Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

My grandson, the child of my only child, will be a year old next week, and if there is a more loveable, adored and indulged baby-almost-toddler around, I would like to meet him or her. (See, I’m not a biologist but I can tell the difference. My father, who was a biologist trained us all well in that sciencey sort of thing.)

He is close to weighing twenty pounds, and when standing on his flat, tender little baby feet – and he wants most urgently to stand – the top of his head comes to my daughter’s mid-thigh. When he was delivered three weeks early by emergency c-section, I was a bit concerned because his arms and legs were so thin, the flesh on them rather flaccid. He was just large enough and scored high enough on the APGAR test that he wasn’t consigned to NICU (neo-natal intensive care) and so could home with us two days later. In the year since, Jamie has firmly plumped out, with little dimples on the back of his hands where his knuckles are, and dear indented little rings around his wrists, elbows, and knees. He will lose that baby fat when he begins to walk, though. My daughter remained roughly the same approximate size and weight from the age of 18 months to four years – she just lengthened out, grew lean and tall.

He is going to be tall, when he is grown to man’s estate and shall be very proud and great. He has a head of feathery light-brown hair; sometimes we see blond highlights in it, sometimes rather more auburn, and it curls very slightly back of his ears. He has rather strongly marked eyebrows and ridiculously long eyelashes, but the color of his eyes themselves is hard to judge – blue-green, blue-green-hazel? It depends on the day and the lighting. His nose gives promise of eventually being rather a beak, but as to the mouth, everyone says that he has lips like mine and my daughters. Otherwise, not very much of a family resemblance at all; a gamine face, which likely will change when he is an adult. He is not one of those children who keeps basically the same face for their life, like Granny Jessie or my brother JP, both of whom are recognizable from earliest childhood through to middle or advanced age. He smiles now, openly and at practically everyone, and of late has begun to giggle and laugh.

Wee Jamie is not one of those timid, hard-to-approach small children. When we take him shopping, he is ready to smile at anyone who smiles at him, although he has been known to stare at some strangers with direct and unsettling intensity. Otherwise, a very placid, confident, and happy baby, who rarely cries full-on, unless in pain (rare) or fright (rarer still. His godmother speculates that it is likely he is that way because my daughter and I readily comfort him and attend to his needs. One year, under our belts – now for the next twenty…

It was at Randolph AFB last weekend, the first time in two years that the air show happened, and they were packing in spectators for the air show and the static AC displays. I posted some pictures on my FaceBook profile, which unaccountably have vanished – so, reposted here for your enjoyment.

Part of the air show was a recreation by the CAF of the attack on Pearl Harbor, with convincing pyrotechnics, and I snagged some good pictures with my cellphone. I’d almost want to write another WWII novel, just to make use of one of them for the cover…

My daughter will insist that I have been watching too many restoration videos on Toob of Yew, but honestly, it’s fascinating to me, watching rusty and ruined bits of this or that being brought back to life. I also have developed a serious case of power tool envy, after seeing what could be done with a sandblasting unit, when it comes to destroying rust. Wee Jamie watches these with me – I hope that the concept of repair and reuse sticks with him, also the fun of using power tools.

Anyway, there is in my kitchen a rolling kitchen island; a solid piece constructed of oil-finished rock maple with a butcher-block top. I bought it through the Williams-Sonoma catalogue sometime around 1986, mostly because my kitchen in Spain was dinky, and there was no place to put the microwave oven, having fallen for that bit of cooking technology when on leave visiting my parents, who had a lovely large one. It’s in my mind that it came at least partially assembled; and it must have been a bit pricy because Williams-Sonoma. For about a decade I dedicated my yearly income tax return towards solid pieces of furniture, and that unit might have been the pick of that year. Anyway, it was a sturdy piece, with double doors on each long side, a small drawer just below the butcherblock top and movable narrow shelves on the short sides. I kept spices on the narrow side shelves, and an array of French porcelain cooking dishes inside, and the rolling island followed us from Spain to Utah and then finally to Texas, where my kitchen is still small and woefully short of counter space.

Alas, although the rock maple parts of the cart have endured rather nicely, certain of the panels which were of thin maple veneer over composition – have not aged at all well. For a good few years we had a cat who was addicted to peeing on things, and for totally ruining household items, noting quite beats the power and stench of male cat urine. So it came to pass that we were both tired of looking at the ruined finish, not to mention the way that the bottom shelves and side panels were warping out of shape … and yesterday in a fit of exasperation and ambition, I emptied out the contents into boxes, and disassembled the cart.

“I was bored,” I said to my daughter when she got home with Wee Jamie, “And I thought I’d take the furniture apart.” (It will be at least three weeks before Roman the Neighborhood Handy Guy can come and re-do the back fence, and I was all afire to get SOMETHING done!)

For all of today, we used the palm sander by turns, sanding off all the stains on the various pieces, and using every bit of Liquid Wrench and WD-40 on hand to pry out wheels, which had rusted practically solid due to regular applications of cat pee. A trip to Lowe’s for some small birchwood plywood panels, some passes with the circular saw, and … only exhaustion plus an uncomfortable tingling in the hands kept us from doing any more work on it today.

Tomorrow, I’ll finish putting it back together, paint the base white and finish the butcherblock top with linseed oil – did I mention that I have a new paint sprayer? New rollers and a set of metal knobs are to be delivered tomorrow. When I eventually redo the kitchen, it will be all be in white-painted cabinets, but for now, the revamped cart will do.

Pictures to follow. The “Before” pics were too ghastly to unleash on an unwary public.