Busy Times with Harvest and Grandkids

Tonight we had fish and goodies from yesterday’s annual fish fry at our village church even though we did not make it there.  It was nice to be the recipient of the give-aways often sent to non-attendees.  I was at Katherine’s yesterday to give meds before and again after lunch, but away at the  noon hour to attend Brianna’s twentieth birthday dinner at Brian and Mary Ellen’s farm. 

Brianna’s birthday cake made by her mother was a work of art.  The chocolate cake with chocolate icing was surrounded  with upright Kit Kats and the top coated with M&M’s. A filmy orange ribbon and bow encircled the border  made from the globally popular confection of crispy wafers covered with chocolate that we inherited from Britain. That ribbed border madethe whole thing look like a decorated rustic candy bowl. On Saturday  Mary Ellen had shown me a photo of the cake on her phone when she took a very very quick break from a field near  Woodsong before rushing on to help with the harvest by driving a header to their fields near Harrisburg.  She said the idea came from Pinterest.  I did not even catch on it was a cake until I read that later on Facebook. 

With all the other colorful decorations, the table and room were quite festive to welcome Bri into her second decade tomorrow.  The huge platter of pork chops were tender and tasty and everything else quite delicious as both Katherine and Sam agreed as they enjoyed the meals Mary Ellen sent to their house. Today Bri is back at Murray before her birthday tomorrow.

One reason Brianna was home was to attend Sam’s Marion High School Homecoming coronation as that had become a tradition for her and Trent and their mom.  Her cousin Sam and girl friend Anna were MC’ing again this year. It had been an exceptionally busy weekend with the parade and senior night game on Friday.  Mary Ellen and I made the parade, which I missed last year.  I knew it was my last and only chance  to see Sam as a drum major since I am really not able to do the long hurried walk from over-crowded parking lot  to the stadium to attend a game anymore.

Katherine made the senior night game with David because a very dear and long-time friend and a friend of the friend had driven up from Nashville, TN, to help her get ready. Deborah and Ira had lived in the apartment below Katherine when she first moved to Nashville. During this fall season, Ira was too busy with their landscaping business to come up with Deborah, so her friend Laura came along to help.  Mary Ellen had brought in a complete meal for the kitchen table, and it was much appreciated with the time-crunch of getting to the game early enough  to see Sam and the band in the pre-game show. 

I remember Katherine’s first New Year’s Eve at that apartment when she and I went back after her Christmas vacation at home.  We could hear the much loved somber tones of Martin Luther King’s famous speech as it drifted up from a recording in their apartment below. Later they became close friends, and even when they all moved to other living quarters, Katherine drove to Deborah’s beauty shop as her token white customer.  So Friday night Deborah lovingly slipped back into her former cosmetology role and did Katherine’s hair and make up for Sam’s senior night.   After the game before they drove back home to Nashville, they and a local friend Wendy helped put Katherine to bed, and Wendy was back to help on Saturday while I was out of town most of the day for a presentation at the Genealogical Society of Southern Illinois..

This afternoon I had just finished finally having time to read last Sunday’s newspaper (October 12) when I went downstairs and saw an email note  from Mary Ellen asking me to save yesterday’s paper since there were photos in there of Trent in John A. Logan College’s first cyber security team. I quickly located that paper beside Gerald’s recliner  and searched for the story and photos.  I could not have been prouder seeing Trent’s picture with the team and knowing he will be among those who will work to defeat the cyber criminals who wreck havoc on our communication and economic systems.