Be Funny, It's Your Money

This was, according to my aunt Heidi, how my grandfather used to answer the phone.  :)  Today it has been two weeks since his funeral, and anecdotes like that one are now able to make me laugh without then crying too.  Progress!  It's been a rough month.  I still haven't completely unpacked the luggage I'd taken home for the services.  I still haven't tackled the mountain of laundry in the bedroom either.  I have gotten real mail out to family, though, and emails and texts, as well, and even found my somehow-now-thirteen-year-old nephew Dylan a birthday card with a drawing of a pickle on the front and a message inside of, "You're a big Dill!"  ♥  (Remember his first day of kindergarten!?  Sweet Baby Dyl!)  Life, then, goes on, and so do I, finding love and smiles--even in my salads--as always.  And my grandfather would approve--all the better. 

Gone from My Sight

My maternal grandfather died this weekend, and the fourth of July holiday-weekend is an appropriate send-off for this Navy veteran, I find myself thinking.  When I once described her dad as "a character," my mom agreed and noted, "Both your grandfathers are characters."  And now both are gone, and I can't come up with the words quite yet to express how jarring that feels.  . . My time as someone's grandkid also passing away.  My grandfather would have turned ninety next month.  This is my ever-present-Yankees-cap grandfather.  The grandfather with the most beautiful, looped, delicate script-handwriting.  The grandfather who's always somehow reminded me of Elton John.  :)  The grandfather who would embarrass my grandmother by loudly and realistically neighing like a horse in the middle of Target to get her attention while she shopped.  :)  The grandfather who would add big-nosed "Kilroy was here"-style drawings to the backs of his letters' envelopes for me.  ♥  

A strict Baptist who had been raised on a large dairy farm, he never cursed; A man he encountered at work one day so angered him, he felt enraged enough to let some baaaaad words fly finally, the story goes, but all my grandfather managed to spit out was, "You--you--you applehead!"   He was always the first to laugh at himself, and no one has ever described him without using some variant of silly, goofball, or ham to do so.  During an Easter 2001 visit, he stood at my mom's side at the kitchen table late at night as she blearily tried to think of a final few rhyming clues for the next morning's egg-hunt before going to bed, and we were soon dissolving in giggles as his suggestions got sillier and sillier.  "How 'bout this, Chris?" he would begin--and she would cry out, "Stop!" and be laughing already before he even continued--"Your next prize might be under the tree.  If it is chocolate, leave it there for me!"  And as we all grew more tired and punchy, his helpful rhymes included gems along the lines of, "You think there's treasure in this yard?  Well, there's not, Kid.  Life is HARD!"  :) 

He served eight years in the Navy and was one of the helmsmen of the USS Wasp.  I'm hoping one of my aunts or uncles remembers to bring his official Navy portrait to the services this week so I can finally see it and take a picture of it.  He looks "just gorgeous" in it, in Aunt Laurie's words, so young and blue-eyed.  (Update:  They remembered.  ↓  ♥)

My grandmother remains, after having had him in her life more than sixty years.  She herself turned ninety this year.  The week ahead for all of us--Mom and Aunt Laurie have three brothers and two other sisters, there are more than twenty grandchildren, and now so many great-grandchildren too--will be heartbreaking.  Aunt Laurie, Mom, and I fondly remember Grammy's shock when my no-dancing-permitted grandfather led her out onto the dance floor at my older brother's wedding.  Life has its sweet surprises too, after all. 

Everyone's stories of  my grandfather are funny and endearing ones, told and retold.  One of Mom's favorites is of how during a family camping trip as a kid, she woke in the middle of the night to the whoops and hollers of my grandfather running around outside the tent chasing raccoons away from the family's food-stash in his underwear.  :) 

Decades later, upon first meeting my dad's Italian-born grandmother, who lived next door to us when I was little, he kindly accepted the glass of homemade wine she offered him since he did not know how to refuse her politely, especially since Great-Grandma spoke no English.  With the intention of getting it over with quickly, he downed the glass and smiled his "thanks" at Great-Grandma, but she misinterpreted his quick drinking and pleasant smile as a sign that he was a big drinker and would like more, so she refilled his glass--and refilled it--and refilled it yet again--and my sweet grandfather ended up near-drunk for the first time in his life (and smiling all the more the longer this went on, of course) before she finally understood that he really had had enough.  :)  That story is still my favorite.  Mom always loved to tease him about it, and he would laugh harder than anybody when she did.  ♥

He loved children and could always be found at reunions and get-togethers wherever they were gathered, much preferring playing like a kid to visiting over coffee with the rest of the adults. "Well, he IS just a big kid," one of my aunts has always added whenever this has been brought up. 

Last year, my uncle Dan arranged for my grandfather to be gifted with an honor flight--Bless!--and accompanied him to Washington, D.C. where he was recognized for his military service.

It is one photo from that trip that keeps making me cry this weekend--one of my always-sweet but almost-always-smiling grandfather standing tall to offer a crisp and quite solemn salute.  

For whatever reason, the salute--just like the homemade pies after my other grandfather died--is what keeps breaking me this weekend.  It comes to mind and I dissolve again.  We're talking about my grandfather, though--he of the applehead-curse and Kilroy drawings--so not to worry:  There is always a reason to smile again soon enough.

♥

Aunt Cathy

One of my friend Sommer's aunts died on Thursday, I learned Friday afternoon.  Aunt Cathy used to work at the little café inside our local Walmart store--back in the early 1990s when the hometown Walmart was not a "supercenter" and still had a tiny café near the entrance--and Sommer and I would always stop in to visit her while out running around in high school, gabbing with her between her serving other customers and really gabbing with her on slower evenings when she had more free time. The first of their family reunions that I went to, this sweet lady offered me a chair in her backyard and I sat down only to have it crash and splinter into pieces underneath me.  After various relatives helped me up off the ground, I don't know whom amongst all of us laughed the most.  Even though I had just met some of the family for the very first time, it was almost too funny to be embarrassing.  :)   When Sommer died during our last few months of high school, it was one of Cathy's daughters who was the first family member to come out to my parents' house the day it happened to talk with us, and it became my mom and I who would visit Cathy at Walmart, the three of us catching up on family news and helping each other through those horrible first weeks and months.  I last saw her in 2010--randomly bumping into her a hundred miles from her home, which made it even funnier and sweeter to us.  A huge hug, then, at our last meeting, and more laughter and family news shared before we parted.  My heart has been with her family this weekend, and I send them all so much love.  

Anniversary Love from Aunt Laurie

Mike and I stopped at my parents' house on Sunday the 15th for what we thought was going to be a simple one-year wedding anniversary dinner with my family, but my mom and my visiting-for-the-weekend aunt Laurie had been working like elves since Friday evening transforming my parents' kitchen and dining room into a Daffodil-Filled Pink Party Central in our honor. :) While I wait to collect everyone's photos from the day, I can show you two of the gifts Aunt Laurie made for us, a beautifully matted and framed photo of me from my wedding day and a scrapbook marking our first married year.

Aunt Laurie said this was her favorite of all our wedding photos, and she trimmed it in a pretty spring green that matched my wedding outfit. :) Since my bridal bouquet was mostly yellow Daffodils, she pressed some silk ones under the glass too. What a treasure she and her gift are. 

And tucked into a gift basket Sunday was a 40-page scrapbook she had made filled with images depicting our wedding, our life together, and our pink first anniversary party. There is even a page in it with a magazine clipping of a black and white cat who looks like Stuffed. :) She and I and my mom have been creating these little books for each other for years, but this one is one of my all-time favorite gifts, period. She outdid herself.

The pages above are my two favorites. She even created those paper doll-type cut-outs to look like my wedding dress and jacket and Mike's tie. :) And my Daffodil bouquet! Love, love, love.  She managed to find pictures of not only my bouquet's Daffodils but also its Cattails and Pussy Willows. "My" Daffodils are on almost every page. :)

For traditional first anniversary gifts of paper, her book and matted photo take the prize. They are just the dearest, as is she. ♥

For Aunt Laurie's Birthday

Aunt Laurie's birthday was this Monday, and while I was home a couple weeks ago, Mom and I decided to make a special birthday gift for her that Mom could include with the box of wrapped Christmas presents she was going to mail her the next morning. It began simply enough, with Mom showing me a pretty green gingham dishtowel she'd found for Aunt Laurie and saying, "I was thinking about decorating a little Christmas tree and putting it in the box for her. What do you think? This as a tree skirt? Or should I just wrap it by itself?" Mom should know better than to ask me such things: She and I ended going to bed sometime after midnight that night after spending about four hours constructing, instead, this miniature birthday party table, the gingham dishtowel now a tablecloth. :)

The table was a taco kit box from the cupboard. :) The cake began as a tiny container with cake/cookie sprinkles in it. I emptied it, flipped it over, painted it with acrylic paints until it looked frosted/decorated, and glued a few silk flowers onto the sides and a bit of a paper-doily-as-cake-plate underneath. A birthday candle from the cupboard was whittled down and poked via nail hole into the top. 

And of course, Aunt Laurie had to have a frog, so I made one out of a few tiny Styrofoam ball-type things from one of Mom's silk floral arrangements and painted it all up until it looked frog-like and glued it all into a mini gift-box with an even smaller "to/from" label attached. She had to have a frog? Yessssssss. :) When I was a kid, I told my mom that Aunt Laurie should collect something green since it's her favorite color, and I decided, much to elegant Civil War-era costume-making, Ann-Margret-adoring, lace-loving Aunt Laurie's dismay, that it should be frogs. Tradition must be upheld!

Her miniature card from me read "Hoppy birthday," of course, and Mom made a more traditional card for her older sister. A green button with cake sprinkles glued to the top became a plate of cookies or candies. The tiny gift packages began as corners of Jell-O boxes. We cut them into different sizes and wrapped them with scraps of different papers we had stashed away. Curling ribbon and more tiny silk flowers made perfect package decorations. The plastic lid of a perfume or hair spray bottle worked as a vase. :)

Paper napkins became smaller paper napkins, white plastic toothpicks were trimmed and glued beside them to suggest forks, and we cut the floral part of a shelf lining paper into circles as cake plates. I drew the balloons, "laminated" them with packaging tape, attached them to more toothpicks, and poked them into the top of one of the presents. We framed an already-right-size photo of Aunt Laurie with silk flowers. And hot-glued everything to everything until we could shake the entire table upside-down and nothing moved.

I only wish we could have seen Aunt Laurie's face when she unwrapped her "birthday party in a box." Now she has a little decoration she can bring out each year for her birthday, though. Since it is the day after Christmas, a hard time to travel, we never get to share it with her, but now we can, even more so than usual, celebrate together in spirit. :)  

Updated to add that Aunt Laurie has passed along this picture of her with her "birthday table."  

Sweet face!  It almost makes me feel bad for hiding the little frog in the gift box.  :)

Fall Leaves and Frog Stickers: My Pen Pal, Aunt Laurie

My sweet aunt Laurie is one of my favorite people, and she and I have been exchanging cards, letters, and other little "love notes" through the mail since I was a kid. The photo above is of our November correspondence from last year--she always makes collages and includes them with her letters, and I pass along pretty fall leaves that I know she'll appreciate. Her Halloween card, collage, and letter in response to my own arrived in Monday's mail, and although I just saw her in July for my brother's wedding, her words made me miss her even more than I already did. I have been missing my family a lot lately, as I had told her in my letter, and I wish I could be in at least three places at once. "I'd love to just appear at your door and offer some dinner and hugs," she wrote in Monday's letter. "'Sending hugs through the mail."

When my best friend died in 1995, Aunt Laurie was having a traumatic week of her own with one of her children, and I sent her a card a couple days after my friend's death to check in with her and to send love to my cousin. "Oh how I wish I could hold you and tell you everything will be okay," her letter back began. It is one of the things I remember verbatim from the haze of those first few weeks without my friend.

Knowing how I love holidays and seasonal meals, Aunt Laurie added an illustration to her Christmas letter's collage a few years ago of a woman studying a cookbook titled 10 Festive Meals You Can Make with Canned Peas. It still makes me laugh. :)

Aunt Laurie's a lover of all things Victorian, lacy, and pretty.

She writes poetry, loves to take nature walks and sew, and makes amazing Civil War reenactment costumes.

She is more than a little psychic and has amazingly vivid spiritual dreams. The pictures she takes often have orbs of light in them.  

She is soft-spoken--a bit Jackie Kennedy-ish--speaks slowly, and has a way of seemingly moving in slow motion, as well.  Her handwriting has the same almost-fragile quality. She has gentle brown "doe eyes" but can only be pushed so far before proving she's tougher than she appears.

She likes peanut butter and doesn't like chocolate. She sometimes drinks tea but adores coffee. She loves doughnuts but tries not to eat them since my uncle is always watching his weight and is too easily tempted. Her homemade bread is to die for--light and sweet loaves that come to loved ones covered in pretty dish towels.

She wraps presents beautifully. Her Christmas package is the biggest treat, since there are always linen snowflake doilies as package decorations, lovely fabric ribbons and rick rack with tree ornaments tied into the curled trims.

Her favorite color is green. When I was little, I told my mom we should start collecting something green for Aunt Laurie, and Mom asked what I thought we should collect for her. All I could think of that was green was frogs--poor Aunt Laurie!--so ever since, it has frogs and frog-related things for her. When her times are hard, I am sure to mention that "It's not easy being green," and "Have I toad you lately that I love you?" candy boxes have been known to appear in her mailbox on Valentine's Day.

She is the only person in my family who calls me "Valerie" instead of "Val."

She lives in a gorgeous old white farmhouse with her husband of 42 years and one of my cousins, she loves to garden, she gets a kick out of gnomes, and Lily of the Valley is her favorite flower.

The first gift I remember ever receiving from her was a lavender unicorn-covered diary I got for Christmas in the third grade. I still have it. For my birthday last May, she took me and my mom out for breakfast and presented me with a Rose afterward. While I was home in July, she threw me a mini bridal shower in the dining room with my mom and cousins present.

Aunt Laurie hates to be called "cute," always envisioning herself more like a sexy Ann-Margret, of whom she used to keep scrapbooks. (Aunt Laurie was thrilled when I performed in my high school's production of Bye Bye Birdie, and she and Mom reminisced all that spring about the songs and movies from their own high school years.) Aunt Laurie really is adorable, though, and even now that she is retired and has a granddaughter in high school, she still gets called "Honey" and "Sweetie" and "Sweetheart" by sales clerks and other strangers and has that air about her that makes people want to pinch her cheeks and cuddle her.

She lived across the street from my family for a few years while I was growing up, and I remember one Christmas, my mom, my cousins, and I were sitting in her living room while my mom read some silly magazine personality quiz to Aunt Laurie. "You want to go Christmas caroling with the neighbors," my mom read aloud, "but you know your singing voice isn't the greatest. Do you A.) go anyway or B.) stay home?" "Well, shoot, I'd go!" my aunt cried out in a surprisingly indignant tone, shocking my mom and making us all laugh at her unexpected response. "What do I care what they think? They don't have to like it!" It is probably twenty-five years since that conversation and I still can't hear mention of Christmas caroling without remembering Aunt Laurie's uncharacteristic outburst (and her younger sister's surprise at her boldness) and smiling.

When I was twenty years old, I mentioned during one visit that I had a small success to report. I had finally stopped biting my nails, was all, but before I could go on to explain that, Aunt Laurie quietly said, "Ah! That's good, Valerie. Small successes are good." :) She was proud of me for losing a lot of weight a few years ago but was happier to hear that I was happy and loving my life again after a number of years of not loving it very much at all. "Oh, Valerie, that's WONDERFUL!" I can hear her exclaim at every mention of something that I'm excited about.

Neither she nor I can easily stop laughing once we get started, and Aunt Laurie starts slapping her knee when she really gets going, which makes everything even funnier. In 2003, the subject of hair dyes came up while she, Mom, and I were hanging out looking at magazines over tea and coffee, and I mentioned that when Marilyn Monroe had been asked if she minded that people thought she was dumb because she was blonde, she had responded, "No, because I know I'm not dumb. I also know I'm not really blonde." Aunt Laurie loved that, being a brunette-turned-blonde herself, and laughed and laughed.

She adored her grandparents, has been with my uncle since high school, and is best friends with my mom, who rightfully calls her "Lovey."
 
Although there are phone calls and visits, as well, it is the letters that have kept us close over the years, each parcel of news and magazine clippings and recipes and dreams and quotes and fall leaves and frog stickers tying our ties a little tighter. My pen pal since childhood, Aunt Laurie can always be counted on to stay in touch, and that is no small thing to say about someone. Her jack-o-lantern-covered Halloween mail is smiling at me from a bookshelf this morning, and this year's November mail will soon be winging its way across the state to her, Kermit the Frog Macy's Thanksgiving Day Day Parade float pictures gracing the envelope. :)

All the Way from Scratch

Monday's "Frank and Ernest" comic hit the spot and made me cackle. In an email yesterday, one of my aunts described herself as not being able to get out of her own way lately, and I thought, "You too?! That's it exactly." I often feel like God is bemusedly watching me and thinking, You know, you have everything you need, if you could just figure that out and get it together. That's likely the way it is for all of us, but I am feeling it pretty acutely lately.

In one example, I have completely blown off running since May's half marathon but decided to get back to it last week and ran a 5K over the weekend. Run-walk-run-walk-jog for ten seconds and walk again-run-walk-walk-walk. . . . I saw Mike waiting for me around the halfway point and berated him for not having thought to bring his phone to take a picture, since I was actually RUNNING that part of the race talked with him for a minute, and his first words were, "Are you the last one?" Apparently, he couldn't see any runners behind me. Correction, now that I know the race results: Apparently, there was only one runner behind me--I came in next-to-last in a race of 700-some people. And that's what I get for gaining back the weight I'd lost and taking off six months from running. (Don't call it a comeback. . . !)  This is when I join God in shaking my head and saying, Why didn't you just keep up with it?! Why must you always make things so hard for yourself? And I don't know, but I hope I at least get credit for trying and always coming back for more. Sigh.