Neebish Island 7 --Tying Grandma's Shoes

Santi and I sit on the boulder at the edge of the St. Mary's River for our morning meditation. He pulls up the moss and sticks it in his mouth as I am contemplating my intention for this Tuesday morning in late July.  On Neebish Island, little changes from day to day.  The winds blow hard from North to South down the river, the cedars slowly grow their globe shaped cones along their flat needle-based leaves, and the WSJ journal comes at 1:30PM.  My entire day would change if it came at 7AM.  Meditating on this boulder would be more difficult knowing that an update on the Detroit bankruptcy, was sitting, like an unwrapped Christmas present in the mailbox up the hill.  I pull the moss out of Santi's precious, little, seven-month-old mouth and walk along the shore to Grandma's.

I open the squeaky screen door of the back porch to find my mom making her morning Mountain Dew.  It slams behind me as I enter with Santi on my chest. Mom slept on the couch, upholstered by Great Grandma Maggie Lovejoy with a mallard duck print all night in case Grandma needed her.  Grandma isn't up yet.  Mom and I sit at the kitchen table to catch up.  

"Mom, let's make our drinks and sit in the rockers and talk as the ships pass by."

"Ok, but I will eat breakfast, I am just about done with my Mountain Dew.  First, I need to call and postpone my jury duty.  It is an honor and a responsibility to be a juror."

"I know Mom, especially after the Martin/Zimmerman debacle."

"I don't want to go to jail for failing to avoid jury duty."

"You won't have to go to jail, you just have to pay a $250 fine."  I know because I was recently served papers for the jury duty I missed when living abroad.

Mom walks out onto the screened in back porch while I show Santi the first 1000-foot ship of the day.  "Captain Mark Sellerman" is written in bright white letters on the navy blue hull. The ore boat is running empty. The entire hull looks like it is above the water.  Neighbor Stacy explained to me last night on our sunset row boat ride that the ships from China and Europe had brought invasive species and wiped out the local perch and bullhead schools of fish.  I, of course, would argue that the absence of fish is related to global warming, and since the World Book Encyclopedias are from 1994 I have no ammunition for my argument.  

(Note to self:  take high school Earth Science class on line.  It will be hard to keep my democratic leanings on Neebish island when I retire in a few years and have to defend the minority point of view at Euchre on Wednesday nights at the community center)

Mom re-enters.  "I am rescheduled for September 17th.  I will be babysitting then but I have never had the honor of serving on a jury and I think it is my duty given my intelligence."

"Absoultely, you know half the jurors thought Zimmerman was guilty when they entered the deliberations.  Even the WSJ is reporting that the family can sue for significant civil damages, because the threshold for conviction in a criminal case is that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (85%), versus when you sue for civil damages the threshold for guilt is only 51%.  This could be important to remember for your jury duty Mom."

"Amy, when Stacy and his son took you guys for the boat ride last night you sure gave those boys an eye-full.  I suppose it is good.  They can learn that breasts are for feeding and not just oogling."

"Mom, I feed Santi on demand, when the boy is hungry he eats.  Rain or shine."

Grandma emerges from her bedroom with her walker.  Two yellow tennis balls are fixed to the front legs to help her push it on the tile floor.

"Where is my deodorant?" she yells from the bathroom.

My mom gets up and brings it to her from her bedroom.

"My hair is a mess," she adds as she looks in the mirror.  Grandma returned last night after four nights in a quarantined room at the Sault Ste. Marie hospital.  She contracted C-dif after having all of her good antibodies wiped out from the antibiotics she needed for dental work. My mind flips to Brent's call last night where he told my mom that he had been doing research on this bacteria and instructed my mom to wipe down all the furniture and clothes line with bleach water.

Having seen my grandma this week and my mom's sisters, I can't help but inquire, "Grandma, where did my mom get her germ obsession.  Aunt Linda doesn't have it, you don't have it, and it seems to be her primary motivation."

"I have no idea!" she howls in a tone reminiscent of her mother howling at Bill to feed the seagulls.

"Amongst Mom’s four kids, it seems to have reached me the least, Julie and Kari are equally moderate, and Brent seems to be carrying the Karin Meyer germphopic legacy forward."

As she wipes down the plastic table cloth Mom adds, "It has to do with intelligence."  I pass Santi to my mom.

"Santi, you can take the hat off in your house."  Sant is now in her lap. "I know you love my Mountain Dew.  That is yellow," she adds pointing to her drink speaking in a baby’s voice. "And that is green," she adds, pointing to the Mountain Dew bottle.

Grandma switches her walker for a cane and asks, "Who is going to help me put on my sock?"

I jump up and get her sock.  I kneel down by her feet and pull the white sock over her heel noticing the peach nail-polish on her 86-year-old well-kept Behling toes.  Everyone in her family has exceptionally long toes, Santi and me included.  All of our fourth toes are longer than the big toes.  While I think I have done a decent job with the sock.  She corrects me.

"You need to find the heel first, this sock is on upside-down.  Try again."

I pull it off.  She is right.  The heel was on top of her ankle.

"And after you get the heel right, pull the tip out so it doesn't pull on my toes."

"If I had worked in a shoe store I would be much better at this," I suggest. And then attempt to put on her beige, lace-up Aerosoles.

"When you put the foot in you have to pull the tongue up so it doesn't wrinkle."  She explains leaning down to adjust her shoe.  I do almost no better on the second side.  She repeats my work..

"Grandma, why did you only breastfeed your five kids for six months?"

"That was what they told us to do.  That was standard."  

"The World Health Organization recommends we feed until they are at least two-years-old. Aunt Bonnie fed Brian until he was three."  I say while wondering if I will feed Santi's sibling longer if he is a girl than if he is a boy.  A close friend knows one girl who was breast fed until she was five.  I am amazed that at seven-months Santi has never been sick (despite multiple plane rides, and full on exposure to Grandma's C-dif and Kari's kids upper respiratory infections when he was just three-months-old. ) Yesterday, I expressed milk onto the backs of his ears where a little scum had collected worried that it could turn into some kind of skin infection.

With Grandma's hair done and shoes-tied, I turn to my beloved Mac computer to show them the picture I want to post on my Facebook page of my mom laying on a sheet placed on top of the Neebish Island olive green carpet trying to teach Santi to crawl.  My mom thinks it is a bad idea.

"Amy, everyone is going to say what is wrong with your thinking.  I look like I weigh 100,000 pounds.  You are warped."

I am sure she is wrong and can hardly wait to change my Facebook banner photo.  Santi begins to fuss.

"He wants your tit," Grandma declares.

The next photo is of Santi on his second boat ride last night.  He hated his life jacket so I had taken it off.

"You should not have taken off his life jacket, if you get hit by an ore boat, he is gone," Karin adds cryptically.  

An awful thought no doubt.  I tell myself, I would see the 1000-foot ship coming while in our 20-horse-powered row boat.  Santi begins to have a snack.  I change the subject.

"Can we review the Lovejoy family history.  I want to write some of this down.  How did Grandma and Grandpa meet?  Who were Grandpa Lovejoy's parents?  How did this boat house come into the family?  Did Great Grandma Maggie Lovejoy get an education?"

My mom starts, "She won a partial scholarship to a Michigan college in the 8th grade for her excellent work in Home Ec at the 4-H club in sewing.  But she couldn't afford to go.  But she did marry a college graduate."  

Grandpa Lovejoy, born in 1900 had studied engineering at Michigan State.  My best guess is that he was an enneagram five and she was an enneagram eight--like I am.