. Telemarketers should know better than to call him, because he will ask them how they feel about religion or politics and before you know it 20 minutes have passed.  He got a call from the Republican party - of which he is a member - while I was there one day and after waiting ten minutes for him to get off the phone I just waved good-bye and left.  He was still giving that man a piece of his mind.  It's a wonder he has any pieces left the way he hands them out left and right.

My Mom on the other hand has trouble getting a word in edgewise.  But as they grow older she has been speaking up.  "Oh we've heard that story a dozen times," she tells my Dad, not that any of us expect that it will make any difference.  And she says it with a smile and he rarely takes offense.

I once went to a talk on How to Be Happy.  There were seven rules and the first one was:  Have Happy Parents.  I got that rule down pat.  Happy Birthday, Mom.  Here's hoping you get to have a bunch more.