DAY TWO with IGGY

Let’s start with the corrections.
My brother Michael wrote: BTW, venomous and poisonous are not synonyms.  Anything with poison is poisonous; only animals with venom are venomous.  So, while all venomous animals are poisonous, but not all poisonous things are venomous.  Just thought Iggy would like to know. (Why Michael could not have put this in the comments section of SQD is not addressed here. Reluctance and refusal are not synonyms.)

The next correction is not quite as clear. We checked the paper Tuesday morning for the official Jeopardy! answer to “one lethal type of this bone-free creature is the most venomous marine animal”….and it was “Jellyfish. Not Blue-ringed octopus, and not any particular type of jellyfish, just Jellyfish. There are thousands of different types of jellyfish, inhabiting every ocean. They can be found on the surface, on beaches, and way out in the deep sea. Given our household’s preference for specificity, “Jellyfish” was an entirely unsatisfactory answer. But Iggy could improve on it. “It’s probably a Box Jellyfish”, he explained. "Oh yes indeed! [he was becoming gleefully agitated] If you touch the bottom of the box jellyfish, or the top of the box jellyfish, or the tentacles of the box jellyfish, you get stinged and then [pregnant pause, lowering of voice] you are dead."


Then we went outside to splash in the plastic pool and cool off. Iggy leapt in and out of the pool and attached the hose to the waterfall gizmo so water could spray all over. I moved away from the pool. Iggy came and sat next to me, in one of our very old and mismatched but still usable lawn chairs. Once upon a time my mother had a set of matching black and orange Brown-Jordan lawn chairs, and once upon a time Chucker’s mother had a set of matching white poolside chaises, and once we had two matching green chairs; now we have a selection and each one is wobbly and distended in its own particular way. There on the black webbing of one of the chairs, Iggy saw something wonderful.
“Nana! It’s a robber fly!”
“A rubber fly? I don’t see anything.”
“A robber fly. Right there. Naturally, he has excellent camouflage. This is our lucky day!”
“Because we saw a robber fly?”
“Yes! They live worldwide. And they can be very sneaky.”
“I had no idea,” I said.
“They predators. That’s why it is so good we saw this one. We can make sure he doesn’t get any of your honeybees.”

So now you know. Our lucky day. Samuel Beckett would agree.

DAY ONE with IGGY

Our grandson Iggy is staying with us for a week - eight days to be exact, and Iggy is always exact - while his parents are in Iceland. Yes, Iceland, where all the hipster sheep plunge into geothermal pools and knit.
Iggy comes with a long list of instructions that cover important topics ranging from “poop sit” modalities, to bedtimes, to bubble blowing skills, to fruit and vegetable preferences.


This morning, Iggy was eating waffles dipped in Lithuanian honey (we are out of Let it Bee Hastings honey), which he said was good, but not as good as our own bees' honey.
We were sitting on the porch. I was nibbling on blueberries, and casting an eye on the crossword puzzle, then noticed this Jeopardy Clue of the Day.


“Iggy, what is the most venomous marine animal? Bone-free, so obviously not a shark.”
With a piece of waffle impaled upon his fork, he answered immediately, “The Blue-ringed octopus. Yes, definitely it’s the blue ringed octopus.”
“I have never heard of the blue-ringed octopus,” I said.
“If you touch one of the blue rings… zingo…you are seriously dead. Maybe if you touch the octopus not on the blue ring you might survive, but mostly, you die.”
“I think I will just steer clear of blue-ringed octopuses entirely,” I said. “But are you sure? More venomous than a sea snake.”
“Sea snakes have bones. Eels don’t have bones, but snakes do.”
“Of course.” I remember once buying several dozen snake vertebrae to give as party favors for a long-ago birthday party for Iggy’s mother.


One thing about Iggy - and presumably all small persons - is specificity. He is very specific, and he demands specificity from the rest of us, of me, his ofttimes vague grandmother. This morning when I was dropping him off at day camp, I said, “Grab your knapsack.” And was indignantly corrected. “Nana, you mean my backpack. If you say knapsack I won’t know what you are talking about. Also book-bag. If you say book-bag I will look for a bag full of books.”
“Okay,” I said. “Henceforth I will always say backpack. I will TRY to say backpack. But I might forget. Did you know, Iggy, that there are often many words for the same thing?”
“Like venomous and poisonous?”
“Exactly. Though that wasn’t what I was thinking of. How about happy? Can we think of ten words for happy?”
“Glad. Cheerful.”
“Joyful. In a good mood.”
“We need six more,” Iggy announced. Then we went down the grassy hill and met with the head of the Hillside Day Camp.
Upon introducing Iggy to the young woman with the clipboard and a satchel full of permission slips, he announced “I am six.” Next, because we noticed the bees amusing themselves in the clover on the grass at Hillside, he added, “I am not afraid of bees. Do you know why that is? Because my grandparents are bee farmers. Also egg farmers.”
Then I delivered Iggy to his group of campers and counselors.

Babysitting 101

The last words of my daughter – the mother of Leda and Iggy – before I took her to the train station, were: “Good night. I love you guys. No TV or candy.” The kids were still at the dinner table with CSB, indifferent to our comings and goings.
I drove Reine to the train station so she could hop on for the short trip north to Tarrytown for a friend’s concert at the coffee shop there, while we played with and read to and put to bed the grandchildren.
I drove back from the train station, walked into the kitchen. All three of them were watching Jeopardy! in their favored poses: CSB on a kitchen chair, Iggy bouncing on the sofa, Leda hanging from the ceiling, literally. (There is a 12-foot ladder leaning against the cupola.) CSB was offering Leda $5 for every correct answer (i.e. question) she gave, which was a pretty cheap and easy offer on his part as she is 8 years old, and this is adult Jeopardy! Also, Iggy was eating Swedish Fish. (Ingredients: Sugar; invert sugar; corn syrup; modified corn starch, citric acid, white mineral oil, artificial flavors, red 40 and carnauba wax. Is this a good time to wonder about ‘invert sugar’?) He and Leda were engaged in a lively discussion slash negotiation of how each little packet contained 6 fishes, and how they had previously shared Leda’s – three each- and now Leda was explaining to Iggy that he must likewise share his packet with her. This seemed reasonable to Iggy. He also praised his sister for having found the Swedish Fish at all. (Having yesterday discovered them in one of CSB’s pockets, I had hidden them in the pantry. Don’t ask why I didn’t simply throw them out. There is no good answer.) CSB likewise praised Leda for finding them.
Now that the children were properly jazzed on invert sugar and game show decibels, it was time for me to put them to read and read them quiet stories. Iggy chose: Life Story, The Story of Life of Our Earth from Its Beginning up to Now. I was initially a little puzzled by this choice, until I realized the cover featured images of dinosaurs. He listened raptly as I read about the Big Bang, about back when the earth’s surface was a red-hot sea of lava, onto the Proterozoic Era and the introduction of sedimentary rocks, and of course about the hegemony of trilobites. Iggy likes trilobites, though not as much as he likes dinosaurs, sharks and spiders. He was riveted by the Paleozoic era and the movement of amphibians onto land and their evolution into reptiles. Reptiles lead directly to dinosaurs, as every three-year-old knows. Then it was the Cenozoic Era and early humans were painting on cave walls. Iggy’s interest flagged, his eyes got heavy.
Then Leda and I read from The Children’s Homer. Leda is fascinated by Greek mythology these days, and this is a good thing when you are in the third grade and the girls are behaving like maenads. After a few chapters we slipped from Odysseus’ love of his homeland, to general cuddling and idle chatter. Next to the bed is a framed print from Simplicissimus, a satirical German magazine published from 1897 through 1967, with a hiatus. It was gift from a dear friend, Bine, many many years ago, and every time I see it I mean to ask her the very questions Leda asked. Why is that man holding a knife? Is the woman asleep or dead? Why is the man with the top hat smiling such a creepy smile? I tell her the plot of Othello – very simplified. I discover that some things do not lend themselves to simplification: why why why does Iago want Othello to murder his wife? Because he is jealous. Because he felt slighted. Because he is vengeful. Because because because. Because he is unloved. But no, doesn’t Iago have a good wife? And why would Othello fall for that BS anyway?
You try explaining Othello to a warm and cuddly bursting synapse of questions.