Staying the Night at Nana's

(www.illustrationfriday.com) theme: metropolitan


I remember sleeping over at my grandmother's home in San Francisco with my brother and sister.

I LOVED my grandmother. After dinner, we'd play blackjack betting with nickels and pennies. And, just before bedtime, she would fix us a nightcap of warm milk sprinkled with nutmeg while she made her own adult nightcap.

We'd lay out our sleeping bags on her living room floor and I would place my bag underneath the window and look out to the evening sky and often times the wind would whip the telephone wires so loudly, it would scare me half to death.

My older sister was always the first one to wake up in the morning. And if I woke up before she did, I would lay still and pretend I was asleep until she got up.

We drank our first cups of coffee at Nana's before I reached the third grade. She didn't seem bothered she was stunting our growth. It was delicious drinking it with spoonfuls of sugar and half milk.

I will always remember laying there in my green sleeping bag with the deer pattern inside, looking out the window, while Nana dug in her black purse for a couple of dollars to buy donuts for our breakfast. She would give it to Kelly and I could hear the front door shut and her little shoes slapping down the stairs and out into what I thought was the Big Scary City. I knew if I woke up first, she would ask me to walk down the hill to the bakery, but I was too afraid to do it alone.

I'd lay there on the floor, looking out the window ... praying for her safe return with the donuts.