Mommy began to really enjoy her new home and became very comfortable and happy being right next door to me. We had a lot of fun inviting each other over for dinner and sharing the scenery of blooming flowers and freshly cut grass and her telling me where I should plant even more flowers and what would look “pretty” over here and over there. She always told me that I should cut down that “big old ugly tree.” But that’s the over 100 year old tree that I set my hammock under along with the barbeques that provide the shade. But what she was really constantly insisting that I do is to “get rid of that old rusty shed in the back.” Well, that old shed held the wheel barrel, the yard games a couple of screen tents and pieces of lumber, a couple of shovels and . . . well just some stuff that I needed easy excess to. It’s aluminum walls were rusting and it had old painted wooden doors on it, but it set there baring a lot of character . . . just planted there with beautiful manicured grass and ground cover plants surrounding it. But Mommy was right . . . it WAS ugly, but it was ugly with a lot of character.
One sunny summer afternoon, Mommy and I set in the back just laughing and reflecting. In passing, she mentioned a game that she enjoyed playing earlier in her life. It was “crocket.” Months prior, I purchased a crocket set on sale somewhere, thinking that it would be a fun yard game, a game that at the time I became very bored with because I didn’t bother to read the directions. Striking the wooden ball like it was a golf ball didn’t’ seem to exciting after it never went in the direction intended. I dragged the crocket mallets and balls from the shed and set up a course. Mommy straddled the ball with the mallet without any direction (the proper way) and on her first attempt, hit the ball straight through the first wire. I hadn’t seen her so excited in years. Since I was a little dude, it was the first time I heard her let out that “yell” like that. She was so excited, her smile brightened each time she hit the ball. For years, she walked with a slight limp because of her right knee, but I detected no limp at all for the next 20 to 30 minutes. When it was my turn to hit the ball, she would wait almost impatiently for me to miss and to take her turn. I’m telling you, Mommy became a teenager for a good 20 to 30 minutes. I’ll never forget it.
In the yard is where Mommy & Me shared a lot of memories and laughed and joked together. We laughed at and with each other but she loved it when I joked with her. I walked from my rear door one late morning, only to catch her “helping” me de-weed one of the flower beds between our houses. I think I probably startled her when I opened the door, because she looked back at me with that “Who Me?” look on her face. In her hand, was a Mum plant that I planted the fall before . . . the whole pant, that she pulled up , , , root and all . . . she thought was a big dead weed. After I regained my composure, I just started to crack-up. She just broke into laughter with me, her classic laugh, the one that she doesn’t move or anything, the one that you could hardly tell if she was breathing or can take a breath. She just couldn’t stop laughing as I continued to joke with her about her not knowing which are weeds. Actually, the reason that she was startled when I came out was that she had realized that she had pulled up a plant and was sneaking to put it back before I found out. Mommy was something else . . . yep, it was fun HAVING FUN WITH MOMMY.
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