Crabby Codgers - Day One

We fed Button and Riley, showered, packed tetra packs of orange juice and small bags of cherries for each of the girls and left for downtown. A very short drive, despite rush hour. Took a bit to find a parking spot, and then we had problems connecting with our daughter; she wasn't responding to her cell phone. Finally, we met up, collected the girls and their luggage, and set off on the return route.

The girls were excited and happy; an adventure before them. We hadn't met Sarah previously and were surprised at her appearance. A tall girl, a half-head taller than our granddaughter, but then, a full year separates them. She's also a very broad girl, surprisingly overweight for thirteen, but with a beautiful face; blue-green eyes, long silky auburn hair, and a finely shaped mouth.

They chattered in the backseat, while we pointed out places of interest in our passage through that part of the city en route to the Eastern Parkway. The Parliament buildings, Chateau Laurier, the wonderfully sculpted "Maman" spider with her cache of marble eggs, before the National Gallery - to which Sarah commented: "Ugh".

Then followed the Royal Mint, the Peace Monument, the Saudi embassy, the Agha Khan's new building, the Foreign Affairs building and the National Research Council, the Rideau Falls and the French Embassy. Oh, and the Governor General's residence. Outside the gates, the GG's footguards in distinctive red garb; their tall beaver hats. To this, Sarah exclaimed "cool!".

When we arrived home it was busy work preparing a late breakfast of half-grapefruit, chicken bacon, eggs, toast and coffee. This was a new one for us; heretofore Angelyne had always been a tea drinker - following her customary cup of breakfast cocoa. But 13-year-old Sarah claimed she drinks coffee at home, and 12-year-old Angie said "me too!".

The girls were famished and behaved accordingly. Throughout, pleasant, polite conversation. Then we were off to the ravine for a walk, everyone wearing hiking boots after the admonition to have a care in there; the trails had been muddy for some time, given all the rain we've been having. They skipped ahead, downhill and traversing the bridges, then uphill.

Plucking already-turned-and-fallen bright red poplar leaves to admire the colour. And at one point, Sarah availing herself of a freshly-blooming lily someone had planted alongside the trail. She tucked it neatly behind one ear, and the bright orange against her auburn hair intensified her prettiness. She resembled a Tahitian beauty, painted by Gauguin.

Climbing the penultimate rise, Sarah did not follow Angie's example, which was to carefully pick her way among the roots at the side of the trail to gain a secure footing along the slickly-wet clay rise, but instead took a running upward initiative, dead centre, and quickly slid back down, twisting on her backside, her jeans taking the worst of the reverse journey. Never mind, I consoled her, we'd clean up at home.

After washing up the dogs' paws, Sarah's jeans were next, in the basin of the laundry room; her shorts hung up on the rail of the deck, to dry. And off we went to visit our local Chapters book store to ensure the two avid readers - small mercies - had sufficient reading material for the next few days and beyond. I gave each girl a $20 bill, and encouraged them to look around - especially the offerings on the sales tables.

Angie selected three teen novels, at a sale price, and Sarah a single hard-back, at regular price. When we left, we topped off the cost of the books, extending somewhat beyond their limits. They had a swiftly-prepared late lunch of tuna salad sandwiches on croissants, and raspberries for dessert.

Then we decamped upstairs to the computer because Angie was anxious to have some songs down-loaded onto the iPod her grandfather had injudiciously agreed to buy for her, some two weeks previously. First off, to access the Apple site, then download iTunes and set up the beginning of a music library. We've got dial-up service and just left the business to cook.

The girls made the decision in which bedroom they wanted to sleep. They would share the same bedroom, they decided. Two single beds. Out came the linen, and they helped to prepare the beds for sleep. Downstairs they tripped, out to the backyard where they sat on the glider, swinging happily, turning their attention to word puzzles.

Upstairs again later, the software downloaded, we turned to the offerings in the categories they were interested in and which represent anything but listenable music to my aged ears. Together they decided on thirteen selections at $.99 a pop, and then began the time-consuming tedium of downloading the selections. With dial-up, it took four hours; I finally went off line at 1:30 a.m.

For dinner, Sarah thought she would like the same T-bone steak that Angie's grandfather was having, and I decided for a chicken breast which was also Angie's selection. Meaning that dinner was Irving's job primarily. I pre-prepared the potatoes, sliced them, and he pan-fried them on the gas range alongside the barbecue, while I cooked corn on the cob on the stove.

During dinner, Sarah regaled us with tales of her family. Her grandfather lived in a house beside theirs, right at the lake. Her "crazy" uncle Norman - really her grandfather's brother - lived there too, in sight of their house, and she feared him, he was so mean and unpredictable. Her brother, Michael, was a nasty little brute, two years her senior. His reputation at school outlasted his presence and unhappily prepared the teachers for his younger sibling.

Her parents were in the business of landscaping and worked very long hours. She looks just like her mother; her father has a riotous sense of humour. He built a really nice doghouse for their Labrador Retriever, designating it as Sarah's future home, once she turns 18. Her parents both drive large tractors in the winter months, to plow driveways. Once, her father snowed her mother's tractor in completely, and sat there laughing as his furious wife struggled to free herself.

Angie, fascinated with food, has the appetite of a Stevedore. Sarah, quite appreciating her food is a daintier consumer, her appetite considerably less voracious than Angie's. Perhaps she's conscious that her body doesn't burn calories as efficiently as Angie's metabolism does. A factor of inheritance; the genes have it all. Angie has two helpings of marble ice cream.

During dinner also, Sarah informs us of another inheritance she has; the misfortune of a birth gone awry, where her arm was somehow pulled awkwardly, to the extent that she has had to undergo a number of operations to ensure functionality. But, she says, she has been forewarned by the neurologist who examines her at the Children's Hospital monthly, that she can expect to lose that arm. Perhaps sooner than later.

A year ago, she said, she still had eight functional nerves in that arm. She's down to three now. No, she assures us, there isn't much that can be done for her. She takes medication, and she sees a therapist. We hardly know what to say, how to reassure her; fact is we can't reassure her, knowing nothing about her predicament, other than what she tells us, and we're not medical authorities in any event.

She wants a tattoo, she goes on, but her mother tells her over her dead body. Or she can make the decision when she turns eighteen. The girls retire to the family room while I clean up, having obligingly taken their dinner plates to the kitchen sink. They sit there, rollicking with teen-age laughter, comparing notes on something or other. They're late going to bed.

I've reminded Sarah a few times not to forget to telephone her mother, she might want to hear from her, be reassured of her well-being, in a strange home. Sarah agrees, but doesn't call home though she has a cell-phone. They finally get in bed, and luxuriate there, rolling about, talking excitedly.

Who knew teen-age girls had so much to talk about, so incessantly, so urgently?