Ups & Downs

The past couple of days have been a teeter-totter of emotion.

First thing yesterday morning, my sister let me know that our school bus driver had passed away. Now, many people think it's odd I even know who drove my school bus, but it was the 1960s and rural upstate New York. He was not only my bus driver, but a neighbor. We bought our horse from him. When the horse developed a habit of charging at us when we wanted to saddle her, he made me stand in front of her with a big stick and face her down: my first lesson in standing up for myself. The first few times, I backed off. Ever have a full grown horse come galloping at with the intent of running you over? It's a bit intimidating. Art forced me to stand there. Forced me to face my terror, but not surrender to it. Thank you, Art.

In the afternoon, one of my best friends in the universe, Kris Fletcher, sold her book to Harlequin's Superromance Line. This is the news that is keeping me afloat today. Supers are great books, Kris is an awesome writer, and this is just an incredibly awesome thing to happen. She's worked hard and long for this moment, and I hope she savors it forever. I'm so very, very proud of her.

Today, I woke up to and learned of the shooting at the new Batman movie in Colorado. I'm sure every other blogger in the USA will be commenting on this. Let me say only this: not a good thing. My prayers are with the families of the victims.

Then I finished a round of revisions on my current WIP, and somehow ended up cutting 20+ pages. Don't quite know how that happened. Not even sure if it's good or bad, but now I don't have the rewrites hanging over me. My vacation writing goal was accomplished. Yay!

Then I learned that my favorite uncle died. It was a peaceful passing, in as much as death-by-cancer is peaceful. I was able to say goodbye to him earlier this month. He was at home with my aunt. My mom (his sister) and my dad were also there. I think at least one of my cousins was there, too. This is rough. He was not only my uncle, but we lived 40 feet apart for a good chunk of my early life. He was like a second father. 

My mom is feeling the loss. Except for the three years he was in the Army, Mom has been with this brother her entire life. My dad and uncle met in the army and ended up marrying each others younger sister; they bought land together and built houses side-by-side. I don't mean had house built: they built their own houses. And it was literally 40 feet from our back door to theirs.

In the early 1980s, my grandmother was badly burned. I rushed to the hospital ER so my uncle wouldn't have to wait alone. He'd followed the ambulance to the hospital and for many reasons, I was the only one able to meet him there. As is my habit, I pulled out a notebook and started writing. My uncle asked me what I was doing. "Working on my novel," I said. "Are you still doing that?" he asked.  

Yeah, Uncle Ray, I'm still doing that.

Goodbye. I'll miss you.

The Avengers: A Movie Review

I liked it. It was good.

IMHO, however, it did not live up to its hype.

My nephew said he hadn't laughed so hard in a long time. I merely chuckled.

I felt as if I were missing pieces of the story. I've been assured that not seeing The Hulk didn't matter. X-Chromo said I should have seen Iron Man 2 (it's TV Stevie's fault I haven't seen it) to learn more about the Black Widow.

If a person isn't familiar with the comic book canon, one might feel the same way I did.

There were three things that really irked me.
1) all the women wore really tight clothing and too many shots were of their butts as they walked away from the camera, fannies swaying.
2) After September 11th, Manhattanites are not going to stand in the windows of their office buildings and watch the destruction of their city.
3) The Hulk can't control his rage. The Hulk can't control his rage. Now the Hulk can control his rage? What's the motivation for that abrupt change?

My biggest issue is I was expecting a fabulous story and didn't get it. What I got were special effects, which bore and annoy me after about 60 seconds. As TV Stevie and I have discussed almost every time we see a movie based on Marvel Comics, he found the same problem with the comic books themselves: not enough story, too much BAM! POW! KA-ZOW-EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! (We're DC people at heart, but DC can't do movies worth a hoot.)

What I loved: Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark.
Still.
Iron Man is still the best superhero/comic-book based movie I have ever seen.

Apologies to Mark Gotham

Mark Gotham teaches/taught 7th grade math at Y-Chromo's middle school. At open house that year, Mr. Gotham told me that "Y has a mathematical mind."

I started laughing. I mean, really. Come on.

I'm not laughing any more. Mr. Gotham, you were right and I was wrong.

Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, Summa Cum Laude, with departmental honors.

Family Ties: Prologue

No, not my family. I have cousins by the dozens and I've always loved having such a large extended family.  TV Stevie wasn't quite as lucky growing up.

After his father's death (when TV was 10), there wasn't a lot of contact with his Dad's side of the family, except through Uncle Bill. The final breech was when Uncle Bill died. TV was in college.

Not long before Uncle Bill's death, a young man approached TV in one of his film classes and introduced himself as TV's cousin. TV's response was: no you're not. But he was. Richard is actually TV's first cousin once removed.

A few years later, when TV was working as a director at the PBS station in his college town, a "famous" psychologist who dealt with agoraphobia was a scheduled guest on one of the programs TV directed. Turned out Julian, too, was another of TV's first cousins, once removed.

In 1991, when Richard was living in Ithaca, TV and I had dinner with Richard and his wife, plus Richard's parents. Richard's father, George, was TV's first cousin. There is quite an age difference between TV and his first cousins on his father's side of the family. His dad was the youngest child by several years, married late, and Steve was the youngest of his siblings.

Flash forward to November 2011. TV Stevie and I arrived home one Saturday evening and checked our phone messages. "This is Calman G* and I'm looking at a lovely photo of my Uncle Kermit H*, and if you are the Steven H who is his son, please call me because I'd like you to have this photo."

Chills ran up and down my arms.

That single phone message launched an on-going journey of discovery and re-connection.

Underworld and a Super Moon

Gorgeous spring evening. The Super Moon is stunning. Venus is also very bright tonight.

Super Moon

TV Stevie and I went to the Capitol Theatre in Rome to see Underworld, a 1927silent film which essentially gave birth to the gangster genre.  Bernie Anderson accompanied the movie on the Captiol's original installation Moller organ.

Original installation Moller organ at the Capitol Theatre in Rome

Unfortunately the moon was behind us as we drove home, so I watched Venus instead.

A Note on Team Work

The other day, someone said something to the effect of, "Well, we're all on the same team."


Really?


On a baseball team, the 2nd baseman plays 2nd base, covers 1st base if needed, and works with both the shortstop and catcher to ensure runners don't successfully steal second.


The 2nd baseman does not sit in the stands and chuck empty peanut shells at the catcher.


If the 2nd baseman (or any other team member) isn't doing his job, he is traded, sent to the minors for more training, or released.

That's the team on which I want to play.

Placid Weekend

Baseball season has started, so that's consuming a lot of my time and energy. I'm still writing -- just started a rewrite of my "second" baseball novel, Summer Fling.

This past weekend, I had a chance to go with TV Stevie on business to Lake Placid, NY. We honeymooned there 24 years ago, so it was a nice jaunt for us.

View from our hotel room

April is quiet in Lake Placid. We did run into a former co-worker as we wandered through the town. Shelli Carlisle was there with her husband Andy, who was playing in an ice hockey tournament. It was good to see her. She looks great.

Lake Placid Public Library

Lake and Mountains

More mountains

We saw The Hunger Games on Friday night. I enjoyed it more than TV Stevie, but then I've read the books.  

TV Stevie had to work on Saturday morning, so I holed up in the hotel room with my laptop and started working on my rewrite. It was very productive.  That afternoon we did some walking and shopping. After TV's late afternoon work shift, we holed up in the room and watched All-Things-Titanic: The Unsinkable Molly Brown; Titanic the Mini Series; A Night to Remember. I thought the latter was the best.

We had a leisurely drive home through the Adirondack Mountains, stopping at the Old Forge Hardware Store in Old Forge. I love that place and can wander forever. They have marvelous yarns. No yarn today, though. Instead, I replaced my missing cast-iron grill pan. So much easier than a Foreman grill.

And somehow it got to be Sunday night again. Where did my weekend go?

China Clipper Calling Alameda

Last night I saw a Monkees Greatest Hits CD sitting on the kitchen table. I borrowed it to transfer to my mp3 player. Listened to it at the DayJob today and wanted so much to jump up and start dancing. The music made me happy.

Came home for lunch, where I ran into TV Stevie, and we started talking about Monkees trivia and our personal memories. We both listened to the third album (Headquarters) more than any other album by the group. We liked the same songs on that album.

Trivia: even when the Monkees TV program was repeated, it wasn't the same as it was the first time it was broadcast, because the producers would change the music segment to whatever the newest release was.

TV Stevie's Most Memorable Monkee TV Show Moment: He missed just one episode. A religious observance ran too long.

My most memorable Monkee TV Show Moment: I was at a friend's house with a slew of other girls, for a Monkee party and sleep over. We all settled in the living room to watch the program and just when the show began, the power went out. Actually, the hostess's dad and older brother were in the basement and pulled the fuse when they heard the Monkee theme. Didn't they realize that adolescent girls can be traumatized by that kind of practical joke?

TV Stevie and I both liked the song, Zilch. The challenge became to remember the four lines in the song. I got two (okay, I garbled one of them, but I had it.) TV gave me hints on the other two, and I remembered them quickly. Then I asked him which of the four lines from Zilch was used in the Monkee song, No Time. It took him a minute, but he got it:

Never mind the furthermore, the plea is self-defense.

Can you name all four lines?

Six Degrees of Davy Jones

When I heard the new today that Davy Jones was dead, I went numb. Some of my friends on FB posted that they always thought Peter Tork would be the first Monkee to "go".

Any of them "going" is inconceivable.

The Monkees were probably the first records (45s and LPs) that I purchased on my own with my saved-up babysitting money. They were definitely the first posters hanging in my bedroom, and the only time I ever purchased teen fan magazines.

My earliest forays into fiction writing was also Monkee-centric. It wasn't called fanfic back then. We called them "Monkee Stories." I remember my 6th grade teacher confiscating one, reading it, and telling that it was good, but I shouldn't pass it around during class.

TV Stevie saw Davy Jones on Broadway as the Artful Dodger in Oliver. He still has the playbill around here somewhere. Long before I ever met TV, he'd recorded all of The Monkees TV show off MTV. Later, when the Chromos were very young, they watched those tapes. So did I, lost in my memories.

TV had a chance to meet Davy several years ago, at the New York State Fair. It was TV's responsibility to escort Davy from the stage where he was performing to the news set of the television station for whom he worked. He said that Davy was less than gracious about it.

Here's a snippet of a chain of e-mails flying back and forth between TV and me this afternoon:

From: Molly
To: TV Stevie
How can you joke at a tragic time like this?
DAVY JONES IS DEAD!
From: TV Stevie
To: Molly
I'm not joking. Besides he dissed me when I walked him to the W--- booth at the Fair. Acted like I wasn't there when I was talking to him.
So cheer up, Molly Jean.
Oh what can it mean?
No more Day Dream Believin' or Pleasant Valley Sundays
Here we come...walkin' to the Pearly Gates...get the funniest looks from...everyone we hate.
Then I saw his face. Now I'm a Believer.

(Yes, my middle name is Jean).
TV Stevie can always make me laugh, and today I need it.
Davy Jones is dead. Bits of my past keep slipping away.

The Woman in the Mirror

I had a birthday this week. Not a huge milestone, but I'm creeping up there in age. I had the day off from work, so spent it writing and playing with my mp3 player, then took a late afternoon shower to get ready to go out to dinner with TV Stevie.

When I climbed out of the shower and looked in the bathroom mirror, I saw my grandmother.

It was a shock. I never thought I looked like her, yet there she was, staring back at me.

I would have been 10 years old when Gram was my current age (our birthdays are two days apart).

Gram was honest and a hard worker. She lived to age 98, well-loved by all. She had 80 great-grandchildren by then, and I'm not sure anyone knows how many other generations there were past that . . . rumor had it there were a total of 6 (including Gram) when she died. That's pretty impressive.

Back in the mid 1980's, when my generation was talking about a cousins reunion, Gram was pleased that her grandchildren wanted to do that. There are a lot of us. That's what makes getting together so much fun.


In her later years, she lived with my aunt, next door to my parents, so we all got to see her more often. X and Y Chromo knew her pretty well.


I guess if I'm going to look like someone not me, looking like Pearl Nancy Caples Compton isn't such a bad thing.

Car Crap: On Being a Spoiled American

I have a love-hate relationship with automobiles. I know they are evil. I know they are a huge cause of what is killing Mother Earth. I know that I am a Spoiled American for wanting my 'luxury sedan'.

Unfortunately, the Spoiled American wins.

Last week, the transmission in my Buick Regal went. Again. I could still go in reverse and 2nd gear so was able to park it until my amazing insurance company sent a tow truck. After searching through my messy office for hours this past weekend, I finally called the Transmission Repair Establishment that rebuilt the tranny the first time. My warranty (guarantee?) was for 24 months or 24K miles, whichever came first. Three years ago. Not even 10K miles, but 37, 38 months. Still cheaper than a car payment.

TV Stevie and I talked about where we could come up with the money to rebuild the tranny again. I asked a co-worker if she ever had problems with her Buick Regal (same year) and the tranny. Nope. We got to talking about vehicles, and she told me she was going to sell her Taurus and the dollar amount she mentioned was the same amount of money I would need to spend on a rebuilt tranny for the Regal. I talked to TV. I called my co-worker at home that evening and asked if I could have my mechanic look over her Taurus. We were definitely interested.

I dug out the title to the Buick. I found an empty box to take with me to the mechanic so I could clean out the Regal while he looked over the Taurus. Plus my co-worker told me of two problems with the vehicle and dropped the price even more. One of the problems was tires. I have three new ones on the Regal (unfortunately, not the same size).

The upshot: the price on the Taurus is really good (my mechanic's jaw dropped), but there are still too many issues that in the long run would cost more than having the Regal's tranny rebuilt. Plus the Taurus didn't feel like my car or that it could be my car. Weird, isn't it?

I called my dad and brother, both highly gifted in manly blue-collar arts, and explained everything to them. They each advised me to go with my gut. TV came home from work and said that he thought I would never be happy with the Taurus (he looked it over in the parking lot at DayJob, and thought it looked great), and he and Car Buddy at his DayJob crunched some numbers and repairing the Regal would be a better deal.

"Too bad one of the Chromos doesn't have their license," TV said last night while cutting up tomato for his salad. "We could buy the Taurus for them. Of course, we have no place to put it, but we could. Oh, and we don't have the money either, but it's a great car."

I still have to find money to pay for a rebuilt transmission.

I'm dependent on TV and co-workers for rides to-and-from work. Although I live 1.7 miles from DayJob, public transportation being what it is, I would need to take a bus downtown, then transfer to another line and it would take forever. While the concept of walking is very tempting, there are no sidewalks in the town of Salina -- at least the part in which I'd have to walk -- and traffic is too heavy and too fast for pedestrians to be safe on that particular street. Please note that I'm not even mentioning the likelihood of snow. This is Syracuse, and we're having a mild winter, but that could change with a breath of wind.

I need to renew my driver's license this month, and I want an enhanced license in case TV and I ever run away to Canada, so that requires a trip to the DMV.

I need to go to the bank.

I have books that need to be picked up at the library, and books, DVDs and CDs to return to the library.

I need to stop at the Supermarket in the strip mall for a couple of items Wegmans doesn't carry.

I am a Spoiled American.

Music & Me

Several years ago, I bought an mp3 player. Loved it. Loved the portability, loved having 4 gigs of audio in the palm of my hand. I listened not only to music on it, but also audio books downloaded from the library, and RWA workshops. I kept my favorite workshops on it so I'd have interesting listening when unexpected delays presented themselves (like standing in line for 5 hours to pay my respects to a new widow). Great for flying, too. I once lost my CD case in flying between LA and home, probably in Cincinnati. The mp3 made all of that moot.

Creative Zen

Then my computer began having issues. I lost access to the whatever that allowed me to make changes to the unit. Annoying, but still workable. I listened while exercising, I listened at DayJob. Life was still good.

Then the battery refused to hold a charge. I could plug it in at work if I stayed at my desk, but I'd lost my portability.

TV Stevie bought me a new, 8 gig mp3 for my birthday last year. I had to start rebuilding the library from scratch. The new mp3 is about a third of the size of the old one, but has twice the memory.



Sansa Clip


Then my computer crashed. As my nephew explained, "it sounded like a pinball machine tipping over." I lost everything that was on the D drive. All my music. Irreplacable photos of the Chromos.

And once again I lost the ability to manage my music. Grrrr. My nephew fixed my computer so that I could access the C drive again, which returned my ability to manage content on the new mp3.

One night, goofing around, I tried to sync the old mp3 to the computer, but learned the drivers were no longer supported. Fortunately, I was able to download new drivers, which then enabled me to reverse transfer music from the old mp3 player to my computer and then sync it with the new mp3 player.

Whoa! I have duplicate-triplicate-quadruplicate songs now. I need to go through and weed. Not exactly sure what happened, and I need to rebuild all my playlists (Workout #1, Country Workout #1, Dylan Says It Best, etc.) but I'm a very happy woman. Vivaldi's Flute Concertos in the morning, Jazz for a Rainy Afternoon after lunch.

Life is fabulous.

Heritage

Last night, X-Chromo came into my office and asked, "What's this?"

She handed me my great-grandmother's autograph book.

The earliest entry I can find is April  5, 1891. That's 102 years and 5 days before X was born.

Edward Sargent of Candor, New York wrote:

May you be happy

Each day of your life

Get a good husband

And make a good wife.

Lena Mae Ross married Charles DeWitt Compton in 1895. My parents have a cranberry glass and cut-crystal creamer from that wedding in their china cabinet.

I have a quilt Lena made. When I was a child, it was the "sick blanket": we were only allowed to use it when we were sick. It's in poor shape now. Pretty battered. I think my mom used to wash it in the wringer washer.

Lena died young. She left 3 children, the oldest of whom was my grandfather. My grandmother once told me

she promised Lena she would take care of my grandfather. She ended up marrying him.

When Grandma moved -- I think when she moved in with my aunt after she was too old to live alone -- Grandma gave me Lena's autograph book, because she knew I liked things like that.

Since November, TV Stevie has been learning about his father's family in an exploration of joy and discovering his heritage. I forgot that my children also share my heritage.

Lena's autograph book is a tangible part of that. I'm so glad I have it.

Hands

I go through stages of noticing people's hands. I don't know why. Maybe it's the writer in me absorbing details to use in a book.

My hands now look like my grandmothers, with aged skin, kind of "wattly".

I once read a book -- possibly The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath -- in which the protagonist claimed her hands, when she wore white gloves (a public "must" in early-to-mid 20th century), felt like Minnie Mouse hands: too big for her body. I've never felt that way about my hands, but I've encountered a couple of women who should.

That wasn't a slam at those women. The shape and size of our hands is not something over which we have control.  I think it interesting that both of these women are slender and fine-boned, but have these enormous hands at the ends of their dainty wrists. They are both number crunchers, too, which makes me wonder if mathiness is linked to big hands. Another Molly Compton Herwood Crackpot Theory.

I know another woman who is not slender or fine-boned, yet she has some of the most delicate hands I've ever seen. Each time I notice her hands, it strikes me anew that those hands don't fit her body or her personality.

I usually don't notice men's hands, but there is one man of my acquaintance whose hands completely gross me out. He's a nice man. A lot of women I know think he's attractive. Yet every time I notice his hands, I shudder. They are plump and hairy. And I'm assigning them to an antagonist in my current WIP. Because I'm a writer and I can.

Synchrony, Purple Style

Every year, a group of my writing friends, commonly known as The Purples, get together around the end of December or early January for a goals session. We review the year past and plan for the year to come.

No, this is not yet another blog about writers and the goals they should be setting. There are plenty of those out there. And most of them are very good. The blogosphere does not need me adding my take on writing goals.

This blog is about synchrony. Simultaneous occurrence. This year, our goal setting session was rife with synchrony.

There's the to-be-expected (from a group of middle-aged women): lose weight. And of course, the writing goals. Those seem to migrate year-to-year on everyone's list.

This year, several of us focused on two things. We didn't discuss this in advance, so it was very weird when it came up during the session.

1) Our parents. Trying to stay connected to the people who raised us. I'm probably the worst of the bunch. My parents are both living and local . . . and I never call them. I see them on holiday's and such, but I never call them. My husband called his mother weekly until she passed away. I expect my children to call me weekly from college. And yet, I never call my mom or dad. So one of my goals this year is to call my folks once a week.

2) Stop confusing obligations with goals. One friend wrote: "clear distinction between goals and duties," and that's a biggie.  I'm guilty of the same thing. When I initially started setting my goals for 2012, I wrote, "treasurer of my local RWA chapter". Well, that's not a goal. It's what I am, and I have duties corresponding to being such. Y-Chromo graduates from college this year, but that's not a goal. So why was it on my goal list? It was something that I know is scheduled.

Our lists also seem to grow shorter each year, as we realize that by attempting too much, we set ourselves up for failure. Or maybe we're just becoming more focused on what is really important to us.

Looking for Midnight

I'm having a difficult time getting into the new book. I've probably done way too much pre-planning. But another issue is that I don't have a playlist.

I listen to music when I write. Music keeps me in the story. Without a play list, I'm lost. The only song I can think of is Vanity Faire's EARLY IN THE MORNING. Which I will download when I have my desktop computer back up and running (thank you EJ!).

But I'm thinking that this book, THE HOME TEAM, requires midnight songs. I can think of only three . . . MIDNIGHT CONFESSION (The Grass Roots); WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT (Patsy Cline); MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO GEORGIA (Gladys Knight and the Pips).

So I'm putting the question out there: what other midnight songs are there?

Stephen King's 11/22/63: A Review

I just finished reading Stephen King's newest novel, 11/22/63.


I feel as if I were misled.

Don't get me wrong. It's a good book, well-written and compelling. But it's not the story I thought I was going to read.

The review that made me interested in picking up the book led me to believe the premise was an alternate reality -- what the USA and the world would be like if President John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated in 1963.

Instead, I got a time travel novel.

The bulk of the story deals with the protagonist's life after he leaves 2011 and goes back in time to 1958. Most of the action takes place between 1958 and November 1963, detailing how the protagonist plans to stop the assassination. Pages 748 - 842 tell the immediate aftermath of the failed murder, give a brief, Cliff Notes version of what the world would be had JFK lived, and the protagonist's reaction to that world. Pages 801 to the middle of page 818 -- that's what there is of what happened because the President didn't die that day in Dallas.

I am keenly disappointed.

I wanted King's rich imagination and vivid prose to create the New Frontier promised to America by Kennedy. I wanted to know how things might have been had Johnson not been president. There was so much going on in the country then: Vietnam, Civil Rights, Women's Rights, The Space Race, the Cold War. Did Haight-Ashbury and the Summer of Love happen? Woodstock? Kent State?

Discussing this with TV Stevie, I learned he also thought the book was about what ifs. I doubt we read the same review.

I confess I haven't read a lot of King's newer works -- THE STAND or THE DEAD ZONE was probably one of the last ones I read. (Well, not counting his landmark ON WRITING. Every writer needs to read that book at least four times.) There were several places in 11/22/63 that seemed as if King were going to . . . be King (for lack of a better phrase) by tossing the reader into some horrible paranormal situation, but it never happened. Of course, there are those who will say the late 1950s/early 1960s fit that description perfectly.

 I don't blame King for my disappointment: He didn't misrepresent his book. He wrote a good book. It's just not the book I wanted to read.

Creekwalk

There's a new Creekwalk in town. Last weekend, TV Stevie and I walked from the Inner Harbor to the Armory Square district in downtown Syracuse. It was a nice walk. The city has done a wonderful job with this project.

Today, we walked the Inner Harbor to Onondaga Lake portion.

Onondaga Lake end of the new Creekwalk in Syracuse

That leg of the walk is about 10-minutes shorter (round trip) than Inner-Harbor-to-Armory-Square. We didn't particularly care for the part where we had to walk over the bridge on Hiawatha Boulevard (near THE Mall), but the rest of the walk was wonderful.

Each leg of the walk is different, going through different terrain, providing different views. Today felt very rural, with tall cat tails waving in the breeze, We enjoyed this as much as we did last weekend's excursion through Franklin Square and downtown Syracuse.

Both days, we ran into many other couples also talking advantage of  the unseasonably mild weather. It was good to see people taking advantage of what the area has to offer.

Writing Revelations

Last night I finally put together my plotting board. I've been meaning to do this for years, but somehow never got around to it. I used Michael Hauge, Alexandra Sokoloff, Chris Vogler, and Blake Snyder's methods, each one in a different color. It's not very neat, but it sure is pretty.

As you can see, I've started putting sticky notes on it.

As I was writing in the beats, turning points, sequences, whatever, it occurred to me that one could do tarot spreads based on Synder's beats and Vogler's stages to help plot the book.

This morning I pulled out my handy-dandy Osho Zen tarot deck and started doing just that. It was . . . amazing. And so many of the same cards kept showing up.

Now probably someone else has already figured this out, but it was a new idea for me. I'm having fun with it.

Grandmothers

I had the best grandmothers, and I miss them both very much.

Gramma C used to bake me cookies with raisins. My dad doesn't like raisins, so I never had raisin cookies at home, making Gramma's raisin cookies a special treat. When she and my grandfather sold their farm and Gramma offered to let us take something we wanted, I chose the Aunt Jemima cookie jar.

When I was in high school and wanted pet house plants -- purple ones, no less -- Gramma gave me clippings of her coleus and wandering jew. I had those plants for years, until I moved into an apartment that was toxic to plants. (It killed my basil, too, a trauma I still haven't gotten over.)

Gramma T used to make Barbie doll clothes for all of her granddaughters. I still have most of mine -- except for the white satin wedding gown trimmed with pale blue ribbon. The girl down the street "borrowed" it and never returned it. I always thought I'd share the clothes and my dolls with my daughter, but X-Chromo wasn't into Barbies -- or even dolls -- all that much.

Even more than purple plants and homemade Barbie clothes, I have memories. Holidays spent with my sprawling extended families, laughter, fabulous food, and love.

I'm lucky and I'm thankful.

If Gramma C or Gramma T are reading the 'net somewhere, I love you, I miss you.