Yesterday afternoon I decided to make a wreath for my friends in the nursing home; I decided to make a grapevine one . . . from square one. I went out and started pulling down grapevine and then Der Bingle saw me and he came to help; Summer came out, too. There we were tugging and hanging onto a vine that had climbed up to a tree’s branches and nothing much happened. So Der Bingle gets the saw and it was a tough vine but finally we got a good chunk loose at the top and I started to walk to the house.

I had to stop and ask for the bottom part of the grapevine to be severed – ah, the details. So, okay we get it in the porch and I start to make my basic circle, tying it together with raffia. Summer comes out: “What are you doing?” I have learned: With Summer you do not ask, “Do you want to help?” You query, “Do you want to make your own?”

We’re going along with me talking her through the beginning steps and after she gets her initial circle, she adds some more vine and the emergent wreath starts looking a little rectilinear. She said that; I didn’t. What I did say was for her not to worry about it being squared off, continued work would tease it into a circle.

“IT IS A CIRCLE.”

“Uh, you just remarked about the corners . . . a rectangle . . .”

“IT’S A CIRCLE.”

Then she proceded to tease the perceived non-squarish thing into a roundish thing. I kept my mouth shut; she did a pretty good job.

“I’m going to use these really pretty and classic dark red glass beads on a fine wire vine for my wreath because it’s for Mrs. Feller, okay?”

She nodded.

I added faceted colored balls, slender patterned ribbon and two nutcrackers – I hope the raffia isn’t too tight around their little waists. We think it looked rather nice and I took it over. I told Mrs. Feller I had made it from scratch from the vine in out yard and that Summer had learned to do it and had made her first wreath.  I think she liked that.

It was about suppertime then and we headed to the dining room with Mrs. Feller pushing her husband, who was a little confused yesterday. There is an empty spot at their table and I usually sit until dinner is served and chat. Then I leave, saying I’ll be back and Mrs. Feller knows I will. We both like that.

I think I started out visiting to do something nice for her, but you know what, I’m being nice to myself too – somewhere along the way I figured that out.