Bless This Normal Life, Amen

My Lord but it's been a child and baby-filled last four days. Kian and Riley

here Wednesday and spending the night, then Owen here a good deal of the time on Thursday, yesterday and today.
I am, quite frankly, exhausted. After his mama and daddy came and got him today I went to bed and slept for an hour and a half and am now drinking espresso and trying to wake up. We had a rain and it's not as hot as it was earlier but how hot was it you ask?
So hot that this is what Owen looked like after a walk to the Post Office which is about one block away if we lived in a city, which we don't.

The child wouldn't smile for love nor money. I don't think he could. He was just too hot.

But he did smile when we took him out to see his chickens. That boy and his chickens.

When he sees Elvis now, he wants me to set him down. I think he believes he can catch the rooster and pet him.
Not yet.
Maybe soon.
He's growing so fast, that boy. And every day it's something new. He's trying so hard to talk and he loves his books. He brings them to us and when we say, "Do you want me to read this to you?" he goes into his chortle-laugh meaning, oh yes. So very much.
I'll be happy when he likes a book with an actual plot to it.

My dear friend Aint Liz came over this afternoon with lunch fixings and we all had delicious salad and sushi and we shared mangos and feta cheese and tomatoes with the boy. He flirted with Liz and ran around and peek-a-boo'ed with his favorite scarf. We tried to take him out on the back porch to swing and chat but he wanted down and scampered all over and kept me busy taking leaves and various bugs and things from him before he ate them. We abandoned the idea pretty soon.
He showed Liz his Pop-Pop's deer heads.

It's always so great seeing Liz. I've know her since before Jessie was born and in fact, she was with me for that birth. That's a long time. She's raised two boys herself and I've written about her before. She's one of the remarkable women I am blessed to be friends with who never says no to the universe whether it's a paddling trip down a river or four-day festival. It's her house in town where Jessie lives and I couldn't be happier for Jess to live anywhere else. When Jessie asked her if she minded if she stayed for the summer, Liz said something like, "Oh honey. Just stay as long as you want. Stay until you have your first couple of kids."
And I'm pretty sure she means it.
There's always something happening at Liz's house. She throws parties with less fuss than I put on supper and has an extended family of friends that reaches from here to the moon as far as I can tell.
Speaking of Jessie, I spoke with her the other day and she sounds swoony. That's the only way I can put it. She's out in Colorado with Virgil and they're doing all those groovy Colorado things including biking and brewing beer and going to the Farmer's Market and camping. She's supposed to come home tomorrow and I sure hope she does.
If she loves this Virgil boy, then I will too but I am so afraid he might take her away from us and I cannot bear that. He's finishing up a PhD and she's got one more year of nursing school so there's going to be an enforced separation which is going to be hard.
Well, we shall see where it all leads but I pray in my heart that it all leads back to here. I'm a selfish mother, and possessive too. Grandmother, too, dammit, as I have come to learn, and when she starts having the babies....
Well. One can't project. One must be patient and see how things work out.

Anyway, we had a good visit with Liz and she went home to take a nap and then Lily and Jason came to claim their man-cub. Pop-Pop and I were sad to see him go but happy to see him with his mama and daddy. Such a fine little family they are.

Owen hugged and kissed them and then cried when he had to leave his chickens. Mr. Moon and I waved them good-bye in the driveway and I came in and passed out. I hear that Kathleen and her sister-in-law came by while I was asleep. I think it stormed, too, and I was as aware of one event as the other but I am so sorry to have missed Kathleen. It was sweet of them to let me sleep. I swear, even with cancer, Kathleen has more energy than I do. I am not the world's most energetic woman and I admit that.

And now Prairie Home Companion is on and I think I'm going go pick some hot peppers which are about the only things that have survived in the garden to this point and go see if there are any eggs to be found and then make some dinner. No. We are not having hot peppers and eggs although we could. I'm going to make grouper from the freezer and maybe an eggplant dish that Ms. Nancy C posted here this week that I can't get out of my head. I do have a few eggplant from the garden too and they need to be eaten.

And that's what's happening in Lloyd today. Nothing extremely funny or moving or inspirational but it's August and as Liz pointed out, we have 20 weeks of intolerably hot weather here every summer and we have just passed the half-way mark so really, what can you expect?

I just wanted to share. Maybe tomorrow I'll come up with a sermon or a song, a poem or a rant. In the meantime, this is what I have. Babies and friends and chickens. And a husband who is the best grandfather in the world and who changes his grandson and bathes him and kisses him and delights in him and reads him books without plots.

And oh yes! Owen has learned to clap his hands but he only does it while walking.

Yes. Big news. Or at least...ours.

I hope you are having a good, normal weekend too. I really do.