April 2019

My Brother’s Condo in Bradenton, Florida

Hi, Sophia.

My brother Bob told me his new cat Lottie was excited I was coming. Lottie is a

5-year-old tabby that weighs 7 pounds. Bob adopted her from an animal shelter.

The first day Spence and I visited, Lottie seemed curious and shy―not excited. She hid under tables or Bob’s walker and watched us without getting close.

She did keep close to my brother. Lottie followed him around as if she were a puppy. When he sat, she jumped onto his lap or slept on the floor by his feet. Though she didn’t play with cat toys he’d bought her, she batted a bottle cap around the living room.

By the second day, Lottie got used to us. With her shelter tag jingling against her collar, she crept close to Spence then jumped onto his lap. And after she watched Bob and I play cribbage for an hour, Lottie let me scoop her up and carry her off the porch.

Spence cooked pizza for dinner that night. He put ground turkey on my pieces. Lottie jumped onto the table and sniffed my plate. I put my hand between her and my pizza until I’d finished eating. Then I put the plate on the floor. Lottie jumped down and gobbled the crumbs. Who knew a cat would like pizza?

She also licked milk out of my brother’s bowl when he finished his Cheerios. Laplaplaplaplaplap. She is one noisy lapper!

Lottie’s cute and sweet. I wished I could bring her home. But she wouldn’t be happy anywhere without my brother. They’re a pair.

Love,

Janet

4-26-19

My Brother’s Condo in Bradenton

Hi, Maggie.

You’d written about baking for family. I went to my brother’s planning to bake a pie and a cake for his birthday. So, after arrival hugs, greeting his adorable cat Lottie, and a quick condo tour, I pulled out our great aunt’s strawberry pie recipe and headed for his kitchen. It had LOTS of cupboards. I opened door after door before calling for help.

Between fetching utensils, Bob sat and answered questions. We had a comfortable chat while I rolled the pie crust and ran his electric mixer to whip the strawberry filling bubbling in a double boiler. After lunch, I cut the pie. Bob ate two slices with whipped cream. Lottie jumped onto his lap to investigate. He gently held her back from the pie.

In the afternoon, I baked a yellow cake. Bob chatted with my husband in the living room. I ran the mixer and cooked Betty Crocker’s 7 minute frosting. After 6 ½ minutes, the mixer groaned and stopped. I called, “Something’s wrong with your mixer.”

Bob called back, “The motor burned out. We can smell it in here.”

The aroma of cake and sugar blocked most of the motor odor for me.

Bob finished beating the frosting by hand, and I spread it on the cake. The frosting looked like stucco, and the cake didn’t reach bakery standards, but Bob appreciated it. Several times he said, “No one has baked a cake for my birthday in twenty years.”

What you wrote me was right, Maggie. We cherish the simple things and the moments we have with people we love.

Love,

Janet

4-26, 27, & 28, 2019

Airbnb Palma Sola Suite, Bradenton

Hi, Lori and Eliza.

When Spence and I visited Bob, we stayed in an Airbnb close to his condo. The first thing I noticed were the white, whole cloth quilts on the daybed and regular bed. Gorgeous―the intricate, precise quilting must have been done by machine.

Saturday morning, Spence found a spot of blood on the daybed quilt. We didn’t have cuts. How’d it get there? Regardless, I put the spot under cold running water in the bathroom sink. Later, I checked the quilt. No spot. I lifted it up to hang it over the shower curtain rod, and, of course, the rod crashed to the floor. So I hung the quilt over the backs of two metal chairs in the sitting room. We rehung the curtain rod. With the rod in place and the clean quilt drying, we left for Bob’s. In the side yard, sprinklers squirted stinky sulfur-water on the vegetable garden and us. Sheesh! We sprinted for the gate.

Midmorning, the B&B hostess sent me an email asking if everything was okay.

I texted everything was lovely, thank you. Even the sprinkler felt refreshing.

Bob predicted she’d gone into the unit to check it out. He was right. She left regular pillows on the daybed. It only had fancy pillows before.

Sunday morning, the quilt had dried. I put everything back in place. The sprinkler didn’t turn on, but the twine that pulled the outside latch on the nine-foot gate broke. We were locked in. I called the hostess. She opened the gate. We chatted about gardens, the curtain rod, and Bradenton traffic. I didn’t mention the quilt.

Love,

Janet

4-27-19

Manatee Beach, Anna Maria Island, Florida

Hi, Joyce.

I hope you’re enjoying lots of family visits.

Spence and I visited my brother Bob in April. When Saturday dawned hot and sunny, he suggested we make our “obligatory trip to the beach” in the morning before the temperature rose to scorching for us northerners (85ºF, 29ºC) . Bob couldn’t manage the sand with his walker, and he’d been to the beach many times. He preferred staying home.

Lots of people didn’t. After a rainy week, they swarmed to the beach. We crept on the causeway in stop-and-go traffic then circled the beach parking lot with dozens of other cars. After a 20 minute search, in and out of the lot, we got a space 3 blocks away.

Picnickers crowded tables and grills under shade trees. Near the water, tents and towels covered the sand―packed as close as downtown buildings. Spence and I tiptoed through the maze to the water. Children built sand castles. Young women sunbathed in skimpy bikinis. Swimmers bobbed. A kayaker and children on inner tubes rose and fell on swells. The breeze carried fragrances of seaweed, barbecue, and suntan lotion.

Spence and I walked in the surf away from the crowd. Foam bubbled around our ankles. Sandpipers―pecking the sand for morsels―skittered in and out with the waves. Gulls swooped close to our heads. Kee-ow, kee-ow, kee-ow. The sun blazed.

I’d planned an hour stroll in the surf, but the sun, the crowd, and the sand disappearing under my feet with each receding wave wore me out. After 30 minutes, I had enough beach. Like my brother, I could imagine staying home on a sunny Saturday.

Love,

Janet

4-27-19

Bradenton, Florida

Hi, Reid and Claire.

I hope your life is full of delights.

One delight of visiting Bob was spending time with his son Robert. Saturday afternoon, we sat on the porch and, as you can imagine, I questioned him relentlessly. He quit his golf pro job at the country club and now manages a Sarasota Hospital cafeteria, which serves over a thousand people a day. Bob had told me Robert moved in with his high school friend Robin, so I asked Robert about her. He said Robin is a massage therapist. She works part time because massaging over four hours a day wears her out.

A shuffleboard court is behind the condo. Robert and I decided to try a game. Bob came too. None of us had played before. Spence didn’t play because, he said, the condo planners had pegged it an old people activity. He baked pizza.

I swept the court. Robert read the rules. Bob got the chalk and opened the scoring board.

Bob and I formed a team. The guys shot from the end of the court near the supply cabinet. Robert and I shot from the other end. Even shooting with one hand in his pocket, Robert beat us soundly. Then I read the scoring rules aloud about taking points off when a puck landed on the triangle lines. Bob and I squeaked out a win in the second game.

After the game, Robert met Robin at the parade honoring Hernando De Soto. With over 200,000 people expected, we older folks chose a quiet pizza dinner on the porch.

Love,

Janet

4-26, 27, & 28-19

Bradenton, Florida

Hi, Nancy.

I hope you’re adjusting to retired life―time with your granddaughters and no deadlines. Bob has. Spence and I visited him and saw the new life he created after Mom died and his tech job vanished when the owner sold the Realtor website company.

Bob moved to a condo in a senior community. The condo is light―well duh it’s Florida―and lovely with lots of room for him to push his walker among the feng shui arranged furniture. He even made room for the pool table. Playing with him, I averaged pocketing four balls before he sank his seven and shot the 8 ball.

Bob adopted an adorable cat that had been in an animal shelter for a year and a half. They make a team. She helps him with everything―eating breakfast, watching tv news, working at the computer . . .

He’d told me no one would hire a sixty-five-year-old gimp (Because of spinal surgery, he drags his left leg when he walks.) with Parkinson’s, and he didn’t want to work in real estate any more. He had a computer and a brain so he got into the options market. He studies stocks, buys a hundred shares at a time, and sells options to people. If the stock rises above the options price, people buy the stock. If the stock doesn’t rise that high, they don’t. He pockets the option fee and sells another option. Pretty cool.

I’m proud of my little brother.

Love,

Janet

4-26-19

Bradenton, Florida

Hi, Julie.

Like our visits with you, when Spence and I visited Bob, we sat on the porch for comfortable chats. But in Florida, geckos climbed the screens. A mocking bird sang continuously on the branch of a locust tree. And a blue jay landed on the magnolia bush by the porch door.

I asked what he remembered about Erie and Aunt Marge.

His only memory of Marge was one I didn’t have―sleeping overnight with her on Grandma’s West 5^th Street porch because Marge wanted him to experience camping. He slept on the metal glider. Do you remember it? His other memory of Erie was your dad’s Indian motorcycle in the garage beside Grandpa’s Model A.

In Bob’s garage, I spotted the wooden rocking horse Dad had made. It no longer had ears and a tail but still tempted me to ride it for old times’ sake. I didn’t. I probably wouldn’t fit the seat my toddler bottom once fit.

Inside Bob’s spacious condo, other family artifacts triggered memories―the grandfather clock Dad built, wall hangings Mom embroidered, and the pool table Dad bought ages ago. After many a family pool match, the felt wore out. Bob said his last project with Mom was replacing the felt cover―a new surface and a new memory for me.

Family―in person, stories, or artifacts―enriched my visit with Bob.

Love,

Janet