Friday was March 28th. In celebration Wyatt took the day off. We went to Oakley, to Galleons Lap. We also went to dinner and a movie that night. It was a fun and relaxing day. Happy March 28th!

Wendy was going to Virginia. She was going to school. She was getting away. She was going to be free. We always talked of the adventures we would have together — sipping hot chocolate in the street side cafes in Paris, riding the gondolas in Italy, riding horses down the green in Kentucky. We were going to do it all and be it all.

Wendy was that girl everyone wanted to be — I wanted to be. Outgoing, friendly, wild. Always ready for an adventure. And now her time had come. Graduating from high school, she chose a school back east, ready to start living her life as soon as possible.

I went to see her off on this last adventure. I borrowed my mothers car and made the five hour drive to St. George. From there we all piled into Aunt Draza’s old Ford Taurus. Between my aunt and uncle, Wendy, her boyfriend, me and Shelly, things were a little tight. We set out at eleven o’clock Utah time for Las Vegas. We were half way there before we realized Vegas was an hour behind us, not ahead. That meant we would have four hours to wait instead of two. Oops.

We pulled into Vegas at about eleven Nevada time. After driving up the strip a dizzying twice, we decided to hit the airport thinking maybe there would be some excitement there.

Not so much.

So we sat at the gage with nothing to do. Wendy and her boyfriend sat in the corner saying their goodbyes. Uncle Terry and Aunt Draza sat in the front window watching the blinking of the lights out in the darkness.

And I sat alone in a chair near the corridor. I sat watching the people come and go. Not really bored, nnot really entertained, just in a state of indifference. In an amount of time, the woman sitting behind me came into my awareness. She had dark leathery skin — a result of too many hours in the oven no doubt. This only seemed ot emphasize the hard wrinkles etched into her not-young-looking face. Her clothes were wrinkled and reeked of cigarettes. Her makeup was heavy, her hair limp and crusty with layers of aerosol hair spray. And her fingers were heavy with the metal of rings–three or four per finger.

“Wow! I like your rings!” I lied. I hated rings. I’m not a jewelry wearer. Even as the words came out of my mouth I tried to figure out why I had said them. Why would I strike up a conversation with this lady? She and I could have nothing in common, I was certain. Wat’s more, if I was talking to anyone, it should have been my own family, just a few rows away.

A smile pulled the leather of her skin — it looked painful. “Thank you.”

“Where’d you get them?” I asked, and then “Shut up!” I scolded myself inwardly.

“Oh, all sorts of places.” She started to pull at a ring on her finger. “This one I got from my son. He lives in Florida.”

“Really” I did my best to not be interested.

“Yeah, he as three kids and one on the way. Course the first two are from a different mother. She never was good news anyway. She’s in prison in Colorado, so he has the kids. The oldest is headed in the same direction as his mother though.”

“Hmm” more disinterest.

“And this one is from my grand-daughter. She’s not the dauther of the son in Florida. She’s my dauther’s daughter. She’s 23. She’s a flight attendant in Georgia. She and her boyfriend have two kids. Can you believe it? I’m a great-grandmother!”

“No way!” I tried to sound shocked.

One by one she went through the rings on her hand, telling me the story of each, and how she came into the possession of them. I was right. Her stories certainly didn’t resemble my life in any way. Yet with each story I felt a sort of kindredness growing between us. We didn’t have much on the outside in common. Yet on the inside we both were creatures who loved and had friends and family who loved us. She had treasures on her hand to remind her of each.

Two hours passed, and she sat and told me the stories of her life. At last the call at the gate came, and it was time for her to board her plane.

“Oh, I’ve got to go” she said in a rush as she reached to gather her bags. “here, let me give you this” she pulled from her finger one small silver band. “I want you to have this.”

I looked at the treasure in my hand. Before I could even look up to thank her, she was gone. I watched her board her plane, then turned to my family, still sitting at the window.

I do wear rings now. But not just any rings. Rings with stories. Rings that remind me of people and places and things that I love. And every time I get a new ring, I remember her and my treasure.

The other day Olivia told me she wanted to read me a book. She told me to sit down on the floor, while she sat on the ottoman to her chair. She picked up the book, I don’t remember what it was. She looked at the pages, then turned the book around so I could see it, pointed to something on the page, and said “What’s that?”

I responded to whatever it was, and she would say “That’s right,” then turn the page, and repeat the process. Apparently that’s how we read books to her!

She does have one book she really does read (well, I guess she has it memorized)–”Hurry Hurry.” She will read the entire book to you. So cute.

She has this thing where she’s a little compulsive about wipes and cleaning herself. She’ll get hold of a wipe and wash and wash and wash herself with it, wiping her face and hands. She thinks wipes make great toys.

The other day she was coloring–she drew a black circle, with long tentacles reaching out from it. “Spider” she told Wyatt. I don’t know who showed her how to draw a spider. But she did. Yesterday she was coloring on her magnadoodle, and drew a little girl–a head, with eyes, a mouth, and hair. I was very impressed. She’s not even two and a half yet! I don’t want to be one of those parents who thinks their child is the next Picasso, but at the same time, she definately is both observant, and coordinated in her coloring.

She loves planes–she’s always making them with her blocks. She’ll fly around, arms outstretched like an airplane. And she repeats–”Mommy go on airplane”–a leftover thought from my recent trip to Texas.

She is such a little sponge too. Anything you say, or anything that happens, she will repeat over and over again. She still tells me once every couple days about the time she got soap in her eye (about two months ago), or whenever I’m on my bike, she’ll say “Mommy Crash” (about a month ago). Any new words we say seem to stick to, because it will be weeks later that we will revisit something, and she still remembers the vocabulary of it.

It’s actually really fun to watch her little human brain and personality develop.