Grandpa and Rosie

Alix slept in the living room, I got the spare bedroom. When I got up at seven she retreated to the bedroom, not reappearing till the morning was well-advanced. Rosie bunked with Grandpa--their usual arrangement, I assume, but she seemed a little sheepish about sleeping over, what with the young people in the house.

In the morning, before Grandpa appeared, Rosie told me that they were getting married, "in October or November." Janie had already broken the story the day before, almost the first bit of family news she'd shared. "Your grandfather's getting married," she'd said. "Again." But she and everyone else seems to approve of Rosie, mostly, and consider her a great improvement on the previous wife, Audrey, who lasted only a couple years and who Janie calls "a golddigger." After Audrey Grandpa had said he would never marry again, but as a good Catholic he's apparently uncomfortable with unauthorized cohabitation.

Rosie told me she had become a Catholic herself, since meeting Grandpa. She's 78 to his 88, a little sharper and quicker, at least physically, than him, but he's certainly in charge. They met dancing, which they continue to do three nights a week, at the Eagles lodge. The women far outnumber the men at these events, and Grandpa had told me before that he was kept busy on the dance floor trying to service them all.

With some emotion, Rosie told me that Grandpa was the nicest man she'd ever met. "He's so considerate, always looking out for me." I'd call it controlling, but she takes it as affection and why not. She looks out for him too, cooks for him, puts her hands on him a lot, loudly repeats things that people say since Grandpa can't hear well. And she listens to him with great attention, laughing Ed McMahon-style at each pause. "I just love to hear his stories," she told me.

Grandpa and Rosie went off to the doctor in the morning, so Rosie could get shots to ease back pain that has cropped up this week (interrupting their dance schedule). She's hoping to improve before driving up to Lewiston later this week for an Eagles event. State branches of the Ladies Auxiliary the Eagles meet annually to compete in performing "The Ritual"--the prescribed agenda and language of an Auxiliary meeting, with parts taken by the President, Vice-president, etc, four or five positions all together, including Chaplain (Rosie's part). In the competition the woman are judged on how well they remember and act out "The Ritual." During the day Rosie occasionally studied from a small white book, working on her part.

Alix and I soon went off with my uncle Mike and Aunt Rosemary, and Rosemary's two-year-old granddaughter, Rylee, to tour Boise. We drove around the older, leafier parts of town, out to Lucky Peak Reservoir, back to Ann Morrison Park in town for a walk among trout ponds. We ate lunch at a Basque restaurant downtown, Bar Gernika. I had tortilla de patatas and croquetas, Alix a lamb grinder.

In the afternoon, Rylee's mother, my cousin Kristen came over, and more visiting was accomplished, mostly sitting on the back patio looking out over the backyard. Grandpa picked dead leaves off the plants and flowers scattered in beds around the yard, then watered. The rest of us drank beer or soda and watched him. The sun slowly sank towards the western horizon. I got up and twirled Rylee in the grass, until her laughter turned to mews of fear, then I stopped and she staggered about dizzily. Then she said, "do it again."

Late, after everyone had gone home, Alix had me take her out to look for something to eat. Periodically she requires warm food cooked by strangers. Most everything was closed, so we settled on Sonic, mostly because Alix said she liked their commercials and had never eaten there. She ordered chicken fingers but didn't finish them. I had a vanilla milk shake and left not a drop.