Grandma Henke

It’s a beautiful day today … the sun is shining and it feels so good coming in the window and warming up my back.    At my feet are a sleeping baby, a sleeping kitty, and a sleeping dog.  In the background some Chapman music keeps me company.    I could almost purr I feel so content.  

I have to spotlight Luca today.     Luca is my soon to be 7 year old grand daughter.    Luca is in the first grade and every school night since the first of the year she has set her clothes out the night before, set her alarm, and put her coat and backpack at the front door. Not only that she gets herself up every single day whether she feels like it or not.  Her mother and I don’t know where she gets that natural ability but we’d like some of it to distribute.    (Well … we suspect it comes from from her Grandpa Nordquist who can organize an entire year in his sleep.)   

I just red about George Clooney’s assignment as a UN ambassador of peace.   I’ve been a Clooney fan since he practiced medicine as Dr. Doug Ross on E.R.    He seems like an honest and straight forward fellow, and I love his sense of humor.   He doesn’t even seem too puffed up with his own good looks and talent.  Will that make him a good ambassador for global peace?      I admit it may have something to do with his good looks, charm, and personality but I believed him in Oh Brother Where Art Thou even knowing he was a con artist … so maybe that will be enough to help him succeed in his new assignment. 

I love my man.   (You should all know that by now.)   I have to laugh at him, though, when he finds a sale on certain food items … like cheese, frozen spinach souffle, and diet pop.       You should see the stack of 12-packs we have on the floor of our bedroom.     Why the bedroom, you ask?    I suppose it’s because we have this little mini fridge in there that he keeps stocked for the two of us; but we do have a food storage room in the basement.    I don’t know why this particular food group gets the unique honor of sleeping with us, particularly since it doesn’t  match the decor.  I’m not too keen on changing the color scheme to gray, red, and black.  He’s such a “fart smeller”, as Dad used to say,  I bet he’ll move it without me even asking … ya think?

I’m a good one to speak … here I sit in the office surrounded by Rubbermaid bins full of stuff I’ve purchased in multiples.   From here I can see a small clear bin with 10 boxes of crayons, glue, pens, and pencils.   There’s another bin with probably 30 plastic loose leafs of various colors that I got on sale for a project that never happened.    I can’t see them but somewhere there is a bin somewhere of about 10 unopened puzzles, and another with maybe 50 little bouquets of sunflowers I was going to use as handouts for a class I was teaching.    Get the drift?   These things play a big part in my resolution to “Simplify and Downsize”.     I acknowledge I’ve been an addict to stuff in bulk.    I’m looking for a sponsor.  

Honey and I are planning our second trip to Costa Rica when he retires next year and this time I want to understand what’s going on.    It’s not fun being the foreigner when you  don’t speak the language.    Enough of them over there speak English that it’s not hard to get by, but I like conversations without interpreters.    I love to get in with cultures when we travel and feel the pulse.    It’s easy to misinterpret the pulse when you don’t speak the language.    Has anyone had good success with a particular program on learning Spanish? 

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