*Walks in jauntily and lies down*
Good Morning Mr. Blog! My coffee hit my bloodstream faster today! Did you miss me?
Well I have been EVERYWHERE under the sun since last week!
Thursday I got ready to visit Auntie and it was Terry's day off and I asked him if he wouldn't mind washing my mini-van so auntie could ride around in a stylin' mini-van.
Well, not only did he go to the Kenmore Big Top Car Wash, he vacuumed it out spotless!
Now that is love in motion if I ever saw such a thing!
For twenty-five years I've tried to teach him to greet and retreat with a hug and kiss without success. I'm lucky to get a grunt out of that man!
In my next life, I am so going to marry an Italian man and this is what he will do and say,
"Oh Gretallia! My Love! *Hug, kiss, hug, pinch bottom gently* I missed you so my darling!"
So anyway, I jumped in my clean van and drove carefully through the stupidest design in engineering history. The exit/entry from I-405 to NE 8th in Bellevue. Whoever designed that should be shot! I rarely visit my auntie because of that one stupid spot in Bellevue.
But you know what? When auntie answered her door and I saw how frail and lame she is I nearly started bawling right then. I know she is only seventy-nine but the arthritis curse in our family has hit her legs, hips and spine. My poor little auntie!
And how dare they invent Viagra when my auntie is in pain!
Where is the cure for arthritis and cancer?! Stupid men.
So anyway, I asked her where I could take her to lunch and she said, "Ivars!"
I had no idea my favorite place was her favorite place.
We shuffled slowly to the van and she used her cane and my arm and I boosted her right in.
The Crossroads Ivars has the warmest, friendliest staff of any Ivars I have ever been to and
I've been eating at all of them for fifty years. Remind me to Google Ivars and make sure I haven't missed any will you Mr. Blog?
So the manager doted on Auntie like she was Heather Lockler or his mom or both!
They should like triple that guy's salary because I'm driving through that hair-raising interchange just to take auntie there again next month!
Oh my God Mr. Blog! You would not believe the clam chowder at that Ivars.
They musta' added a secret ingredient that day because it was super-creamtasty!
The fish and chips was not over-down and brown like at my old Bothell Ivars too.
I like my fish golden and if I see brown I can feel darn cranky but I'd never say anything
because when I worked at Wedgewood Dairy Queen in 1974 I had to make fish and chips and those deep fryers can be pretty tricky to watch when you have a grill full of burgers next to it.
When auntie went to the restroom, I bought a few sour-dough bread bowl of chowder for later.
We made our way across the street to the Crossroads QFC and it is a very pretty store.
I just trailed along with Auntie and she hung on her shopping cart and went off to find things on the list. I was tough seeing her shop frail. Every summer when I was on Cougar Mountain we'd come off the mountain to that Albertsons that was near that clover-leaf road thing.
People would see auntie with Care, Boo, me and baby Danny and ask her if they were all hers and she'd say proudly, "Yes they are, all except the brown-eyed one, she is my niece."
And I'd feel all special that I was the niece of Jean Cushman, probably the nicest woman God
ever made.
Anyway, we got the food and sat at the coffee spot and had some coffee. I was sad because all three pump-pots of regular coffee were empty. I didn't tell the lady because I have been on a serious campaign to mind my own beeswax for years now. So I ended up drinking some icky flavored coffee but auntie didn't seem to care so I decided I wouldn't care either!
We got back to her building and she saw some of her home-girls and guess what she said?
"This is my niece Gretchen. She came down to take me to lunch." And you know what?
I could here the pride in her voice just like when I was a little brat with her all summer.
When we got back to her tiny apartment we just cuddled up together, shoulder to shoulder
on her couch and had the world's best blab-a-thon.
We covered nearly the entire family and she reminded me that Grandma Louranna Black, from Virginia City Montana, was descended from the Muellers in Pennsylvania who became the Millers of Missouri and that was how Auntie Ann was able to get all of them in the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Well there was big excitement later when my cousin Elizabeth arrived!
Her son, Alex, is graduating from the University of Washington! She had been suit-shopping and auntie and I were excited about that. He got navy blue and charcoal pinstripes.
It was so romantic when Boo went to Mexico and met Jorge Gamboa and fell in love when she went to Morallia Michochan as an exchange student in college!
Man it is so awesome to be related to a Mexican person. They are so warm and friendly!
So they got married and bought a house in Bellevue and had Alejandro, or Alex for short.
And I'll tell you what Mr. Blog, he inherited ALL the best qualities of Boo and Jorge!
Warm and friendly like Boo, handsome like Jorge. And smart as the dickens!
That kid has it all! I hope I live long enough to visit him when he is the
US Ambassador to Mexico!!!
Well, Boo left and auntie insisted I sleep on her bed since she sleeps on her couch every night.
I was like sleeping on a giant marshmallow! I love, love, loved it!.
So my alarm goes off and six and I hear auntie in the kitchen.
I got dressed in my DECA judge suit and went in the kitchen,
and there was my tiny, frail auntie making herself instant coffee. And guess what she made me?
*Reaches for Kleenex box and begins to weep freely*
She made me a breakfast bag. She put a cherry yogurt from her food bank delivery in a small, thick royal blue plastic bag and handed it to me. I put on my brave face and hugged her
tenderly and kissed her soft cheek and told myself not to feel just then.
But I can feel now Mr. Blog. I miss my mom so much I can't even stand it!
Auntie Jean resembles and sounds like her just enough to kill me dead.
*Blows nose loudly for a long time*
I want my mommy. My mommy that put lunch in a sack for me every morning.
My mommy that married a drunken wife-beater and left him for our safety.
My mommy that was frowned upon because she got a divorce in 1958.
My mommy that made me boiled eggs and toast when I was sick.
My mommy that had to live in Holly Park housing project and put herself through secretarial school to get a job at juvie court and later the Supreme court as a court clerk.
My mommy that could type 90 WPM with 0 errors.
My mom that could hug and kiss and talk to me.
So, I left auntie's pad and cruised over to the Bellevue Hilton Hotel
and sat in the entryway and ate my yogurt and put on some make up.
I checked in for the DECA conference and got coffee and pound cake and sat with another woman. Soon we had ten amazing women from all the local businesses that sponsored the DECA conference. Microsoft, Pemco, and all the banks were there too.
I got to find out about their jobs and surprisingly, they were interested in my business.
I am often the only business owner at these types of affairs. Same with the trade shows.
They all are successful enough to send emissaries to represent their companies.
Well, now I know why very few people start businesses Mr. Blog, and guess why?
Because it is impossible.
So we got trained on how to judge the teenagers mock-up interviews, portfolios and resumes for a half hour and then we were split into conference rooms to rate the 600 teenagers.
I picked the food service industry because I like food.
The thirty teens we saw were so shockingly amazing that I was in awe of them.
I had a hard time concentrating with the girls because I was wishing I could adopt them.
I love my sons Mr. Blog, but there is NO sugar and spice at my house!
So when Melanie Troung, from Garfield high school finished presenting, I could barely form sentences to ask her the questions. Luckily my partner Larry, from PEMCO, had done hiring and was very smooth and I recovered enough to carry my load of questions.
Imagine having a daughter with a perfect 4.0 for three years, is in four school clubs, does volunteer work for five different organizations AND is on the Varsity tennis team!
*Holds up 10'x40' banner that says, "Vote Truong! in 2020!*
So I do believe she can win the nationals Mr. Blog and possibly the internationals too.
I just wish I had the $80.00 to go to the champion's luncheon next month.
All the kids were fantastic and I wrote copious notes about how wonderful they were all over their score sheets since they will get them back. Things like, "Warm, friendly, professional and I would hire ----- in a minute. Because I really would, they were all that good!
Well, I'm out of time Mr. Blog to write about my church women's retreat now so I'll tell you all about it tomorrow morning.
I have a million things to do today so I'd better run.
*Runs out*
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