I was on a call with longtime friend and colleague Mike Ramsey when Emma and Sophie – and their friend Hanna – burst into my office this morning to breathlessly announce they’d found a bear’s bed out in the far corner of our property, near a stand of wild blackberry plants.
“There’s a a pile of poop and some bearhair left in a spiderweb,” Sophie said. “There are even seeds in the scat and we think it’s fresh!”
They seemed genuinely disappointed when I told them that was probably not a good place to build a new fort.
Mike never gets upset by the frequent interruptions on my side of the conversation. I could hear him softly laughing as I broke the news to the girls that a bear wouldn’t want to share his favorite hideout with them.
He kicked-in with, “Especially during the height of blackberry season” and I repeated his words to the girls who all murmured assent as they scurried off for more adventures in the yard.
Moments later, Sabrina waved to me as she wandered by my office door. Oops.
Sabrina, our friend who lives a couple of minutes away, had sent me a note on Facebook earlier this morning saying she and the kids would be coming over so she could have a cappuccino and chat with Di. I had, of course, forgotten to pass on the message to Di.
Sabrina was trying to whisper-yell up the stairs to get Di’s attention without interrupting my phone call. “Di.. is the coffee on?”
I didn’t even bother to excuse myself with Mike this time and instead just leaned toward the door and said loudly enough for both Di and Sabrina to hear, “Di. I forgot to tell you that Sabrina was coming over for a cappuccino this morning.”
Much laughter from Di as she stood at the top of the stairs clad only in a post-shower towel.
Mike Ramsey, ever the Kentucky gentleman, mentioned it would be a good time for me to end the call to prepare a mug of serious coffee for Sabrina and an apology for Di for forgetting, yet again, to forward a reminder.
Life happens here.
