Letters from my mom :)

[big brown horse]

I am trying so hard to find the positives with my own mom these days. She's 82, looks 60, and is so demanding I just don't know what I am going to do. It's wonderful to read about your mom's adventures and her younghearted attitude.

I had three messages on my machine today, all within 30 minutes, trying to track me down so I could give my daughter a paper to give a lady at her work who likes animals. She obsesses over things and like that, calls constantly for us to come pick up a piece of gladware that she has of ourse...like daily and then three or four times a day until we come get it. It's SO frustrating.

My best friend's mom is "difficult" too. That is what makes her...her. We joke often about her mother's crazy antics. I think that helps, a sense of humor.

When I start to get my feathers fluffed over someone, I try to think, "What would Mom do?" She can always find something good about anyone!

 

[Lady Henevere]

These letters are so great! Thanks so much for posting them.

 

[big brown horse]

Mom sent this to me during the summer when TX was in the middle of a really bad dry spell. She told me she kept ice packs in her blouse. I just sent her photos of my garden...

Wow! What a garden. Are those snap peas? And what is that red thing/ I know it's not a cherry. The lamb looks pretty big. And that straw works great, doesn't it. Peaceable Kingdom had a herb garden like that years ago, only they had high raised beds. I always wanted to do use straw like that, but never had a real vegetable garden.

Our last kitten, Dorothy, was run over last month. Mr. P*** from the Junior High School called me to let me know that Mrs. C*** had three kittens that needed homes. So I went over to see her. She use to have martins and I have known her for thirty years. She had two male tigers and a tiger calico female like Dorothy. I picked the calico. She had named her Betty Jean. And when I was about to leave, Mrs. C**** started sobbing. She loves those kittens, but has to give them up because she has trouble getting around the yard. She is 85 years old and I felt so sorry for her. She brought up the kittens from a stray mother cat whom she had adopted and still has. She has no children and lost her husband about twenty years ago and still has his large framed colored portrait enshrined in the living room. It has a fancy hooded light over it and a little bouquet of paper flowers over that, which she renews every spring. She says that not a day goes by that she doesn't visit him at the cemetery and misses him terribly. She still drives. I see her at the post office and she is still relatively active in different groups.

Well Betty Jean cried all night in our bedroom and I couldn't catch her to put her in a different room. Try to find a frightened ambulatory kitten under your bed in the dark. We got no sleep. But this morning, I got all her food, potty and toys and sequestered her in the bathroom where I could control her. I took a book in there and sat on the toilet seat talking to her until she calmed down enough so I could get her to sit on my lap and feel comforted, like breaking a horse with blankets. So now, she runs free in the house and feels pretty much at home.

It has been in the 90's all week and dry, dry, dry. Have to water twice a day to keep the plants alive. Too hot to do anything outside.
Brutal weather! Ah, Washington...

Did Spencer and Liz get there yet?

Have to go now. It's relatively breezy in the shade at this time of day and we have our wine outside under an umbrella table that I bought from Ann when she moved. There's a pesky little baby squirrel that joins us and eats the bird food from a feeder right next to the table. He is fearless!

Keep in touch.

Love,
Mom

Mom used to take kittens or baby chicks in a basket up to the nursing home when my grandma broke both hips and couldn't live with us anymore.

When my grandma Annie lived with us, she buttered the bread before she gave it to the chickens!