The ferry is too crowded to do this. Busloads of elementary school kids are running around. I remember that field trips always happen at the end of the school year. These are all Kitsap county kids and they look like it. I’m going to Kitsap county, the long, expensive way to see Gma. I thought it might be better than driving around/sitting in traffic.

All of the chaperones look weary. I don’t know how they made it through the day.

In the food line one chaperon stood with her daughter and two other children, offering them anything they wanted. Her daughter said they shouldn’t get too much or the other kids might be mad. The woman said it didn’t matter, they could have whatever they wanted. Later, I heard her say she didn’t have enough money for the items they picked out.

Now the ferry is admonishing the kids for running on the upper deck, and two nearby chaperones are worrying about losing their kids among the other student groups.

I don’t want to write about this, but it’s too damn intrusive—it’s crowding everything else out of my head. Other commuters, used to this, are reading or are hidden inside headphones.... I didn’t bring mine. The woman next to me is wearing earplugs.

Whoa. A chaperon just snapped and whacked a kid.

Corporal punishment in America’s public schools, right here.

One of the kids in the group that's swarming around the area where I'm sitting begged to go outside, so the two chaperones herded the group out onto the pickleforks. Now it's quiet.

The boat is listing wildly to the starboard side. I wish the ferry would tell the kids not to run to one side all at the same time.

The return ride is bigger and quieter, except for the yuppie cell phones going off. It turns out the Bainbridge ferry is a lot closer to the nursing home where Gma is staying. A lot. Going this way, the ferry probably takes about the same time as driving around. And I get to drive through Poulsbo.

(There is one group of high school kids on the boat running laps on the deck, or so it sounds. An announcement telling them to stop running said, "Mr. Grumpy doesn’t want to have to come down there again.")

On the way through Winslow I stopped to see if Joan was at her paint store and she was, but I didn’t have time to say hello before the ferry left so I just drove by. Next time (there’ll be lots of those) I’ll make extra time to visit her. She’s lost to the island and I miss her. Recently Andrew and I rode by the little yellow house and saw that it had sold. I lived with her for a long time.

Gma can’t see or hold things very well; she just sits and waits for meals and people to come and give her something to do. She used to spend a lot of her free time working crossword puzzles, so I thought it might break the monotony to work on a puzzle together with me reading the clues and telling her how many letters in the word. So that’s what we did. (When I suggested it to her today she told me that in her dreams she’s often working puzzles but she doesn’t know whether she ever finishes any.) I brought a book of Dell crosswords—she always said they were the best—and we started in on a medium puzzle. It was too easy for us—she knew all the answers. About thee quarters of the way through she started getting tired. She couldn’t hear most of what I said and I saw her attention fading. At the end she said she didn’t feel well enough to do another, which was fine because I had to go anyway. But she said she had fun and asked me to leave the book so we could try a hard one next time.

Next time, next time.

It’s going to cost about $30 each week to see her. There’s no question it’s worth it, but I guess, acknowledging the cost means budgeting for it. By riding the ferry, at least I can do work or this on the way.

She asked me to help her open the tiny bucket of cream for her coffee.