Reading: nope

Moving: playing with a four-year-old

Listening: bad Connecticut radio

Learning: what an elderberry bush looks like

20 October 2000: 'Nother wedding, day before

At 9:15 after fetching RDC some continental breakfast, I scampered away and probably would have made it to Madison by 10:15 except I kind of had to go to the beach. Exiting at Rocky Neck SP and cruising along Shore Road certainly didn't get me eastward as quickly as I-95 would have, but I only visited the beach briefly, kissed my salt-watered fingers to the sun in what has become my ritual greeting of ocean, waded a tiny bit with my dress held over my knees, picked up a few rocks and shells, and dashed back to the car not crying too very much.

I hadn't asked my mother for directions to the nursing home. When I called the day before to ensure that Granny wouldn't have a doctor's appointment or some other obligation, I hadn't asked the attendant. But I had followed my mother there once back in July, so I found the place without incident. When I named myself at the desk, the attendant said that Granny'd been waiting for me, so I ran.

My sister asked me yesterday (Monday the 23rd; I'm writing this the 24th) how Granny was. CLH has not been home since Christmas, I think, and I know she hasn't visited Granny since she entered the place. I didn't know what to tell her anymore than I can write anything now. My grandmother is in a nursing home and she'll never get out.

Unless I take her out. I asked if she'd like to go outside, since it was such a lovely day. She said she'd like to and couldn't remember the last time she'd been outside. A nice woman named Joanne found her fleece jacket and glasses for her, and put on the jacket a lot more gently and efficiently than I could ever manage, and I wheeled her outside. On the coast, the trees are several days behind the very northeastern corner of Connecticut where the wedding would be, and I gathered some red leaves for her. She told me the name of the resident house cat who was walking by, and said there were kittens somewhere too. I showed her pictures from TJZ's wedding, and she admired the beauty of the Zs, TJZ's happy smile, and the leaves, and she asked where RDC was in some photographs that he took. This reassured me about her eyesight. By "out," therefore, I just mean outside. I do not mean "an outing."

Living 2000 miles away, I have visited her twice in the six months she's been there; CLH has never been; and I'm not sure how often my mother sees her. My old boss at Millstone visited his mother every day, but her facility was across the street from the station. CLH says she can't handle it. I couldn't handle much. I spent an hour with her and left to see my mother.

When I blew my mother off last weekend, I had asked if she could spend Friday with me this time, but she is working more hours and less flexible ones than I knew. She had 30 minutes for her lunch and couldn't leave site either--which was just as well, since driving anywhere would have been, I would learn, a waste of time. I didn't know exactly where her office was either, though I knew which short street it was on. It's got nothing but medical offices along it, though, so knowing the street maybe wouldn't've been much of a help. And I never remember what her car looks like either--some big Murkan boat that's not an Omni anymore. I thought I remembered the make and the color, at least, so I parked and scoped the parking lots. The contents of the car I thought was hers confirmed it as hers, which meant she probably worked in this building, and then I knew it was this-practice not a that-practice, and when I walked into the waiting room she had just come out to check for me, and there I was, ten minutes early. Whew.

We sat at a picnic table just outside and she ate and I didn't. She had brought stuff for me but I was way too stressy to eat. She liked her BJWL-object, which pleased me. She asked why I had given her a present and I answered promptly, "Guilt." "I didn't make you feel guilty, did I?" she asked, an actual question, and I told her an actual honest answer, no, but I did break my word. She liked the pictures and agreed that ZBD is the most gorgeous child ever (a response I'll browbeat out of anyone who doesn't tender it voluntarily) and, predictably, asked how seeing her couldn't make me want the same. I couldn't possibly produce one that nice, I told her; she disagreed. But then, happily, she let that worn-out subject drop.

I had had it in my head that she and BDL were going away this weekend, which is why I asked to see her Friday instead of Saturday before the wedding. But they were not going away and she could come up to spend the morning with me. So that was good. Then her lunch period was over and 1:00 wouldn't happen for a while so I snuck in a visit to Phoebe. The desk volunteer looked familiar but I didn't ask her name. I breathed in the geneaology room, which smells like a combination of its previous life as part of the reference room and the dusty upstairs room where the collection was previously stored. I greeted the portrait of Phoebe Griffen Noyes over the fireplace in the reading room and smiled, still, to see its background.

We had always thought that she had been painted against a plain dark background but then sometime during my college years, the uncleaned chimney burped and my library got a cleaning the likes of which she hadn't had in many decades. Phoebe's portrait was professionally cleaned, and lo! the background is a wainscotted wall.

The biography room no longer exists, which is the only part of Phoebe's expansion that I regret. Sitting up on the waist-high shelf in the corner behind the open door, in a triangle of safety, quiet, and solitude--even now, when I'm upset, that's one of the Quiet Places I put myself into to calm down. I also miss the children's room with its periwinkle blue paint and window shades with apple trees on them, the alcoves with their window seats, but I don't regret its passing--the new children's room is bright and airy and still has a window seat.

So then it was nearly 1:00 and I went off to my treat of the day, my reward, to see someone I haven't seen for five years, since before we moved, the one person whom I didn't invite to my wedding that I really regret abiding my mother's strictures about. My high school librarian, LMB. My girls' mother was my first mother-surrogate, and LMB was my second. She was my confidante and my friend throughout high school. Always always always when I returned to Old Lyme for Thanksgiving or Christmas or summer, but maybe not Thanksgiving since I generally wouldn't be home when school was open, I would go to the high school, to the library, to see LMB--and also to see my math teacher RCS. Unlike RCS, LMB has stayed in touch. She teaches, or takes, a painting class at one of the galleries, and there I met her. We embraced tightly and for a long time, and immediately giggled and commenced a marathon talk. We wandered over to the grounds of the Florence Griswold House and sat, LMB emulating Aunt Gardiner in Pride and Prejudice by not being a great walker, on its back porch, and talked and giggled some more. It was glorious--the talk, the trees, just seeing her.

I found a few elderberry bushes for my mother in the marshy bits between the gallery (or at least I thought I did and ate a berry to see, which freaked LMB out, but I was right so not to worry) and the museum and forgot what a sycamore is called and showed LMB the wedding pictures (which I doubted she'd be too interested in but were the only ones I had, and she was interested). She should have met the Charenton family five years ago at the wedding, and I told her her absence was the one thing I regetted about my wedding, since it meant she's still never met RDC. She said she had been there in spirit. (We had planned to do wedding visits, in the very old New English manner, after the wedding and before we moved, but RDC managed to break his collarbone four days after we got back from our honeymoon and so we didn't do any extra driving.) So anyway, looking at the pictures she asked the same thing my mother had, about such lovely kids sparking a desire to spore myself. Nope, it really doesn't. In direct contrast to my own mother and probably because she isn't my own mother, she accepted that.

At 2:30 I turned into a pumpkin and left. At 3:15 I found RDC curled in the armchair, work long since forgotten, writing his toast. He wasn't sure he'd be able to get through it. We headed for Thompson in a little bit, later than originally planned because EJB and TEM had been already part of the way up before realizing they'd forgotten RDC's tux and having to turn back for it. Anyway, eventually we all, including tuxedos, found ourselves in Thompson at Lord Thompson Manor, and aside from the stupid name (it was built by a Mr. Gladfield in 1917), what a wonderful spot, website to the contrary. Also aside from I-395, which is clearly audible down a hill and through some woods. But lovely, really. The wedding party, or as many as would fit, were staying there and slowly assembled--the bride, both sets of parents, the bride's brother (with whom EJB roomed the night before), the groom's sister, and the matron of honor and her husband.

While the wedding party rehearsed, ABW showed up (by arrangement) with her sons, so I got to play with them, or at least with NKW. AEW wasn't impressed with me, or, in truth, with anything that woke him up. But he was at least ambulatory and therefore more interesting that the nipple-accessory he was last November, the first time I met him. NKW was much more fun, as is the nature of four-year-olds. We had a leaf fight and I ran around with him on my back and such. The sun was in its death throes and ABW realized she had only her sunglasses with her, so she motored off. She and KRW live very close by, in Putnam, so that probably worked out all right. I forgot to bring (from Dayville to Thompson) the books I had brought (from Denver to Dayville) for them, so I guess I have part of my Christmas shopping done.

After the rehearsal dinner, EJB and TEM gave their attendants gifts, and when RDC read EJB's card, he again said he wasn't sure if he'd make it through his toast. Rehearsal dinner was delicious, as would be all the meals we'd eat that weekend, as long as the weekend is defined as beginning Friday night. I didn't eat all day Friday and RDC's lunch from the Laurel Inn was about as provincial as he expected. The food was good, but the patrons were all ancient. A pair of women behind him were settling their bill to the penny, remembering who had the more expensive dessert, and deciding that if each woman left a 7.5% tip, that would total a 15% tip for the server. So RDC left 25%.