Last week I had a real treat when my “little sister” Lilly-bah came through Nashville with her husband and daughter for a visit. Lilly-bah got this particular nickname from me after she told me about a young cousin who couldn’t say her more formal name and it somehow just stuck.
I haven’t had the chance to see Lilly-bah for quite some time. Her husband is a professor/scientist working at a university near Pittsburgh. I first met Lilly-bah and then later her Husband K during my Grassmere Wildlife Park days. That is where Lilly-bah met him too. She was in charge of the various museum collections and Husband K came to the Park with an amazing birds of prey show that gave exhibitions of flight and facts and set up temporary camp there for a season.
Husband K is a brilliant scientist and has a way of passing on that love and interest to everyone around him. When Uncle R & I had Lilly-bah & Husband K over to our house for an engagement supper before they were married, we sat out on the back deck and Husband K could pick out and identify all of the little sounds around us in the trees and grass. It was fascinating. Now they have a little daughter who is as lovely as Lilly-bah. She has a face that Renaissance painters would have gloried in and china blue eyes the size of saucers.
When she was a little single woman living on her own, Uncle R and I liked to “kidnap” Lilly-bah. We actually did this quite often. We were so bad! Sometimes it was for supper or sometimes she’d come over to spend the night. There were a few times that we called Lilly-bah and “asked" if she wanted to come over - and as I talked with her, I would understood that she had on her pj’s and was heating some soup on the stove. Uncle R would hear me saying; “Oh, well… that’s ok…. maybe some other time…” he would reach over… I would hand him my cell phone… and he would say with a grin; “We’ll be there to get you in 10 minutes. We’re not taking no for an answer!” and hang up. She took this kind of abuse from us cheerfully and I hope that she didn’t mind too much! She always enjoyed hot, spicy foods like Uncle R and he could usually lure her over with a promise of his stuffed anaheim chilis.
My last Friday treat was that I got to take Lilly-bah to the Tearoom for the first time. She has seen photos on Facebook but we have never had the chance to go while she was in town. I worked through my lunch hour the day before so that she and I could have a good, solid chat & tea time and it was great! We had little freshly baked mini almond poppy seed muffins and sweet scones, fresh fruit, a salad with slivered almonds, mandarin oranges, dried cranberries and goat cheese and a little cranberry frozen dessert with teapots of crème earl grey and a fruity hot tea choice for Lilly-bah. I could have lingered and chatted happily with this dear friend for the rest of the afternoon, catching up with each other’s news and enjoying each other’s company. She is still as sweet and pretty as that summer years ago when we first got together for lunch while we were both working at Grassmere.
(I’m sad that this photo ended up blurry, but am including it anyway…)
Uncle R and I would love to have Lilly-bah and her sweet family back in Nashville and we hope that will happen one of these days. Until then we’ll look for good moments together like this past Friday.
Love to the Pamela’s Girls!
Auntie J.
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