cookie. Today is Granddaddy's birthday. Happy Birthday, Granddaddy. What better way to celebrate his birthday than visiting the one grandchild who isn't busy with school or daycare? We are so blessed, indeed, to be able to spend these moments, days, etc. with her.
So, it was off to her house with plans to eat at Spaghetti Warehouse, my favorite place for Eggplant Parmesan. (My daughter suggested maybe next time we could split a meal. What? I don't split Eggplan Parmesan with anyone! I like having another meal out of it later. Get your own!)
We got to their house and found Annabelle and her Mommy baking cookies for Granddaddy's birthday. Oatmeal cookies...Grandmother B's (Mommy's Grandmother B's) scrumptious, long-time favorite oatmeal cookies. This recipe can't be beat for sure. Our very favorite recipe.
After the final batch of cookies came out of the oven we made our way over to Spaghetti Warehouse for our lunch and then after pouting for a while, we went on over to one of my very favorite stamp stores. It has a huge selection of the neatest rubber stamps and you had better hold onto your cash or charge card when you are in there.
I found a card that had been made and was on display. Hmmm, wonder where that stamp is. It has great potential! I took it to the cash register and asked where I could find the stamp. The female owner looked at the card and said, "Well, it's made up of, let me see...one, two, three, four, five, six (and maybe she said seven) different stamps. I can show you the ones that were used." I might add the stamps ranged in price from as little as $4.50 up to $9.50 or more. I think the cheapest one was $4.50. And it was tiny! (So, if you get a handmade card from me, just be very thankful because there is much more than lots of time in making it. It's pretty expensive, too! So, just enjoy anything you get from me. I try, really, I do.)
The owner volunteered to show us the method used for making the card, which I lapped up immediately. She made it seem so simple and pretty. Did it in no time at all. I looked through the stamps trying to decide which ones I really couldn't live without so I could make a decent looking card. I already had some that I thought might work, so I eliminated those. Still, I managed to walk away (Wait, that sounds like I stole them. I didn't. I definitely paid for them...dearly.)with I think five really cute stamps I can't find locally. Oh, I definitely found more than that. She showed us another card she had done and framed, which peaked my interest, but after mentally tallying up the price I decided to make that my next purchase.
When my daughter and I returned to the car, Annabelle said, "Can I see the stamps, Grandmomma?" Her Mommy was so surprised. She said, "How did you know there were stamps in that bag?" Well, I guess she knows her Grandmomma and knows she can't turn down a cute stamp!
By this time it was beginning to be the "witching hour", as my best friend would say. But since it is officially a holiday today, traffic moved on and we went to Annabelle's house for some good old cookies!
We were standing in the kitchen, enjoying our cookies, and I, completely subconsciously took a bite of my cookie, held it over the sink and shook it to keep the crumbs from dropping onto the floor. I looked down and saw that sweet little face looking at me. I didn't think anything about it very much and she walks over to the sink and puts her cookie over the sink. I thought she was going to drop it into the water so I started to correct her before she lost her cookie to the dirty water in the sink. Then I realized she was trying to shake her cookie crumbs into the sink just like she had seen her Grandmomma do! Now how sweet is that? And scary! She did it several more times.
It made me think of seeing people driving down the road with their cigarettes hanging over the slightly rolled down window, careful not to let the smoke come back into their car. They will share it with anyone driving alongside of them, but can't stand it in their car.
And I wonder just how much our children are influenced by seeing just such outside happenings that we have no control whatsoever over. Very sad. Makes me want to tell them what I think of their rudeness. But I can't because somehow they have the "right" to pollute my air while driving alongside me.
That really wasn't where I had intended the blog to go because I know I can't stop that, but I do know I and others close to us have to be careful what we do because those little eyes are watching our ever move. E.v.e.r.y m.o.v.e! As I said before, scary!
It was a great day. I ended it by pulling out my beautiful stamps, held them in my hands, admiring each perfect etch, and then I pulled out my paper, ink, brushes and used one of them to satisfy my creative (or lack of) abilities and pretended I could do the technique just as well as the stamp store owner.
Oh the joys of an expensive hobby. But, as the stampers creed says, "It's cheaper than therapy!" I'm not sure about that, but it does satisfy something. Sometimes I remember what my youngest niece said one day when we were talking about our stamping addiction. She said she thought it was because she didn't get to color as much during her childhood and she was making up for it now. I'm with her. I didn't have access to my own crayons when I was younger. I only had school issued ones and we had to leave them at school. There's just not enough time during the school day to express your feelings and you can't do it at home when you don't own your own box of crayons.
Wipe the tears from your eyes, now because now I can buy my own crayons. I can buy my own colored pencils by the hundreds,from every company, in every color, my own boxes of water colored pencils or crayons, more stamps than will ever be touched by ink, and any other means of expressing myself I desire. And I do...just because I can.
When I'm on a buying spree my daughter always mutters under her breath, "There she goes again, spending my inheritance." I hate to burst her bubble by telling her there will be no inheritance, even if I didn't have such an addiction. Maybe she can put all my fun stuff on e-bay when I'm dead. She may have a small inheritance there. Just wait until I'm dead and gone. I'm having way too much fun. Talentless or not.
And Happy Birthday, Granddaddy! I sure hope you enjoy your birthday present. You know, the stamps I bought today? They bought you a little freedom from me while I'm playing!
Let's see...I have a birthday coming up in about two weeks. Maybe I'll plan to eat at Spaghetti Warehouse again and then make another trip over to...Shhh! don't tell Granddaddy! I might be able to pick up a few more of those cute stamps for my, I mean, an added birthday present for him!
Hey, I'm doing my best to help stimulate this economy! It really needs it and I think I can contribute quite nicely to it!
Showing posts with label Childhood Memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Childhood Memories. Show all posts
Monday, January 19, 2009
Monday, September 22, 2008
She loved poetry and taught me to love it, too...
As I was 'plundering' through some papers today I came across words written in both shorthand and translated out that were words my mother had quoted while with me.
My Mother was in the hospital at that time with a broken collar bone. After spending several days in the regular hospital, she had been transferred down to the rehab center and my sister and I were keeping 24-hour tour of watch with her. A watch that continued on for quite a few weeks. This particular day was my watch. She was a spunky woman and didn't like being held down by bedrails, her kids or anything else and during the times I was on duty I would catch her in the middle of the day or night trying to climb over the rails, broken bones and all. It was so very hard to convince her she had to stay in bed and let those bone mend. Somehow, she decided she would exercise her hard-headedness when I was on duty. Maybe because I was the baby and she didn't want to take anything off me. I was still her baby. Apparently, according to my sister, she was an angel when she was with her.
This particular night she entertained herself and me by attempting to remember some of the poems from her childhood days or at least days before she left home. Her mother apparently also loved poetry and would quote poems to her children as they would lie on the floor and my grandmother worked on the old treadle sewing machine, especially on rainy days. Mom used to say she would lie there crying as her mother recited those sad, sad poems.
As she lay there, trying to be good and stay out of trouble that night, when I realized I had not remembered ever having heard that poem I grabbed a paper towel and pen and began scribbling in my "other language", shorthand trying to keep up with her as she went over each line, sometimes correcting herself, but most of the time getting it right. Later I would transcribe it and then I found it today.
It's amazing how close she got it to the words I managed to find on the internet when I decided to google the first line since I had no title. It's also frighteningly eerie how much information can be obtained over the internet by googling. Things that were a part of an entirely different generation that would never have comprehended a computer in their age.
I had marked down on the paper towel just above the translation, "5-1-97, 5:50 p.m."
Mom was born quite a few years earlier, so this says a lot for her memory clogged with pain killers or not.
This was her remembering the words or at least the best I translated:
Will there ever be a morning
Is there such a place(thing) as day.
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they.
Has it feet like water lilies
Has it feathers like a bird
Was it brought from some foreign country
Of which I've never heard.
Oh some sailor, Oh some wise men from the skies,
please do tell this Little Pilgim
where the place where morning lies
Supposedly the real translation was as follows:
Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like water-lillies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?
Oh, some scholar! Oh some sailor!
Oh, some wise men from the skies!
Please to tell a little pilgrim
Where the place called morning lies!
This poem was called Will there ever be a morning and was credited to Emily Dickinson. It shouldn't have surprised me because she dearly loved poems from Emily Dickinson as well as others during that era.
I can still see her when she made a mistake in her quote and realized it. She would squench her eyes and shake that little head and wiggle those fists to show she knew she hadn't gotten it right, then she would correct it the best she could.
I also had written down that she had quoted The old trundle bed.I knew I already had the words to that in a book entitled Best Loved Poems of the American People. I had bought that large book at Sears Roebuck when their main location was on Ponce de Leon, not too many years after marriage. It was a frivilous buy because we certainly didn't have a lot of money to be spending on books like that, but I found it and realized it contained so very many poems my Mother had recited to me over and over as she and I spent boring days in the cotton fields. It turned out to be one of my best, most favorite purchases because I still love to pull that book out and look up many, many beautiful poems. And, yes, they make me cry!
I don't think the other siblings really remember her reciting those poems. They apparently never learned to love her expressions as much as I did. She could leave me in tears as she would quote Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight, and I didn't even know what it meant. I just knew it was so very, very sad. Over the Hill to the Poor House was another very sad one.
I wish my granddaughter could have enjoyed hearing her great-grandmother as she shared her poems. I wish I could hear her once again!
My Mother was in the hospital at that time with a broken collar bone. After spending several days in the regular hospital, she had been transferred down to the rehab center and my sister and I were keeping 24-hour tour of watch with her. A watch that continued on for quite a few weeks. This particular day was my watch. She was a spunky woman and didn't like being held down by bedrails, her kids or anything else and during the times I was on duty I would catch her in the middle of the day or night trying to climb over the rails, broken bones and all. It was so very hard to convince her she had to stay in bed and let those bone mend. Somehow, she decided she would exercise her hard-headedness when I was on duty. Maybe because I was the baby and she didn't want to take anything off me. I was still her baby. Apparently, according to my sister, she was an angel when she was with her.
This particular night she entertained herself and me by attempting to remember some of the poems from her childhood days or at least days before she left home. Her mother apparently also loved poetry and would quote poems to her children as they would lie on the floor and my grandmother worked on the old treadle sewing machine, especially on rainy days. Mom used to say she would lie there crying as her mother recited those sad, sad poems.
As she lay there, trying to be good and stay out of trouble that night, when I realized I had not remembered ever having heard that poem I grabbed a paper towel and pen and began scribbling in my "other language", shorthand trying to keep up with her as she went over each line, sometimes correcting herself, but most of the time getting it right. Later I would transcribe it and then I found it today.
It's amazing how close she got it to the words I managed to find on the internet when I decided to google the first line since I had no title. It's also frighteningly eerie how much information can be obtained over the internet by googling. Things that were a part of an entirely different generation that would never have comprehended a computer in their age.
I had marked down on the paper towel just above the translation, "5-1-97, 5:50 p.m."
Mom was born quite a few years earlier, so this says a lot for her memory clogged with pain killers or not.
This was her remembering the words or at least the best I translated:
Will there ever be a morning
Is there such a place(thing) as day.
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they.
Has it feet like water lilies
Has it feathers like a bird
Was it brought from some foreign country
Of which I've never heard.
Oh some sailor, Oh some wise men from the skies,
please do tell this Little Pilgim
where the place where morning lies
Supposedly the real translation was as follows:
Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like water-lillies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?
Oh, some scholar! Oh some sailor!
Oh, some wise men from the skies!
Please to tell a little pilgrim
Where the place called morning lies!
This poem was called Will there ever be a morning and was credited to Emily Dickinson. It shouldn't have surprised me because she dearly loved poems from Emily Dickinson as well as others during that era.
I can still see her when she made a mistake in her quote and realized it. She would squench her eyes and shake that little head and wiggle those fists to show she knew she hadn't gotten it right, then she would correct it the best she could.
I also had written down that she had quoted The old trundle bed.I knew I already had the words to that in a book entitled Best Loved Poems of the American People. I had bought that large book at Sears Roebuck when their main location was on Ponce de Leon, not too many years after marriage. It was a frivilous buy because we certainly didn't have a lot of money to be spending on books like that, but I found it and realized it contained so very many poems my Mother had recited to me over and over as she and I spent boring days in the cotton fields. It turned out to be one of my best, most favorite purchases because I still love to pull that book out and look up many, many beautiful poems. And, yes, they make me cry!
I don't think the other siblings really remember her reciting those poems. They apparently never learned to love her expressions as much as I did. She could leave me in tears as she would quote Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight, and I didn't even know what it meant. I just knew it was so very, very sad. Over the Hill to the Poor House was another very sad one.
I wish my granddaughter could have enjoyed hearing her great-grandmother as she shared her poems. I wish I could hear her once again!
Friday, July 4, 2008
The Whiskey Run
I was reading a blog earlier today about a Grandmother who would use whiskey in her cough medicines, but she would never allow her daughters to buy the whiskey. That job fell upon the shoulders of the men in the family. This brought about memories of an earlier experience with my own mother and me.
As my parents aged, my mother found herself in the position of being the sole care-giver of my father who had since become bedridden and was suffering from pain that we had no way of knowing whether was real or contrived in an effort to keep my mother by his side every minute of every day.
The doctor really wasn't much help as to what was the cause of his pain, but he had a remedy for it, or at least a suggestion for us to try. We were to get a bottle of whiskey and Mother was to give him a teaspoon a day, or maybe several times a day, to calm him.
I suspect the doctor didn't recommend a larger dose because he knew we came from a family that was teetotallers, and he guessed she would never go along with anything stronger. But desperate times call for desperate measures as the old saying goes, and we found ourselves desperate after a while, and I reminded Mama of the solution to our problem.
There was a solution to the one problem, but we had an even bigger problem lurking. Where would we get our booze? We lived in a town that was dry at that time and our only experience with real-live bootleggers had dwindled over the years. (No, we didn't use them at anytime, but the boot-legging family name was well-known throughout the community. I guess by the time we could have used them they had gone underground or died. I don't think they ever went to jail. Just had their business whacked up by the feds. They would just take a short vacation and then they would re-established.)
Where would we find our whiskey? The doctor hadn't given any addresses so we were on our own for creative ways. Of course, my sister would never allow her name or face to be a part of our endeavor, so Mama and I were in this thing alone.
Every trip down to see my parents, I would pass a little hole-in-the-wall building which, based on the muddy tire tracks surrounding the building, was obviously pretty popular with some of the residents, and I suspect people from the surrounding "dry" counties more during the night time than daylight hours. This had to be the place we could find our "gold". I suggested she and I make a trip by that little business and find that whiskey we needed.
She was desperate and since she was couped up in the house most of the week, alone with someone who needed her constantly, she was more than ready for a little adventure in her life, so off we went to find our "medicine". Now that I think about it, I guess my sister did contribute to our sneakiness because someone had to stay with Daddy while we were gone. We just had the "dirty job".
We did indeed park my car in the back of the little tavern so no one would see us (not that they would have known who we were or that it was my car, but it just made for a little more fun in our devilment of the day.) You know how kids are...they like to flirt with danger and that was our danger. She did not sit in the car hiding away; she joined me as I went inside that establishment, explained our situation, and bought our whiskey. She was always one for any added excitement, and I was most likely the one who would provide it for her.
We must have been quite a sight for that lone employee. He must have snickered for days seeing one little old lady and her daughter explaining away why they were buying that liquor. He may even have suspected we had a recently emptied bottle hidden away in the car and were looking for a full bottle so we could finish it off.
We made our purchased, hid it away and giggled all the way home about how we had bought our first bottle of whiskey. Partners in crime once again. Enjoying a renewed childhood we had both been deprived of before.
She did give Daddy that bottle of whiskey a teaspoon at a time until the bottle was empty. We never bought a second bottle. I don't know if she thought it didn't work or if she was afraid she and I would be busted and our reputations shattered if we attempted another buy. After all, I did have two small children and maybe she was protecting them as well. We just never bought another bottle that I remember. We would never pass that little Tavern across the county line and up the road without thinking about our fun run that day.
I wonder sometimes if the doctor didn't think maybe if he suggested the whiskey, my Mama would have used it instead of giving it to my Daddy. She definitely was the one who could have used it with all the responsibility she had taking care of him. She almost never complained, never even entertained the thoughts of putting him in a nursing home and outlived him by quite a few years. Still, always ready for a little fun whenever I could think up something for us to do.
As a footnote: In my childhood the only alcohol I ever saw in our house was a bottle of whiskey that my parents kept tucked away in the back of the old chiffarobe in their bedroom. The level never went down on that bottle from where it was the first time I ever remember seeing it. It was kept there only for medicinal purposes. Probably the last time it was opened was at my birth--at home where and when that was probably the only option for pain.
And no, I was never, ever tempted to taste it. What kid who is raised to know that medicine is only used in extreme circumstances would ever, ever want to sample the big bottle of medicine. If it tasted anything like that gosh-awful castor oil, why would you want to? Castor oil cured everything...even a desire to even taste that whiskey!
As my parents aged, my mother found herself in the position of being the sole care-giver of my father who had since become bedridden and was suffering from pain that we had no way of knowing whether was real or contrived in an effort to keep my mother by his side every minute of every day.
The doctor really wasn't much help as to what was the cause of his pain, but he had a remedy for it, or at least a suggestion for us to try. We were to get a bottle of whiskey and Mother was to give him a teaspoon a day, or maybe several times a day, to calm him.
I suspect the doctor didn't recommend a larger dose because he knew we came from a family that was teetotallers, and he guessed she would never go along with anything stronger. But desperate times call for desperate measures as the old saying goes, and we found ourselves desperate after a while, and I reminded Mama of the solution to our problem.
There was a solution to the one problem, but we had an even bigger problem lurking. Where would we get our booze? We lived in a town that was dry at that time and our only experience with real-live bootleggers had dwindled over the years. (No, we didn't use them at anytime, but the boot-legging family name was well-known throughout the community. I guess by the time we could have used them they had gone underground or died. I don't think they ever went to jail. Just had their business whacked up by the feds. They would just take a short vacation and then they would re-established.)
Where would we find our whiskey? The doctor hadn't given any addresses so we were on our own for creative ways. Of course, my sister would never allow her name or face to be a part of our endeavor, so Mama and I were in this thing alone.
Every trip down to see my parents, I would pass a little hole-in-the-wall building which, based on the muddy tire tracks surrounding the building, was obviously pretty popular with some of the residents, and I suspect people from the surrounding "dry" counties more during the night time than daylight hours. This had to be the place we could find our "gold". I suggested she and I make a trip by that little business and find that whiskey we needed.
She was desperate and since she was couped up in the house most of the week, alone with someone who needed her constantly, she was more than ready for a little adventure in her life, so off we went to find our "medicine". Now that I think about it, I guess my sister did contribute to our sneakiness because someone had to stay with Daddy while we were gone. We just had the "dirty job".
We did indeed park my car in the back of the little tavern so no one would see us (not that they would have known who we were or that it was my car, but it just made for a little more fun in our devilment of the day.) You know how kids are...they like to flirt with danger and that was our danger. She did not sit in the car hiding away; she joined me as I went inside that establishment, explained our situation, and bought our whiskey. She was always one for any added excitement, and I was most likely the one who would provide it for her.
We must have been quite a sight for that lone employee. He must have snickered for days seeing one little old lady and her daughter explaining away why they were buying that liquor. He may even have suspected we had a recently emptied bottle hidden away in the car and were looking for a full bottle so we could finish it off.
We made our purchased, hid it away and giggled all the way home about how we had bought our first bottle of whiskey. Partners in crime once again. Enjoying a renewed childhood we had both been deprived of before.
She did give Daddy that bottle of whiskey a teaspoon at a time until the bottle was empty. We never bought a second bottle. I don't know if she thought it didn't work or if she was afraid she and I would be busted and our reputations shattered if we attempted another buy. After all, I did have two small children and maybe she was protecting them as well. We just never bought another bottle that I remember. We would never pass that little Tavern across the county line and up the road without thinking about our fun run that day.
I wonder sometimes if the doctor didn't think maybe if he suggested the whiskey, my Mama would have used it instead of giving it to my Daddy. She definitely was the one who could have used it with all the responsibility she had taking care of him. She almost never complained, never even entertained the thoughts of putting him in a nursing home and outlived him by quite a few years. Still, always ready for a little fun whenever I could think up something for us to do.
As a footnote: In my childhood the only alcohol I ever saw in our house was a bottle of whiskey that my parents kept tucked away in the back of the old chiffarobe in their bedroom. The level never went down on that bottle from where it was the first time I ever remember seeing it. It was kept there only for medicinal purposes. Probably the last time it was opened was at my birth--at home where and when that was probably the only option for pain.
And no, I was never, ever tempted to taste it. What kid who is raised to know that medicine is only used in extreme circumstances would ever, ever want to sample the big bottle of medicine. If it tasted anything like that gosh-awful castor oil, why would you want to? Castor oil cured everything...even a desire to even taste that whiskey!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Unearthed Treasure
I'm hijacking my own blog to add this, but somewhere down the road I plan to resume my account of our trip to New York City. I have lots written, just nothing finished to include what I want. So, in the meantime, I'm adding this:
In plundering around I found something I had written September 23, 1994. It was part of a childhood memory. and I thought it would be fun to make it a part of my blog. Since this was originally written things have changed. I no longer have my Mama here with me to search for things and share her old memories with me, but I do have my memories. Here goes:
September 23, 1994
It all started as a result of Mama searching for an old whetstone. We had made our trip to the basement of her house, moving old metal trash cans from their perch on top of each other.
She knew she had last seen her old whetstone packed in one of those garbage cans when she had made the move to the new house. The house she had moved into 16 plus years before from the house that had been her home since she, as a young bride 66 years earlier, had taken up residency alongside her new husband. They had begun "housekeeping" in her new mother and father-in-law's two-story house which also accomodated several brothers and sisters, along with their spouses who still remained at home.
Mama was unsuccessful in her attempt to find the old whetstone, but she had unearthed a treasure to her daughter. Just like the old whetstone was now eluding her mother, the new found treasure had been a lost cause for her daughter for many years.
It was battered and worn. It showed the effects of the many years of use it had endured. Almost daily use. Hardly a person would have seen the worth of the old aluminum tray, but to me it held loads of wonderful childhood memories.
It had held its own set of memories for my mother. It had originally been a part of the very first electrically-run refrigerator she had ever owned. Her first in-home food keeper had been an old Koolerator Ice Box, and yes, I myself have memories of that old icebox sitting in our dining room, sometimes leaking the overflowing water from the box onto the wooden floor. Along with the other conveniences of her new Frigidaire was a set of ice trays. Your usual kind and a kind that is not easy to find today. A double-sized ice tray. For convenience, it held two dividers for the ice.
My memories aren't particularly of using the dividers for making ice. My memories are from what my Mama used the ice tray for. Not only did we farm the land for a living, we had plenty of cows in those days. Those cows provided an abundance of milk and butter not only for our family of six but also for many members of the town's community. My Daddy would "peddle milk" -- mostly buttermilk, very seldom sweet milk -- as well as butter to the people around the Mill Village and surrounding areas of town. We would have milk over-flowing from our new refrigerator and in the very beginning over-flow of the over-flow of milk would be stored in the gallon jugs in the spring near the house where I was born and where I spent the first two years of my life. Years later, the old Coke machines were called into duty and were filled with water and kept ice cold for the milk until Daddy could make his milk runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays of each week.
Our daily diet consisted of milk and more milk, served with even more milk. Our day ended with our meal of supper with any left-over vegetables from our dinner (noon meal). We also had the choice of sweet milk or buttermilk, sweet milk and sweet milk, buttermilk and buttermilk. My choice would inevitably be Buttermilk and Buttermilk.
We crumbled left-over cornbread into our ice-cold buttermilk for one of the best gourmet meals anyone could ever hope to be served. The only time Mama would manage to ruin that cornbread was at hog-killing time when she felt it necessary to throw in cracklins'. I hated biting down on those little chunks of cooked-down fat meat. Sometimes she would make the cornbread half and half, leaving me with some without the cracklins'. (It was not a pretty sight when I accidentally bit into one of those little nasties.)
But before we sat down to our supper we were always treated to an afternoon treat of ice cream. Homemade ice cream my mother had made earlier in the day. Sometimes it would be chocolate. Sometimes it would be vanilla and sometimes it would be a choice of either or both. She would use her new Frigidaire double ice tray to freeze the ice cream along with two big kidney-shaped pans which had come with some cookware from her past.
Before my mother went to the field each morning she would start her dinner of fresh vegetables so most of it would be ready when she came home from working in the fields. She also used that time to make our ice cream. When she came home for dinner, someone, usually my sister chose that job, would scrape the ice cream. My sister liked this job because there were lots of delicious rewards for the person scraping the ice cream.
She would break up chunks of the rich cream-topped ice cream and turn them over to reveal even more lucious-looking bottoms. All the goodness had settled down. Scrumptious bottoms of pure sugar had fallen down. With a large vegetable spoon she would scrape that goodness and enjoy it as she scraped, finally blending it with the remaining top layers of pure cream. Then back to the freezer until after lunch or for afternoon snack. This made the absolutely best rich, creamy ice cream you ever put into your mouth.
There was always plenty left for my brother and me when we stepped off the bus every afternoon. You could never have convinced me of that then, however. My brother played on my selfishness by continuing to dip into the ice cream tray making me believe he was taking every dab of ice cream leaving me with none. That had been the highlight of my entire school day, looking forward to that wonderful ice cream when I got home from school, and I wasn't crazy about the idea of having to share any of it with him in the first place!
I wonder how many times my Mama wished she had never made ice cream to begin with because of the fights he started over that ice cream. I guess we were just lucky she had too much milk on her hands and had to get rid of it somehow.
As I think back now, it wasn't just the taste of that ice cream that made that tray so special. It represented the love my mother had for her husband and four children made her make that ice cream day after day, especially since it added one more job to her already long list of things to do each day.
It also represented the memories of my sister scraping the ice cream and my fights with my brother over it. It also reminded me of the times we would leave the ice tray part in and and freeze the ice cream and pull the handle up to pop those big chunks easily out of the tray. They popped out so much more easily than ice did.
Some things haven't changed over the years, and yet some have. My Mother still loves us; my sister still insists on having the first and the best of whatever; but my brother and I don't fight over the ice cream anymore. I'll gladly share with him and I know he would do the same for me, and most times I'll willingly surrender to the pecking order my sister has over me! But it's still fun to hassle her before I let her have her way!
Yes, the old ice tray had sat propped against the side of the garbage can, pitted, scratched, it's old handle loose and the release sprung from constant use of being pulled out of the refrigerator and called into use. Its scars ran deep from the constant use it had received over untold years. But, somehow I can't help but believe that old tray felt a sense of relief as we pulled it from its hiding place. Once again someone appreciated its value.
Someday Mama's old whetstone will pop up out of nowhere just as my favorite ice tray did. When it does, I hope she gets as much pleasure finding it and remembering all the knives she and Daddy sharpened over the years, as I did finding my double ice tray.
I have few doubts the ice tray will meet its final resting place in the garbage dump instead of a garbage can it had been stored in, because it will have no value to my children in keeping it. They don't share those childhood memories. They have no attachment to a piece of aluminum like I did. But for the present time it's still being preserved by someone who did appreciate its worth here. Me.
In plundering around I found something I had written September 23, 1994. It was part of a childhood memory. and I thought it would be fun to make it a part of my blog. Since this was originally written things have changed. I no longer have my Mama here with me to search for things and share her old memories with me, but I do have my memories. Here goes:
September 23, 1994
It all started as a result of Mama searching for an old whetstone. We had made our trip to the basement of her house, moving old metal trash cans from their perch on top of each other.
She knew she had last seen her old whetstone packed in one of those garbage cans when she had made the move to the new house. The house she had moved into 16 plus years before from the house that had been her home since she, as a young bride 66 years earlier, had taken up residency alongside her new husband. They had begun "housekeeping" in her new mother and father-in-law's two-story house which also accomodated several brothers and sisters, along with their spouses who still remained at home.
Mama was unsuccessful in her attempt to find the old whetstone, but she had unearthed a treasure to her daughter. Just like the old whetstone was now eluding her mother, the new found treasure had been a lost cause for her daughter for many years.
It was battered and worn. It showed the effects of the many years of use it had endured. Almost daily use. Hardly a person would have seen the worth of the old aluminum tray, but to me it held loads of wonderful childhood memories.
It had held its own set of memories for my mother. It had originally been a part of the very first electrically-run refrigerator she had ever owned. Her first in-home food keeper had been an old Koolerator Ice Box, and yes, I myself have memories of that old icebox sitting in our dining room, sometimes leaking the overflowing water from the box onto the wooden floor. Along with the other conveniences of her new Frigidaire was a set of ice trays. Your usual kind and a kind that is not easy to find today. A double-sized ice tray. For convenience, it held two dividers for the ice.
My memories aren't particularly of using the dividers for making ice. My memories are from what my Mama used the ice tray for. Not only did we farm the land for a living, we had plenty of cows in those days. Those cows provided an abundance of milk and butter not only for our family of six but also for many members of the town's community. My Daddy would "peddle milk" -- mostly buttermilk, very seldom sweet milk -- as well as butter to the people around the Mill Village and surrounding areas of town. We would have milk over-flowing from our new refrigerator and in the very beginning over-flow of the over-flow of milk would be stored in the gallon jugs in the spring near the house where I was born and where I spent the first two years of my life. Years later, the old Coke machines were called into duty and were filled with water and kept ice cold for the milk until Daddy could make his milk runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays of each week.
Our daily diet consisted of milk and more milk, served with even more milk. Our day ended with our meal of supper with any left-over vegetables from our dinner (noon meal). We also had the choice of sweet milk or buttermilk, sweet milk and sweet milk, buttermilk and buttermilk. My choice would inevitably be Buttermilk and Buttermilk.
We crumbled left-over cornbread into our ice-cold buttermilk for one of the best gourmet meals anyone could ever hope to be served. The only time Mama would manage to ruin that cornbread was at hog-killing time when she felt it necessary to throw in cracklins'. I hated biting down on those little chunks of cooked-down fat meat. Sometimes she would make the cornbread half and half, leaving me with some without the cracklins'. (It was not a pretty sight when I accidentally bit into one of those little nasties.)
But before we sat down to our supper we were always treated to an afternoon treat of ice cream. Homemade ice cream my mother had made earlier in the day. Sometimes it would be chocolate. Sometimes it would be vanilla and sometimes it would be a choice of either or both. She would use her new Frigidaire double ice tray to freeze the ice cream along with two big kidney-shaped pans which had come with some cookware from her past.
Before my mother went to the field each morning she would start her dinner of fresh vegetables so most of it would be ready when she came home from working in the fields. She also used that time to make our ice cream. When she came home for dinner, someone, usually my sister chose that job, would scrape the ice cream. My sister liked this job because there were lots of delicious rewards for the person scraping the ice cream.
She would break up chunks of the rich cream-topped ice cream and turn them over to reveal even more lucious-looking bottoms. All the goodness had settled down. Scrumptious bottoms of pure sugar had fallen down. With a large vegetable spoon she would scrape that goodness and enjoy it as she scraped, finally blending it with the remaining top layers of pure cream. Then back to the freezer until after lunch or for afternoon snack. This made the absolutely best rich, creamy ice cream you ever put into your mouth.
There was always plenty left for my brother and me when we stepped off the bus every afternoon. You could never have convinced me of that then, however. My brother played on my selfishness by continuing to dip into the ice cream tray making me believe he was taking every dab of ice cream leaving me with none. That had been the highlight of my entire school day, looking forward to that wonderful ice cream when I got home from school, and I wasn't crazy about the idea of having to share any of it with him in the first place!
I wonder how many times my Mama wished she had never made ice cream to begin with because of the fights he started over that ice cream. I guess we were just lucky she had too much milk on her hands and had to get rid of it somehow.
As I think back now, it wasn't just the taste of that ice cream that made that tray so special. It represented the love my mother had for her husband and four children made her make that ice cream day after day, especially since it added one more job to her already long list of things to do each day.
It also represented the memories of my sister scraping the ice cream and my fights with my brother over it. It also reminded me of the times we would leave the ice tray part in and and freeze the ice cream and pull the handle up to pop those big chunks easily out of the tray. They popped out so much more easily than ice did.
Some things haven't changed over the years, and yet some have. My Mother still loves us; my sister still insists on having the first and the best of whatever; but my brother and I don't fight over the ice cream anymore. I'll gladly share with him and I know he would do the same for me, and most times I'll willingly surrender to the pecking order my sister has over me! But it's still fun to hassle her before I let her have her way!
Yes, the old ice tray had sat propped against the side of the garbage can, pitted, scratched, it's old handle loose and the release sprung from constant use of being pulled out of the refrigerator and called into use. Its scars ran deep from the constant use it had received over untold years. But, somehow I can't help but believe that old tray felt a sense of relief as we pulled it from its hiding place. Once again someone appreciated its value.
Someday Mama's old whetstone will pop up out of nowhere just as my favorite ice tray did. When it does, I hope she gets as much pleasure finding it and remembering all the knives she and Daddy sharpened over the years, as I did finding my double ice tray.
I have few doubts the ice tray will meet its final resting place in the garbage dump instead of a garbage can it had been stored in, because it will have no value to my children in keeping it. They don't share those childhood memories. They have no attachment to a piece of aluminum like I did. But for the present time it's still being preserved by someone who did appreciate its worth here. Me.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Ten absolutely, totally useless things #2
2. As an 8th grader I was second place winner in the spelling bee contest for my school. I have absolutely no recollection of the word that thrust me into that up-coming nightmare competition.
I'm pretty confident in saying it most likely wasn't the humongous word 'supercalifragilisticexpialidosis'. I didn't become familiar with that word until after I left home for the 'big, big city'.
Obviously, based on the word I missed in real competition, however, it couldn't have been much bigger than the word, "I" or "we". (We also won't go into a whole lot of detail about how many students there were in my eighth grade class. This was a very rural school and...well, you understand, I'm sure.)
I was tripped up by a very difficult word: ‘see-kah'. (Based on the very simpleness of that tad of information, it's pretty apparent there were at least two of us in the class, huh? And one of us could spell better than the other, right? That and the fact that I came in at least second place, as I mentioned above. Those were clues for you too, yes? But at least I placed, I'm proud to say. At least in the first competition.)
This little country girl, bedeviled with lots of jangled nerves from the pressures of standing in front of a large audience comprised of obviously much richer kids, snooty-tooty city teachers and just everybody in general, couldn’t understand a so-called high falluting, foreign speaking ‘speech teacher’ from the big city (to me) as she attempted to 'sue proper-lay pro-nahnze the woord.'
I still to this day remember the total humiliation of missing that word, especially when I finally figured out what she was trying to say. At that point it was way too late to salvage my dignity in that competition.
Of course I knew how to spell it. I just couldn't understand her pro-nahn-z-a-shun. Oh, she really did destroy that poor word. And what she didn't do, I finished off spelling it.
I personally believe Miss Proper was just being vindictive and didn't want anybody from one of those little rural schools to come in and show up the 'big city' school by winning first place. Or, maybe sub-consciously I was attempting to sabotage my spot in history, since I could never have gone any further without a complete nervous break down.
Perhaps it would have been understandable if I hadn’t known what she was talking about because we came from a cigar-free family. I didn’t say tobacco-free, just cigar-free family. That’s a whole ‘nother story for ‘nother day!
Being a part of the competition did reward me with an adorable, hot little store-bought dress with a waist fitted up to the bustline to show off my trim little waistline and whatever else there was to show off. Dare I say, I wore it well. It was a red/burgandy short-sleeved dress with black print. It made me feel all big and grown up like. Umm huh, it did, indeedy. And being store-bought made it worth the humiliation of losing out on a silly word like 'see-kar'. (See what car? What kinda car?) "Could you spell that word for me, please?"
We had our picture made as a group that day...winners and losers alike. The best of the best, or the best of the worst. Thank goodness they never mentioned the words we missed nor the round we were cut from the competition. But each of us was important that one day...important enough to have our picture printed in the local county newspaper. Did I mention it was The Only County Newspaper! Yep, the same one I wrote for all those years that I mentioned in yesterday's blog. Maybe the fact that I won the spelling contest for my class had a little influence on them letting me write for them? Maybe, just maybe? At least they never found out the word I missed. Not as far as I know, anyway.
Thanks, Big Sis, for being the one responsible for footing the bill for the dress. I know without your generosity I would never have gotten that cute little dress and flaunted my cute little waistline and...! It was lots of fun tromping around town with you and Mama, with me trying on and finding the perfect dress. Almost as much fun as looking for The Perfect Wedding Dress. Sorry if I disappointed you by not excelling further in that contest. Every penny that dress cost you was well worth it to me.
Might I add here, since high school in the big city was coming up the next fall, I was very careful to make sure I was never in one of Miss Proper's classes. Nuhhh, not me.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she spent the entire summer just dreaming about having me in her class. Yep, I'll just bet she did. She probably marked my name down in her book that day and said, "I con't wait to get thot young lay-dee in my closs." But I sure disappointed her. I was going nowhere near that woman again. Not ever! I had suffered enough humiliation from her to last me a lifetime.
If truth be known, she's probably the very reason I've needed therapy all these years. All because she couldn't pronounce cigar! No wonder I've suffered from migraines most of my life. Maybe I'll run that by my therapist at our next session. Yes, I think I shawl.
I'm pretty confident in saying it most likely wasn't the humongous word 'supercalifragilisticexpialidosis'. I didn't become familiar with that word until after I left home for the 'big, big city'.
Obviously, based on the word I missed in real competition, however, it couldn't have been much bigger than the word, "I" or "we". (We also won't go into a whole lot of detail about how many students there were in my eighth grade class. This was a very rural school and...well, you understand, I'm sure.)
I was tripped up by a very difficult word: ‘see-kah'. (Based on the very simpleness of that tad of information, it's pretty apparent there were at least two of us in the class, huh? And one of us could spell better than the other, right? That and the fact that I came in at least second place, as I mentioned above. Those were clues for you too, yes? But at least I placed, I'm proud to say. At least in the first competition.)
This little country girl, bedeviled with lots of jangled nerves from the pressures of standing in front of a large audience comprised of obviously much richer kids, snooty-tooty city teachers and just everybody in general, couldn’t understand a so-called high falluting, foreign speaking ‘speech teacher’ from the big city (to me) as she attempted to 'sue proper-lay pro-nahnze the woord.'
I still to this day remember the total humiliation of missing that word, especially when I finally figured out what she was trying to say. At that point it was way too late to salvage my dignity in that competition.
Of course I knew how to spell it. I just couldn't understand her pro-nahn-z-a-shun. Oh, she really did destroy that poor word. And what she didn't do, I finished off spelling it.
I personally believe Miss Proper was just being vindictive and didn't want anybody from one of those little rural schools to come in and show up the 'big city' school by winning first place. Or, maybe sub-consciously I was attempting to sabotage my spot in history, since I could never have gone any further without a complete nervous break down.
Perhaps it would have been understandable if I hadn’t known what she was talking about because we came from a cigar-free family. I didn’t say tobacco-free, just cigar-free family. That’s a whole ‘nother story for ‘nother day!
Being a part of the competition did reward me with an adorable, hot little store-bought dress with a waist fitted up to the bustline to show off my trim little waistline and whatever else there was to show off. Dare I say, I wore it well. It was a red/burgandy short-sleeved dress with black print. It made me feel all big and grown up like. Umm huh, it did, indeedy. And being store-bought made it worth the humiliation of losing out on a silly word like 'see-kar'. (See what car? What kinda car?) "Could you spell that word for me, please?"
We had our picture made as a group that day...winners and losers alike. The best of the best, or the best of the worst. Thank goodness they never mentioned the words we missed nor the round we were cut from the competition. But each of us was important that one day...important enough to have our picture printed in the local county newspaper. Did I mention it was The Only County Newspaper! Yep, the same one I wrote for all those years that I mentioned in yesterday's blog. Maybe the fact that I won the spelling contest for my class had a little influence on them letting me write for them? Maybe, just maybe? At least they never found out the word I missed. Not as far as I know, anyway.
Thanks, Big Sis, for being the one responsible for footing the bill for the dress. I know without your generosity I would never have gotten that cute little dress and flaunted my cute little waistline and...! It was lots of fun tromping around town with you and Mama, with me trying on and finding the perfect dress. Almost as much fun as looking for The Perfect Wedding Dress. Sorry if I disappointed you by not excelling further in that contest. Every penny that dress cost you was well worth it to me.
Might I add here, since high school in the big city was coming up the next fall, I was very careful to make sure I was never in one of Miss Proper's classes. Nuhhh, not me.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she spent the entire summer just dreaming about having me in her class. Yep, I'll just bet she did. She probably marked my name down in her book that day and said, "I con't wait to get thot young lay-dee in my closs." But I sure disappointed her. I was going nowhere near that woman again. Not ever! I had suffered enough humiliation from her to last me a lifetime.
If truth be known, she's probably the very reason I've needed therapy all these years. All because she couldn't pronounce cigar! No wonder I've suffered from migraines most of my life. Maybe I'll run that by my therapist at our next session. Yes, I think I shawl.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Coconut Baby Dolls
Even though Christmas is behind us at this point, I wanted to relate something I had intended including during the Christmas holidays, and just got too busy with other things and forgot to include it.
When my Mother was a young girl each Christmas Santa Claus would bring her a coconut as part of her Christmas. She would carry that little coconut around until finally her mother or daddy would get it from her and use it in the baking.
I never got one myself from Santa, but I can imagine it must have been lots of fun having a Coconut Baby Doll to love for a few days. It must have been just as sad when its little face was cracked and all the goodies were removed! I'm sure most of you have seen a whole coconut at some point in your life time, with it's little eyes, nose and mouth. You punctured those holes with an ice pick and drained all the coconut milk from the insides and used it to help make your coconut cakes moist and delicious..
The goodie was very hard to get out of the shell. It required a good whack or two with a hammer. And then when you did get it opened there was still all the brown inner tough skin that had to be pried out and then peeled from the white coconut. Then came the grating. There were a few bummed up knuckles from getting them too close to the coconut. It was all very time-consuming but my Mother could bake a good coconut cake, especially at Christmas.
I'm sure she never worked with a coconut without having happy childhood memories rush over her as she worked.
I had intended to get The Little Princess a coconut for Christmas this past year, just to share a tradition fondly remembered by her Great Grandmother. I forgot this year, but maybe next year I'll be better at remembering. She'll be able to better appreciate it next year anyway.
When my Mother was a young girl each Christmas Santa Claus would bring her a coconut as part of her Christmas. She would carry that little coconut around until finally her mother or daddy would get it from her and use it in the baking.
I never got one myself from Santa, but I can imagine it must have been lots of fun having a Coconut Baby Doll to love for a few days. It must have been just as sad when its little face was cracked and all the goodies were removed! I'm sure most of you have seen a whole coconut at some point in your life time, with it's little eyes, nose and mouth. You punctured those holes with an ice pick and drained all the coconut milk from the insides and used it to help make your coconut cakes moist and delicious..
The goodie was very hard to get out of the shell. It required a good whack or two with a hammer. And then when you did get it opened there was still all the brown inner tough skin that had to be pried out and then peeled from the white coconut. Then came the grating. There were a few bummed up knuckles from getting them too close to the coconut. It was all very time-consuming but my Mother could bake a good coconut cake, especially at Christmas.
I'm sure she never worked with a coconut without having happy childhood memories rush over her as she worked.
I had intended to get The Little Princess a coconut for Christmas this past year, just to share a tradition fondly remembered by her Great Grandmother. I forgot this year, but maybe next year I'll be better at remembering. She'll be able to better appreciate it next year anyway.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Tuesday, December 25, 2007 - The best Christmas present ever!!!
This particular blog and date deserves a separate entry from my regular Christmas Day Blog. Not that the entire day wasn’t special. It was. But because this is about a very special gift I got on Christmas Day from a very good friend.
We swap gifts at Christmas with our friends in Florida. She has always been the best gift shopper and always knows just exactly what you would like for Christmas. I fall short by far, but her creativity is the best in the world, in my opinion.
Our Christmas presents from them arrived in the mail a few weeks before Christmas with an e-mail telling us to look for the package, but unless I wanted my surprise to be spoiled, I shouldn’t open it until Christmas.
Christmas morning I opened the box and inside was a framed picture and a letter from her. I decided I would not look too closely at the picture, and I would read the letter after seeing what was in the box because I knew the surprise would be gone if I read the letter.
Inside the box was the most precious tea set anybody could hope to own. There were three saucers, three small plates and two cups in pastel colors. Not plastic, but the kind that were made of glass as in long time ago, nice tea sets every little girl dreams of having.
The picture was made in 1943 and was a picture of my friend, her sister and a friend of theirs all sitting at a little table with the tea set on the table. (And the table was set using a cute little child-sized tablecloth.) They were having a tea party with some of the dishes she had given me. She pointed out they were in the Sunday navy taffeta dresses , dressed for tea! Her mother had taken the picture and had documented the date on the picture, which made it even more special to me.
During the summer her mother and the two little girls would go to a rented cottage at a beach at Ocean Grove, Massachusetts where they would stay the entire summer. Their father and her Grandpa would come from the city to join them on the weekends. (What more fun could there be than to be able to afford to spend the entire summer at the beach?) She said they swam, dug clams, picked blueberries, played games and had their tea parties. (The cottage they stayed in during those summers was blown away in the hurricane of 1954.) She doesn’t know why her mother packed the tea set up that particular summer and brought it along, but she had the picture documenting the time they used it there. My friend doesn’t remember when they first got the tea set, whether it had been the Christmas before or if they had it longer.
She had heard me mention earlier that I had bought some dessert dishes that went with my Butterfly Meadow dishes from Lenox that my daughter had given me years ago when that pattern first came out. I told my friend I was planning to make those dishes special for the Little Princess and she and I would use them for our tea parties and eat from them when she came to visit after she was older. She said she had decided them she would give me that tea set for Christmas! Later she would read on this blog site that I had recently bought a little Fisher-Price tea set for Little Princess to use at her house and mine. I think she thought that might diminish the surprise or fun of giving me those dishes. I think I had already received them in the mail from her before I posted that blog. I sure am glad because I would have hated her deciding I didn’t really need the tea set from her past just because of a little plastic tea set. Never in million years would I choose plastic over those beautiful dishes she sent me!
Someday when The Little Princess can understand the concept of not knocking the dishes all over the floor, she and I can pull out the set and play with it. Maybe. Maybe not! Those dishes have at least close to 65 years on them. Maybe I’ll just keep them in a safe place and show them to her all along and tell her where they came from, show her the picture and read my friend’s special letter, and let her know someday she might inherit them. If she’s lucky.
In her closing paragraph my friend told me why she had given me the dishes and said, “I hope you will enjoy them and maybe you will think of me when (the Little Princess) comes to tea.” Oh, that goes without saying! I’ll make sure The Little Princess knows the history.
My daughter asked me if I was going to be sure to keep the letter and picture with the tea set. She had to ask? She knew the answer. She was just trying to make sure I understood the importance of keeping it all together. Of course I do.
How many times do you have a friend who would give you something that valuable? A part of her very own childhood. I, myself, am quite a bit more selfish, I think!
Thanks, my friend. That’s got to be the best Christmas present I can ever remember getting!
We swap gifts at Christmas with our friends in Florida. She has always been the best gift shopper and always knows just exactly what you would like for Christmas. I fall short by far, but her creativity is the best in the world, in my opinion.
Our Christmas presents from them arrived in the mail a few weeks before Christmas with an e-mail telling us to look for the package, but unless I wanted my surprise to be spoiled, I shouldn’t open it until Christmas.
Christmas morning I opened the box and inside was a framed picture and a letter from her. I decided I would not look too closely at the picture, and I would read the letter after seeing what was in the box because I knew the surprise would be gone if I read the letter.
Inside the box was the most precious tea set anybody could hope to own. There were three saucers, three small plates and two cups in pastel colors. Not plastic, but the kind that were made of glass as in long time ago, nice tea sets every little girl dreams of having.
The picture was made in 1943 and was a picture of my friend, her sister and a friend of theirs all sitting at a little table with the tea set on the table. (And the table was set using a cute little child-sized tablecloth.) They were having a tea party with some of the dishes she had given me. She pointed out they were in the Sunday navy taffeta dresses , dressed for tea! Her mother had taken the picture and had documented the date on the picture, which made it even more special to me.
During the summer her mother and the two little girls would go to a rented cottage at a beach at Ocean Grove, Massachusetts where they would stay the entire summer. Their father and her Grandpa would come from the city to join them on the weekends. (What more fun could there be than to be able to afford to spend the entire summer at the beach?) She said they swam, dug clams, picked blueberries, played games and had their tea parties. (The cottage they stayed in during those summers was blown away in the hurricane of 1954.) She doesn’t know why her mother packed the tea set up that particular summer and brought it along, but she had the picture documenting the time they used it there. My friend doesn’t remember when they first got the tea set, whether it had been the Christmas before or if they had it longer.
She had heard me mention earlier that I had bought some dessert dishes that went with my Butterfly Meadow dishes from Lenox that my daughter had given me years ago when that pattern first came out. I told my friend I was planning to make those dishes special for the Little Princess and she and I would use them for our tea parties and eat from them when she came to visit after she was older. She said she had decided them she would give me that tea set for Christmas! Later she would read on this blog site that I had recently bought a little Fisher-Price tea set for Little Princess to use at her house and mine. I think she thought that might diminish the surprise or fun of giving me those dishes. I think I had already received them in the mail from her before I posted that blog. I sure am glad because I would have hated her deciding I didn’t really need the tea set from her past just because of a little plastic tea set. Never in million years would I choose plastic over those beautiful dishes she sent me!
Someday when The Little Princess can understand the concept of not knocking the dishes all over the floor, she and I can pull out the set and play with it. Maybe. Maybe not! Those dishes have at least close to 65 years on them. Maybe I’ll just keep them in a safe place and show them to her all along and tell her where they came from, show her the picture and read my friend’s special letter, and let her know someday she might inherit them. If she’s lucky.
In her closing paragraph my friend told me why she had given me the dishes and said, “I hope you will enjoy them and maybe you will think of me when (the Little Princess) comes to tea.” Oh, that goes without saying! I’ll make sure The Little Princess knows the history.
My daughter asked me if I was going to be sure to keep the letter and picture with the tea set. She had to ask? She knew the answer. She was just trying to make sure I understood the importance of keeping it all together. Of course I do.
How many times do you have a friend who would give you something that valuable? A part of her very own childhood. I, myself, am quite a bit more selfish, I think!
Thanks, my friend. That’s got to be the best Christmas present I can ever remember getting!
Sunday, December 9, 2007
A little of this and a little of that...
When we kept the Little Princess on Wednesday and Friday of this past week we learned a few things as I mentioned earlier. Another thing we are working on is learning to stack our hands. You know the little child game, you put your hand on the top of the table, I stack mine on top, you add your hand, I add mine, one on one with the hand on the bottom removed and stacked on top. It's a silly little game but usually one that entertains a child for a little while at least. She hasn't gotten it down quite pat just yet, but she's coming along with it.
Her mommy called earlier in the day to see if we had been working with her about something pertaining to one of her bunny books. It sounds like she's hopping or trying to hop. I'm not sure exactly. Maybe if I saw what she's doing I could tell whether we had done it before, but right now I don't think it's anything we've done. I get blamed for lots of things she does, but I'm not sure this one is something I can take blame/credit for.
Did I mentioned she's destined to be a music director or conductor. When her music plays she loves to move those little hands in concert mode and keep time to the music. And I think she's pretty good at it, too.
I can't remember if I covered this Friday or not, so I'll add it just to make sure. While we were at the restaurant and after The Little Princess had finished her meal, I offered her a wipe to clean up the mess from the table. Not the diner's mat, because that would have been a big mistake. I had to clean that myself because once she's finished that becomes a major problem. I tried to teach her to wipe her spot on the table in front of her, so she could be helpful when she gets back home to mommy. Mommy needs all the help she can get. And I handed her another clean wipe to let her clean her face. She hates having her face washed. (She needs a good puppy around her house to help keep that little face licked clean. Cats are just too self-absorbed to lower themselves to the task of cleaning a baby's face.) She began to get the knack of how and what she was supposed to do. I had told her it would be better for her to wipe her face than have Grandmomma wipe it because she might not like how fast Grandmomma would have to work. And Grandmomma's gentle compared to her mommy.
Her mommy reminds me so much of my own mother. She was rough! I thought she would wipe the hide off of me before she stopped. And that brings up another memory of my mother. She had the coldest hands! Summer or winter, spring or fall, it didn't matter. She would stick those cold hands over on my face whenever she thought I was sick. And apparently I must have been a pretty sickly child because I grew to expect those hands at any time day or night. I hated seeing them headed toward me! I drew back in horror everytime! And she always used the backs of her hand to test my temperature. Had I had a temperature, she would surely have caused it to break once she touched me. But then, those little hands of hers were constantly in water either washing up dishes or things pertaining to the milk supplies.
Today has been a very unusually warm day here. It's so hard to believe it is already this many days into December and a long sleeved shirt is very, very hot! I guess we'll pay for it some time later on this winter. It's nice to have warm weather when you need to get Christmas shopping done, but it just feels the Christmas Spirit is missing just a bit when it feels like summer but it's almost winter.
I think this hot weather is one reason Little Princesses mommy can't get the incentive to decorate the Christmas tree they got last week end. She called wanted the "recipe" for the good-smelling cinnamon stuff I used to heat on the stove during Christmas time. You know, the secret family recipe, the Martha Stewart recipe of our family...the old water-cinnamon-cloves-orange peel recipe. She just wants to feel she's in the Christmas season. Christmas songs just haven't made the difference to her so far this year.
A few more weeks and maybe we'll all be in the mood for Christmas! And winter!
Her mommy called earlier in the day to see if we had been working with her about something pertaining to one of her bunny books. It sounds like she's hopping or trying to hop. I'm not sure exactly. Maybe if I saw what she's doing I could tell whether we had done it before, but right now I don't think it's anything we've done. I get blamed for lots of things she does, but I'm not sure this one is something I can take blame/credit for.
Did I mentioned she's destined to be a music director or conductor. When her music plays she loves to move those little hands in concert mode and keep time to the music. And I think she's pretty good at it, too.
I can't remember if I covered this Friday or not, so I'll add it just to make sure. While we were at the restaurant and after The Little Princess had finished her meal, I offered her a wipe to clean up the mess from the table. Not the diner's mat, because that would have been a big mistake. I had to clean that myself because once she's finished that becomes a major problem. I tried to teach her to wipe her spot on the table in front of her, so she could be helpful when she gets back home to mommy. Mommy needs all the help she can get. And I handed her another clean wipe to let her clean her face. She hates having her face washed. (She needs a good puppy around her house to help keep that little face licked clean. Cats are just too self-absorbed to lower themselves to the task of cleaning a baby's face.) She began to get the knack of how and what she was supposed to do. I had told her it would be better for her to wipe her face than have Grandmomma wipe it because she might not like how fast Grandmomma would have to work. And Grandmomma's gentle compared to her mommy.
Her mommy reminds me so much of my own mother. She was rough! I thought she would wipe the hide off of me before she stopped. And that brings up another memory of my mother. She had the coldest hands! Summer or winter, spring or fall, it didn't matter. She would stick those cold hands over on my face whenever she thought I was sick. And apparently I must have been a pretty sickly child because I grew to expect those hands at any time day or night. I hated seeing them headed toward me! I drew back in horror everytime! And she always used the backs of her hand to test my temperature. Had I had a temperature, she would surely have caused it to break once she touched me. But then, those little hands of hers were constantly in water either washing up dishes or things pertaining to the milk supplies.
Today has been a very unusually warm day here. It's so hard to believe it is already this many days into December and a long sleeved shirt is very, very hot! I guess we'll pay for it some time later on this winter. It's nice to have warm weather when you need to get Christmas shopping done, but it just feels the Christmas Spirit is missing just a bit when it feels like summer but it's almost winter.
I think this hot weather is one reason Little Princesses mommy can't get the incentive to decorate the Christmas tree they got last week end. She called wanted the "recipe" for the good-smelling cinnamon stuff I used to heat on the stove during Christmas time. You know, the secret family recipe, the Martha Stewart recipe of our family...the old water-cinnamon-cloves-orange peel recipe. She just wants to feel she's in the Christmas season. Christmas songs just haven't made the difference to her so far this year.
A few more weeks and maybe we'll all be in the mood for Christmas! And winter!
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