Spiffing up the cottage and plans gone awry

My stained glass panels

Birthday presents came home to roost this weekend. Jordan and Christian’s gift was a stained-glass hanging. Most of the windows (there are four plus a set of French doors) in my living area look out on the garden, but one has a wonderful view of a hurricane fence with straggly honeysuckle (the honeysuckle is lush everywhere else) and the back of a neighbor’s garage. Jordan thought a stained-glass hanging would soften the view, but before we could begin to investigate, friend Subie said, “We have four in the garage that we have no place to put.” She brought two vertical panels, and they now sit in the window—and they do soften the view.

Morgan's sign

Then granddaughter Morgan arrived with a sign she’d made for my cottage. The sign, boldly proclaiming “Juju’s Cottage,” now hangs outside my door to welcome visitors—for the day when I can have visitors again. We now make them detour to the patio. So proud and grateful that she made that for me.

The best laid plans of men—and daughters—gang aft agley, according to Robert Burns. They sure did this week for Jordan and her family. They planned to take their annual trip to Hyatt Lost Pines resort in Central Texas near Bastrop, where they could sit by the pool, Jacob could fish and kayak. Jordan, as a luxury travel planner, had checked out the situation thoroughly and decided their pandemic precautions were satisfactory. The trip would celebrate Christian’s birthday—no, we won’t say which one.

But factors other than the pandemic intervened. When Jacob came out to the cottage this morning to ask me to print a label, he said casually, “Oh, we cancelled our trip.” When Jordan came out later, I said, “You really messed up all my plans,” and she replied that she had spent the morning cancelling plans—the dog sitter, the neighbor boys who were going to water, etc.

I had planned carefully for four days and nights without them. I have a list of meals I was going to cook—things they don’t want to eat but I love, like the okroshka soup I make with buttermilk and salmon croquettes and maybe a tuna casserole and for sure a Spam spread—shhh! Don’t judge.

I ate Spam as a kid—baked or fried—and I liked it, at least to my memory. I came across a recipe on the internet for a spread made with onion, celery, relish, mayonnaise, etc. Sounds like a ham spread to me, and ham salad is high on my list of likes. And I now have a can of low-fat Spam. I know once of the objections to Spam is high sodium, but I believe the low-fat is also low sodium, and besides every time I have blood taken, my sodium is on the low side and the doctor tells me to eat salt. My friend Jean once practically tried to grab the salt out of my hand as I doctored some split pea soup. But I digress. I’m going to make it, even if I have to eat the whole batch myself.

So that I would not be without human contact, I had lined up friends to come for happy hour each night that I would be alone. Jordan’s reaction this morning was, “Bring it on. I’ll visit with them too.” So now we have a week ahead filled with friends. I’m grateful.

Isn’t it nice that life brings change? I hope it also brings growth.

Be safe and well, friends. New cases of Corona-19 are down in Fort Worth and Dallas today. Hope it’s a good sign.