At Grandmother's House

Not much time for this one. I just spent way too long composing an email to Edward and Elinor (the pseudonyms I gave to the family I stayed with in Germany), and then translating it because I wanted to be fair to both of them, not making Edward translate and not making Elinor wait until he was up to it. (I think that he will still have plenty to do with straightening out the bits I messed up, though.)

I am staying with my Grandmother, who has been sick and in and out of the hospital for the past couple of months. I believe that they think it is a herniated disk, but there have been complications. I'm somewhat unclear on all of the details. Her body is doing minutely better each day--I think-- but her mind is still sharp as anything, which is a great comfort to me. She needs her walker to get anywhere on foot, and has to be driven to doctor's appointments and shopping and so on, but she seems to have more energy now than even three days ago, which again is a very good sign.

I had not been to her house for about fourteen years. She has come to blessings, graduations, baptisms, and Christmas, so I have seen HER a fair bit; I just haven't seen her house, and

I LOVE being at the house.

The landscape around here, most of the year, is pretty brown-- mostly dried vegetation-- and since I have usually visited on Christmas vacations, that is how I remember it. At the moment, however, it is spring, and that means that the rain has been coming down and the grass is coming up, so there is a lot more green than I have ever seen before. The roads are red, which makes a beautiful contrast to the grass. (Our tap water, from the well my grandfather dug fifty years ago when he was building the house, is plentiful, but it tastes a little funny and dyes the bathtubs rust-colored for the same reason the roads are red: there is lots of iron in it.) I need not tell you that the sky is blue, and it is impossible to tell you how gorgeous the moon and, I believe it was, Jupiter, were last night right after the sun had set. I was outside, gazing at them, and just did not want to come back to the house. I was just soaking in the glory of God, in these things that please the eye and gladden the heart and make the soul sing for joy.

I will take pictures and try, someday, to get them up, but since I keep running in to technical difficulties (such as losing the cable to connect my camera to the computer, only to find I had left it in the box it had come in) I will refrain from making any more rash promises about how soon I will post my own photographs.

The dog and I have made friends. He spent part of yesterday evening's TV-watching with his head in my lap, which I tolerated because I figure that it is good to have friends wherever you are. OK, OK, so I LIKE the dog, but I am allergic to him, and now I have to remember not to sit on my own bed until I wash these pants.

And now I've spent a long time on this, too, but it feels good to be writing again, and it especially feels good to be finicky about my writing. After all, what else is a blog for?