Reflections

 

So much love and warmth and kindness came my way.

So many strangers reached out.

I cried on a bench at Tohono Chul.... and then made Ben's Bells beads.... and talked to a tv person.... and put up my hood because it was cold... and there were visitors from Montana and Arizona and California and we all missed Christina-Taylor very much.

 

They were reflections of my own sorrow.

Sharing it eased the burden.

 

 

It will always slice me.  I accept that.

I can learn to lean on the joy which remains.  It's a much better prop.

I can face the facts bravely, because to turn away is to let him win.

 

I have much more work to do.

How lucky I am to be here to do it. 

Remembering

I never answer the house phone; it's always tele-marketers.  But I answer this call. 

Was it meant to be? 

"Hi! This is your Representative, Gabby Giffords, inviting you to join me at Congress on Your Corner tomorrow, Saturday, January 8th between 10 and noon, at the Safeway at Oracle and Ina.  Come and tell me how government can work better for you."

Hmmm.... it's close, it's free, she's a Cornellian..... I'll go. 

Husband is going to spin class, as usual for a Saturday morning.  I'll call the Crayola Kids and see if one of them wants to join me.  Mom and Dad and Big Brother are busy, but Christina-Taylor is  free, and "she loves going places with you!"

We make a plan. 

Who knew that 9:45 the next morning would be the last time I'd pick her up at home?

I dress for the diva in my 9 year old friend.  I accessorize (to the best of my limited ability). I select my favorite cowboy boots and the newer earrings TBG chose for the holidays.  The skinny belt that fit around my low-riding jeans, the belt for which I'd searched high and low, is cinched tight.  I look fit and put-together.... and I know that CTG will still have comments.

I love that about her; it makes her who she is: a perfect little girl who is quite pleased with herself, with the world, with life in general.  She wants everyone to be just as happy as she is.... and that seems to include accessories these days, at least for this 9 year old.

She had a little sore throat and a sniffle last night, so back inside for her sparkly Juicy Couture sweatshirt she is sent.  "Yes," her mom reassured me, "she really does want to go with you."

Those are the words I cherish when I replay this scene.

We drive, slowly and carefully because I have someone else's daughter in the car.  We park in the middle of the parking lot so that I can pretend the walk to the sign-in table counts as exercise.  She leaves that sweatshirt on the front seat of my car.  She can walk back to retrieve it if it's cold.

We weren't there long enough for that.

She signs us in and we wait in line.  We engage the other standees in a Why are YOU here contest.  She shares her Student Council victory and accepts the kudos.  Gabby arrives, exits the car wearing the gloves Pam Simon told her to bring to ward off the morning chill.  CTG points out the Congresswoman's accessories, and we make another plan - to shop at the Going Out of Business sale across the street after we shake hands with a real, live legislator. 

The photographer begins snapping pictures, we ramp up our excitement as we inch closer to our Congressperson.... and all hell breaks loose.

I feel the bullet rending the air.  I watch Gabby slide down the flags.

And then, there is silence, an eerie, creepy, absence of sound enveloping the shopping center. 

I hear myself announcing that I've been shot. 

I find myself lying on the sidewalk, holding my little friend's hand, replaying scenes from Law and Order in my head because I don't know what else to say. "Stay with me.  Don't leave me here alone.  I promised your mom you'd be home after lunch.  Do not let me be the only one here on the cold ground."

I wish I'd remembered to tell her that I loved her, too.   She was gone before I could re-jigger my brain. My therapist tells me that I'd be wishing I'd given her instructions to keep breathing had I spent those last few moments telling her that she was loved.

There are sirens, curiously comforting sirens, and EMT's and medevac copters and nurses and doctors and reporters and politicians and tv cameras .... and Christina-Taylor's spirit hovering nearby. 

That's the part which is clearest, even now. 

It was what it was.  I can't change the past.

It is what it is, an existential horror. 

I'm still learning to get along in such a world. 

It Doesn't Get Any Easier

I keep hoping that this year, whichever year, it will be easier to get through the days.  I'm able to hold it together during the first seven-eighths of our family's Holiday Celebration Tour but once TBG's birthday passes all hell breaks loose in my being.

My hands shake.  My stomach roils.  The tension knots in my shoulders have tension knots of their own.  I'm distracted and distractable and can't hold a thought for more than a minute or two. I'm leaving more and more piles of projects I start and then surprise surprise surprise am distracted from. 

Living with me is not easy this week.  Just ask my husband.  He's trying to put his own issues aside, trying to be my comfort, but since I have no idea what might work, he's reduced to being a bystander.  Hugs and kind words are fine as far as they go, but what happened to me four years ago needs more than loving verbiage and physical contact before it can find its proper place in my soul.

I just wish I knew what that place might be.

I'm torn between what I want and what I think is expected of me and what I expect of my self.  I want to pretend that this week is like any other week of the year.  I want to notice my limp the same way I notice it in Jul: it's there but that's all; it's not attached to the shooter.  Now, the chill in the air reminds me that the sweater which looked best with my jeans was bloodstained and is evidence in an FBI locker some where. 

Those kinds of thoughts tend to stick around for a while.

Everyone in my circle is trying to take care of me.  Miss Vicki will be my companion at the Concert for Civility, as she has in all the years past.  Lady Jane and I sat over lunch for two hours; she made sure that I was doing well with all the anniversary issues before we moved on to refugees and RISD and TNS machines.  Everytown sent me a card, sharing love and companionship and recognizing the date.  Emails let me know that my friends are thinking of me, wishing that there were something they could do to make it all go away.

I know that feeling well.

So I'll visit with my therapist and try to make sense out of an unreasonable moment.  I'll keep exercising and changing my brain chemistry, hoping that the endorphins will kick in and I'll be able to leave the angst in their wake.  I'll type to you and see what my fingers tell my brain. 

And I'll try to smile, because Christina-Taylor's dad reminded us that she would not want us to be sad. 

Easier said than done, sweetheart.  Easier said than done.

Arizona's New Government

They were all sworn in today - the new governor and secretary of state and treasurer and superintendent of schools.  I probably should have capitalized all those positions, but I am going to have the officials earn those big letters before I award them here in The Burrow.  It's a small statement, but one I can get my heart around.

In this state, that's a big deal.

The outgoing Superintendent of Schools, John Huppenthal, took a small man's revenge on a big city's school district.  Friday, his last work day in office, Huppenthal filed papers alleging that the Tucson Unified School District was not in compliance with the court's ruling on their ethnic studies program's revisions.  Never mind that his attack on the MAPS program was a small minded attempt to keep culturally relevant instruction out of the classroom; the courts ordered a change and TUSD complied.... or thought it had complied until rumblings from Huppenthal's office last week led to an exchange of letters and the court filing on Friday.

It's not his job anymore, yet he's left a mess for his successor.  She, a former school board member with a contentious local history, cites motherhood has her most important job.  I won't argue the point, but her opponent in the election, a professor, a PhD, a published thinker on education, had real plans for our students.  Ms. Douglas wants to take Washington out of our local schools by dismantling the Common Core standards adopted last year. She's not interested in increasing funding or in delivering the dollars assigned by the voters but diverted by the Legislature over the past few years. 

She has a lot to do to earn her capital letters.

Doug Ducey, our new governor, ran Cold Stone Creamery before he ventured into state government.  He touted himself as a business man, but the statistics for his franchisees make him more of a pyramid schemer than a builder of new wealth.  He promises to balance the budget and improve life for Arizonans and bring new business to our floundering state, but with an education system on the brink of disaster, I'm not sure what carrots he'll dange at the end of his stick to encourage employers to move valuable job opportunities our way.  He's pledged to leave the tax structure alone; where will all that new money come from? 

He, too, will have to work for those big letters.

Secretary of State is the position Jan Brewer held before she was bumped up into the Governor's chair after Janet Napolitano left for DC.  I vowed that I would never ignore the bottom of the ticket again after she ascended to the governorship and took our state in a redder direction.  I voted for the opponent; like all the major races this year, my candidate lost.  I'm holding my breath than this office, which oversees such things as the amount of dark money which can be spent in a campaign, will show more transparency than it has in the past. 

I hope I don't turn blue before Michelle Reagan earns her capital letters.

Through all of this I hold my little piece of paradise close to my heart.  Legislative District 9 is sending Victoria Steele and Randy Friese to Phoenix.  They are pro-choice, pro-gay rights, supporters of sensible gun control legislation ..... and they listen.  In an ever increasing cacophony of competing rhetoric, very little of which is based on fact or reason, listening may be the skill most valuable of all.

They have already earned their capital letters.  Here's hoping that my State Representatives can encourage their colleagues to collaborate and create a more promising future.

Go ahead, laugh at me.  I refuse to give up hope. 

The Gem and Mineral Collections

 I was saving it for an adventure with Mr. 9, but he went with The Wonderfuls last week.

It's a hidden gem (pun intended.... and a weak one at that....) on the UofA campus.

I stumbled upon it the first time I visited the Flandreau Planetarium.

I suppose I glossed over the Science Center appended to the name on the signage.

I had no idea that the University of Arizona Mineral Museum was hiding there, too.

 

There was a gallery of extraordinary stones collected by local amateurs.

Those were housed in a gallery just off the main entrance and entranced us

(I'm sorry.... I can't seem to stop)

when Scarlett and Miss Vicki and I were there in November.

It has fancy lighting and elaborate display cases.

It's a special exhibit and is meant to feel that way.

 

Boxing Day found TBG and Big Cuter and me in the basement, wandering through rows and rows of minerals, less elaborately displayed but no less magnificent.

 These were cases filled with the life treasures of people like this couple

who agreed to share just some of their personally collected rocks.

The room was filled with meticulously labeled specimens.

 

We were there for an hour.

 

I was interested in the composition of the rocks.

I know that iron makes the Sedona rocks red (think rust), but what created that orange or that yellow?

 

Amidst all these colors,

the gold didn't seem all that wonderful

The walls were adorned with WPA-era paintings of the miners who brought these ores to the surface.

It put it in perspective.

 

My brain was spinning from imagining the physical forces which squeezed particles or heated goo or crushed or pushed or mangled atoms into collectibles.

 

I went to my favorite exhibit and Pressed. 

They all shined back at me as I took my new mantra - Press to Fluoresce - into the star show. 

Happy Birthday, TBG!

Updated from 2014. 

I've celebrated with you since 1971.  That's  more than forty years of hearing you complain that everyone is always driving home on your birthday.  Forty years of watching everyone else start the new year off by looking forward to new challenges, as we look back on the year just past.  Birthdays are times for reflection for us.  It's just so odd to do it when the rest of the world is focused forward.

Thinking of a gift that wasn't given for Chanukah or Christmas is a perennial challenge.  I used to buy you cigars, but they don't seem to amuse you any more. The Sees Candies that greetsyou when you open your eyes and glance at your night stand this morning will be tasty, but they'll also be an echo of the two boxes Santa gifted you last week.

It's always been that way.  You'd give me a list and wonder why some of it wasn't found under the tree or near the spinning dreidles, only to stop and remember that you had another occasion for presents coming up at the crest of the new year.

The new year is a double whammy for you. Not only do you start off fresh with the rest of the Julian-calendar-following world, you start a new year of your own personal life as well.  The two are inextricably intertwined.  You've been cheated out of a fresh start somewhere in the middle of your own anniversary. Yours are piled right up on top of one another.

Your mom had the same issue; her birthday was December 26th.  In all the years I spent the holidays in your home in Cleveland, I never remember a birthday cake or a celebratory dinner in honor of your maternal unit. There were cards and there were hugs and there was always so much love, but the fact that it was Nannie's birthday was an after-thought.  In another of the conversations I wish I had had but never did, I don't know whether she was peeved or felt slighted or just didn't give a damn about the short shrift which her natal anniversary received.

I know that you don't think much of birthdays, yourself.  I know that they feel selfish to you.  I know that you like the family holidays - Thanksgiving, Christmas - more than the one day a year set aside to make sure that an individual feels special.  That's always been an issue between us.

I love my birthday almost more than any day of the year. I love taking time to think about myself, my past, my future, my wishes and my dreams. I rarely take the time to do that during the rest of the year.

You, on the other hand, review your day every night before you fall asleep.  You analyze and contemplate and plan. It must seem superfluous to you, having a day dedicated to yourself, a day for dong what you do all year long.

But your birthday is not superfluous to me.

For me, it's a day when everyplace I turn reminds me of you.

I see you as the sunrise casts beams of light on your napping self, having moved from the bed at 5am and reestablished yourself on the couch, the sound on the tv turned low so that I won't be disturbed. You have cozy nooks in there, amidst the knees and elbows and moustache.  If I snuggle in you'll smile, make room, and purr just a little before you fall back asleep.

You've never been one for big parties, although your 30th was a celebration for the ages... up to and including a snow-covered football game in Lincoln Park at 2am.  For your 40th, we had our first real furniture and a catered extravaganza, a party where the fortune teller/tarot card reader with candles on her hat bequeathed you a long life filled with love and family and friends.  50 and 60 were barely recognized, our minds on other things and in other places

And now you are, applying for Medicare, deferring your Social Security benefits, able to avail yourself of every senior discount imaginable.  I don't know how that happened.

To me, you're still the guy I kissed goodbye on your parents' doorstep before getting into my car and driving west as you drove yours east, parting on your birthday instead of sharing the love together.

I'm so glad those days are gone.  January 2nd may be an unfortunate birth date, but it's yours.... we're stuck with it.... and I'm determined to make you think it's a very special day.  After all, without it, where would The Cuters be?

Happy 2015!

Wishing all good things

to each and every one of you.

Thanks for making my life more interesting.

Do you have an intention for the new year?

I'm trying this one on for size:

I am both flexible and strong;
I dance with the winds of life.

Adventures in Tucson - The Flandreau Planetarium

Grace Flandreau died with great riches, much of which she left to Tucson.  Her friends decided that a planetarium would be a wonderful use of the money.  Her biographical plaque didn't say why. I was left with a hole in my fountain of knowledge, a hole which grew deeper as the afternoon went on.  We had a wonderful time, my boys and I, and I'd hate for you to end with that impression.  It's just that it could have been so much more.

Miss Vicki and Scarlett and I went to the opening of the new projection system last Fall.  The speaker was delighted with his new toy, whose computerized technology was hidden from our view.  All we saw were two boxes resembling slide projectors, nestled in niches near the ceiling. 

It was much less fascinating than Hector Vector, which it replaced.

Even the worker bees loved Hector.  Can you see his Santa hat?

 

But Hector was lowered into his pit in the middle of the auditorium, and a tentative young man took us on a pedantic and puerile tour of our sun's planetary system.  There were interesting graphics outlining orbits and constellations, but he didn't explain any of them.  He related dry facts without ever mentioning that the images he was projecting on the ceiling were real photos taken by real satellites.  Only when an image revealed black parallelograms did he think to tell us that the cameras hadn't been over every part of the planet, and that was why those areas were dark. 

 

I had to stop to realize that all the pictures which had come before were not computer graphics.

 

There were questions from the crowd, and he made a valiant attempt to answer most of them, but there wasn't much substance in the replies.  Little kids were opening their brains to science, and he was leaving them flat. 

 

His lack of enthusiasm annoyed me, so I let my mind wander back, as I sat in the dark to the Rose Planetarium in New York City right next to the Museum of Natural History.  I spent many wonderful afternoons in that square block of Manhattan.  I've eaten hot dogs on the steps of the Museum, and I've wheeled my ancient father in his Transporter ("It is not a wheelchair Goddammit!") to the front of the start show line. 

 

We were escorted to an elevator then ushered past hundreds of patrons who had been waiting patiently and we were seated in the front corner of the viewing area.  "Primo seats, Sir," was the attendant's parting comment.  My father true to form, wondered why he was being patronized. 

 

There wasn't much similarity in the depth or the breadth of the NYC program when compared to that in Tucson. But, for the day after Christmas, it was a perfect way to while away a few hours.

 

Lest you forget that we had a really good time, let me share one of my favorite signs in all of Tucson.

Instructions

Zanner and I put together a multitude of Little Tykes playsets.  She, newly divorced and childless, I, newly retired and overwhelmed, sat on the floor of my living room with orange and blue and yellow plastic tubes and steps and connectors neatly organized by size and shape.  Our heads were invariably cradled in our hands. The instructions were inscrutable.

Written in Korea or China or Taiwan by humans fluent in languages other than English, there was no recourse to grammar or sentence structure or definitions; the pages had a logic all their own. Each piece was designed to slip easily into its corresponding section, or so the pages would have us believe.  The reality was always much more complicated.

Hours passed.  Laughter turned to tears turned to anger.  It was a good thing that Big Cuter was too young to understand the verbiage; it was certainly not rated for an infant's ears.  We managed to get the slide attached to the climbing house.... or so we thought until we stood the whole thing up and realized that the damn thing was inside instead of outside.  I'll never forget her face as she wondered how much I really wanted my son to have this particular toy..... if looks could kill I wouldn't be typing to you right now.

Thankfully, that phase of childhood ended.  As they matured, the kids were much more competent than I at assembling their presents.  When 650 piece Leggo sets arrived, I deferred to their father.  My role was to keep him from hurting them after they began disassembling the castle he'd spent two days constructing.  It was his sister's Christmas present, I was out of that loop..... thankfully.

 

All this came screaming back to me on Christmas afternoon.  SIR sent me his magic shirt folding device after I'd ooh'ed and aah'ed about it as I folded their laundry.  Place the shirt in the middle.  Flip the right side.  Unflip.  Flip the left side.  Unflip. Flip the bottom. Unflip.  Voila! You have a perfectly creased t-shirt to sit neatly in your drawer.  I was hooked. 



Creating the connections was not as simple as it might have been.

It was a blast from the past..... and not a pleasant blast at that.

In that moment, I was back on the floor, three decades ago, screaming at inanimate, colorful, plastic, pieces with no discernable markings to guide me.

 

Let me quote from the front of the instructions. 

*Design of movable ring, adjustable thickness, in use, thin clothing

*The durable material, strong toughness, ductility, can use millions of times.

 *Only 3 steps, 3 seconds can be finished garment finishing

*Trousers, shirt, pajamas, T-shirts, thick clothes can be used.

Where to begin?  The random "in use" in the first line?  Ductility and strong toughness in the second?  All those finish words in the third?  Only the last line gave me hope. 


Then I turned the page over.

There were only four pieces to the device.  None of them were numbered or labeled in any way - front /back, left/right, up/down.

The instructions labeled them 1 through 6.

The first use of installation and operation section began with this:
   Open the packaging, install the 2.6 can be used.

In retrospect, 2 and 6 were identical and thus could have been installed interchangeably without a problem.  I spent much too much time looking for piece 2.6.

The diagram became my friend, as the words were more and more hilarious
1second piece four fixed angle First piece inserted. 
2second piece eight fixed holes Press in fixing
3sixth piece four fixed angle Fifth piece inserted
And on it went. 

There was an arrow pointing to a thin coat of interval.

We were flummoxed.

1 different interval time. Will be first 4,5 demolition. Open.

Big Cuter began to be interested ---- demolition sounded like fun.

And we laughed and we pressed and we jiggled and we coaxed and suddenl the whole thing was together and I was sitting on the floor of the living room with a pile of clean Cuter clothes and the perfect tool to create small, neat piles.

I am very glad that SIR and Little Cuter are in charge of FlapJilly's creations this time around.

 

 

 

Remembering

I love my son. Among his many talents is an aptitude for heavy lifting. When his father and I were young and spry we set a good example for him.  One of his favorite stories is emptying his Junior year apartment at Georgetown, me in gym shorts and a tank top and sneakers, carrying two boxes precariously balanced in my arms as I maneuvered down the steps past another mother, this one dressed in silk and pearls, delicately holding a dry cleaning bag, containing one dress, as she wondered where the rest of her family was hiding.

As age and infirmities and bullets have intervened, we've come to rely on Big Cuter's presence for heavy arranging.  This afternoon, in between bouts of Guillotine, he was on the ladder in the garage, bringing down boxes labeled Psych Books and Cornell Papers and Law School Stuff.  I can promise you that none of the treasures contained within that cardboard has been seen in this century.... or the latter half of the previous century, if I think about it.  We've had children and careers and a dozen or so homes and we've carted this stuff around to each of them.

Some of it will be saved forever.  My foreign doll collection (when Europe was a lot more than just a web click away) will be dusted off when FlapJilly is a little bit older.  

Spain, Holland, Israel

But do my heirs really need my assessment of the juvenile justice system circa 1974?  Will anyone be grateful that I saved the program from the conference at which I presented a short program in 1977?  As I went through Daddooooo's desk when we sold our ancestral manse, I held his fourth grade report card and wondered.... would anyone else ever care?  Today I laughed with Big Cuter as I predicted the same fate for him and his sister..... unless he schlepped the boxes and I made some decisions this week.

I'm so very very very glad I did.  On the top of the Cornell box was this letter to me, from my father, at the end of my freshman year.  Universities were blowing up all over the country, and Cornell was no exception.  We were ending the semester early, closing the campus in protest.  The shootings at Kent State were eleven days old.  I was involved in the outskirts of the protest movement, but I'd traveled to Washington, D.C. the month before to join the Mobilization to End the War.  I'd gone with tear gas protection and a promise to stay safe.  Reading this as an adult, as a parent, is a different experience than being 18.

And because I was one of the few people who could read his handwriting, I'll retype it for you here:

5/15/70

Dear Suz

The Ides of May are upon us and we yet survive.

Hope you are very fine and well and I look forward to seeing you soon and having you around.

Lots of platitudes floating around in my head but don't want to annoy you with them but this is not a platitude      LOVE! Daddy.

 

Some things are worth saving.  Perhaps, thirty or forty years from now, The Cuters will have a similar moment.  I'm donating the books and saving the letters. They can decide.

Nannie's Christmas (Redux)

This post is reprinted from several years ago.

I've spent this holiday thinking about her.

I decided to share her with you.

*****

Her birthday was December 26th.  No wonder her son, whose birthday is January 2nd, and she didn't care that much about celebrating the event.  The big deal had already happened. For each of them, I think, that was the way it ought to be.

She was a presence, my mother-in-law.  A great athlete in her youth, and her son's youth, by the time I met her she was on her cancer/heart/macular degeneration way toward the end.  I never ran the bases in Awful Arabs vs Terrible Turks family baseball games in the backyard, but I heard tales of her smacking the ball far enough for the littlest one, who grew up to be my Big Guy, to make it all the way home.

Home was what she made.  G'ma kept us fed and clothed and I always knew I was loved, but home for me was overlaid with a patina of angst, of worry, of waiting for the next shoe to fall.  According to TBG, home for him was safety and comfort and laughter.  It was his mom.

He remembers her sitting at the breakfast room table, laughing at a ribald joke told by her big brother, who'd stop by to see how she was doing in the late afternoon.  He remembers her sangfroid when he was caught smoking cigars beneath Teddy Mortimer's stairwell.  He remembers her whistling louder than any mom should ever be able to whistle, calling the kids and the dog home for dinner.

I remember Christmas.

I'd been to their home before, but Christmas was different.  I watched.  I paid attention.  I took mental notes. All the things my family cherish here are directly descended from that first Christmas, my very first Christmas.

I never missed it growing up, a fact that surprises TBG to this day.  My friends were Jewish, my neighborhood was Jewish, and I had my menorah to light up eight separate nights.  I didn't think I was missing anything.  But, as Big Cuter says, "once you've seen Christmas you realize it's great!" I was hooked from the start.

I think Nannie recognized a kindred spirit from the get-go; we never exchanged a hurtful word.  Strong-willed, she was always willing to listen to another opinion.  She loved to learn, and all things Jewish became a major topic between us.  We learned from one another, she encouraging me to light the Chanukah candles when the holidays coincided, I asking for help in explaining Easter to a toddler.  There was respect, there was love, and there was shopping.

Oh, yes, denizens, there was shopping.  She was good at it.  She enjoyed it.  She never wasted time or money.  She found what she wanted because she knew how to ferret it out.  She was a good teacher, and I an attentive pupil.  After a while, she didn't have to ask if I wanted it.... she just knew.

The fancy presents have been out-grown.  The sentimental mementos remain bright and shiny, just like my memories of her joy when I opened the white cardigan with pearl buttons she'd remembered I'd lusted for months before.  Did I mention that she was perfect?

Her gifts struck the right note - not too silly, not too treacly. Like this Santa from 1980

which has hung at the bottom of my tree for the last .... oh, dear.... 32 years.  He has his own special box, with clouds  behind the hard plastic which holds him in place. I laugh with Nannie's ghost every time I put him away.

Though her house gifts were seasonally colored,

the woman was obsessed with ducks.

There were wooden ones and felt ones and stone ones which hung from the ceiling and rested atop the televisions and the shelves and were nicely complemented by the pterodactyl which flew in the window between the tv room and the living room. When she died, I chose dish towels as my piece of the inheritance

 I've never regretted my decision.

Auntie Em was an Avon Representative for a while.  I was the beneficiary of many fragile ornaments which did not survive the many moves and trees they adorned.  These little angels are called Nannie and Grandpaw

and were also part of the stash I took home.  There were lots of fancy glass pieces and collections of Tobey mugs and commemorative spoons, but the simple, silly things

like this winking Santa, are the ones I treasure most dearly.  They are Auntie Em and Nannie and Cleveland in the snow.  They are long walks after huge meals and cousins of all ages and descriptions dropping in just as the ball is snapped for the final down of the game they'd been waiting for all vacation long.

As the ornament I snagged reminds me

How lucky I was to have so much of it.

Happy Birthday, Maw.

MERRY MERRY MERRY TO ONE AND ALL

I give you, today, my all-time favorite Xmas carol, courtesy of Walt Kelly and Pogo. Sing loudly and lustily to the tune of Deck the Halls.....

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

Don't we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker 'n' too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, 'lope with you!

Hunky Dory's pop is lolly gaggin' on the wagon,
Willy, folly go through!
Chollie's collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo!

Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an' polly voo!
Chilly Filly's name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly's jolly chilly view halloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof(Picture is from Robert Sabuda's The Night Before Christmas Pop-Up Book)

Snippet from Hanukkah

TBG wanted to title this post "A Goyish Chanukah" ... and I suppose I should have bowed to his desire since the whole thing was his idea.

My menorah was filled with disabled candles.

I broke them as I was putting them in, and, because I am cheap, I refused to throw them away. 

A solid shamash would have been more sensible, but sensible wasn't part of my equation.

I struggled to put that dark blue candle on its chair in the middle, after lighting all the others.

It bent, it swiveled back and forth, it teetered, it dripped, it refused to melt at the bottom to be safely secured, and, finally, after much effort, if somewhat askew..... it was in. 

Nes gadol haya sham, said I.

A great miracle happened there.

 

It's part of the prayer.

It was true tonight. 

It made my husband laugh.

 

HAPPY HANUKAH.... however you spell it.