So I鈥檒l just stop and hope you return to see if I鈥檝e 鈥渞ead鈥� the exasperated eye rolls of my readers.
Why I like living in a small town is illustrated in the 鈥�How I first found out my grandson was born鈥� story. Daughter Sally texted me in the wee hours of August 27th to say her labor was starting. I, like many of you who did not grow up with a cell phone attached to my head, turn off my phone at night because a vendor at the Farmer鈥檚 Market told me EMF鈥檚 are bad for you. I get a lot of health advice from random, chance encounters as I鈥檓 sure you do. So the phone was off and I did not see Sally鈥檚 text until the morning. Jim and I hurriedly headed out to Ashland but needed to gas up before the trip. At the local gas station, our son-in-law鈥檚 uncle was there and called out hearty congratulations to 鈥渢he new grandparents.鈥� His countenance (I鈥檓 reading a lot of Victorian novels during the pandemic so my vocabulary is flourishing) quickly changed when he saw my husband鈥檚 puzzled expression. Realizing he had let the cat out of the bag, he tried to back track because his wife, who elbowed him in the ribs, figured out we didn鈥檛 know the news, yet. Which we didn鈥檛 know but now we did. I didn鈥檛 care, I was just thrilled and asked him if it was a boy or girl. He was really uncomfortable at this point, probably thinking we were going to be miffed hearing the news from a third party, but he fessed up and said, 鈥淯h, I thought you knew, it鈥檚 a boy!鈥� Covid be damned, I threw my arms around him and chortled, 鈥淐allooh Callay!鈥� To which his wife interjected, 鈥淚 hope you鈥檙e not mad.鈥�
I may well be mad in the Victorian sense, but anger at learning we had a grandson from an in-law at the gas station? That is top notch or, as they say in The Crown, tickity boo!
I love chance encounters that turn my world upside down. Not ones like Bathsheba鈥檚 ill-fated valentine in Far From the Madding Crowd, but unplanned conversations that enlighten and change the way I think. One more example of this came up in a conversation I had with my soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Malia. While I have so far avoided the Coronavirus, I was plagued with a crazy rash that was driving me mad. I drove down my considerable insurance deductible with doctor visits but nothing they prescribed helped. Real help came in the form of a simple question Malia posed. She asked if I had tried cutting out gluten from my diet. Since the Grain Street Bakery opened in Etna last year, I鈥檝e done my part to ensure its success. Since I tried everything else, I gave 鈥済luten free鈥� a gander. With the help of the internet and a good book, I learned a great deal about 鈥済luten sensitivity鈥� and after months of restructuring my diet, I am very pleased to say my skin is a lot happier. All it took was a simple question, posed at the right time to get me to look for answers in another direction.
Sometimes the best health advice comes from random, chance encounters. And sometimes you find out you have a new grandchild from a guy at the gas station.
Happy New Year. We made it!
Now that鈥檚 tickity boo!
