How Lucky Can One Person Be?

So, my brother and Jennifer were here for two days. We ate a lot of Thai food and spent some time with Charley Lauren, and went to the Bay Sox game with several of the local Northland College alumnae. Charles and Jennifer went to C.L.'s graduation on Friday night. Jennifer bought one of my paintings, and they left Saturday morning just after I headed out to the National Building Museum to take part in a workshop for a group of DC art teachers who are involved in a professional development program through American University and for which I am the external evaluator. I had a delightful time! The National Building Museum has all kinds of interesting exhibits and the one used in conjunction with this workshop focuses on the development of Washington as a city. It is called “Washington: Symbol and City” and you can learn more about it if you click on the Museum’s website: http://www.nbm.org

Saturday evening some friends of mine from Cleveland, Batya Weinbaum and her lovely daughter, Ola, arrived for a couple of days, just in time for dinner. It was a beautiful evening so we walked up to the Parthenon for dinner. Sat outside, split hot and cold appetizer platters, a Greek salad and two rice puddings. Sunday we three women made an outing to the National Museum for Women in the Arts. Among other interesting discoveries was a Russian painter none of us had heard of before, whose work was very sculptural, and a delightful installation called “The Library of Wadi Ben Dagh.” Here is the website of the Museum if you are interested in learning more and seeing a little of what is there. http://www.nmwa.org/

Yesterday Ola wasn’t feeling too well. So she rested while Batya and I walked up the street to do some errands and have coffee and lemonade at Bread and Chocolate. When we came home we ate lunch, left over pizza and calzone from Ledo’s, and then they packed up to hit the road again, on their way to Orlando for a National Women’s Studies Conference. In the mail, I received a lovely note and a check for the portrait of Michael. My friend Gina says that Michael looks at it and says, “Baby.” I love that!

This morning while driving to Curves, I was feeling very lucky to have so many wonderful people, family and friends, in my life. And very lucky to have found a new way to make some money that people appreciate and that I love to do. And very lucky to have a husband who, as Batya says, is “such a nice guy.” And very lucky…and very rich…and very lucky.


Staying Overnight at Grandma’s

Sinking into Auntie Glenda’s
Big old featherbed.
Peeing in the coffee can
Kept beneath the ‘stead;
Waking in the chilly
Country morning air
To hurry down the rickety
Closed in stair,
Huddle near the gas stove
While getting dressed.
Munching on the crunchy
Thickly crusted toast
Made with love by Grandma
From her yummy homemade bread
(County Fair Blue Ribbon-prize-winning)
Dripping butter and gooey
Homemade strawberry spread.
Or dunking it in coffee
Rich with ivory cream
Fresh from the Jerseys
(Grandpa just brought in
A warm frothing bucketful)
And sugared syrupy sweet.
Strips of bacon, big fat eggs,
(Fresh from the hens – “Go look for some later,
If you want”)
Both fried crisp
In lots and lots of bacon fat
In the big black iron skillet
On the big black iron stove.
Lusting after Auntie’s
Sacred paper dolls
Lovingly preserved from childhood.
Forbidden to me officially, but
Mine, now, really, cuz,
Who could deny me?
Cutting out McCall’s paper dolls
On the living room floor
Basking
In the splotch of sunshine
Coming through the double wide window
Over the couch.
And the sawmill by the tiny rill -
More like a drainage ditch, really -
The sweet smell of sawdust
Piled up like sand
Feels good on bare feet.
And churning butter.
Boy, it takes a long, long time -
Your arms ache with tired.

But everything is always
warm warm warm
and safe safe safe

Grandma in her apron
Always smiling,
So happy to see you.
And Grandpa, whose eyes
Really do twinkle,
Is a bit of a rascal,
Takes you for rides
In the truck
To visit the neighbors.
Sometimes he lets you “drive”
Sitting on his lap.

And one time when you are a teen-ager,
Feeling sorry for yourself,
He takes you on another one -
It’s been a long time –
To a house where all the people
Are living in one room
Because they have no heat.
The round table in the middle.
Is littered with empty jars, all licked clean.
The baby only has a diaper on – dirty –
And his bottle isn’t even a real baby bottle.
So you feel very, very sorry for these people.

But
It’s not until you grow
All the way up
That you realize how very, very lucky
You were.
You are.

P.E. Ortman