7 Quick Takes (Vol 254)

Here we are again, gathered around the blather table, looking at the steaming heaps. You know the guide lines. When you are done here you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of Kathleen Sibelius' departure, over to Conversion Diary.

Blather that can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

1. Tomorrow is my father's Celebration of Life. Bittersweet to be sure, as any celebration of life would be. But it will be a party as well as we have people coming from 17 different states and 2 countries.

What an amazing thing that is!

There was already a boat load of laughter last night when the first of the cousins rolled in.

Cousin Kristen and I. We haven't actually seen each other since I was in high school and she was a bit younger. I believe at that point in time I chose to go and read a book upstairs rather than play with my cousins. Pilot Man evidently picked up the sibling slack on that occasion.

He is a nicer human being than I am.

And today is the 24th anniversary of Kristen's 25th birthday. I will let you do the math on that one.

2. I am now the posessor of my father's favorite towel.

I was actually unaware that he had a favorite towel until Parental Unit Mimi handed it to me. It is not the largest towel in the world nor is it the softest towel in the world. And I can only say that it is not a color that I would call lovely. But Dad and The Towel met on a lonely stretch of road where the towel had been lost by some unlucky person. Papa stopped and rescued it and then they were together from that point onwards.

Such a love story. Sniff.

So The Towel and I are now united.

3. The warm weather has finally arrived....and then it is supposed to snow, possibly, on Tuesday.

I won't repeat to you what I actually said when someone told me that there might be snow on Tuesday.

This is a family blog after all.

4. I did my morning two miles by walking around my old neighborhood. Oh what a strange experience to walk the sidewalks of my growing up. When did some of these houses get so small? And the walk to my Jr. Hi and High School always seemed long to me but really, the Jr. Hi was about 4 blocks away, my grade school was about 5 blocks and my high school less than a mile. Of course my high school is no longer there, it was replaced last year by a VERY NICE grocery store with a fabulous wine and beer department.

You can see where my priorities are. Produce? Meat? Dairy? Oh what a nice ALCOHOL department.

I was also able to walk past my grandparents old house, which is about 4 blocks from the old homestead. When last I passed that ancestral home (well, they did live there for 10 years or so) I stopped my car and took a picture with my iphone.

Almost immediately a man's head popped out of an upper window and questioned me about I was doing. When I explained that my grandparents had lived in this house years ago he was very friendly and invited me in and showed me all around and explained about their MASSIVE renovation project. This picture was taken in November, today I walked past again and the renovations to the front door are almost done and the very large addition on the back is in process. My favorite part of the "tour" was to see this...

The absolutely tiny bathroom with the only corner toilet that I have ever encounter. Once their kitchen renovation is completed this little space will be gone. For some strange reason that makes me sad.

I will just add it to my collection of "bathrooms that I have known."

Don't ask.

5. My father was the master of the well crafted flame email. No need to shout when a pithy and dagger like turn of phrase will do the trick. He didn't have to do it often, but when he did it was masterful.

I channeled my inner "Don" this week to deal with the roofer who didn't show up for two separate appointments and didn't call to tell me that he wasn't going to show up, thereby wasting my time on not one but two separate occasions. I do not take kindly to people needlessly wasting my time and then not returning phone calls. I prefer to start this kind of process with a phone call rather than email....but after three phone calls with no reply, and having to use my quiet but angry voice (ask the progeny, they know that voice) I resorted to email. It was a masterful piece of writing if I do say so myself. There were some particulary pithy phrases.

I had a reply in less than 30 minutes.

Thanks Dad for the legacy of the pithy flame email.

6.This is my mother's old address book. Folks, this is how we did phone numbers and addresses in the "old days". You should see this beauty. It is held together with duct tape and a rubber band and the pages are loose and filled to capacity. It was the thing from which all knowledge flowed when I was growing up.

7. And as is my usual custom, here are Instagram photos from my wierdly chaotic and roofer filled week.

 

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