It's our first Bee-versary!

Bee came to live with us one year ago today.  He's gone from a shy boy in his crate to the big black cat who greets everyone and thinks he owns the place!

He is happy to share with Aggie & Peter...

He has his favorite sleeping spots...

He does love a chair...

He and Pete like to help with work...

And Bee is always interested in what I am doing...

They both like to see what's going on outside, too.

We are glad that Bee is part of our little family!

Making a list...

and I'm sure I'll be checking it more than twice over the next several weeks.  Actually, this is the first time I've made a Christmas to-do list in a long time.  I haven't been in much of a holiday mood by the time December rolled around over the past few years.  I'm not sure if I've just been sad or mad or maybe just not mended yet.  Somehow this year seems different; I'm not sure why, but I am thankful for this feeling of Christmas anticipation.  I almost want to throw open the window and shout, "I"m back!"  I know I won't, but that doesn't mean I won't still feel like it.  Christmas is coming and I have things to do!

Anyone who really knows me well is aware of how much I love Christmas - I inherited the joy gene from my dad.  This was a man who loved everything about the Christmas season: the birth of the King, decorating, Christmas carols, baking, shopping, playing Santa - for us and for those much less fortunate than we were, his Johnny Cash Christmas album - even untangling Christmas lights.  Most of November was spent planning the year's holiday extravaganza - but Daddy's most important task was finding the perfect family for his secret Santa program.  I guess I should give you the back story on my father's annual holiday tradition - as important to him as making sure the train under the tree made the rounds of his carefully placed Christmas village.

When I was eight and we were living in Hyannisport, about a week before Thanksgiving, Daddy had a serious heart attack.  He was unable to return to work for a good long while - medical care not being nearly as advanced as it is now.  I'm sure my eight-year-old self didn't realize how bad things really were - Christmas was coming after all.  One day, after the decorations were up, the stockings were hung and Christmas vacation had begun, there was a knock at the door.  My sister and I ran to open it - and there stood a tall, elegant lady in a mink coat.  "Does Charles Marshall live here?" she asked.  "Yes," I answered while my three-year-old sister screamed, "Daddy! Daddy!" and ran for the kitchen.  With that, the lady turned to the big black car parked at the curb in front of our little red brick house at 95 Smith Street and to the uniformed chauffeur, wearing a hat no less, standing at attention near the rear passenger door.  She snapped her fingers at him - I'm not kidding - and he dutifully opened the trunk and began to carry gaily wrapped boxes festooned with holiday ribbons to our door.  By then my mother and father were behind us in the doorway.  "What is all this?" my momentarily dumbstruck father inquired.  Now the boxes full of food and other holiday treats were arriving as my sister and I looked on in wonder.  Had Santa come early?  Maybe this was Mrs. Claus - who knew?  My father, humbled by the amazing generosity of this woman, asked, "Who do we thank for these gifts?"  The lady smiled and said, "Many years ago, my husband was ill and out of work at Christmas time.  We were worried about how we were going to provide for our family, as I am sure you have been these past weeks.  One day, a couple we did not know came to our door, their arms laden with gifts of food and toys for our children.  When we asked their names and who we should thank for this kindness, they simply told us to pass it on when we were able.  And every Christmas since then, my husband and I have sought out a family in the same situation in which we had found ourselves all those years ago - and we have shared the gift of Christmas kindness.  So when you are able, pass it on."  She wished us a Merry Christmas and waved as her chauffeur opened the car door for her.  We had no idea who she was and we never saw her again - but that very next year, after we had moved to Florida, my father found a family that was experiencing hardship during the holiday season and he made sure we found a way to share our many blessings with a family less fortunate.

And so, for the next twenty years, Daddy's secret Santa program brought Christmas to families we did not know in the form of nourishment for both the body and holiday spirit.  I hope they have "passed it on" and shared the joy of giving.  I may have inherited the Christmas joy gene from him, but my father taught me the joy of sharing.

Happy Father's Day...

Daddy & Woodie - 1984

to the man who passed the cat fanatic gene along to me.  Not a day goes by that I don't think of you and smile.  Or laugh out loud.

Thanks for being the best dad I could have ever hoped for.

Remember this...

lovely card that my talented blogger friend Linda sent me a while back?  Well, I finally got a frame for it - didn't it turn out great?  I'd been looking for a suitable frame for a while and I ventured into WalMart today and they actually had a pretty decent selection of reasonably priced do-it-yourself frames.  Normally, I'd just call my friend Susan who has framed most of my artwork for the past, oh, twenty years or so - but in keeping with my resolution to be even more frugal this year, I decided to see if I could find something that looked like Susan had done the work.  Ariela thinks it's odd that I gravitate toward plain (mostly black) frames, but I like to see the thing in the frame - not have my eye drawn to the frame itself.  That's definitely what I accomplished here - and on the perfect day, too.  I had decided to take the day - or at least the morning off - and do errands, have lunch, go for a ride - something outside the house.  I was feeling a little down this morning; it's my official bad day every year.  Everyone has one, for one reason or another.  My dad passed away twenty-six years ago today - and not a day goes by that I don't think of him - and usually it's something funny that he said or did.  He was smart and funny and kind and generous - and the biggest coffee-holic I have every known.  He would have appreciated Linda's coffee artwork, believe me.  This man could drink an entire pot of coffee by himself in the morning before anyone else was even awake.  Then he'd put another pot on to brew while he showered and dressed.  He and the dog would have peanut butter on toast for breakfast with another cup of coffee.  Then he'd fill his thermos with the remainder of the pot and down the road he'd go.  He was a computer geek before the Geek Squad even existed.  Before Bill Gates invented Windows.  When computer programs got loaded into systems on magnetic strips.  Am I aging him or me?  Anyhow, I have no idea how many times Daddy refilled his thermos throughout the day, but the first thing he did when he came home was make a fresh pot of coffee.  He could drink the stuff all evening and still sleep like a baby.  Maybe the man was impervious to the effects of caffeine - who knows?  If he were a superhero, he'd have been CoffeeMan.  See, he still makes me laugh - even from the Great Beyond.

Happy birthday, Daddy...

Happy birthday, Daddy!  My dad would be 83 today.  I can’t imagine it, but I sure wish he were still around.  He would love the technology.  Daddy was a computer geek back in the old days – PCs were just becoming affordable when he passed away in 1985.  And the internet – he would have been a serious driver on the information superhighway.  This is the man who loved to read these six things – and in this order of importance:  1) Reader’s Digest; 2) the encyclopaedia; 3) the Bible; 4) the dictionary; 5) Chariots of the Gods; and 6) Project Blue Book.  He was once persuaded to read a biography of Johnny Cash but later said that he could have gotten the same information from the Funk & Wagnalls.  He would have been out of his mind with glee at the sheer amount of information available at his fingertips.  I can see it now: he’d be scouring the news for UFO sightings, emailing jokes to all of his cronies, having Our Daily Bread delivered to his inbox and contributing regularly to keep Wikipedia in business.  He’d probably even have a blog wherein he would debate whether or not Ezekiel’s wheel of fire in the sky was actually a UFO of biblical proportions.  And I’d be his number one follower.

Aunt Thelma...

My Aunt Thelma would be 113 years old today.  She was a hoot.  Barely four feet ten inches tall, she was a dynamo in stylish stilettos and a mink.  She lived in New York City and when she came up to the farm, it was like a holiday.  She’d arrive on the train in her city finery leaving a trail of Chanel No. 5 in her wake.  Aunt Thelma had been married to a very wealthy older man who had left her a widow with three children at a relatively young age.  She was a whiz at cutting fabric and her friends on Seventh Avenue kept her supplied with all of the latest styles.  She could make absolutely anything without a pattern.  She was so tiny she wore size four shoes – just the size all the latest shoe samples came in back then.  She was a sight to behold and a wonderful lady.  We looked forward to her visits because not only was she an absolute delight, she always came bearing gifts.  One of my favorites was a stuffed Pomeranian toy dog she gave me when I was six or seven; I carried that thing everywhere.  She always took us shopping in town, such as it was, and gave us all a little “mad money” as she called that we could spend any way we liked.  She always wore a dress or a skirt and while she was visiting she always whipped up a new dress for my grandmother out of some fabulous fabric she’d brought along.  After we’d moved to Florida, and my grandmother had passed away, Aunt Thelma came to visit and we had a day trip to Venice where we collected sharks teeth at the beach and treated her to her first-ever milkshake.  Can you imagine?  She was at least seventy at the time – I guess she’d gotten used to egg creams in the city.  By then she had married a much younger Merchant Marine who had no clue as to as to her real age or financial status and she aimed to keep it that way.  During her visit, I shared my room with her since there were two twin beds.  My sister was about six at the time and she ran into my room while Aunt Thelma was getting dressed.  The next thing we knew she was barreling into the kitchen to announce to everyone at the breakfast table that Aunt Thelma was wearing a “bra with legs.”  My sister had never seen an all-in-one bra and girdle get up.  Do they even still make those things?  We all had a good laugh, including Aunt Thelma, who wasn’t the least bit embarrassed that my father now knew the status of her undergarments as described by a six-year-old.  She and her much younger husband finally retired some years later to a condo in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to be closer to her children – but “not too close,” as she said.  She was ninety-eight when she died and she had a nice, long life.  She never said an unkind word about anyone but her eldest daughter’s first husband – but he had it coming.   And I never heard anyone say an unkind word about her.  I think of her often, especially when I think some outrageous thing I would never say out loud.  Her best advice to me was this: “It’s okay to think whatever you want; a lady just never says it out loud.”  Happy birthday, Aunt Thelma!

Graham crackers...

I’ve rediscovered graham crackers.  When I was a kid, we always had them in the house and they were my dad’s favorite snack.  A serious treat was putting left over cake frosting on them.   After he died, we didn’t buy them anymore.  Just another reminder, I guess.  Last time I went to the grocery, they were on sale – buy one, get one free.  You know I can’t resist that kind of bargain, so I got a box of the HoneyMaid and a box of the cinnamon sugar variety.  I’d forgotten how much I like them.  They’re a relatively wholesome snack and they remind me of my dad.  It’s a double good thing!

Don't shoot me...

I'm only the piano player...  I am thoroughly enjoying my ME page-a-day calendar and this illustration took me back to my childhood and my $22.50 piano.  Right down to the howling little dog, although mine was a black poodle.  When I was about ten and attending the First Baptist Church in Zephyrhills with my family, I was enthralled with the old upright pianos in all of the Sunday School rooms.  They were fair game on Wednesday nights after prayer meeting while the adults visited and I made the most of my unsupervised time with what I considered to be the grandest of all musical instruments.  I could barely read music, but I managed to pick out a fair number of tunes from the old hymnal.  One fateful evening, the choir director asked my father if I was taking piano lessons.  No, my father replied, we don't have a piano.  The choir director informed him that the church was planning to sell the old pianos to raise money for the new sanctuary and that my dad ought to consider taking advantage of getting a good deal on a piano for me.  How much, my father asked, dreading some astronomical figure.  "Oh, twenty five dollars," the choir director said.  "Think about it - I think your daughter has an ear for music."  My eaves-dropping ten-year-old self didn't hear that part - all I heard was twenty-five dollars!  It might as well have been twenty five hundred - I knew my mother was never going to go for that.  I had, however, underestimated my father and his ability to deal with my mother.  The next day over dinner, my father casually mentioned that the church was going to be selling some old pianos.  Her response was exactly what I expected: what do we need with a piano, we can't afford a piano, besides, we have no place to put it, blah blah blah.  My heart sunk.  My father was undeterred.  He told my mother that he thought the piano would be a good investment.  We can't afford piano lessons, she countered.  They went back and forth like that for a while until he finally announced that surely she couldn't say no to a piano for a mere $22.50.  Wait, I thought, wasn't it twenty-five dollars?  She wavered.  She said she'd think about it.  That was all Daddy needed to hear.  The following Saturday my father and his friend with a truck picked up my new (old) piano at the church and found a home for it in the utility room just off the kitchen.  And he had indeed only paid $22.50 for the piano; apparently they were willing to make him an even better deal and threw in a couple of old hymnals for good measure.  I can't tell you how excited I was that day or how much enjoyment I got out of that piano over the years.  I taught myself to read music and played anything and everything for the sheer joy of making my own music.  I would play and sing for hours on end all by myself in that little utility room.  Over the years, that piano occupied many out-of-the-way places and gave me many hours of pleasure.  Yes, my father threatened to throw away my Scott Joplin songbook if he heard Maple Leaf Rag one more time, but I would have to say that he enjoyed that piano as much as I did.  I miss that old piano, almost as much as I miss my father.

Thanks, Daddy, for $22.50 well spent.

The annual dilemma...

of where to put the Christmas decorations continues.  I love these little white deer - just like the ones you see in people's yard - only a lot smaller!  These belonged to my mother-in-law; my husband's older brother made them many years ago.  He was a cabinetmaker and he did beautiful work - Tim has a small painted box that Harry made.  I used to tell Grandma that I wanted these deer when she died.  Remember saying that to your mom or grandma when you were a kid?  Well, when my husband moved her up to Pennsylvania, she gave them to me and said, "Why wait until I die - enjoy them now."  And I do.  I've named them Shirley and Pop in honor of Tim's mom and stepfather.

I can't figure out what to do with these adorable photo holders - or what photos to put in them.  I just love the sweet folk art style.

When I see the right spot, I'll know it.

These two Christmas baskets are begging for a spot on my desk - but there just isn't any more room.  Any ideas?

An annual tradition...

is back - and Aggie & I just had a free Angus Bacon Cheeseburger for dinner.  She was more impressed than I was, but hey - it was free!  Growing up, McDonald's was always considered a big treat at our house.  We very seldom went out to eat and when we did, my sister and I begged for McDonald's.  My dad tried to avoid it except on road trips because he loved the convenience of driving through and eating in the car.  We would sit in the back seat and chant, "Ronnnnn-ald," until he would stop at the next exit.  I suspect that Daddy secretly liked McDonald's too - after all, he was an early computer geek whose job often entailed installing point-of-sale systems at various fast food restaurants.  The year Tim and I got married, we took a short honeymoon road trip a couple of months later and the McDonald's Monopoly game was going on.  I think we ate at every McDonald's between here and Savannah.  Well, maybe not - but it sure seemed like we did.  Every year thereafter, we made a point of visiting the Golden Arches at least once during the game.  The most either of us ever won was a free order of fries or a sandwich until a couple of years ago when I actually won some computer game downloads.  One was Yahtzee and I think there were two others - possibly a Monopoly game.  I'm back to my comparative losing streak this year, but I did get a free cheeseburger and some Coke rewards points.  I still love their fries in my old age, so it was worth the trip.

Mama and the Canadian Pothead...

Aggie & Don't-Call-Me-Grandma!

I know I’m a day late for the actual celebration of Thanksgiving in Canada, but yesterday did remind me of my mother and her quest to mark smoking pot off her bucket list… When my sister was in college, she had some interesting friends – one of which was a pothead from Ontario whose name was Ryan or Reed or something like that.  Anyhow, for one reason or another, she would regale us with tales of his adventures with smoking weed.  I didn’t care and to this day I don’t know why Mama was so interested.  My friend Kathy and I once took my mother to a Hall & Oates concert where the air had a decidedly sweet smell and all Mama did was shout “What is that smell?” over the music.  Kathy finally told her to just shut up, inhale and enjoy it.  Which might just be the reason why she was so interested in the unlawful exploits of my sister’s friend from north of the border…  Anyhow, one fall my mother embarked on a vacation to Michigan to visit my sister who was living off-campus at the time.  All Mama could talk about was meeting the pothead and “smoking a marijuana cigarette,” she’d say.  “I think they call it a joint, Mama,” I’d remind her.  My sister planned an evening get-together and Mama was beside herself with excitement.  “Well, have fun,” I encouraged her reluctantly.  I had horrifying visions of my mother’s mugshot and the headline “Hash-smoking Housewife Handcuffed” on the front page of the Grand Rapids Press.  I made sure I had enough money for bail.  About eleven the night of the big soiree, the phone rang.  It was my sister.  “Well?” I asked.  Apparently the evening went fairly well – or as well as a college party could go with Mama in its midst, constantly asking when they were all going to smoke pot.  I guess the Canadian finally got tired of her badgering and produced his stash.  “Not in my apartment!” my sister decreed and showed the bad influence and the would-be pothead to the laundry room in the basement.  My sister said the moment of truth had finally arrived when Mama made a face and said, “I’m not smoking that wet, nasty cigarette after you – that’s disgusting!  I want my own!”  I guess the pothead was not as well-connected as he had implied to his friends and he only had the one with him.  And so I don’t think Mama ever marked that particular item off her list of things to do before she died, but we always enjoyed retelling the story, laughing and teasing her over trying.


Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving, Canada.

Mama and the blue bargain bras...

Ever have a memory just hit you from out of the blue (pun intended)?  I was folding laundry this morning - yes, actually folding it up! - and I remembered these awful blue bras I had when I was in high school.  It was the 1970s and I was not cool.  Not in the least.  I wasn't really a slave to fashion; all I cared about was marginally fitting in, since I really spent most of my time with my nose in a book.  Anyhow, my parents sent us to a private school with lots of rich kids and my nerdy self was pretty low on the social scale.  It didn't help that my mom, who sewed beautifully and made most of our clothes, had a fashion sense stuck in the 1950s - when she was in high school.  Mama didn't like t-shirts; therefore we were not allowed to wear t-shirts, or even like them, for that matter.  My wardrobe consisted mainly of peasant dresses, blue jeans and my mother's favorite: blouses from Grant's.  Most of these blouses were white or pastel colors.  I hated them, but it's hard to be picky when you don't buy your own clothes and you live with the queen of bargain hunters.  To make matters worse, I also come from a long line of well-endowed women.  My maternal grandmother and her sisters were all at least a 32DD - and my great-aunt who aspired to ice-skating fame was a 32F.  And so - most of my mother's lingerie purchases were based on support and durability.  God help the other women in line at a Playtex sale!  We wore Playtex 18-Hour bras until they were practically threadbare and then replaced with yet another model - always white.  My sister called them iron bras.  Well, one summer before school started, Mama took us to the JC Penney store downtown.  It was really sort of a JC Penney catalog outlet, but they had good prices on some pretty odd-lot merchandise.  Once, when shopping alone one day after school (I was supposed to be at my dad's office), I dared to spend part of my allowance on a pair of nylon hip hugger underwear with pink smiley faces; Mama was mortified and lectured me for days on how nice girls don't wear a) nylon panties, 2) hip hugger panties and D) underwear with smiley faces printed on them.  So my secretly rebellious self wore those things as often as possible - after all, it was my hard-earned dollar.  But I digress...  Hoping to find similar bargains on that back-to-school shopping trip, I couldn't wait to get to the store.  Suffice it to say that my excitement was short-lived when the only bargain to be found that day were three wretched, robin's egg blue MaidenForm bras in just my size.  Not a Playtex 18-Hour iron bra in sight.  My mother went on and on about how well these would hold up - both in terms of support and daily wear - and the die was cast.  I became the proud owner of three blue back-to-school bras.  And remember those blouses my mom was so fond of?  Well, these hideous blue bras on my pale as a ghost skin showed through everything.  Although my mother continually assured me that my unmentionables weren't noticeable, a lot of other people sure noticed them and made more than a few mentions of that fact.  I hated those damn blue bras and I prayed every day that they would just wear out and I could go back to a plain white iron bra.  Mama got her money's worth - those things lasted a whole school year and then some!   

Shirley Wuest Smith Rubino 1928-2010

My mother-in-law passed away last night.  She would have been 82 in July.  She was diagnosed with Alzheimers in 2008 and had been in a nursing facility in Pennsylvania near her sister's home since early 2009.  About a month ago when I spoke with her, she told me that she had a new boyfriend named Jack.  She sounded like a guilty teenager.  Who know what those little old people get up to after the lights go out...  Anyhow, they had taken her to the hospital on Saturday because she was complaining of stomach and back pain.  Tim talked to her about 8:30 Sunday night and they called him around midnight to tell him that she had died. Shirley, the oldest of three sisters, was born in Pennsylvania and lived there until she retired to Florida in the early 1980s with her husband, Al (Tim's stepdad).  Pop was a gem.  When Shirley was young, she and her sister had a local radio show called Shirley and Curly; they sang "country-western" music, she called it.  She and her first husband had a son named Harry.  When Harry was ten or so, they adopted Tim.  Tim said he was terrorized raised mostly by his grandmother.  After she and Tim's dad divorced, she married a man named Ronald Whose-Last-Name-I-Can't-Remember and they adopted Tim's sister, Kris.  Kris is another story entirely, which I will save for another time.  Apparently, Ronald didn't last long and one day Tim finally got his wish: to have Al as a dad.  Shirley and Pop had been married over twenty-five years when Pop went to his reward.  Shirley was always nice to me; my own mother tried to convince me that there was some unwritten rule about hating your mother-in-law.  I mean, Shirley could be weird; she once gave me a farting teddy bear for my birthday.  But she was never mean.  My own mother had cornered the market on meanness.  Shirley also did and said a LOT of funny stuff - some of which I have written about and other things which I have stored away for future writing, like the mind-controlled Roomba and the time she nearly choked to death in the Mexican restaurant.  When Tim called to tell me, the first thing he said was, "I guess now she knows that Lucky didn't make it."  I had to laugh.  Shirley had this cat named Lucky, which Kris had rescued from Death Row at the shelter.  When she went to the rehab in 2008 with her broken arm, Lucky came to stay with us and our cats.  Well, one day I went home and Lucky was laid out on the kitchen floor.  He was alive, but barely.  I rushed him to the vet who informed me that this old cat was suffering from kidney and liver failure and there was nothing we could do for him.  So I did the humane thing and dispatched Lucky to his heavenly home.  But I couldn't tell my mother-in-law.  She asked me every day, "How's Lucky?" and I would say that he was just fine.  That wasn't really a lie, since Lucky was indeed fine.  So for the better part of the last year and half, every time she asked about Lucky, we would say that he was fine. 

Tim's right; I guess now she knows.

Alas...

My holiday baking is sadly curtailed by the size of my kitchen and the fact that I gave away my KitchenAid stand mixer.  So I am reduced to making pecan bars from a mix and scooping cookie dough from a refrigerated tub.

Oh well, my heart is in the right place, even if I am lacking in counter space and small appliances.  I made some goodies for my friends Cari and Linda.  I have to stop at the store on the way home tomorrow and get some cheese and milk for my holiday mac & cheese feast, so I will probably just buy a pumpkin pie.  Tim's daughter still has my two prized Longaberger pie plates from two years ago - I don't expect I'll ever see them again.  Don't you hate when people don't return your dishes?  I had made two sour cream apple pecan pies for Christmas at their house - did I say two years ago? - and the pie was well received.  Apparently, so were the pie plates.  Don't mind me, I'm just grumpy today.

Here's the apple pie recipe, if you're so inclined:

CRUST:

1 c. all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 c. cold butter, cut in small pieces
3 to 4 tbsp. cold tap water

FILLING:
3/4 c. sour cream
1 lg. egg
1/3 c. granulated sugar
1 tbsp. all purpose flour
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
3 lbs. tart apples (Pippins, Granny Smiths or Greenings) peeled, quartered, cored and cut in 1/4 inch thick slices (10 cups)

CRUMB TOPPING:
1/3 c. all purpose flour
1/3 c. packed light brown sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 c. cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 c. (2 oz.) pecan pieces, chopped coarse

To make crust: mix flour and salt in a medium size bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle water over flour mixture 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring lightly with a fork after each addition to distribute moisture evenly. Press lightly to form a ball. Flatten into a 1 inch thick round. Wrap in plastic; refrigerate about 1 hour until firm enough to roll. Have a 9 inch pie plate ready. Roll out dough; line pie plate.

To make filling: whisk sour cream and egg in a large bowl until blended, whisk in sugar, flour, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg; stir in apples. Spread in pie plate, mounding mixture in center.

To make topping: mix flour, sugar and cinnamon in a medium size bowl. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in walnuts. Sprinkle evenly over filling, then press down lightly. To bake, place oven rack in center of oven; heat to 400 degrees. Bake pie 50 to 60 minutes until topping is dark brown and apples are tender when pierced. (If topping browns too quickly during baking, drape a piece of foil over pie). Cool on wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. Makes 8 servings.

Another pair of sole-mates...

Okay, so I'm really into the sock thing...

Tim is in Tampa this week working on a project for some company that makes reverse osmosis water filtration systems, so he came down on Saturday afternoon and took me to the movies (popcorn, yes!) and dinner (barbecue, during which I was overcome with guilt for eating cooked flesh - but that's another story).  We saw 2012 with love-of-my-life John Cusack, who to my dismay, did not once make that dumbstruck face in the entire movie.  Woody Harrelson played a lunatic, at which he excelled, who had a front row seat when the giant caldera at Yellowstone erupted.  A great movie for disaster lovers!

I just love...

tangerines. They make me think of my grandmother. When we lived on the farm, we had apples out the wazoo - and as much as I love apples, to this day I cannot eat a McIntosh apple - too soft, too sour and too grainy. I can't even make a pie with them. As the holidays approached, knowing we were sick of eating, picking or even seeing apples, Grandma would buy oranges and tangerines, and I was completely smitten with those small, sweet, easy to peel orbs of orange delight. I didn't even care about the seeds. When she moved to Florida (and we followed several year later), she had a tangerine tree in her yard and I would eat them until I got the hives (I did the same thing during strawberry-picking season in Plant City!). My lips would puff up like I'd been stung by a swarm of citrus-crazed bees! No warning about too much fruit was ever heeded - I was in tangerine heaven. I have since discovered clementines - all of the joy with none of the seeds - but I still enjoy a good tangerine or two or three... And the bee-stung lip look is really in these days!

Now I understand...

my family's movie rating system... It's like this: I have an aunt who once lived in California and is an expert on all things Hollywood. She is definitely the one to have on your team when playing the silver screen edition of Trivial Pursuit. A serious movie buff, she can tell you the stars, major plot points and even the director of most movies from about 1939 on. For one reason or another, however, she judges every movie she has seen since 1969 by what she considers the pinnacle of Hollywood cinematic perfection: Midnight Cowboy. I had never seen it, although I once read a humorous essay by Southern writer Bailey White in which her own mother, oddly enough, compared every movie she saw with, you guessed it, Midnight Cowboy. Figuring there had to be something redeeming about that movie, I decided to finally watch it, albeit thirty years late. Apparently in 1969, it was rated X! Yikes! Well, let me tell you, right now it would barely get a PG-13. I could have done without the psychedelic drug references, but I guess that sort of thing was de rigueur in that era. (Hey, did I use that right?) Anyhow, hayseed Jon Voight leaves the sticks for the big city hoping to strike it rich as a man-whore (thank you for that word, Adam Sandler), which he believes to be his one true calling. He meets Dustin Hoffman (who surprisingly did not win an Oscar for his incredible performance), loses all his money, fails to succeed in his chosen profession and ends up taking care of his new-found friend who sadly dies on the bus to Florida. If you could cut out all the gratuitous sex and drug scenes, it is actually an excellent movie about the unlikely friendship between two hapless guys, broke and trying to survive on the streets of New York.

So while I was on my old movie binge, I also decided to watch Easy Rider (which I had never watched in its entirety) - mainly because everyone said how great Jack Nicholson was in the film. Well, it's true, Jack was great. But then, Jack is great in every movie he does. His young self looks like a cross between Dennis Quaid and Tom Cruise - and he is, to my astonishment, quite good-looking. I first discovered Jack as Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, where he had perfected that lobotomized wandering-eye look, which detracted considerably from his overall appearance. At any rate, Peter Fonda was his usual beautiful, laid-back man-of-few-words self and Dennis Hooper was a colossal asshat. And, as far as movies go, to quote my aunt and Bailey White's mother, "It was okay, but it was no Midnight Cowboy."

Okay, let's try this again...

I read these two really wonderful books last week - and I just have to go on and on about them. The first one, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, transported me to post WWII and the Channel Island of Guernsey. It's hard to talk too much about the book without giving away the plot - but as I began to say in my previous post, I just fell into this book. The characters, setting and well, everything about it is magical. The story is told in a series of letters between a writer, her publisher, strangers the author meets as pen-pals of sorts while writing an article about reading - and surprisingly the story revolves around a character the author never meets at all. I could say it's heartwarming, but that's trite. It's sad and delightful and moving and thought-provoking all rolled into a lovely little paperback. Not to be missed!

You know I love a good murder mystery and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, serves one up in grand Agatha Christie form. It's the first in a series (yes!) and our detective is eleven-year-old Flavia DeLuce - a precocious little girl with a penchant for poison. No, she's not the murderer - but she suspects several someones near and dear to her as the mystery unravels. It is so well-written, it was hard to put down. And now I can't wait for the next one: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. Veddy British.

I also wanted to add a word about my snarky post about my mother-in-law yesterday. Not everything I write about her is snotty - she was just on my nerves after a month long visit after a hurricane destroyed her neighborhood - hers was the only mobile home left standing! We always thought we should rent her out to one of the late-night talk shows so she could dispense wisdom like the Fruitcake Lady. Coulda made a million bucks - or a dollar, at least!

A Grandma update - and a funny story...

My mother-in-law, Shirley, has been moved from the hospital back to the nursing home. She is apparently doing pretty well - and there's probably less germs at the nursing home than at the hospital, what with the swine flu overtaking us. I saw a funny sign on the way to work yesterday at the Walgreen's: Flu Shots $25, Bacon $2.00. Guess they're going to eradicate swine flu one way or the other.

I was digging around in some old files and found a funny letter I'd written about Grandma, so I thought I'd share. I'm still looking for the one about Grandma and the Roomba... Here goes:

Okay, my powers of observation have gotten the best of me and I have to vent. It’s actually sort of funny, if you try to picture this. My mother-in-law is a trip. She’s really just this nondescript looking sort of old lady, but it’s her little quirks that are so entertaining – well, sometimes. She has a plethora of sayings that we call Shirley-isms. Here are a few: “I’m just so g-d-damned disgusted I don’t know what to do.” Disgusted about what or by whom, we don’t know, but there you have it. We’ve decided that maybe she doesn’t really know what disgusted means. During moments of silence, when other people say nothing at all: “Oh, sh-t.” When asked for advice: “Well, sh-t in one hand and wish with the other and see which one fills up first.” I don’t think so. And my all time favorite, which I do not understand at all: “You talk like a man with a paper a--hole.” I mean, what can that possibly mean? And what sane person would even say that? Now, reread those gems with the same accent as the Swedish chef on the Muppets, and you have my mother-in-law. You can also throw in some completely unintelligible made-up allegedly Pennsylvania Dutch words – another misnomer I don’t get because they aren’t Dutch at all – they’re German. Why isn’t it Pennsylvania Deutsch? Wouldn’t that make more sense? Anyhow, I try to ignore most things, but there are others that really get to me. During this particular visit, I actually noticed her table manners for the first time. I was horrified, to say the least, but I chalked it up to being completely fizzed over the length of her stay and my uptight upbringing by devotees of Emily Post. Well, it was a dinner to remember. Tim grilled steaks for dinner and much to my surprise, she ate most of hers with her hands. She would saw off a chunk – none of them bite-size and then pick it up in her hands and gnaw on it. I made garlic cheese biscuits and at one point, I saw her stuff an entire half a biscuit into her mouth at one time. I had made a dozen, so there was no shortage, but still... Then – the baked potatoes – which she also ate with her hands – a quarter of a potato at a time, down the hatch. Okay, I admit that in my own home I am not as cognizant of the size bites I take or whether or not I hold my fork properly, but Good Lord! In my worst moments of binging in front of the refrigerator, I have never stuffed my mouth as full as that. My mother would have rapped the woman on the knuckles with her knife! My grandmother would have backhanded her! And then – I set the table with placemats and napkins – don’t most people use those? Anyhow, she wanted a paper towel because “it don’t make sense getting these napkins dirty.” I replied, “They’re washable – we use them all the time.” She just made a face at me and got up to get herself said paper towel. Later Tim said that she always tells him that she doesn’t eat, but he said that when he goes down to her house (an hour away) and takes her out to dinner, she eats everything in sight! What surprised me is that she always looks at what I’ve cooked like it’s a pile of manure that I’ve tried to serve her – and then she eats like there’s no tomorrow – and follows it up with criticism about every part of the meal! All I know is that it’s a damn good thing that I don’t have houseguests on a regular basis. Either that, or I need to loosen up. I think I’ll start with trying to cram a large chunk of potato down my throat… Or someone else’s!

A quick update...

I spoke to Grandma's sister and Tim last night as well as this morning and apparently she is doing quite well. Her sister says she has pneumonia, but Tim said that the ICU nurse didn't mention that - only that she was doing well. Tim talked to Shirley and said she sounded really with it this morning. Thanks for keeping her in your prayers!