​This week is National Farm Animals Awareness Week, the third full week in September. When the kids were nine years old, we went to my sister’s friend’s goat farm, Goatberry Hill, to visit and feed the baby goats. There Frau Morgan raised her animals humanely and produced goat milk products for alternative living. She carefully alerted my kid when we arrived to be careful around the chickens, not to startle them or rile them up, because chickens can easily have heart attacks. I’d never heard that before. Maybe it was a wise way to greet all van loads of kids who showed up at her doorstep to keep them from running wild among her animals. Makes me think I should have gotten some chickens and used that line to keep everyone in line and calm.

I had five grandparents growing up, one of whom was my great grandma (my dad’s grandmother). I get my white hair from my dad’s mom, Grandma Robinson.

Tomorrow is Patriot Day (not to be confused with Patriot’s Day, an official state holiday in several states commemorating the first battles of the American Revolutionary War). Of course anyone older than nineteen or twenty will remember the events that brought about Patriot Day. September 11, 2001 is our generation’s Pearl Harbor. It was life changing for everyone in the nation, not just the firsthand witnesses.

Breakfast was usually the easiest meal when the kids were little. It often didn’t involve stoves or more than two ingredients (1. Cereal, 2. Milk). I ran from stoves and more then two ingredients every chance I got. When I was really, really tired, I didn’t even bother with dishes. I just tossed a toaster waffle (1. Waffle, 2. Toaster) onto the table cloth—vinyl for easy clean up—and they’d have at it. My sister remembers coming over one morning when I was like a zombie. I just called the kids into the kitchen, and standing near them, opened the Cheerios box and simply poured the cereal onto the floor. Breakfast is served, dear lovely children, said the exhausted mother. They got multivitamins, to cover if they should have had some fruits or vegetables in there somewhere.

Bowling is near and dear to my heart. But I’m terrible at it. If I reach a score of 60, I’ve had a good game. With baseball as the only sport I’ve ever really followed, I guess I’ve applied what I know about baseball to bowling: strikes are bad. You don’t want them. So I steer clear of them. And sometimes steer right down the middle of the slippery lane—on my belly—as balls have been known not to release from my hand and pull me down the shiny wooden floor. It’s so hard to find a ball light enough to control but with finger holes large enough not to get stuck. The kiddie balls—the only ones I have a chance of keeping out of the gutter—are just too tight around my fingers. ​

Today is National Father-In-Law Day. Tomorrow is the anniversary of my father-in-law’s memorial service. Jack passed away four years ago this week. His absence can catch you off guard and startle you with the intensity of the loss. We still have his craggy voice in our saved voice ​

​Tomorrow, July 24, is National Cousins Day. I fondly remember many times playing with my cousins growing up. Each of my parents has only one sibling, so I didn’t have that many cousins on either side—enough to keep track of and get to know and truly enjoy relationships with (in spite ​​of the fact that I terrorized my older boy cousins trying to get more of their attention).