Liza's Pens

I gave Liza some pens for her birthday, colored ones with narrow points on one end and broad brushlike points on the other. And I wrote her name on the label of the wrapped box with colored pens of my own. The letters were bright and had a bit of a 3D look. She made me promise to show her how to draw them sometime.

Tonite they arrived for a visit. In the evening, Liza went to get her pens. I reached for mine and fetched a stack of white paper from our bottomless stash. As she pulled her chair up to the table, holding her new pens in hand, she asked, Should we get started?

I agreed that we should. And I showed her how to use those pens. To make sun beams. To make sort-of pictures, and fast ones, too. To make spaceships approaching distant planets. To make a fancy letter 'g'. To add a little pizzazz to a letter.

She laughed and said, I like that -- add a little pizzazz.

And then, How do you draw clouds, Uncle Dave?

I reached for my lightest blue and pulled off the broad tip cover. Here is one way, I said. And as she watched each move of my hand, I drew three loops and a few fast lines underneath.

She gasped and then picked up her own blue pen.

Maybe tomorrow we'll talk about those 3D letters.

1:29:53 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Winter Visit

My brother's family arrived from Chicago today. Sad to say, we will not have warm weather to offer them during their stay.

With smiles on their five faces, they walked towards us as we waved and jumped, with smiles on ours. Their bags were waiting. Our cars (two of them for eight of us) were parked nearby. We went to eat and then drove home.

At home, it didn't take long for the adults to begin to disappear. One by one, they headed towards beds in one room or futons in another. The kids resisted to the last, teaching each other computer games, pasting pictures of clouds and flowers and dogs up in the kitchen.

So the weather won't be warm. But the rooms of this now-quiet house are littered with sleeping bodies. And the refrigerator is decorated in a way it hasn't been for many years.

Perhaps the cold weather won't matter.

1:05:11 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []