Three Weeks and All is Well

Today was beautiful. After dinner Yellow and I pulled Papa Joe outside for a walk around the block.
"We'll eat chocolate muffins when we get back," we told him.

As we headed up the hill, we saw our neighbors Mark and Patti coming out with their golden retriever to go for a walk as well. We called hello across the street and they waved back.

A little further along we passed a man mowing his grass with one of those muscle-powered, engineless, whirring machines.
"You have such a nice lawn mower," I told him, and Papa Joe and Yellow paused with me to watch. He stopped at the end of a row and wiped his brow.
"I have a very small yard," he said.
"It makes a lovely sound," I said. He smiled.
"And I don't have to walk behind in the gas," he said. "Some guys in a big SUV stopped to watch me a few weeks ago; I think they thought I was crazy."
"Well I think it's a pleasure to see," I said as we started walking again, "I appreciate it."

A few houses beyond we paused again to see how the oriental lily buds were coming.
"Just another day or two," Yellow said.
"Maybe tomorrow," I said.
"I'll have to come snatch it," Yellow said.
"Oh no you won't!" Said Papa Joe, "you've got to leave off at that!"
"Every time I see petunias for sale," I tell Yellow, "I almost buy a pot because I figure if I plant them in our front yard, maybe you'll stop going next door to pick the neighbors' flowers." Yellow chuckles and Papa Joe shakes his head.

Across the street we see a father carrying his son around on his hip. His son is probably six or seven. The father calls out to us:
"I don't usually carry him around like this--he just wants to see what it looks like from this high up!" We laugh.
"That's great!" I yell, remembering all of the times I've climbed onto tables and into trees to find a new perspective, "it makes a big difference."
"He can see the tops of the bushes from up here," the father yells back, "he's never seen them before."

When we get to the corner, Yellow and Papa Joe congratulate each other on making it to the top of the hill. We turn and cross to begin our descent along the southwest side of the block. I look over to the white house opposite to see if the dogs are in the upstairs window. Every time I pass I see two little dogs in the window, peering down. The shutters are closed. The owners of the house are sitting in lawn chairs outside their garage.
"Your dogs," I call, "they aren't in their window! I always see them in the window!" The woman hops up and looks up at the window, too.
"Oh, the shutters are closed," she says, "but they're in there." She waves and we continue.

As we round the third corner and see our garage peeking around the curve in the distance, Papa Joe shuffles a little faster.
"Almost home," he says.
"Chocolate muffins," I say.
"Yummy for the tummy," Yellow says.

I gasp.

"Hey guys, I'm pretty sure I saw a container of cool whip in the freezer. I think we should put it on our chocolate muffins tonight."
"Ooh," says Yellow, nodding.
"Unless," I say abruptly, "the container is actually full of tomatoes." Papa Joe doesn't like tomatoes, and he often laments the dozens of little containers and baggies of frozen homegrown tomatoes that have been (for years) taking up freezer space.
"It probably is," says Yellow bursting out laughing. Papa Joe and I laugh too, and since our collective balance isn't that good, we all sway a little and weave as we shuffle along.
"I bet we look pretty pickled," I think to myself, using a new descriptive I've learned from my grandmother.

We pass a driveway full of bikes and rollerskates.
"A four-bike family," says Yellow. Some neighbors poke their heads of of their garage to say hi.
"We might need to borrow a bicycle," calls Papa Joe, "we're not sure if we can make it home or not."
"No bother," says the lady, "just jump in the back of my car and I'll drive you."
We wave goodbye and keep moving. We're getting pretty close now. We cross the street, walk across the driveway, and Yellow sits down in a lawnchair at the edge of the garage.
"I think I'll sit here a little while, Joe," she says, looking across the lawn.
"Don't forget we have those muffins to eat," says Papa Joe, leaning against the car.
"Look at that moon," says Yellow, "it's full!"
"Not yet," says Papa Joe, "it's still got a lump on one side."
"Fireflies!" I exclaim, seeing one rise off the lawn. "The first fireflies!"

I tell Yellow and Papa Joe how Andy has never seen fireflies and how I was trying to describe them to him one day and discovered that he didn't know they blinked. I guess he thought they kept their lights on all of the time. "No no," I had explained to him, "they blink. Usually they flash while they're rising up in the air. It's really beautiful when they're really dense over a field, because all of the blinks are rising up, and you can almost confuse them with stars."

A woman comes hurrying across the darkening street. She's carrying a magnolia branch with an enormous white blossom nestling in the waxy green leaves. She bends down to Yellow in her chair and hands it to her.
"Cut the stem off and put this in a bowl of water; it will open tomorrow. It smells fantastic. I'm Carolyn," she says, looking at me and offering her hand. "I'm from next door."
"I've heard lots about you," I tell her, "especially how much you--"
"--love gardening," she finishes, cutting me off. "Yep, I love it."
"I'm April," I say.
"She's our granddaughter," says Yellow.
"Nice to meet you," says Carolyn, "we love Joe and Ann. Great neighbors." She hurries off to finish pruning.

I see the neighbors are putting out the trash cans, so I walk around the corner to get ours just as I hear a fellow call out: "You guys have trash this week? Need a hand?"
This is Carolyn's husband, Randall, and he comes over and introduces himself and then he and Papa Joe tease each other for a while until he heads off to pile more brush along the curb for Carolyn.

"Ann," Papa Joe says, "you can keep sitting there, but April and I are going to go inside to eat our chocolate muffins. You can watch us if you want, but we won't make you move."
"I'm coming," says Yellow, "I'm coming."

************
I put a muffin and a scoop of whipped cream on each plate and put the plates on the table. Papa Joe is in the bathroom, so Yellow and I dig in.
"I don't know what I was thinking," I say after a bite of spongy cool whip. "Why did I scoop out cool whip when we have ice cream in the freezer?"
Yellow looks at me.
"We have ice cream?"
"Yup."
"What kind?"
"Chocolate chip and strawberry."
"That sure would be good," she says.
"Yes, it would," I agree.
We pause and look at each other.

"Umm... do you want some?" I ask. She gives a Yellow giggle.
"Yes," she says, nodding, "I think I would."

I'm just opening the lids when Papa Joe arrives at the table.
"Which flavor?" I ask Yellow, "or do you want a little of each?"
"I'll take both," she says.
Papa Joe decides he'll have both flavors, too.
I figure I may as well join the majority.

*******

This afternoon we went to a doctor's appointment and all three of us sat down to fill out paperwork. Yellow looked over at us.
"What is today's date?" she asked.
"The twenty-fifth," said Papa Joe.
She hesitated, and kept watching us.
A moment later, she asked again, "What is today's date?"
"May twenty-fifth," I said.
She looked at me with a rogueish twinkle in her eye before clarifying, slowly and deliberately, "what year?"