Neighborhood Walk with Grace

After dinner thother nite, I had the extreme pleasure of going for a walk with Grace.

She was on her scooter and wearing pink rubber boots.

She knew exactly where she wanted to go.

I simply followed her.

As we scooted down the street, she pointed to a mailbox.

"Nice flower decoration," she said.

Now it's time to cross the busy street.

We negotiated it and stopped off at my friend Claudia's and saw Claude and her husband Barry, who is preparing his lesson plan for Manor Jr College, which has merged with other Catholic colleges.... Holy Family and Alvernia, a small Catholic School in Reading, PA.

Gotta look up the name derivation when I have a chance.

Then she wants to go up Carroll Avenue.

"This is a really weird street," says Grace. And she is right.

It was steep.

These two houses may or may not be on Carroll.



One house on the left had some b'ful flowers shaped like stars.

Grace loved them and mentioned that unlike real stars, we could touch and smell these.

Beyond the flowers was a HUGE plot of land.... green green grass... and I told her that lions and tigers were strolling about.

"We better get out of here," she said and began scooting up the steep hill.

Dan later told me that at the top of the hill an entire house had been moved from Highland Avenue. Guess they liked this street in Cheltenham Township.

Grace did a really careful job scooting back down the hill. She'd go real fast but then stop herself with her rubber boots.

Sometimes I would yell "Car is coming!"

She knew just how to duck in behind a parked car.

When we passed my car, parked on her street, she said, "Look, you have a little red sweater on the back of your seat."

"That's in case I get cold," I said.

She also noticed a carton in my back seat.

Told her when I go to the Giant, I put my groceries in there. Easier than a plastic bag.

Today was her first day at school. Her adventures, of course, are on FB.

As for me, I'm going to Scott's - he's off for two whole weeks - and we're gonna watch the film The Aristocrats, recommended by comedian Bob Sagat. Listened to a few disks of Bob's laff-aloud memoir.

Enough was enough, tho, so I returned it to the library.

BTW, The Aristocrats stunk!



Pretty grown-up body language, wouldn't you say?

Okay, a quick on the spot poem

   A couple doors down a huge tree was taken down. Am surprised that Michael didn't post anything about it on FB.

He was at work when they removed it and this evening was enjoying using his electric saw to chop it into pieces. It was not damaged, he said, but he just wanted it removed.

I won't editorialize about this. Or will I?

BOO!

TREE FALL

From my living room, I hear
an explosion and look outside.

The tree-fellers have done their
dirty work, and the tree bounces

like kids jumping on a mattress,
shards of leaves and twigs spritz

the air. Later I go out. Tucker, I
say to the boy on the bike,

You can smell it. A good smell
the smell of death.