Family
-
S is for Smokey
When I was very small, my brother Richard was my hero, and he was my curator for what was good and interesting in the world. What Richard wanted, I wanted. Then my mom and my Great Aunt Flo went to Yosemite for a little vacation, and my mom wanted to bring us gifts home. She saw some tom-toms that would be perfect for Richard, but there was only one set at the gift shop. She looked around, distressed, not sure what to get for me. She settled on a stuffed Smokey Bear. I never looked back. Smokey was my absolute Best Friend. I took him everywhere. I was, however, very…
-
Q is for Quote – (Semi) Wordless Wednesday
-
Meme Monday
My brain has been very distracted lately. In late August, my 97 1/2 year old Great Aunt fell. She lived alone, but was able to call 911, and a neighbor was able to let the paramedics in, and off she went to the hospital. She said her ribs hurt, so they did an X-Ray of her ribs, found no problems, and sent her home. They sent her home even though she could not walk without collapsing in extreme pain, and even though she lived alone. One of my cousins, K, took her back to her house, where she stayed for almost a week, until her follow up visit with her…
-
Lura
Ted is the youngest of 4 siblings. His eldest brother is Ray, then sister Lura, then Steve, then Ted. This is a picture of Ted goofing around way back in about 1986 or 87. This is about the age they were when I met them. Even in this goofy picture, you can see her beautiful smile. The last few months have been rough, as Lura went to the hospital thinking she had asthma or perhaps even pneumonia, and it was discovered she had stage 4 lung cancer. It was inoperable, and had spread enough that there wasn’t much they could do for her. With medication and treatment, she could perhaps…
-
Catching Up….
I’m not sure if you will be able to see this video or not…it shows for me. It’s just the view from the house where we stayed last weekend, and the delicious rain outside…not so delightful to those of you not in the midst of a drought. But delightful for me to be sure. It’s been a busy time around here. Or not around here, actually. Last weekend we flew up to Portland to see my family, and also to scatter my father’s ashes, as was his wish. I was simultaneously looking forward to and dreading the trip. So do I tell you about it sequentially, or start with the…
-
Meme Monday – Golden Birthday
April 6th was Mulder’s ‘Golden Birthday’. Your ‘golden birthday’, also known as your ‘champagne birthday’, is when your age matches the day of the month you were born, so Mulder turned 6 on the 6th. Due to the lifespan of dogs, and poor planning on the part of those creating our calendar, a lot of dogs never reach their golden birthday. Anyway, we decided to celebrate by giving Mulder his own hamburger for dinner. He loves hamburgers, and he loves carrots. Lucky for you, Ted took a video. If you have a dog in your life, do they took treats to their bed to eat? Genevieve used to do this…
-
Meme Monday – Working from Home
As I do so often, I brought a cartoon rather than a meme, but I choose to look over that technicality. I’m not new to working from home. I last worked in an office in 2006, when my company moved their headquarters from my California town to a suburb of Chicago. A few years later, the headquarters again moved, this time to Atlanta. Rather than moving California employees, or laying us off, they sent us home. I wasn’t sure I would like it, I like my coworkers and thought I might be lonely being home. I’ve never had to deal with a commute, I have always lived in the same…
-
Meme Monday – Happy Birthday Edition!
Today is my daughter Maya’s 25th birthday! That is somewhat shocking to me, I remember 25 very well. Actually, 25 is when my biological clock started ticking, and I started really wanting a baby. Before that, I was more hypothetical about it. But Ted and I were dating still, had just recently gotten engaged, and I was just graduating from college, into a recession. So it was 5 more years before we had Maya. Anyway, this is her 2nd COVID birthday. She went out yesterday with some friends, and sat in the park and had a lovely time while socially distant. It was almost 80 degrees, so pretty perfect weather…
-
Meme Monday
Today’s meme Monday is a two-for. The silly meme above, and the old school meme below, which is questions asked by AllyBean on her blog. Q1 – What’s your favorite movie? Oh gosh, so many. Maya would say, ‘Out of Africa’, because I sometimes like to watch that movie on my birthday. Such a gorgeous movie. Ted would say, ‘Flashdance’, because gosh, I love that movie, god help me. I just do. I might throw ‘Babette’s Feast’ in there, because it is lovely indeed, and I don’t get tired of ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ for some odd reason. Q2 – When trying to buy shoes, what’s your biggest problem? Arthritis. I have arthritis…
-
Pandemic Potpourri
These are the beautiful hand made masks, sent to us by some good friends, for when we go to the grocery store and so on. I cannot sew, and have no idea how to follow a pattern, and don’t have (and have never used) a sewing machine. And I’m the one Ted and Maya come to when they need a button sewn on or something, so of course this task was a lot more than I could handle. Aren’t they lovely? I like how the patterns are all different so we can tell which belongs to who, and that they are hand made by friends. How are you all doing?…
-
Wordless Wednesday
#DollyPartonChallenge. Credit to Maya.
-
My Trip to Washington D.C., Day 3
Saturday my BFF Rosemary, who lives in Pennsylvania, down near the Delaware border, drove down to D.C. to spend the day with us. We started out at the National Portrait Gallery, and ended up getting separated from the rest of my family there. It was OK with everyone that we did so…Rosemary and I wanted to go slowly and read the blurbs about all of the Presidents, and my sister wanted to take her kids to the Air and Space Museum, which I didn’t care about. So they ended up seeing more pictures than we did, but we went more slowly at our own pace. It was interesting to us…
-
My Trip to Washington D.C., Day 2
As if it weren’t emotional enough to honor my dad at the Grant Writers’ Association conference, we also honored my step-mom’s first husband, Bruce, who died early in the Vietnam War. She was married while in college, and he left soon after their wedding to go to Vietnam, so they did not have a lot of time together. They did spend some time in Hawaii once when he was on leave. His death broke her heart and changed her life. She left college and travelled in Europe for awhile, and when she came home, discovered she could not bear to live in California anymore, there were too many memories. So…
-
My Trip to Washington D.C., Day 1, Part 2
After spending the morning at the Grant Writers’ Association Conference, we walked over to the National Mall and went to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It was amazing and overwhelming and so emotional. We only had the fortitude to visit the History section, and at that point were worn out and ready to head home for the day, which is too bad in a way because I think the Culture section would have been well worth seeing as well. The museum is part of the Smithsonian, which means that it is free, and I think a person could spend a month or two in D.C. and…
-
Rocking Good News!
Not a recent picture, but one I like a lot…anyway, my darling sister, Melissa (on the right up there, black dress), got the news today that her cancer is in FULL REMISSION! YAY! What a relief, I feel like we can finally exhale. Thank you for your kind thoughts her way. I am so very happy for her, for our sister, for her husband and kids, for myself, for all of us. Very good news. I’ll tell you more about the DC trip soon, it was great.