Hi ya! Hey ya! Hope all's well with ya. All is well with us. I'm still playing catch up so I'm back to reaching into my archives for a while more. Have fun out there. Today's post (edited) was first published on April 11, 2015. = = = = = = = = = = = = = Knock, knock. The Mama opened the kitchen door, which was the back door at our house on 44 Shore Road.  I sat at the kitchen table, keeping her company as she prepared dinner. Uncle Frank! The Daddy's younger brother. He carried a tree stump in his arms.  "I cut down a tree in my back yard," said Uncle Frank, putting it down next to the kitchen counter. "I thought it was the right size for Susie." I was four. Either Uncle Frank or the Mama held my hand as I climbed onto the stump. Yaaay! I had a wonderful view of the counter. I don't remember much of those very early years. But, I must've been in the kitchen a lot with the Mama. Enough so that Uncle Frank thought I o

Hi ya! Hey ya! Hope all's well with ya. All is well with us. I'm reaching into my archives for the next several days so I can play catch up around the house. "I'll do it tomorrow." has finally reared itself into today.  Such is retirement. :-) Have fun out there. Today's post (edited) was first published on May 13, 2010.  Yes,  this really did happen. ============ Ding dong. "Who can that be?" asked the husband, not getting up from his desk. I scrambled up from mine and down the stairs.  Not another salesperson from the carpet cleaning or bug zapping service, I hoped. I also didn't want to find someone clutching slick campaign material. Most likely no religious people; they rarely show up around dinner time. Aw, gee. What if it was a friend? The husband and I bought hot dogs at the Farmers Market for dinner, only enough for the Mama and us. Our front door was open, but the security door was locked. "Hello," I called f

I wanted five children. It didn't matter if they were all girls, all boys, or some kind of combination. I like to think that's happening in a parallel universe. I wonder what their names are. Even today, I'll come across a name that I think is a nice candidate for one of my would've been kids. Maeve, Emmie, Sophia, Emerson, Benjamin James. . . . I like strong, happy names. So, here I am, seven months shy of receiving Medicare, childless. Every time I thought I was pregnant, several days later, hello menses. I had an irregular cycle, so I tried fertility drugs as well as acupuncture to help get my reproductive system going. The acupuncture was a trip. When all the needles were inserted, I instantly felt like my spirit sprung out of my body and tap danced on the ceiling. In the early 1990s, during the first week of vacation in Washington, I took a home pregnancy test. Yes, by golly! The First Husband and I went immediately into let's-take-care-of-me-and-the-fet

I spied with my little eye a wife trimming hairs out of her husband's nostrils in front of the Hotel that once was on the corner of Sutter and Powell Streets in San Francisco. I was sitting on the #2 Sutter bus heading westerly home on a sunny day. Hahahaha! This 30+ year mental image still gets me laughing. The couple was probably in their late 50s and early 60s. I pegged them for tourists, but they could've been native-born San Franciscans. I simply loved how they were comfortable with each other. I like to think the Husband and I are comfortable old farts like that couple was. And, yes. I've trimmed the Husband's nose hairs. But only in the privacy of our home and only when I cut his curly locks and bristly (not grizzly) beard. So far.