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Showing posts from May, 2012

add water and shake

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Sometimes I have weird and irrational thoughts about my dead loved ones.  When my dad died, I wondered if his amputated leg went to heaven or if it was just floating around somewhere with all the lost socks that enter another dimension through the washing machine or the dryer.   Or was it with my missing uterus, ovaries and fallopian tubes?   I know that these kinds of thoughts are normal (or maybe a little bit less normal than the thoughts that the dead person might still walk through the door) but still...sometimes I worry about myself and my mental condition.  My imaginary friend Jennifer worries about this too - but that's another story.    I think some of the weird thoughts took root when, at the funeral home signing papers for my dad's cremation we were asked to sign a statement saying that we understood that cremation was not reversible.  Do people really think the ashes can be reconstituted into a person?  And with my weird thoughts, maybe it is a good thing they made u

there is love

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"I am going to have a girlfriend named Scarlett some day" my son Bill told me several years ago even before he was dating her.  Of course, I googled her and saw a beautiful girl who liked yoga.  It would be a while before we got to meet her. For a while,  Bill admired Scarlett from afar, but his persistence in pursuing paid off.  After a few years of dating, he told me "I'm going to marry her some day".   Last weekend he made true on that statement and they were married in New Orleans in one of the best celebrations of love, friendship, fun and family I have ever experienced, in my favorite city. The wedding invite - made by kseniya thomas.  http://www.thomas-printers.com I looked forward to having a real vacation with Bruce that didn't involve attending a funeral, and getting together with our children who are scattered over the country, in a city we have all grown to  love.  Billy, Scarlett and Desmond, their son.  Kseniya and Carol Ann.  Dan an

wine, nostalgia and molasses cookies

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The last time I made my mom's soft molasses heart shaped Valentine cookies, she called to tell me my grandma, her mom had died.  It was in February of 1988 and a time when it was still okay to send home made cookies to school with your kids without anyone being afraid you would plant razor blades or poison in them.  My mom made these cookies every Valentine's day for as long as I can remember, for my sister's, mine and my brother's classes when we were in grade school.  I bet she stayed up half the night cutting the heart shapes out, frosting them with pink icing, and then carefully writing the names of each kid in our class and the other kids who were in a different grade but in the same room on each cookie. She used a tool that looked like this: Roger Clark School  was a tiny school with the high school kids "upstairs" and the grade school kids downstairs - two classes per classroom, and one teacher.  My room probably had no more than 30 kids at a tim