Sinking Ships & Desperados

"Hello! Hello!" My mother sang out, opening her front door to admit Tripp and his mother and me. She led us into the living room for iced tea and cake with white frosting and pink flowers. Vera, one of my mother's aides, leaned in to view the baby.

"I wasn't here for his first visit," she said.

"Well, Tripp meet Vera," my daughter smiled.

"So, you're a great-grandmother," Vera told my mother.

"I know that, Vera," my mother said crossly.

"You're GG," Vera said. "Little boy, that's your GG."

"We call my grandmother Gogs, and Tripp will too," Katherine explained.

"Oh, why not GG?" Vera asked. "I like GG."

"Vera, would you pour the ice tea?" my mother asked.

"I did," Vera said. 

Vera lingered, eating cake, and then disappeared into the kitchen. 

"Thank you, Vera!" Katherine and I called out. Vera is charged with keeping my mother safe, which includes guiding her to bed at a reasonable hour. Although she will grudgingly acquiesce, mostly on her own terms, Mom will often sneak out of her bedroom and back to the pale azure lure of the computer screen.

"What did you do today?" I asked as Tripp slumbered in his car seat, emitting the occasional uh  or guh. 

"Well, I went to the beach for lunch with the Sages, and on the way back in the car Andy and I suddenly broke out into song."

"Song?" I repeated, fork in hand.

"Song," my mother laughed. "I used to sing it you and your sisters," Mom said to Katherine. 

"I think you mean to me and my sisters," I corrected.

"Well, it goes like this:  A big bold man was this desperado from Cripple Creek way out in Colorado, and he came to town like a big tornado and everywhere he went he gave his WA-HOO!"

As my mother sang, gesturing with her hands like a band leader, I remembered.

"Wasn't there something about how he came into Chicago just to give the West a rest...?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Wasn't there a song about the Titanic?" Katherine asked. "You sang me a song about it," she said to me.

Without pausing a beat, my mother and I immediately launched into the Titanic song: "Oh, they built the ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue, and they thought they had a ship that the water would never go through, but the Lord with his mighty hand said the ship would never land. It was sad when that great ship went down..."

"It was sad," Mom sang.

"It was sad,"I echoed.

"It was sad when that great ship went down (to the bottom of the) husbands and wives little children lost their lives..."

"More cake, Katherine?" my mother asked after the last verse.

"I'd love some, Gogs, thanks."

"Oh, look, the baby is waking up!" Mom exclaimed, brandishing the cake knife.

Katherine lifted Tripp in his car seat throne as he stretched and snuffled, and brought him close to his great-grandmother, who touched his tiny feet.

"They're so soft," she said, gently tickling them. "Ticky ticky."