THE LOWE FAMILY NEWSLETTER, VOLUME 113
MARCH 2017
Dear Readers,
In late January, Sarah and Sean found
their new home: so conveniently situated to mine, being right off
Quivera , about 60 blocks northwest of my house, a ten minute drive
straight up the street. They moved in on February 27th
and immediately set to work removing the dated wood paneling in the
living room only to discover termite damage on the dry wall and
framing underneath so that all has to be replaced. Coryn and I had
both suggested painting the paneling as a more cost effective
cosmetic change but Sean was determined to tear it down – a costly
decision!
The first Saturday in March, Sarah and
Sean painted their bedroom a grayish blue while I spent seven hours
with a bowl of hot, soapy, vinegar water, a steamer, kitchen sponges
and an upturned plastic kitty litter container - substituting for a
step stool, stripping away three layers of wall paper on just one
wall of their kitchen! I returned the following day with Kay, who
proved to be a great stripper, until she hit one of the many
sections that seemed to be super glued in place. After awhile we were
joined by the Logues; Jeremy had hauled some stuff from their house
in his truck for the new home owners. I immediately put Ava Claire
and Owen to work, wetting and hopefully peeling off wallpaper. Ava
Claire was more than willing to help whilst she chatted non-stop
whereas Owen was only interested in dunking the sponge in the bowl
and squeezing water out everywhere but on the wallpaper. He lost his
sponge and the bowl was placed out of his reach as he charged off to
wreak havoc in another room.
The following weekend I returned to
their home to see all their new furniture in place. They had invited
Kay and I to lunch so that we could sit at their first dinning room
table, and admire the newly painted yellow walls that replaced the
wallpaper we had stripped the previous weekend. After a great lunch,
including desert, Kay and I volunteered to tackle more wallpaper
removal in the kitchen so that they could paint the rest of the room.
Their kitchen is the largest room in the house and has masses of
cabinetry so it was a challenge to get to the wallpaper – and even
more challenging to remove the two extra layers (making a total of
five different prints) in that part of the kitchen! I eventually put
the steamer up on the counter top and climbed up beside it so that I
could reach over the top of the cabinets to pry off wallpaper. Sean
was very concerned about the safety of this operation, not so much
because he saw his aged mother losing her balance and tumbling to the
floor dragging a scalding steamer with her but because he was worried
about the effect of my poundage on his kitchen counters and lower
cabinets!
Sarah and Sean have turned their formal
dinning room into a media room as the sectional that they had
purchased for the still needing to be dry walled living room was
placed in there temporarily, but fit so perfectly with a wall large
enough for Joshua's projection screen so thus Sarah is looking
forward to shopping for another set of living room furniture , Sean
not so much!
They have a lot of great plantings in
their yard and a huge walled courtyard in front of their Spanish
style home and a patio off their living room. Sean is planning to set
up a gas barbecue on one and a charcoal grill on the other outdoor
area.
At this point, I should explain that I
am into week three of trying to get this newsletter written but every
day I intend to do so something happens to take me away from the
task. Take Monday March 20th, a telemarketer substituted
for my alarm clock by waking me up shortly before Jeremy called
with the news that he was sitting outside the children's pre-school
but the building was locked up with no cars in the parking lot.
Apparently Coryn was unaware that it was the school's Spring Break
week. I volunteered to take the kids immediately, thus giving up the
two hours that morning that I had planned to write. Jeremy dropped
the kids off and I noticed that they were both wearing long pants:
knowing it was going to be in the eighties , I decided we needed a
trip up the street to the Carter's outlet store to pick up some
shorts and swimsuits to have on hand at Grandma's house. I had to use
my back up car keys as I couldn't find my other set. Once the kids
were buckled into their car seats we drove up Quivera and found a
parking spot right in front of the store. I gave Ava Claire and Owen
the usual talk about being quiet and staying right by Grandma. Ava is
always good but Owen........
He took off as soon as we entered the
store and quickly found the toy section with a fishing game. He is
obsessed with fish, making me draw dozens of them every time we paint
or draw with magic markers.
 |
| Painting and snacking on Grandma's kitchen floor! |
Owen fell asleep on the way home so
I put him on my bed where he slept for a couple of hours. No hopes of
his taking a nap that afternoon. Once he woke up we headed outside to
the deck where we played with the fish game and once the novelty wore
off – about five minutes- I hauled out the bath toys, the outdoor
pool toys and containers of water which the kids used to drench
themselves and me. We had a picnic lunch outside which made both
children thoroughly happy .
There was a dead squirrel on the
street in front of one my neighbor's homes and Owen was thrilled to
watch a huge buzzard swooping and landing to pick at his prey. While
I was holding him on the deck rail so that he could get a better view
of this carnage, Ava Claire was playing spa day, soaking her feet in
a bowl of water in preparation for her pedicure.
About mid afternoon we heard sirens and
soon fire trucks and ambulances were racing up the street and
helicopters were flying overhead. Both kids were very entertained,
with Owen pointing at the sky in hopes of seeing another helicopter
so I took them to the front of the house when my neighbor Steve
fortuitously stopped over to say 'Hi' and invited us to his house to
see if we could figure out what was going on and sure enough from his
deck we could see smoke and best of all a hovering helicopter which
enthralled Owen. It turned out that we were witnessing the biggest
fire ever in Johnson County, maybe even in Kansas City. A massive
complex of residential, office and retail units was set afire-
accidentally by a welder 's blow torch – huge embers landed on
nearby homes catching the cedar shake roofs on fire! Many homes were
a total loss but most importantly no lives were lost. The fact that
we have been woefully short of snow or rain this winter did not help
of course. Thankfully the fire went south of us because my house is
just about three blocks from the development.
Wednesday I babysat the children all
day again but did manage to type a couple of paragraphs on Thursday -
I was intending to put in a couple more hours after supper but Sarah
and Sean stopped by for a cup of tea after their ball room dancing
class, and by the time they left, my must see Jay Hawks basketball
game against Purdue was on the television.
Today , Friday I determined to finish
my newsletter as soon as I mustered the enthusiasm to shower and
dress for the day but before I could do this Coryn and the kids
unexpectedly arrived hoping for lunch at Grandma's. Coryn was
scandalized to see me still in my robe as noon approached- exclaiming
that she had been up and dressed for hours and also visited her
retired principal from one of the schools at which she previously
worked. I retorted that I might have spent several more hours dressed
thus enjoying the peace and quiet of my retirement home but I did
headed for the shower and fixed lunch for everyone.
Tomorrow it's family friend Lola Rose's
third birthday party to which I and the Logues are invited : after
which I will have my grandchildren again for some time before I drop
them off at Sarah's and Sean's home. No writing time tomorrow for
sure! Coryn and Jeremy are attending an Engagement Party for close
friends that night so we are keeping the children so that they don't
have to make two round trips in one day from their home in the
boonies. Ava Claire has made it quite clear that I am to just drop
them off at Uncle Sean's house and go straight home. She is very
excited about having supper and playing at their house! They will
have to watch Owen like a hawk – apparently the last time he
visited he scaled their garden fence and Sean had to run into the
neighbors yard to retrieve him!
In the previous months since my last
newsletter I have had two major social outings, one with Coryn and
the other with Kay. Coryn took me to dinner at the Majestic
restaurant followed by an ice skating exhibition at the nearby
Sprint Center. Kansas City hosted the National Competition this year
which Sean and Sarah also attended but on the day before Coryn and me
. This outing was a Christmas present from the Logues – Jeremy
definitely got the short end of the stick here as he was stuck
babysitting the kids while Coryn and I enjoyed a night out on the
town. Our dinner was wonderful, I loved the European feel of the
restaurant with music and decor dating back to the twenties and
thirties and the food was beautifully prepared.
After dinner we tried to find a spot in
a parking garage near the event but the first one we tried turned us
away as it was only open to patrons of other venues so Coryn had to
pull off a U-turn into the exit lane and we eventually found a garage
that worked. Unfortunately we had to climb up about five flights of
stairs to reach street level and I was pleased to see that many of
the crowd crawling up the stairs were struggling as much as me, some
even having to rest on the landings before they pressed on. I took
deep breaths and hoped I'd survive to start an obviously much needed
cardio- vascular work out program.
Once inside the Sprint Center I noted
how tiny all the ice -skaters were and an amazingly high percentage
of them were Asian – just think I could have raised a family of
successful skaters if we would have just lived in a city big enough
to afford an ice rink!
Soon after I had afternoon tea with
Kay, her Christmas present to me. We met at her Westport apartment
and she drove us to the nearby Inter-Continental hotel. We were both
looking for the parking garage entry, which I recalled was right off
the main entrance way but we saw a sign for ballroom parking so
decided to pull in, driving past piles of construction debris and
towers of boxes holding new cabinetry. We knew the hotel was
undergoing a major renovation because when Kay called to make our
reservations she was told that they were serving afternoon tea in
their rooftop lounge instead of the Oak Room. We decided to park
alongside the other vehicles, past all the construction mess, and
made our way to the ballroom entrance where a kindly male held the
door for us. We walked through the deserted space and decided to take
the elevator to the top floor, we entered the lounge and - also
empty but a young girl soon appeared and had no idea that tea was
supposed to be served in her space. She said she would look into it
and sped off. We waited around for an eternity it seemed and
eventually decided to go back to the parking garage and drive around
the building in hopes of finding the right entrance. Just as we were
stepping in the elevator she was stepping out and told us that tea
was being served in the Oak Room that day after all as they had not
been able to move things in time. So we retraced our steps through
the deserted building, marveling that it was safe to leave towering
piles of new furniture in an open parking garage and drove around the
building until we espied the right entrance. Once seated in the
restaurant I realized that the once scenic view was obscured by
piles of construction equipment . I think they should have offered a
heavy discount on afternoon tea that day but they didn't of course!
Another group soon joined us and they too had headed upstairs
expecting tea to be served there!
I am so lucky to have so much family
around me! And I am going to enjoy having Becky, Evelyn, and Sherry
here next week . I will be washing bedding, vacuuming up chunks of
cat fur, scrubbing my kitchen, bathrooms, and trying to pull weeds
and re dig the borders of my flower beds in the days before they
arrive. I will be babysitting for a couple of days too which means
nothing but creating endless messes on all three levels of Grandma's
house. I just don't seem to possess the parenting tools needed to
enforce rules anymore! I am sure that some of my older children think
I had a screw loose by the time I raised their younger siblings but I
now have no hopes of tightening things up as most of my tools are
either at one of my kid's or their friend's home at any given time.
Then Sean hit me like a sledge hammer when he tried to screw me out
of my work bench and tool chests suggesting that they would be more
useful in his garage! Mother lowered the boom on that one.
Love to you all, Mother
