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| Maryland! |
The reward after a long flight from Sac o' tomatoes to Baltimore, Maryland was being greeted at the Baltimore airport with hugs from my sister Dolores, niece Bea and her husband Avon. It was already dark when they drove over to where Dolores and I are staying, at my nephew Kirk's house with he and his wife Nicole and their babies, 7-year-old Sydney and 4-year-old James . The last time I saw Kirk and Nicole was in Las Vegas. Back then, little Sydney was in vitro.
with James Allan and sister Sydney
The kids are a kick! In the morning I sprawled myself over an easy chair, watching them at play. Soon they were showing me their favorite toys. There were My Little Ponies, bright plastic hammers and saws that bounced to hip hop in a tool belt and Bratz dolls. Next thing we were piled on a lazeeboy couch, watching The Princess and the Frog on my iPhone. I remember when Bea, Kirk and their baby sister Doris and I were so little. We would have overnighters at each other's houses - Bronx and Brooklyn. Beatrice and I would march around singing 'For Pete's Sake Get me to the Church On Time!'
Tonight the lot of us as well as Nicole's mother, all met for an elaborite feast at a local Chinese restaurant. Four year old James artfully managed to skip his nap in the afternoon, so after the 15 minute car trip the kid was out cold and soon sprawled across two restaurant chairs while the rest of us chatted and shared exotic dishes of seaweed salads, steamed dumplings and other appetizers. I slipped my iPhone to Sydney for a game of Alice in Wonderland.
When we arrived back at Kirk & Nicole's house, Kirk and I were out front of the house, me having a go at calling a Barred Owl that hangs around the neighborhood. I felt a glompy hug from behind and thought it was my sister, but was my niece Ain - pronounced 'Ah-een').
Ain is so tall I had thought she was Dolores, my sister! Ain is beautiful, a talented jewelry maker and geez is she patient. I played with a colorful piece of string on the way out from California, but couldn't teach Sydney or James what to do with it. Ain, sat patiently, explaining and demonstrating to Sydney how to do cat's cradle - which I never mastered. Soon we were all fiddling and fumbling and running through the string pinching maneuvers and managed a few of the moves - with the help of Youtube.
It dawned on me, Sydney, James and I had traversed 50,000 years or more in the day, starting with the latest technologies iPhone games, then transversed way back to the stone age for a game with a piece of string. It was a fun day's journey and we still have the remainder of the week to go. I must have a b'jillion bits of string at home, why did I bring only one?
