Summer Solstice Moon
The super moon. On the night of leave taking. The family Olson picks up its bags, stuffs 
themselves in the car and leave tomorrow for the Corn Palace. Gabe and Ruth gone. Jon and Jen gone. The week of family gone.
It has been a revelation. Ruth is a different, more definite person than the last time I saw her a year ago. She knows things, offers advice, muses about whether she won or lost money in pretend betting at the track. (She lost. $6. And let that be a lesson young lady.) She loves fairy tales so I gave her a volume from my Andrew Lang collection, the orange fairy book, as well as the refrigerator magnets, words, with which she can create poetry wherever there is metal. She came across the couch and hugged me when I gave them to her.
Gabe is intense, screaming one minute, sweetly asking, “Can I have your phone, grandpop?” the next. He takes cell phones and I-pads, navigates quickly to videos or to the app store. Last night he downloaded two new apps on Thomas Thorpe’s phone. That surprised Thomas. He loves Pixar and 
Thomas the Train videos. Kona, a much smaller dog than Gertie or Sollie, has become his favorite, he walks through the house, his little hand under Kona’s collar. She follows along with what I would call a bemused expression on her face. At 12 1/2 dog years you’ve seen it all.
Jon and Jen, both teachers, have given their lives to elementary age kids. It’s obvious in the way they care for their own.
Kate has has been in grandma paradise. Cooking, cleaning, playing, answering questions. She and Ruth have spent a lot of time sewing, this time on Grandma’s fancy Bernina, which its literature calls a sewing computer. Ruth and I have talked about fairy tales, poker, horse racing, fire building and other grandpa granddaughter stuff.
Both of us have spent time with Gabe, too. Going through the things he likes to do: cell phones, sleep, watch cartoons. He’s an early riser. This morning he got up at the same time I did. They slept in Grandma’s big closet, a sort of kid’s nest. Gabe said, “Hi, Grandpop! I didn’t wake you up.” Nope, he didn’t
Ruth’s a late riser, late to awake even after she rises. I’m the same way and I relate well to her frustrated attempts to fend off questions and decisions at an early hour. Early after rising that is.
