The Sixth Empty Coin Slot

My grandfather was a collector. He was the one who introduced the idea of collecting to my brother and me. We each started our own stamp collection from his influence. We'd cut the stamp off the envelope, soak it in water, and then peel away the paper and adhesive, and then wait for it to dry again before storing it in our jars/boxes. 

Besides stamps, he was largely into coin collecting. He was the kind of guy who would see the ads for "special and rare" coins, fill out the form, mail it in, and eagerly await his one-of-a-kind coin to be mailed to him. Every time I went to visit my grandparents at their house, I would go upstairs to his study and look through his shelves of collections and books. One set in particular that he owned was the collection of medals of the US Presidents. My grandfather had a book with short bios of all the presidents up through Ronald Reagan and another binder which housed coins of each president with their name and years of office through Ronald Reagan. On the backs of these coins had various images and phrases, anything from patriotic sayings to the inauguration date of the same president. 

He bought two sets of these - like I said, really into collecting. At one point in my childhood, he had given me one set. I remember talking to him at one point, and he said, we should buy the rest of the presidents (I think Clinton was in office at the time) and add them to the set. There were six empty coin slots on the last page. I asked him, "How do we add their name and years of office?" He told me, "I can write them in." Even in my youth, I remember responding back, or at the very least thinking in my head: but it won't look the same.

Ha, classic type A. I started early.

He gave me one set of the presidential coins and kept the other. Honestly, I'm not sure why. Maybe he gave it to me because I was special, his only granddaughter of six. Maybe he gave it to me because he knew I was interested in them. Maybe he gave it to me because he simply wanted me to have it. It could be a combination of all of the above reasons. 

I still have this set today. When we moved to our house, this set of coins was one of the items I brought over from my dad's house. There are still six empty coin slots on the last page. After Reagan, there was George H. W. Bush with one term, Bill Clinton with two terms, George W. Bush with two terms, Barack Obama with two terms, and so far, Donald Trump and his one term. Although they started making separate coins for each president's second term, my binder only includes one coin per president with the total years of office labeled beneath. My grandfather passed away during George W. Bush's second term so he hasn't been alive for our last two presidents.

I've always wanted to complete the set, maybe even buy another page to add to this binder. The bronze medals, which are the ones in the collection, are actually not expensive. They're $6.95 each with a flat $4.95 shipping. Not bad at all. Of course, I'd wait until the next six coins are all out and buy them all to maximize the shipping cost, but this is something I would more than gladly spend money on, especially because I would be able to continue a collection started by my grandfather. 

We know who will fill at least five out of the six empty coin slots on the last page. This year is a pretty pivotal year for many reasons. There's a lot of people out there who don't want to see another four years of the same president. There's also a lot of people out there who want to keep him in office for a second term. 

I'm not here to get political. 

As of right now, the U.S. Mint has only made the coins through the 44th president. Trump will be 45th, and the last slot will be for the 46th president. I don't know what their schedule is like or when they produce these coins, but it'll be years before I'll get to actually finish out the binder and get my hands on the actual coins. If Trump gets reelected this year, I'll have to wait another 4 years to find out whose face will fill the last slot. If he doesn't, we will know this year.

I hope we all know this year.

Gee-ko

 I have fond memories from last summer of watching geckos with my daughter. At the time, her bedtime was close to 10pm or later on some nights. I have no idea how she could sleep so late. She was waking up around 8 in the morning and napping for 2-3 hours, but she still wouldn't sleep before 9 pm at the earliest if that. Even now, my daughter sleeps 11 hours at night max.

With this late bedtime, we were able to watch the geckos come out after the sun went down. She was very amused to see little lizards crawling on our windows. Small geckos would somehow find their way into our house. My husband would catch them and let them out again. He's not afraid of picking them up. I'm grateful for this. One time, he caught the gecko and put it on her leg while I videoed her reaction. She was more afraid of the skittering movements than the gecko itself. 

She called them"gee-kos" with a long E, so we all started saying gee-ko.

Her bedtime has since normalized and she's in bed by 8:30 (although asleep is a different story). We haven't gotten to watch geckos together this summer. But last night after putting her to bed, I walked over to our window and took a look myself instead of continuing the rest of my usual nighttime routine.

I had noticed more geckos than usual hanging around the window as well as a good number of moths flying around or hanging around the window. I stood there for a while, watching, and then hubby came by and joined me. We stood by our window and watched the moths fly around and the geckos circle cautiously.

The predators.

The (un?)suspecting prey.

We stood and watched for a few minutes. I really wanted to watch a gecko eat a moth. And we did! But I didn't catch a picture of it because by the time I pulled out my phone to get a picture, he had devoured 95% of that moth. So we stood there a while longer to see if another one would get eaten. Sure enough, another moth was caught and this time I was ready!

Stuck!

This moth really tried to wriggle free. Unfortunately, he did not.

After watching for what seemed like about 10-15 minutes, we resumed our normal nightly routine, but I felt a strange sense of satisfaction being able to witness some geckos eating their fill for the evening. I would still never touch one with my hands, but watching behind a sheet of glass works great for me! We don't get to have a lot of "fun" these days between parenting a toddler and a baby and staying safe from the virus, but this was actually a lot of fun.