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Mom's youngest sister texted me this summer to let me know that my parents had arrived safely in New York for a family reunion, but also that Mom wanted me to know she and Dad now had a cell phone--"just for emergencies"--so not to worry as much about their drive home a few days later. My parents had never had a cell phone. My parents have never tried an answering machine. My parents have never used computers. Before I could even think of a response, my phone pinged with another text from my aunt. "Your dad says you're probably shocked." Ha! Yesssssss. :)
As predicted, though, it really was "just for emergencies," and since there--thankfully--wasn't one on their trip back, Mom and Dad still hadn't done more with their phone even by the end of October than charge it every few days. When I came home at Halloween, though, I decided to change that--because if they weren't comfortable using it, they wouldn't remember how to do anything with it even during--and especially during--an actual emergency. While Dad watched a ball game, Mom and I snuggled under a blanket on the couch with both our phones and I taught her how to text me. Ping! as her first message came through to me, misspelled due to her tremors. What she had been trying to write, I don't remember, but it came through as "Yippee did!" I wrote back as we laughed, and although she was sitting beside me watching me write back to her, she still cried out, "OOH! Neat!" when she heard her phone chime with her new text from me. :) After we'd written back and forth a few times, giggling all the way, and with stubbornly uninterested Dad shaking his head in the background--although I haven't given up on him yet, oh no, never--I texted my younger brother and asked him to text Mom. He not only wrote her, but also passed along new baby pictures, and that was all it took. :) Mom was hooked. Mom had texted him, her youngest sister, and her oldest brother by the time she went to bed that night, she texted me the above picture of her and Aunt Laurie with sweet Vickie soon after, and a few days after I'd returned here, she texted to tell me that she had called Aunt Laurie to talk her into getting a cell phone so that we could all keep in touch that way. :) ♥ Soon enough, then, Aunt Laurie was sending me a Thanksgiving morning greeting, and I was sharing pictures with her of my newly-redone wall and curtains here. Aunt Laurie texted back with a photo of her sweet green kitchen.
A week ago, she followed up with a photo of her Christmas tree. ♥
Mom followed suit and sent us both photos of her own tree. ♥
And now we're all in regular contact this way, texting almost every day. I think you know how sweet this is for all of us, and how proud I am of my mom. Aunt Laurie had emailed before and has had a digital camera for years, so it wasn't quite the leap for her as it was for Mom. To know that they can keep in touch this way with each other, with Vickie, with me, with their grandchildren, etc. is all just so GREAT. :) It is truly never too late to learn. As I pointed out to Mom while she was learning, I was still learning to drive in my late thirties, so I would never be the one to mock someone for trying to learn, let alone struggling to learn, something. I love watching people learn something, I love the moment when it "clicks"--when Mom opened her phone to see that just-taken picture of her two youngest nieces and suddenly "got" it and wanted more, more, more--and I find it sweet and inspiring to know that the morning of October 30th, Mom had no interest in this or ability to do this, and a few days later, she was--in her own self-deprecating--words "a texting marvel." :) And with that, I will sign off and wait for Mom's next message. ♥
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.
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When Niece Bianca, who is somehow now three years old, first saw my parents' Christmas tree decorated and with colorful bundles already under it--even before Santa's arrival, ooh! ah!--she immediately ran over to the gifts and tried to unwrap one. My mom repeatedly redirected her: This one is is actually for So-and-So. . . .We only open our own presents. . . .You can open them when you come with your mommy and daddy on Christmas Day. . . .Awhile later, little B carried a present over to my dad and said, "Mimi"--my mom--"said I could open this." :) Dad was amused but not buying it and eventually was able to distract her with a book. When Mom next returned to the living room, though, Bianca was caught in the act yet again, sitting under the tree holding her stuffed animal and trying to tear into a gift. "My bear wants to open one!" she explained. :) Dear sweet little imp. Look at that FACE. :) ♥
Mike is out of town visiting family and sent this picture to me today from his parents' home while I was at work. Ha! They're everywhere, these crazy hearts. Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating today, and a good day to you all. ♥
Until last night, it had been twenty years since I first made a cranberry-apple pie, and if Mom and Aunt Laurie could be beside you as you read this, they would fall over themselves laughing as they explained why. Their memories of my first attempt have grown more exaggerated with each retelling, and now, my poor 1996 effort is simply referred to as "Val's Three-Eye Pie."
I had saved this recipe from a Good Housekeeping magazine and told Mom I wanted to try it while Aunt Laurie was visiting that fall. I'd been baking alone since I was ten--and I was nineteen at the time--but this pie foiled me. And I didn't make the beautiful leaf-crust pictured below. (How gorgeous is this!)
For me, it was the pie filling that went awry. The pie filling! In the words of Paul Simon, "there were incidents and accidents." And for someone who hadn't yet made many pies, I learned the hard way how not to make this particular one. The recipe now strikes me as straightforward, and surely, if I had actually followed it, the pie would have turned out. It called for the juice of "1 large lemon," but I (apparently hadn't bought or asked for the groceries I needed to make this pie?! Ah, nineteen-year-old Val!) didn't have any lemons so decided I would instead throw in some lemon extract from the back of Mom's baking cupboard. When I use the word "throw" to describe how I "measured" the lemon extract. . .yessssssss. Not knowing anything about the extract-to-real-thing ratio/conversion, I must have used the whole bottle. And I have still never in my life seen Mom use lemon extract for anything, so who knows where the extract had even come from, let alone how very old it was. Only two teaspoons of vanilla extract are mentioned in the recipe, and that I had on-hand, but I am now-infamous for assuming that if a little vanilla-flavor is good, a lot must be great! (That logic became part of my defense soon enough.) Who knows how much of that went into this pie, as well, then. Raisins, I see are in the recipe too, but I highly doubt I used any, since I've never liked them. The pie that went into the oven that afternoon was mostly apples, cranberries, and a huge amount of alcohol-filled extracts. Alcohol bakes-off, it is said, but when probably a bottle and a half of two different flavors are in one pie and that pie is likely already missing one of its called-for fruits, the baker must be prepared for whatever reaction comes.
And reaction was swift, but the stories have been exaggerated, I tell you! Mom still likes to imitate how my cousin Amy mysteriously began hiccuping after soldiering through her slice of the finished pie. She always includes the part about how "poor Amy" soon thereafter bid us all an early goodnight and elaborated that she didn't feel so good. Aunt Laurie's favorite part of the Three-Eye Pie story--besides the fact that "Three-Eye Pie" immediately became the name for her niece's dessert--is how Uncle Warren's eyebrows instantly shot way up onto the top of his forehead upon tasting his first bite. On and on the stories go. We all laughed so much during that visit over that pie. ("Of course we did," Mom would point out if she were reading over your shoulder right now. "Val's pie got us all drunk.") In 2011, a full fifteen years after I had made the pie, Mom included the note and drawing below in a recipe book she gave me for Christmas. She has drawn that three-eyed girl a few other times over the years too, I should add. Oh, the hilarity. :)
And just last month when I unwrapped my Christmas presents from Aunt Laurie, I oohed and ahhed over a tiny green bag inside which my name was peeking out on a slip of paper. I tugged out a box of bottled vanilla, momentarily--and naively--thinking she had simply sent me vanilla as a baking supply, since she tends to give me muffin papers, pot holders, and other baking-related gifts at Christmas, but then I read the note that accompanied it. And notice the three-eyed snowman underneath! Comediennes, these two. :)
I've baked enough now to have a better idea of what I can and can't substitute and how much of what I can add or take away from a pie, and last night's was just fine, thank you, and I even added snowflake-shaped pie crust pieces to the edge and to the streusel topping, so there. ;) There is no point telling my mom or aunt, though. The Three-Eye Pie story has become one of their favorite family classics, and they're still just having waaaaay too much with it.
My parents' Christmas card arrived yesterday with the above note from Mom enclosed. My laughter turned into cackling pretty quickly at this. This crazy month. Since she wasn't able to drive to get out to shop on her own the first few weeks after surgery, Mom's behind with All Things Christmas this year.
Then I got to the end of Dad's included note and laughed again. He clearly hadn't forgotten my "demotion" in his last note.
'Too funny all-around. Both blessed and charmed, I am. ♥
I called home to tease my dad after reading his and mom's latest letters (and gift of contents/treat labels for holiday baking ♥), "You signed your letter with your NAME!" I laughed, and he said, "What?! Instead of 'Dad,' you mean? Oh!! I'm sorry!" We had a good laugh that I had been downgraded--and via letter! so cold!--and I am still smiling over it.
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.
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While Mike watches football tonight, I've escaped to the bedroom to glue all the magazine clippings I've saved lately--mostly decorating ideas, some outfits, some quotes, a few recipes, some home/life tips--into my inspiration scrapbooks. In tonight's pile of saved clippings is this page I printed and mailed to my mom in the summer of 2010. I had found--well, seen--my dream rug on eBay and saved the seller's photos to show her. If you click the above photo, you'll better understand my heartache at not being able to "Buy It Now" this rug. Ah! It is perfect for me--and a whopping 10' around so is the perfect size for under my table. ♥ Mom had saved this page with some of her mail and gave it back to me when I was home in November. Seeing the rug photos again makes me swoon, and rereading my note now makes me laugh.
The eBay seller had listed a "Buy It Now" price of $850 plus shipping costs, but had set up the auction so it began at nothing and included the "Make me an offer" option. I thought I would be crafty--I thought I actually had a SHOT at this gorgeous rug (poor naive little Val)--so I made an offer of forty dollars, thinking that the seller would say (s)he couldn't go lower than $250 or so, I'd make a counter-offer of $100, we'd settle on $150 or $200--prices that struck me as fair--and I'd ride off into the sunset on my magic rug. I was already imagining the rug under my round gingham tablecloth-covered table, Stuffed curled up in all his black and white glory on the colorful braids, patchwork cushions on the chairs, red Geraniums as a table centerpiece, and Holly Hobbie herself eating her heart out over this perfect, perfect rug. On this wave of braided bliss, I confidently submitted my offer of $40. The seller pulled my magic rug out from under me when (s)he wrote back, just seconds later, "I think you meant to add another zero to that."
My heart! It's so silly--we're talking about a RUG, just a rug--but it still hurts. The seller expected a STARTING offer of $400?! Gah! And why sellers don't just start the bidding at whatever they deem the lowest acceptable price to be instead of using the vague "Make-me-an-offer" tactic, I don't know. I'd have never gotten my hopes up if I'd known the bidding was to start so high. My heart, my heart! I watched the eBay listing each day hoping that maybe the seller would lower the "Buy It Now" price or put it on sale at some point, since I couldn't imagine anyone would bid on this beautiful rug at those prices anyway, but--no. Once when I checked it, the auction was updated as having sold--to a buyer who had simply bought it for the full "Buy It Now" price of $850 plus shipping. And to think I had made a starting bid of $40! Ha! And moreover: Someone out there has this sweet rug! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I hope it is well-loved and is admired every day, I hope there is a cat or dog cozily curled-up and napping on it right this minute, and I hope I myself find another just like it someday. If I had enough space to work on one, I might, but I also wonder if, if I even had the work-space, by the time I'd buy enough materials to make a rug this size, if it wouldn't add up to a lot more than I'd want to spend on just one item anyway. I don't know. In the meantime, I keep the photos and my note in one of my inspiration scrapbooks and hope for "someday." And I think: Forty dollars!?! HA! Val, Val, Val. :)
One of the Christmas traditions that my dad and I laugh about how is how Mom still leaves a "Keep out!" note on top of her blanket-covered pile of Christmas presents in the basement even though my dad is the only person she lives with now that my brothers and I are all out of the house. "Who are these notes of hers addressed to?!" my dad muses when I return home each December. "I'm almost seventy years old! I'm not going to snoop!" Mom still makes her little warning sign every winter, though, and what makes it funny is that Dad and I laugh at her for doing this but also leave notes of our own. My "Keep out!" is above, and it remains wedged year-round into an antique suitcase in my former bedroom's closet, since I sometimes buy gifts during my visits throughout the year and just store them at my parents' house until Christmas. Mom's note, below, contains no smiley faces or hearts, however. She means business.
She is also artistic in her approach, clearly. A very Mom-like combination of Don't-you-dare-ruin-your-Christmas-surprises! and Ooh!-Christmas!-Here's-a-cute-little-tree! And Dad. . . .Well, Dad takes a different tack, and one that is all the more amusing both because he is so affronted by Mom's note-writing each December and because Mom is the only person to whom he could be addressing his own words:
The Ingalls family, we are not. :) But our Christmas home is, indeed, full of secrets every year. ♥ And Mom and Dad (and brothers and sisters-in-law and niece and nephew, as well) loved Emmet, yes. :) That was one of the sweetest and most fun gift-giving moments I've ever had. Oh, how everyone laughed as they inspected him! Sweet, sweet, sweet. One of my all-time favorite Christmas memories.
And now off to make some more. Christmas Eve tomorrow, my favorite day of the year! ♥
My almost-eight-year-old niece is going through a butterfly-drawing phase. Before butterflies, it was cats--each one neatly labeled "HELLO KITTY."
And before the cats were the adorable bats with their crazed pin-prick eyes.
Insects and mammals all share the same smile in Alyssa's world, and her drawings of them never fail to make me laugh. The butterfly drawing now on the fridge is sweet, and the one she presented to my St. Louis Cardinals-fan younger brother the last time I was home is also a keeper. "I love you! To: Uncle Brian, Love: Alyssa," it reads. And directly underneath the heart-shaped butterfly and pleasant greeting, in our pistol of a niece's careful printing: "P.S. The Cardinals stink." Ha! ♥
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