On Growing Old, if You Can Take the Beating

"Would you mind," she asked, "if I put on some clothes?"

It was not what it sounds like.

"She" was Mari, and she already had clothes on, although not the kind one normally wears to the grocery. She had gotten up early,
to greet her grandson, who is here for the day. Jao is not quite a year old, but he is as agile as climbing puppy dog.

"Would you mind," she actually meant, "keeping an eye on Jao while I put my best grocery duds on?" And that is not what she really meant, either. She meant that she was going out of the room for a minute, and would I mind protecting the house and TV while she was gone.

"M . . a . . r . . i!", I soon called: "M . . . a . . . r . . . i!"

"What is it?"

"Put your clothes on!", I said. "He is beating me into submission."

Jao like to drum on things. He drums until you put him down, and then he scoots like a skateboarder without wheels toward things with knobs and lights and little things that he can snap off and wing away.

Grandmothers are so good with kids. Much better than grandfathers.

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