My daughter was off on an out of town job interview yesterday afternoon and it ran a bit late. She called me on the way back to ask that I pick up my granddaughter from school, as she would not make it back in time.

It's not a real problem, as I treasure my time with the little girl.

So, I picked her up and took her along with me on the errands I had to run. She likes that.

We hit the dry cleaners/shirt laundry to drop off my shirts (I hate ironing), then off to the grocery store. Once there, she was delighted to find not one, but two "free samples" displays, a new shipment in of blood oranges, and icky packages of beef in the meat department to pretend to be grossed out by.

IOW, she had a blast.

However, it was in the check out line that I got to marvel.

I had unloaded my purchases onto the check out conveyor and was waiting for them to be scanned when Zara piped up, "Oh, look, there's another little girl!" she said and pointed two lines over to a girl maybe a year or two younger than herself, then waved and called over a friendly "Hello!"

I don't think the other girl heard her over the ambient noise, but I was still a bit amazed and proud. All of us adults were being so self-contained and proper, not making contact unless we had too, yet here was my seven year old granddaughter just beaming out joy and friendliness to someone she had never met and likely would never meet again, just like it was the most natural thing in the world.

When did we lose that? When will she?

Part of me hopes she never does. Another part of me hopes she will, just to protect herself.

I reflected on that for a bit as I paid for my groceries. Then we left, her little hand in my big hand, talking about how pretty the snow was that just started to fall again and the Valentine chocolates from (Great)Grandma Amy waiting for us back at my apartment.

I still don't know the answer.

Wish I did.

Two days ago, it was election day. I have been a registered voter for 36 years. I can count the number of elections I have missed on the fingers of one hand and still have plenty of digits left.

This year, I took my 7 year old granddaughter with me. I had just picked her up from school and, since my polling station was but a few blocks away, figured it was a good reason to show her how the system works. After all, I distinctly remember going to vote with my mom in rural Illinois when I was that age. It was the 1956 presidential election. We went to a small country store where, in the basement, they had the polling station set up. Mom was handed a paper ballot and a pencil and we went into a curtained booth where she marked her ballot. The really cool thing was that they gave me a "kid's ballot" and I marked that, too. We came out and Mom dropped her folded ballot into a green wooden box. I dropped mine into a similar box, marked "Just for Kids." I felt sooo important and proud that day.

So, now, 50 years later, as I am signing in, Zara is charming the poll workers. I get my ballot, take it to a little aluminum and plastic cubicle and fill in the bubbles on the ballot with a special pen as Zara watches. I then put it into the scanner and we leave. Total time, under 10 minutes. As we leave, Zara asks for whom I voted in the governor's race, "Was it the man with the brown hair or the blonde hair?"

She'll learn...

Around 9:30 tonight, I got a call from my ex. She was out of town, on her way back but still an hour out. I was urgently needed at her house. Our daughter and granddaughter are in the process of moving out to their own apartment, but still live there. They were home by themselves and were seriously freaking out.

A minute later, our daughter called on the same.

What had happened was that my soon to be seven year old granddaughter had gone to the bedroom she has shared all her life with her mother. She noticed one of the family cats, Samantha, was under her bed. She called her. No response. After two calls, she got down on the floor and pulled Samantha out from under the bed.

She was dead.

Open eyes and mouth dead, and in full rigor.

Zara dissolved in tears. When he mother came to see what was wrong, she did, too.

Samantha was kind of a special cat. My ex is a contract social worker. One of her clients was a big guy, long in the throes of mental illness. One day, he got a cat. A cat from the shelter. A pure white cat. Samantha. That cat turned out to be some of the best therapy he ever had. He doted on that cat and the cat on him. Both saved each other.

Then he died in his sleep. He was found with Samantha curled up next to him, waiting for him to awake.

My ex could not bear the thought that Samantha would go back to the shelter. She adopted Samantha.

Samantha soon acclimated to her new home. She mostly got along with the two dogs and two other cats, and later, the stray kitten taken in this spring. She also took to me and my ex's husband. Her previous owner was very tall and both of us are almost as tall, so she seemed to like that. She also liked to steal my granddaughter's milk when Zara would leave a glass unattended.

So tonight, I spent some time consoling my granddaughter who has had to face death up close and personal for the first time. Her step-grandfather got home and held her as her mother and I went into the back yard, in the dark. Kate held the spotlight as I dug the hole. Grandma got home and we laid Samantha to rest, shrouded in an old towel. We covered her over with earth and Zara said a prayer.

Sometimes, learning hurts.

Saturday, my granddaughter had a birthday party.

While she turned six years old last Monday, September 12, this was her non-family birthday party. She invited her whole first grade class to a party at Jumping Jacks (sort of like Chucky Cheese). We had ten or eleven first graders just going nuts for two hours, bouncing off several big inflatable play slides/bouncy thingies.

And pizza.

And birthday cake.

And little kid arcade games.

I think we shelled out about $150+. It was worth it.

Yeah, I am just an old softy when it comes to this kid. Being a grandpa is so much better than just a parent. The trouble is, Zara knows it and takes shameful advantage of it. Not that I mind...

You see, my kids never had a grandpa. My father died at 48, four to six years before my kids were born. Their mother's father died when their mother was ten. While they had two very loving grandmothers as they grew up, they had a big void in their lives without grandfathers. I know, as I had one set of grandparents living with my parents and us kids up until their deaths when I was in my teens and some time with my other grandfather off and on while I was growing up. There is something about having the experience of multiple generations in your life as you grow up. My kids got short changed on that. I vowed that would not be the case with my grandkids.

So I was there when my granddaughter was born. As the nurses cleaned her up, just minutes old, she grabbed on to my little finger with a death grip and would not let go. I got to see her lift her head to look around, half an hour after she was born. New borns aren't supposed to be able to do that, yet she did. When she started talking, one of the first things she said was "Boppa Al." I was blessed.

So now she's six years old. She knows how to use a computer, both write and type her full name, make jokes that are truly funny and insist that when she grows up, she wants to be a police officer. I'm proud of her. If her great-grandfathers were still around, they would be too, and even more wrapped around her finger than I am.

Excuse me, I gotta go find the Kleenex....