Better (well) Read than Dead

An old high school friend of mine (who doesn't have children) recently posted on Facebook:

A co-worker says that once you have kids, you don't time to read anymore. Is this true?

The long list of comments then reiterated what the co-worker said, talking about how motherhood prevents them from having the time to read.

I just wanted to yell out, NO! DON'T BELIEVE THEM! IT'S NOT TRUE!

I'm posting my "Shelfari" list on the top of this blog to prove that moms do read. I've been in a book club for over five years now and I love the variety of books and genres this gets me to read. I'm constantly going up to my friends (and I'll admit it, even strangers) and asking them what they're reading. My kids know that every night at 8:30 PM is "mom's reading time." Even my cat knows it (she knows that that means cuddle time).

I'm lucky in that my work gives us a paid day off every year for our birthday, and I use that day to lay in bed all day reading. My daughter, Frances, is now a total book worm, too. She constantly has a book in her hands (I'm hoping the other two will follow suit).

Now my mother, Dot, has always been an avid reader. Even with nine kids and five foster kids and running a daycare center out of her home (yes, we were THAT house in the neighborhood), she was always reading. She makes a point of reading all the Newbery Award winners (something I also do) and she loves, loves, loves Charles Dickens.

Don't have time to read because you have kids? Then read aloud to your children! Even the most adult books will have something you can read to them. My children love David Sedaris books -- though I read to them very edited chapters (they especially like the dying mouse story).

All I can say is, better (well) read than dead.

It's All Greek to Me

Yesterday Nigel and I went out to lunch at a new Greek restaurant in town. I had heard that it was run by actual Greek people, so I was pretty excited. (The other night we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant and there wasn't a SINGLE Chinese person in the place. Not one! No Chinese people eating, working or cooking. With over 1.3 billion Chinese people in the world, I don't even see how that's statistically possible)

Sure enough, the men working there were very Greek, there were Greek flags everywhere (though they neglected to take the Bavarian cuckoo clock from off the wall from the prior restaurant's decor), and the food was delicious.

The best part? This was listed on the menu:

SIDE OF HOMOS & PITA 4.25

I could just see myself saying, "Why yes, I would like a side of homos with my pita." This is probably the first time in my life I wish I had one those camera phones.

You've got to understand, I love things like that. Maybe it's because of the girl in my high school from Taiwan who had her "Charlie Brown & Spoopy" book bag. Or maybe my Japanese roommate in college and her "Happy New York" sweater. Or my neighbor from Brazil and her son's "Winnie The Puff" teddy bear. Or my husband's tres leches birthday cake from the Mexican market down the street that said "Hoppy Birthdoy."

I think it brings me such joy because I am SOOOOO terrible at other languages. I'm in awe of anyone that can come to a different country and learn another language. I have taken years of French, German, Japanese and Chinese and I can't say a word in any of these languages. I come from a long line of people who can't speak another language. Case in point: many years ago my parents went to Germany to visit my brother in the military. They even took German language classes in preparation for their trip. Once there, they were at a shop counting out their money and my father went from counting in German to Spanish to English to APACHE! Yes, Dad, when you can't remember your German, go for Apache! That's the universal language ALL Europeans understand!

I just hope that the Greek restaurant doesn't change their menu. I think it's perfect just the way it is and will certainly bring me back for more (food and smiles).

Oops, I Did It Again!

When I was a little girl, I loved writing letters and making my own cards, stationery, postcards, etc. One day I made a postcard with a short note on it for my grandparents. Later that day my mother told me that she had a stamp ready for my postcard. I just looked at her strangely and said, "But I already have a stamp for it." My mother asked me where I got it from. "I drew it on myself, " I answered. She asked where the postcard was and I said that I had already mailed it in the mailbox down the street.

This threw her in a tizzy and she hurried down the street to the mailbox. She noted when the mail pick-up time was and returned to the mailbox and waited and waited and waited for the mailman to pick up the mail, with stamp in hand.

The mailman never came.

She waited the next day, he never came.

Finally she gave up. Oh well, it's just one little postcard lost in the mail.

A few days later my mother was surprised to get a phone call from her mother-in-law saying that they had received the cutest little postcard in the mail from me -- complete with hand-drawn stamp.

Well, last week I was again making my own postcards and mailing them out to friends and family. I made sure to use real stamps this time, but then found out -- too late -- that my postcards were much too large for postcard stamps, they needed full first class stamps.

Oh well, more postcards lost in the mail.

How surprised was I when I got a call from my family thanking me for the cute postcards.

Thank you, United States Postal Service.

Speaking of lawns...

A great book to read if you're interested in lawns is:

"American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn"

by Ted Steinberg.

It's kind of the "Fast Food Nation" of lawn care.

I found this book fascinating and I don't even own a lawn! It goes into the history of lawns, the inside scoop on how the lawncare industry works, etc.

Of course, growing up we just had a front dirt. Since our backyard was totally overtaken by my mother's gardening, we could only play in the front yard. Thus, our poor lawn was soon turned into a baseball diamond (complete with dirt area for the pitcher's mound) and a golf course (including empty tuna fish cans sunk into the ground for holes). I'm still surprised that the neighbors didn't run us out of town (or that my mother didn't drown us at birth).

Maybe we were just ahead of our time with showing how ridiculous people can be about their lawns.

No Blood For Oil

But what about "Plasma For Food"?

Yes, in my quest for food storage, I've joined the ranks of college students and the homeless -- today I sold my plasma.

For those of you who haven't enjoyed this pastime, here's how it went:

I called up the nearest plasma center (yes, there are THREE in my town) and made an appointment and found out what all I had to bring.

Just before arriving, I made sure to eat lots of meat and drink plenty of fluids.

I arrived at the place and had to show them a photo ID, my social security card and proof of my address.

The last one was kind of tricky. Since my driver's license STILL has my sister Lorna's address on it, I had to bring in a postmarked envelope with my name and address on it. OK. Who writes letters anymore? I brought in my phone bill (no postmark since everything is "bulk mail" and it's listed under my husband's name), my pay stub (again, no postmark since they're handed to us), my mortgage statement (again, no postmark) and a letter from my mother (postmarked, but Dot is very formal and addressed it to "Mrs. Nigel," so it didn't count). My goodness, I live two blocks away! I offered to walk them to my home to prove where I live, but they weren't going for it. Finally they made copies of EVERYTHING and went with that.

Then there was a lot of waiting around.

They finally called my name and I was in a little room being quizzed on my traveling and sexual past (which luckily there's very little of either). Then they took my photo, my temperature, my weight, my blood pressure, and a sample of my blood (the iron level has to be at least 40 and mine was right on 40). Then they had THREE phlebotomists look at my veins and discuss whether they were too small or not (they decided they just might do).

Then more waiting around.

Then I was put in another little room being quizzed again about my traveling and sexual past. After being asked the same question 10 times, I began to wonder, "Maybe I have been to Equatorial Guinea. Maybe I have had a corneal implant. Maybe I did exchange money for sex since 1977." They did a physical on me (you know, the usual urine sample, reflex checks, listening to my heart and lungs, CHECKING FOR NEEDLE TRACKS BETWEEN MY TOES). My blood pressure had to be at least 100/60. Mine was 102/60. I'm telling you, I was just squeaking by all these exams.

Then more waiting around.

FINALLY, I got into the blood-letting room. The actual plasma donation was the quickest and least painful part of the whole ordeal. Just sit back, squeeze a ball, watch TV, read my book, etc. It was over much too quickly.

But, I got my 30 bucks (think of all the ramen noodles I can buy with that!) and I have a very lovely purple bandage on my arm.

Ode to Dot

H is for happy -- Dot is always happy, laughing and has a smile on her face.
A is for Albert Einstein -- she has a letter from the esteemed scientist. Not one that she bought at an auction, but an actual letter that he wrote to her!
P is for prison -- where she served as a stake missionary in her younger days.
P is for piano -- she plays beautifully and has been giving lessons for years.
Y is for youngsters -- she must love them because she had nine!

M is for mission to England with her husband, Ardale.
O is for organ -- Dot's infamous playing of "The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning" on the organ while the church was burning down.
T is for turtle sandbox -- it was right smack in the middle of our front lawn during my teenage years (so embarrassing).
H is for hospitality -- she welcomed everyone into her home (foster children, foreign exchange students, family friends, day-care kids, even a soccer team that she found stranded at the airport).
E is for elementary education -- her major in college and she loved teaching.
R is for roof -- of course, the perfect place to grow corn on!
'S is for shed -- the scary building in our backyard that she raised guinea pigs in (I must admit that I have never stepped foot in it).

D is for doctors -- she hates them and NEVER goes to them (which is quite ironic because now she works for them!).
A is for albatross -- while other mothers were reading Dr. Seuss to their kids, Dot was reading Samuel Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" to us.
Y is for yelling -- I don't ever remember her yelling. She was one of those old-school mothers who could put the fear of God in you with just one look.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I love you! You're the best!

Here she comes...

The other night on TV they had an interview with Miss Utah and it got me thinking about beauty pageants. As you may have figured out, I am not very girly, but there are some girly things that I do enjoy.

I like wearing perfume (though I can't wear it now because my work forbids it), my favorite color is pink and I absolutely love watching the Miss America pageant.

I know, here I hate wearing make-up and I never even brush my hair and I like beauty pageants? Hey, I'm not talking about that slutty Miss USA contest, this is Miss America. It's a SCHOLARSHIP pageant, people!

Maybe it stems from my youth when I used to watch the pageant with my mother, Dot, who would sit there earnestly taking notes and keeping score (I don't know why she bothered, it seemed like Miss Texas always won).

Or maybe it's because when I was young my sister, Myrna, took me to the Miss Clover City Pageant to see her friend compete. It was there that I had my first Shirley Temple and realized that when you're competing on the city level, it's best to have a sponsor with a short name (Myrna's friend didn't win, but she should've gotten a special award for having the longest sash -- since she was Miss Ed Little's Auto Service).

This year the Miss America pageant was awesome because a few days before the pageant they were on a reality show where they had to do various challenges and get makeovers ("Survivor" meets "What Not To Wear").

It was there that we got to see the leadership abilities of Miss Utah, everyone's favorite soldier. Of course, she was so un-girly that it was even driving me crazy. Those are high heels on your feet, Miss Utah, not bear traps! My five-year-old can walk in a pair of stilettos better than you!

It was also where I got to see Miss Florida freak out because she lost a contest and had to jump in a pool and she was petrified of her make-up coming off. This induced massive eye-rolling on my part. Then later on in the show you found out that Miss Florida had been in an explosion as a child and her face had blown off and she had to wear heavy make-up to cover the scars. All of a sudden she went from prissy scaredy-cat to courageous champion.

My favorite was Miss Alaska. She was brash, loud, always said the wrong thing, alienated others, ethnically insensitive, and probably a little bit mentally ill. In my mind, she was the one that perfectly personified the United States of America.

The actual pageant was kind of boring and I don't even remember who won. I just know that it wasn't Miss Utah, Miss Florida or Miss Alaska.

It's a Dog's Life...

When I was younger, we had a daycare center in our home (because my mother obviously didn't think that 9 kids and 5 foster kids were enough -- she had to have about 14 daycare kids, too).

One day I was changing a toddler's diaper on the bathroom floor when our dog came tearing into there as fast as she could, claws skidding all over the linoleum. This was quite odd because the dogs are NEVER allowed in the house and even if they did somehow get in, they never went beyond the kitchen.

Anyway, our dog went racing into the bathroom and straight for the dirty diaper! That stupid dog gobbled up this huge pooh in two bites!

Being only 10 or 11 at the time, I wasn't sure what to do. My first instinct was to grab the dog by its hind legs (it was a small Pekingese/Maltese mix) and start shaking it over the toilet yelling, "Let go! Let go!"

The grossness of what was happening suddenly hit me and I had to get out of there quick. I ran into my parents' bedroom where Rena was reading a book. She said that I was this sickly green color and couldn't speak. She put a new diaper on the child and scooted the dog out of the house.

And people wonder why I don't have a pet dog OR babysit.

Copy-Cat

I love Xerox. No, I'm not talking about my black & white cat who was a "copy" of her father, but the actual copy machine company.

Do you remember the days before copy machines? I remember watching my mother, Dot, typing out her piano recital programs on her old Underwood typewriter (you know, the ones that weighed 6,000 pounds and you had to type slow so that the keys wouldn't get all tangled up in knots) and then walking down the street to the local print shop. There a man would set up a machine about the size of a VW Bug in order to print out those little programs. It was an all day affair.

Remember those old mimeographs from school? The purple ink, the paper was always slightly damp and the whole class would be getting high smelling the copies? Oh, those were the days.

Does anyone else remember making some type of jello compound and then somehow transferring ink to the surface and making copies from that? Or did I dream that?

Now we can just get on the computer or run down to the local Kinko's and do whatever our little heads can imagine. It's so easy, so quick, so inexpensive, so professional looking.

But then again, are we making too many copies? You go to a class or to a meeting and you're inundated with papers. You glance at them once and in the trash they go. We spend so much time making these cutesy little hand-outs and fliers and I don't know about you, but I just end up throwing them away as soon as I get home (I don't throw them away in front of whomever made them because I know they're expecting me to stick them in my "scrapbook" and keep them forever).

Oh, Xerox, maybe I do mean my cat and not the copy machine company.

"Milk Duds!"

I love Gremlins. Not the little creatures that turn evil if you feed them after midnight, but the cars. My friend's brother had a Gremlin (OK, it was actually a Pacer). Such a groovy 1970s space mobile. The huge window in the back, the curvy lines, awesome.

I love weird cars. You know, the kinds of cars that would make my sister, Rena, duck in embarrassment for fear one of her cheerleader teammates might spy her.

My mother, Dot, would purchase her cars based on how many bags of manure she could fit in the back (you know, for growing corn on the roof of our house), so she always had a huge station wagon. Her station wagon could seat 12 -- for dinner. It was gigantic!

My father, Ardale, would purchase a variety of cars, but they were always decked out with so many Ham radio antennas that it was sheer terror driving under a bridge or into a parking garage (remember the infamous Westside Pavillion experience, Rena?).

Since we never pay more than $1.00 for our cars, they tend to have fun personality quarks such as only being able to turn right or the fact that you can only enter though one door and exit through a different door. I keep trying to get Nigel to hand paint our car, but he hasn't done it yet.

I must admit that I always smile when I see an old beater car that's two-tone rust and held together with duct tape. Now that's some people I want to meet! Even more so if they're driving a Gremlin.

BFF

I love my friends. I still keep in touch with most of my friends from high school. Of course, they're so awesome that my mother, Dot, would write about THEM in her Christmas newsletters instead of writing about ME.

I think that's why I had such a hard time in college. I went from having this huge group of wonderful friends (loyal, accepting, hard working, friendly, fun, smart, and best of all they always made me want to be a better person) to no friends at all. I had roommates (TONS of roommates) that I would hang around with, but not anyone that was a close friend. In fact, I don't keep in touch with any of my college acquaintances.

I didn't realize how much I depended on my friends until they weren't there. My high school friends made my school schedules for me, made sure I signed up for AP classes, got me to study, encouraged me to participate in school clubs and sports, etc. I wouldn't have survived without them.

Maybe that's why I eventually failed out of college. I didn't have that support group pushing me.

After I got married, I got to know Nigel's college friends. He has wonderful friends. In fact, I'm still close friends with the wives of his college friends. One more reason why I love Nigel -- his friends.

I googled one of my high school friends I had lost touch with and we began e-mailing each other. She gave me the best compliment. She said that I was "easy to be around."

I love that.

Ode to Otis

I love elevators. As a child, they were forbidden. My mother, Dot, is incredibly claustrophobic and the idea of willingly going into a small metal box with the doors slowly closing on her was just too much. So for us, it was the stairs or the escalator.

Now that I'm older, I go on elevators every chance I get. You get to push buttons, they light up, you get a free ride, what could be better than that?

I especially like getting in a crowded elevator and facing toward the other riders and not toward the doors. It really creeps them out and there's nothing they can do or nowhere they can go. It's great.

Once I made my old high school friends drive me to downtown LA so I could ride the glass elevators that run OUTSIDE the Bonaventure Hotel. Fabulous!

Every time I go to Las Vegas, I want to ride in the inclinators at the Luxor, but they only let you on if you have a room there. Darn!

Now that I'm a mother, I'm scared to death of escalators. Ever carry a very wiggly baby on an escalator? I'm so scared of dropping the kid over the side. Now my kids beg to go on the escalator and I always make them ride in the elevator. I guess I am turning into my mother (now if I can just figure out how to grow corn on the roof).

Visions of Sugar Plums...

Last year we started a tradition of making gingerbread houses.

OK, this is ME doing it, so I don't make gingerbread. We just use graham crackers, various candies and Dot's recipe for icing (butter, milk, vanilla, powdered sugar, food coloring).

Last year Jeffrey made a gingerbread motorhome.

This year he made the scene from "The Polar Express" where the train was breaking though the ice into the water before it got back on the tracks. Of course, in his interpretation, some of the children had fallen into a whirlpool and were being eaten by piranhas.

Now THAT's Christmassy!

A Rose By Any Other Name...

Another big box "full slip" experience today. I went from store to store trying to find a charger that does AA, AAA, C, D and 9-volt batteries. The stores would have some of the batteries, but not the charger; or they would have the charger, but not the rechargeable batteries. I was about to give up when a salesperson suggested, "Have you tried the battery store?" What? There's a battery store? We went there and the staff was friendly, knowledgeable, and they had exactly what I wanted. They now have a loyal customer for life.

Also went to Toys "R" Us, which my mother always referred to as Toys "R" Ours. She could never get the name straight.

My friend's grandma always called ShopKo, Shop-OK.

I love people who put a "the" in front of words. Such as The Food 4 Less or The Macey's.

My kids refer to Carl's Jr. as Star Burger.

When Frances was little, she always wanted to go to Donald King -- yeah, I can't tell them apart, either (though now my kids know that McDonald's has better toys).

Dot also calls the I-Max theater The Maxi. As in, "Are you going to see the Maxi?" Very humorous when we're in mixed company.

Nigel's father used to refer to Dunkin' Donuts as Drunken Donuts.

I think the funniest was my elderly neighbors who were big "Wheel of Fortune" fans. Every night the wife would yell to her husband, "Edward, Edward! 'Oh Vanna' is on!"

A Homemade Holiday

I was babysitting some children and Frances was talking about what she was going to buy people for Christmas. One of the girls I was tending looked at Frances incredulously and said, "You BUY presents? We always make ours."

Now this is a girl who was raised right.

Since I'm the baby of the family, I was always the one making the crazy home-made gifts that I know everyone hated, but they all kept them just the same.

I remember one year my mother got rid of all our decks of face cards (there must've been something in General Conference about the evil of cards or something). Now, I come from a family that LOVES to play cards. What will we do without cards?

I decided to make my own, but with animals on them so that they wouldn't be "evil." Well, I'm not exactly known for my spelling skills and at the time I didn't quite understand why my brother, Clark, loved playing "Go Fish" with my homemade deck of cards. I can still hear him giggle as he would ask:

"Do you have any Loins?"

Upside-Down, Boy You Turn Me

M-A told me to write a blog about upside-down Christmas trees. I guess there's a new trend of hanging trees from the ceiling so there's more room for presents underneath. I checked it out on the Internet and was not impressed (if I was computer savvy, I would put some links -- but alas, I can barely figure out how to work the rat -- oops, I mean mouse). Does anyone else remember the Wilkinson Center Ballroom being decorated with upside-down trees hung from the high ceilings every Christmas? I guess they were trend setters.

It reminded me of one Christmas when my mother was musing over where to put the tree. She delights in rearranging the furniture and finding a new place for the tree each year.

Rena, Stillwell and I suggested that she should have the tree sticking out from the wall horizontally. Well, she was NOT amused. In fact, she said, "That's enough. Go to bed right now."

We looked at each other, shocked. Was she serious? Go to bed? It was about 3:00 in the afternoon and I was 16, Stillwell was 18 and Rena was 20!!! We shrugged our shoulders and went up to our rooms to bed.

Tradition! Tradition!

When my brother and his wife were first married, Julene asked Henry what his childhood Christmases were like. He talked about all the traditions, including getting breakfast in bed, peanuts in his stockings, putting up Christmas lists, etc. and didn't give the conversation a second thought.

When Christmas day came around, Julene surprised Henry with breakfast in bed. Henry complained, "Oatmeal! I hate oatmeal!" Julene was shocked because this was his family tradition. "No," Henry replied, "Our mom forced us to eat oatmeal so that we wouldn't make ourselves sick eating candy all day. We all despise oatmeal" (in fact, Rena and I used to throw the oatmeal out the window, Stillwell flushed it down the toilet and Spence spooned it into his sock drawer every year).

When Henry looked in his stocking, it was filled with peanuts in the shell. "Peanuts! What am I supposed to do with peanuts?" Again, Julene was confused. "But you told me you always got peanuts in your stockings." Henry answered, "Yeah, they were just used as filler so they wouldn't have to fill them with so many toys and candy" (I'm positive those same peanuts were recycled year after year).

Then Henry looked under the tree and it was filled with presents for him. Julene had given him EVERYTHING on his list. She didn't understand that our family put up lists every year, but we never expected to get the things on them -- maybe just one or two if we were lucky. Then he felt REALLY bad because he had only given Julene one or two things from her list, and she was probably expecting ALL of them!

Traditions are what make holidays great, but we should understand the meaning behind them and understand when to change them to fit our situations. I'm sure that Henry and Julene have many wonderful and new traditions they enjoy at Christmas, and I'm sure that they still laugh at their first one.

Season's Greetings

I have a love/hate relationship with holiday newsletters. I love writing them, but I loathe copying them off, addressing the envelopes, and mailing them (to be perfectly honest, I still have some from last year that I haven't mailed yet -- sorry!).

Also, it seems that I'm sending these newsletters full of "fascinating" tidbits about my family's life to people who are either very much aware of what we've been up to all year or people who really could care less. So what's the point?

I have people that I send newsletters to only because they send me newsletters. Are they only sending me newsletters because I send them newsletters? It's a vicious cycle.

Also, what's the shelf-life on newsletters? Am I supposed to keep these things forever? What about the holiday photos? Keep the ones from family and throw away the others?

Rena got fed up with the stress of getting the "perfect" family photo, so last year she sent one that actually looks like her family (kids with eyes closed, looking in the wrong direction, and/or picking noses). Now that's a photo I'm going to keep!

I'm not a total Grinch. Some newsletters are great. I love Ben's "Holiday Holler" just because of the title -- I even disregard my newsletter/resume rule for it (if it's more than one page long, I don't read it). M-A's newsletters are always hilarious (and my last few have been copies of her style -- I hope she considers it flattery). I always look forward to my mother's newsletter to see how little she writes about me (She'll write three or four paragraphs on Lorna and I'll get something like, "Lois is still alive").

The best Christmas newsletter of all time was one that I received from my friend's mother. She fancies herself a poet and one year she wrote about finding a dead body in the dumpster behind her home -- all in iambic pentameter.

I was all for boycotting a newsletter this year and I almost had Nigel talked into it, but then Geo's husband brought over a huge box of art paper, including some in the loveliest shade of green which Nigel is now enamored with. He says that HE will do the Christmas newsletter. Now, if I can just find a dead body...

Small Joys III: The Last Crusade

This is the last post in my month of gratitude. What a joy it has been to sit back and reflect on all the things I'm thankful for. It's been surprising how many simple things bring a smile to my face. One of my favorites are the small phrases that become part of my every day vocabulary because of people I've met or situations I've experienced. Here are a few:

ALL MY MAKEUP FELL IN THE TOILET THIS MORNING -- code for "I'm going to change the subject." This comes from a friend of a friend who could never keep up with the topic of conversation and would just say the strangest out of the blue things. This is especially comical because Nigel says it all the time (much to the shock of people who don't know what it means).

PLEASE PASS THE RIPLEY and WHAT DO YOU MEAN DID YOU WIN THOSE CLOTHES? -- code for "I misunderstood what you said." "Please pass the Ripley" comes from my brother, Spence, who misunderstood when his son said "Please pass the syrup, please" (we also now refer to syrup as "Ripley"). The other phrase comes from when I misunderstood my father asking "Are the windows closed" to my mother and I thought he said, "Did you win those clothes?"

SPACKY HAND -- referring to when your hand suddenly spazzes out and you drop something or accidentally hit something. This comes from Sister Spackman who had an unfortunate arm-to-industrial scone mixer encounter and would occasionally lose control of her hand (which was great because she was the ward organist and we would wait in anticipation for a "Spacky Hand" moment).

DO YOU THINK I CAN TOUCH MY KNEE TO THE CEILING? -- said before doing something very stupid that's sure to result in bodily harm. This comes from my sister, Rena, who was jumping on the bed and touching various body parts to the ceiling -- her head, her ear, her tongue, etc. Then she had the bright idea of touching her knee to the ceiling. She jumped as hard as she could and unfortunately didn't realize that her head would impact the ceiling way before her knee would.

HAPPY NEW YORK -- code for any English phrase horribly mangled on a consumer product because it was made overseas. This includes "Spoopy" book bags and "Winnie The Puff" stuffed animals.

Thankful for Wrinkles?

I love that as I get older I get the "Ardale" wrinkles. These aren't cute little laugh lines or distinguished crow's feet. These are deep furrows that run from my eyes all the way down to my jawline. I love them because they make me look like my Aunt Viv.

Aunt Viv is hilarious. She always has funny stories -- mostly about losing her glass eye. "And then my eye fell down the kitchen drain!" or "So I'm chasing after my eye as it rolls down the hallway at church!" You always want to sit at Viv's table at family reunions.

The funniest was at a wedding reception and just out of the blue Viv blurts out, "I love a good fire." She doesn't mean going camping and roasting marshmallows, she's talking about when a house or school burns down!

The best part was when my Aunt Glynnis (on Dot's side of the family) said that she also "loves a good fire." She related a story about her son-in-law coming home from a SCA party (he was in full suit of armor regalia) late at night saying that there was a good fire going on. Glynnis ran out of the house in just her nightgown and they drove up to the local "make-out spot" so they could get a good view of the fire down in the valley. Of course, a cop showed up. I could just imagine what was going through his mind when he saw this woman in her nightgown, a man dressed as a knight, at the local "lover's lane" watching a house burn down.

Oh, aren't you thankful for crazy old aunts?