Monday, July 27, 2009

The Things I Do For My Grandchildren

 

Do you want to hear about my day? I know that you do. I know Lindy does. Lindy said at Facebook that she lives for the minutiae of my life, and I believe her, because Lindy ia a truth-teller. Here goes.

My grandson (or part of him) is pictured above, proudly wearing his T-shirt that his dad bought for him. He had the persistent ear infection that I mentioned in my prayer request. Thanks be to God, the ministrations of doctors, and the prayers of all of you, the infection is much better.

The doctor who treated him at urgent care on Friday night, told my son that he should see his pediatrician today, my first destination after I picked up my grandchildren at their house. My granddaughter, the little mother to her brother, made the doctor's appointment. I would have done it, but she wanted to do it herself. After his pediatrician pronounced his ear free of drainage and visible infection, the children wanted Blizzards. If there's anything I can't resist, it's a Blizzard. I don't need a Blizzard, but if I'm in Dairy Queen, I will have a Blizzard. We each had our Blizzard.

After we slurped our Blizzards, we came to my house for an hour until it was time for GS to go to his handwriting class. Then I was off to drop him at the handwriting class, which lasts an hour, and then on to my son's house, which is nearer to the location of the handwriting class. After about 45 minutes, I left to pick up GS at his handwriting class, returned to his house, and waited there for my son to get home from work. Then I came home.

When I was much younger and had young children, I disliked running around and dropping children here and there and everywhere. That was NOT one of my favorite activities as a mother. It made me cranky. Now here I am approaching a quarter century the three quarter-century mark on this good earth, running around and dropping children off again. I don't know how or why, but I'm doing it with a good deal more grace than in my younger years. It was exhausting then, and it's exhausting now, but I do it, for the most part, with good humor. Isn't that amazing?

About my grandson's T-shirt - my husband and my sons are responsible hunters, and my grandson will likely join them when he is of age. I eat and enjoy what they kill on their hunts. I won't listen to complaints about hunting from any meat eaters. Vegetarians amongst my readers are free to complain. If you eat meat, I won't listen. At my house, the game is there, and I eat it and enjoy it. Eating game seems more humane to me than eating plastic-wrapped meat from the market.

19 comments:

  1. You know how I hate to be a bearer of bad news, but I'm afraid even I have sailed past the quarter-century mark. You would have been about a quarter-century old when I was born. Is that better?

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  2. KJ, I didn't want to make a liar out of you, so I fixed the mistake leaving the evidence of the original intact. I only look 25. Check out my avatar.

    Seriously, thank you. I will never forget this good deed of yours. Heh, heh.

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  3. Mimi,
    If someone handed me a duck I would certainly eat it.

    I think eating game is more honest than eating red meat in styrofoam.

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  4. As a former caribou and muskox hunter, and now an enthusiastic consumer of a good friend's bow-hunting game, I concur with all you have to say on the subject, Mimi!

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  5. My dad had a rule... "You shoot it, you gut it and you eat it." My brother did a rabbit once, and only once. For some reason deer do not bother him.

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  6. Amazingly, I got through the first 20 years of life in Texas without hunting. I think that's one of those things that we enjoy if our fathers did it, and their fathers before them. No such lineage in my family. Hunting was not one of my father's pleasures. Railroad memorabilia was his pleasure. My brother inherited that.
    However, I did grow up with guns (Texas remember). We went target and skeet shooting a lot when I was a kid. I was a terrible shot.

    Another thing that's hard to find in New York, Dairy Queen. I'm not supposed to have ice cream anymore, but I did break down once this summer and bought a cone from one of the local Italian places. I'll probably do it again.

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  7. So refreshing to hear the voice of blessed reason and the humaneness of responsible hunting!

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  8. My mantra as I roam the grocery store aisles (mostly for cat food) is "food does not come in packaging." It comes in peels, skins, rinds, husks, shells, etc., etc. I do not hunt myself but have friends who do and a big chest freezer which they are welcome to use for a share of their meat. I once helped a friend butcher a deer and it was most enlightening. He is a Physicians Assistant by trade and so gave a running anatomy lesson as we worked.

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  9. I don't hunt, and I don't help dress the game. I almost lost it dissecting the frog in biology class. I should be a vegetarian, because I don't like killing living creatures, but if game is available, I feel better about eating it than commercially processed meat, because at least the birds and animals flew or ran free up until they were killed.

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  10. Mimi, I do like game. My father and grandfathers were both hunters. I even went hunting once and bagged a pheasant, which was quite good, though full of buck shot. That was my one and only try at hunting, which I prefer to leave to others. Last winter I was given some moose meat, which was wonderful. My daughter is a vegetarian, but her husband loves meat. She cooks meat for him and when my daughter visits, I cook vegetarian for her. It all works out.

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  11. Ah, pheasant. I've only had the pleasure of dining on pheasant a couple of times, but it tasted like food from heaven. I've had moose, too, and I liked it, but it came from the market, because we don't have them around here.

    Amelia, about the avatar, thank you. I've had several emails telling me to ditch the drawing and go back to my photo, because I look much better in the photo. I wonder if those dear friends understand what a caricature is. I like the drawing. In fact, I'm quite flattered by what Adrian made of me, and the version with Prior Aelred will probably end up in a permanent spot on my blog page.

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  12. I like the drawing.

    I'd keep it. Adrian is quickly becoming the Al Hirschfeld of Anglicanism.

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  13. So, it doesn't make you look glamorous like a portrait by John Singer Sargent. It doesn't insult you either like a portrait by Lucian Freud.

    And it's definitely more interesting than a photo or a celebrity portrait by Warhol.

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  14. Counterlight, thanks for your support. I was thinking Max Beerbohm, myself, but then, I'm a lot older than you.

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  15. Counterlight,

    I too, for health reasons, have had to give up REAL ice cream. It's a bit of a downer, though my dietary changes have paid off. So, when I do ice cream, I just make sure that I do it right. Very, very right.

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  16. "I don't know how or why, but I'm doing it with a good deal more grace than in my younger years."

    Don't deny, Mimi, that you are growing in grace. Accept it.

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  17. Paul, I blush. Am I growing in wisdom, too? I hope so. There have to be consolations to growing old.

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