A Happy Day ...

I am puttering around Bea's bed when she says, “I call you, The Efficient One. To have you around is wonderful.”

Praise is nice. I glow.

There has just been an election, but I have not mentioned it yet, so I share the good news: “Guess what! The Democrats won back Congress!”

Much to my surprise, Bea must have been listening to the commentators' voices from our living room because she already seems aware of this information: “I must confess, it is the first time in my life that I did not vote.”

My mother spends a happy day, telling herself stories and remembering rhymes, like this one:

“School days, dear old Golden Rule days.
Reading and writing and ‘rithmatic,
taught to the tune of the hickory stick.
You were my queen in calico.
I was your barefoot, bashful beau
and wrote on my slate, ‘I love you, Joe’
when we were a couple of kids …