Memorial For My Auntie Jean Williams Cushman (mummy's big sis) 1930-2016

I spilled out of the car with my mom and sisters as my Auntie Jean
and Uncle Frank  came out to the driveway.
Their big white fluffy dog Ricky was barking
and the little beagle puppy Moochie was yapping too.
Uncle Frank was a tall, dark-hard handsome man and
Auntie Jean looked just like my mom only with blond curly hair and glasses.
She was showing my mom something in her arms called, "Elizabeth"
and they were laughing and my sisters were laughing
and the dogs were going crazy.
My Auntie Jean smiled at me and said,
"Go find your cousin Carolyn. She's in the meadow right there."
I walked down the sloping grass into the meadow and
called out, "Care, Care, Care!"  The grass was taller than me but I kept going
and calling although I didn't remember Carolyn.
Then she popped out at me. My exact same size.
She was beautiful. She had light brown hair and bright blue eyes
and I had light blond hair and dark brown eyes.
She smiled and I smiled and we began an
instant cousin friendship which made the next ten summers heaven.
She was a genius. Care could plan a day of endless adventures
with the blink of an eye.
When Elizabeth turned three she came with us.
We called her Boo because of Boo Boo Bear from Yogi Bear cartoons.
Here is a partial list of our adventures on the
top of Cougar Mountain from 1959 to 1969:

1. Climbing trees
2. Catching frogs, snakes, snails and slugs
3. Hiking all over the forest to the abandoned coal mines
4. Riding her horse Ajax and mean pony Jessy
5. Building teepees on the creek
6. Damming the other creek to make a lake
7. Picking and eating endless blackberries, huckleberries and salmon berries
8. Watching an anthill tall as us

My Auntie Jean was a brilliant fun-planner too. I got to take swimming lessons in Lake Sammamish, go along when my cousins took horse riding lessons on Tiger Mountain, and they took me along to Orcas Island. When my aunt bought Care and Boo cowboy boots in 1963, she bought ME some. The thing I remember most about Auntie Jean is that she was always kind to me. She was never mean to me once in my entire life.  She loved how I loved vegetables and constantly said, "Gretchie likes beans, peas, spinach....why don't you try some?"  Care, Boo and Dan ALL hated vegetables.
       In 2006, after my mom died, I was at my Auntie's apartment having lunch and coffee and she said, "When I die, I hope you kids toss my ashes off the back of a ferry boat." She was laughing so I thought she was joking.  But in a few hours, Boo and I will get on the Seattle ferry to Bainbridge Island with our families and do exactly that.

6/12/2012 The Last First Day of School Picture

I checked my camera to make sure the batteries were good and the new chip was installed. I took out Troy's little School Days Book I had bought when he started kindergarten. It now bulges with thirteen years of report cards tucked neatly into the pouches along with class pictures, scout certificates, sport pictures, choir programs and other miscellaneous stuff I tucked in. Movie ticket stubs when I remembered to save them including from the time I took his seventh grade scout patrol to see Will Smith in that scary movie, I Am Legend, where people turned into bat-like creatures. I screamed like crazy and he never went to a movie with me again after that. As I leafed through the pages, I paused at his first grade picture. He is wearing a tiny sport coat and tie and his eyes are in a huge bug-eye position. I remember when he came home with his first grade picture. His eyes were closed. Two weeks later we got a picture retake notice and went into the bathroom so he could look in the full length mirror and practice keeping his eyes open. He opened them so wide that he looked like he'd seen a ghost. We laughed and laughed and laughed. As he went out the door to the school bus with his dad, I called out to him, "Don't forget to keep your eyes open!" He turned and opened his eyes as wide as they could go and yelled back, "Like this mommy?!" He knew I would laugh and was rewarded appropriately. As I look at his little School Days Book, I always turn to that page. His first grade picture with that frozen startled expression. I can still hear his voice. "Like this mommy?!"

The Day the Comb Binder Gods Smiled

I froze like a deer in the headlights. I had offered to help the student teacher with anything she might need done and of course it had to be the one thing I hadn't done for five years. Every school has one. The dreaded comb binder machine. Any PTA volunteer will tell you a good story of their first time around with a comb binder machine. It all starts innocently enough with young children making some super-cute artwork. Then, a teacher or parent decides that all the cute artwork needs to be saved for posterity in the form of a book. My first time binding was as a room mother in Nancy Bacon's kindergarten class. She wanted the best classwork and art work for each child for the entire year compiled into an over-sized comb bound book. Unfortunately for me, little kids are oftentimes overgenerous with their finger-paint, which makes the paper bubble and warp as it dries. So, I punched all the tiny rectangular holes into the crazily wavy thick papers with the comb binder and nervously started the covers. Then, the fateful moment came. Would the covers fit over the warped pages? Would the binding machine work? Beads of sweat popped out on my brow as I fitted all the papers onto the tiny metal teeth. I finished the first book. It was fine. No masterpiece of binding, but not terrible either. I released my breath and finished the books. After the first book, I was a comb binding machine and really got in a groove and enjoyed it. Somewhere in my attic, inside a plastic box with a tight-fitting lid, is that book of Troy's from 2000, nestled under years of subsequent work. He graduates from high school this year and his box will be waiting for him to buy a home and then it will finally be moved and looked at for the first time since that fateful day when the Comb Binder Gods Smiled.

9/1/2011 The First Day of School for Troy and Teddy

Hi Mr. Blog,
Everyone got up and out for the first day of school.
I still can't believe Troy is a senior in high school.
Seems like I just cranked him out a minute ago!
And Teddy.
Oh my God that little rascal towers over me
at six feet tall.
He is in ninth grade at Kenmore Junior High
but they moved the foreign language program
to the high school so they go up there for
their first period classes and then bussed down
to the junior high.
Probably fun for the kids.
Sound tiring to me!
So, Troy DROVE his baby brother to school!
That cutes me out something fierce
to have them driving to school together.
Seems like two seconds ago they were in
kindergarten and second grade
standing on our front porch for their
first day of school pictures.
They were so tiny that our 7801 house number was
a foot over their dear little heads.
Now it is at their waist level.
Funny funny as Brenda would say.
I haven't seen Troy yet to find out if he
likes his schedule for his last year
at high school.
I just hope he has all the required classes taken.
When I picked up Teddy to drive the football pool
from Kenmore Junior High the parking lot scene
was a big fiasco.
More construction up there as usual.
He was busy putting his pads in his football pants
and didn't want to talk about
his first day of school anyway.
It was one of those end of summer sunny days
with the nip skippy air that makes you
see your breath.
Michelle Moyes came out for lunch and said
it was down to forty-seven degrees this morning.
Brrr.
So, Troy is finishing high school this year.
And on to bigger and better things.
Hopefully including moving out
since he is so darn contrary.
Little rascal was born
marching to the beat of his own drummer
that's for sure!

8/31/2011 The Little Girl That Got Locked Out

Hi Mr. Blog,
The black hole of jobless depression
has swallowed me whole.
So, I'm thinking about a little girl
that I ran into at the football luau.
Only she is not so little anymore.
Almost tall as me.
They moved away last year to
a different part of Kenmore.
So, how do I know her?
She is the little sister of a football player
that Teddy is playing football with.
For five years,
when she got locked out,
she came to my house.
She knew me because I had been
her substitute teacher.
She was just a little scrap of a thing
the first time she got locked out.
Thin little blond with
a frightened look on her face
with no where to go.
I called her mom and told her where she was.
Single working mom, like what I had.
Then I gave her a snack
and had her get out her
homework
and sit at my dining room table
and tell me whatever was
on her little mind.
I pretended she was my daughter
because you know what Mr. Blog?
Little girls ARE sugar and spice
and everything nice.
So, after she finished her homework
we'd sit on the couch and watch TV.
Those young people shows
like "The Suite Life of Josh and Zack"
or "Hannah Montana."
Then around six her mom would get home
and she'd go home.

8/27/2011 The Inglemoor High School Football Team Luau

Hi Mr. Blog,
Boy am I tired.
Big day yesterday.
First I face painted for the delightful
Stacy Denuski at Kenmore Fun Day
and then I worked the Luau up at the high school.
I love being a follower and not a leader sometimes!
Working at the Inglemoor High School Luau last night was so fun!
I mostly made punch by the vat with a 3' wire whip.
I can't believe Dianna Tupou and Traci Edlin MADE food for 650 people!
They are like the dynamic duo of Kenmore for sure!
They even trained some of the football players to dance the hula.
Teddy nearly had eye-strain seeing the hula dancing IHS cheerleaders.
The football players had to serve the food and they kept coming to the kitchen for carts of food to serve. Turns out lots of the juniors were in Jake Comb's fifth grade class when I was her long term sub six years ago and I knew them all. Only now they are all six feet tall! They were the food delivery team and I let them eat the broken pieces of cake and they were so happy. The team had to eat last so when the cook and I wheeled out the last giant cake cart, we nearly got mobbed trying to roll through the team to the food tables! Those football players sure put down the chow! I was glad Troy came up with Terry since he was in kindergarten with Niko Tupou and Quinn Edlin and knows most of the team. I'm so happy it was a sunny day and about the most gorgeous evening that God ever made.

6/16/2011 Football Mom or The Motherhood Payscale Stinks

Hi Mr. Blog,
I woke up thinking that
the pay-scale for motherhood stinks.
I have shopping, cooking and then
Teddy's first football game.
Something called a scrimmage.
I'm guessing it is like scrabble
only on your feet with a ball.
I've never been a football fan
because it is too violent for me,
but I'd better get over that by five
since I'm taking him up to Pop Keeney
field to get possibly
maimed for life or
killed.
Just gotta do what a mom's gotta do.