Let the Games begin

The upcoming Summer Olympic time trials were fun to see on TV.  At least the ones we saw!  We are preparing for our own summer games.  Family!!

Our 4th of July felt strange this year and we were slow on the pick-up as to why.  It was just us.  Alone.  The girls and our daughter have been here for every 4th of July since the girls were 6 months old and they will be 16! in October.  Each year they don red/white/blue clothing and all sorts of doo-dads.  We go to the Toppenish parade.  The Toppenish rodeo for at least one event.  Firecrackers are purchased.  Mostly sparklers.  Special foods.  A white frosted sheet cake.  Decorated with raspberries and blueberries to form a flag.  Sometimes watching fireworks at Yakima fair grounds and sometimes at our local park.  Late night TV --watching the Boston Pops 4th of July special.

The sameness.  The routine.  All make memories that will be rewound and replayed throughout each of our lives.  Each memory is peppered with...Oh! That was the time that such and such happened.  or....that was the time that she said this or that.  

Even if the happening details slightly change each year, the fact that the event is done each year keeps it a force of power in our lives.

Time is fleeting.  The girls are aging.  Education and jobs will take more time and the freedom of doing what you want for an entire summer will fade but a core niche will remain.  Getting together and just enjoying every single minute of that precious time.  Long or limited.  Eternally valuable.

Today I'm thinking of my Grandmother Clark.  Today the memory I have of her is 2-fold.  One  is her plumping a feather bed and then taking her kitchen broom handle and carefully leveling that top until it looked taut as a board.  The other is her taking her rugs out and hanging them on the clothesline and beating them with a wire beater.  I remember it looked like scrolled long handled spatula.  She'd beat the dickens out of those couple of rugs after having shook them to pieces.  (In Alaska my Mother would lay her throw rugs flat on the hard ground and then sprinkle snow on them and sweep them over and over with her kitchen broom until the snow was no longer dirty but white).

why these thoughts?  I guess because I'm in nesting mode and readying for these chicks to come home to roost a bit.  The usual annual routine of readiness....all blankets hung on clothesline for airing out, fresh flowers, blueberries in fridge, fresh baked bread, lots of towels, books, tickets to theatre, calendar notes of where we will be going and those we will see.

And the last calendar note?  Their airline departure time.  And thus another memory will be created to be savored and enjoyed and relived, through pictures, to enhance our minds and verify that we really did experience such a wonderful summer time!