THE LOWE FAMILY NEWSLETTER: VOLUME 59 AUGUST 2010
Dear Children, Relatives and Friends,
August has been a sauna: sweat steams from my pores every time I venture outside. Daily my strong nurturing instinct (eight kids) motivates me to spend up to two hours dragging hoses and a watering can around the yard. I usually hose myself down when the steam starts rising off my skin. The bugs are so bad this year that I spray myself with ‘Off ’ and wear a battery operated bug ‘Off’’ contraption around my waist yet the chiggers still use my varicose veins as a road map to my underwear region where they burrow in, inject their saliva and deposit their larvae to feast. I have to slather myself in cortisone cream every time I come in from the garden. I have also discovered that scrubbing hard with Zum soap and a loofah helps – though it’s hard on my unmentionables. I dread to think what harmful effects the usage of all these chemicals is having on my health but since it doesn’t seem to be offing many bugs I guess I shouldn’t be too worried. I endure it all in hopes of keeping my plants out of the compost bin. When I open the water bill this month I’m probably going to need life support myself. Let’s hope your dad tries to call 911 before he gets too excited about the prospect of an autopsy.
Ming-Lee, Lori, Blake and Claudia came for a few days the first week of August, once again driving here with an overnight stop in St. Louis. I baked a birthday cake to celebrate Claudia’s 7th birthday which fell the day before they arrived. She’s a nature lover so I went with a cake shaped like a birdhouse, handmade chocolate birds and a bumble bee, which netted some stinging remarks from my boys. They claimed that my two blobs of yellow and black frosting with toothpicks sticking out of the intended head blob looked more like a space alien. They all fly don’t they?
Sean invited us to swim at his condo that evening (my one and only time )so Ming, Josh, Bryn, Sean, and Blake played catch ball in the deep end while Claudia, Lori and I kept out of the way in the shallow end. We pretty much filled up the Condo pool. The boys had to stop playing for awhile when a resident showed up to seriously swim. The water was too warm to be refreshing but for the first time in ages that evening Lori and I did enjoy feeling a drop in temperature when we finally got out and dried off.
Ming and Lori took the kids to Cabala’s the next morning, followed by lunch at the Tyrannosaurus Rex café (as recommended by Auntie C) and an afternoon tour of Steamboat Arabia which Ming especially enjoyed.Coryn and I took Ethan last summer and Roger and Lori Griswold did the tour when they were here. It’s fascinating to see all the recovered artifacts from a centuries old sunken wooden steam boat that was discovered in a farmer’s field that was once part of the Missouri river: sort of a mini Titanic experience. Ming-Lee said he would love to work on that kind of a dig. Maybe I should bury some junk in my back yard in an effort to get my boys on a treasure hunt that would create a newly dug bedding site for the flower garden I would like to start next spring. The idea of digging in the dirt and adding compost to make a new garden bed for me doesn’t seem to appeal to any of them.
Ming, my thoughtful son, insisted on cooking supper for the family and with help from Lori made chicken tacos whilst Josh made his fruit salad special with cinnamon shells. Very South American – we all know how I enjoy my dinning themes a la Martha Stewart!
Friday, Ming and family drove onto Fort Madison to spend a couple of days with Roger and Lori – Blake was especially excited about their plans to go Geode hunting. They were also able to see Ming’s god-mother and our family friend Sue Saunders for a short visit – it was a very busy time for her at the Ivy that weekend, catering for the Mormons who visit Nauvoo in droves. Then they returned to Indianapolis, hopefully stopping for lunch at McDonalds in Le Roi as I always insisted on doing when I was driving that route!
Ming-Jon was also briefly in Fort Madison this summer for this 25th class reunion but unfortunately only five classmates attended! He combined this trip with a visit to Ming and Lori’s lake house so he was able to relax for a few days with them before returning home to start job hunting. He has some already found some possibilities and has also signed up with a temp agency, just in case it takes awhile in this economy to find a new job. It worked for Josh – he was working for a temp agency too but recently was hired by an International Law firm: Shook, Bacon and Hardy headquartered here in Kansas City. They have nine offices around the world including one in Marc’s vicinity so he is familiar with the firm. Josh will be do accounting work for them. I’m relieved that he will be settled here for awhile instead of taking off to another dangerous destination – he was talking about Columbia! I would have had nightly nightmares about drug cartels slitting his throat or worse. Josh assured me that Bolivia was considered a more dangerous country: one he had survived without a scar from man or beast!
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Kay has returned to her second year at Tufts after a busy summer traveling to Japan for a family visit and to California to be with college friends. She also worked at a children’s cooking camp this summer so obviously she’ll be of more help in the kitchen than some of our other female family members. Kay is going to be sharing an on campus apartment with about nine other students so I hope it all works out. Hopefully we will get to see her at Christmas time.
Bryn and Sean also spent time at the lake house this summer, choosing to drive rather than fly. They spent several days at the lake enjoying water sports and boating with Ming and family. I’m sure Claudia enjoyed having her uncles’ attention especially! One of the highlights of their trip was getting to watch one of Blake’s soccer games – just as he use to watch them play!
Coryn and Jeremy enjoyed their trip to Charleston, South Carolina and just returned from a weekend in Chicago where they stayed with Amber Scott. This weekend they will be celebrating Labor Day at the Lake of the Ozarks.
Leslee will be celebrating her 28th birthday in Paris with Craig after spending a week or so in Sweden. I am anxious to hear all about their experiences. Leslee was learning a few French phrases in hopes of improving international relationships. Marc was most concerned about them being the targets of pick pockets and declared Paris a rather dirty town. Exactly the words I’d use to describe LA – especially the Hollywood section!
Speaking of Marc – he has closed on his condo and is hopefully settled in by now –although just days before his lease expired on his condo he hadn’t found a mover. Marc judged himself incapable of loading and driving a U-haul. He does not seem to have inherited his brothers’ physical skills. I think his realtor was trying to find someone – probably going to cost him a fortune! She did suggest that it might be a good time to get some new furniture – probably cheaper to replace it than move it!
A large new Asian grocery store has opened very close to our perfectly located home. Coryn took your dad for a quick shopping trip – limiting him to a couple of aisles and a hand held shopping basket. Norm was very impressed by the size and selection. Soon afterwards I offered to check it out with him and was amazed to find in comparable in size to a Wal-Mart’s! I had no idea that Kansas City was home to so many ethnic food loving Asians. There must be a dozen such stores, albeit smaller, within ten minutes of our home. I grabbed a cart as Norm headed for the takeout section – I quickly pointed out that we had just had lunch, but noted they had an in store eating area in case I should need to plop your dad somewhere. He was delighted to be helped by an old lady who spoke his Cantonese dialect. Several Chinese treats to go made it into our cart as I attempted to steer your dad down the first aisle. Fifteen minutes later he was drooling over the frozen wontons in the same aisle so I selected some and tried to get him into the next aisle pointing out the seafood. I was horrified to see huge live tilapia fish fin to fin in a cattle trough. If I still had my pond I would probably have bought the lot and given them a new home. Very upsetting. I decided to leave your dad in that aisle as he seemed to be doing very well and went off to check out the other aisles hoping to find some I could steer your dad away from. It looked as though we were going to be there for the entire afternoon at the pace he was taking everything in. At one point he actually found me, excitedly holding out the most garish placemat I have ever seen suggesting that I might enjoy some for our table. The man must be color blind now too I thought. I thanked him for the idea as I took it and put it back on the shelf. But I did find a piece of pottery that worked as a tea bag holder to replace the two that he has recently broken. He was thrilled that I had found something and urged me to buy more dishes. I reminded him of our limited kitchen size – which also meant that we couldn’t buy five cans of everything he fancied in the store. Looking for fried dice with black beans half way through the store, I happened to look up and noticed that sparrows were perched in the rafters. Were these on the menu or the makings of bird nest soup? I remember your Auntie Lea telling me that fried sparrows – especially the crispy heads- were one of her favorites. I wondered if the health department was making regular visits. I made a mental note to myself to scrub our purchases from the produce aisle extra well!
We did enjoy the red bean paste cake as soon as we got home and your dad put away three more treats over the course of the next day! I will probably be taking your dad there for another outing soon as he enjoys it so much.
Another Asian experience we enjoyed recently was dinning at PF Changs on the Plaza in Kansas City. Coryn and I had taken your dad to KUmed earlier in the afternoon and the appointment ran into dinnertime so Coryn suggested we eat at the nearby Plaza. Norm was thrilled to find shrimp with lobster sauce on the menu and declared it as good as Kwoks! He can hardly wait to return but I have explained that we can not go alone because parking is an issue down there – but maybe he’ll get so desperate that he’ll agree to use the wheelchair!
Last Saturday found the Kansas City Lowe’s enjoying Mia’s 3rd birthday party in the Woodbury’s backyard. The theme was Alice in Wonderland and Mia was picture perfect in her beautiful dress and white pinafore that her Grammy made especially for the occasion. Elizabeth took a very cute picture of Mia sitting on the back steps with her three Lowe boyfriends: who showed up to her party with unwrapped gifts! I babysat Mia and Drew the day before so that Elizabeth and Mary could shop for party food while Mike cleaned up the yard – a lot of poop scooping thanks to Zoë. But probably not as much as Drew produced in his diapers for me! This was a special birthday party as it will be her last to be celebrated in Kansas. My life will certainly be less full without the Woodburys. Only Mia could persuade me to tie one of Coryn's old dance costumes around my neck, turn the stereo up and twirl like a dervish for hours! But the next time she says “Let’s dance Megan” I’m going to make sure that the front door is closed and the overhead lights are off. Last time I realized all my neighbors were able to watch my performance on their way to their mail boxes! I’m not sure which embarrasses me more: being caught making such a spectacle of myself or not being asked for an encore performance
Labor Day Weekend looms – it will be quiet here with Coryn and Jeremy at the Lake of the Ozarks and Josh in DesMoines visiting Josh Bergman and family. Sean is dog sitting Ollie and Buster, I’m baby sitting Mia overnight on Friday and Bryn will doubtless be stretched out on his sofa in front of his big screen TV for four days. If he gets hungry enough he might appear for a meal or two over here.
It’s time to soak and scrub my bug bites in my bubble bath, trussed like a chicken in our undersized tub and with that lovely image I leave you for this time.
Love from your sappy and soapy, itchy and scratchy Mother.
