Posts

the PETS!

 Do you all remember your pets through the years? One of my favorite memes is the one that shows all your pets rushing to meet you at the pearly gates (assuming that's where I'm headed...who knows?). It all started with a dog named Punch. Punch was a beagle. I was already born, and the parents thought it would be great to name him Punch (and Judi - get it?). Punch was a howler, as all beagles are. He also chewed up many things, including woodwork in our little house on Valley Rd in Lordship. I remember dressing him up and putting him in the baby carriage and walking him through the neighborhood. He sat there, in his bonnet and didn't try to get away at all! At least that's how I remember it. To hear my Mom and Dad tell it, years later, he was an escape artist, always running off to see the neighbors' dogs...as Mom got fatter that winter of 1962, Punch had to go to the farm. Nancy was born that March, and I always link that to Punch going to the farm.  The next anima...
Post a Comment
Read more

Eating Turkey

 Thanksgiving is also a time to remember those who once sat at our table with us on that Thursday...the good, the bad and yes, even the ugly. As we age, we miss them all. I won't identify which are which, as everyone has their own memories to use for those categories... My gramma (Dad's mom) split holidays...Thanksgiving with our side and Christmas with my cousins, then flip for the following year. We had to get her a coconut custard pie every year as she didn't like cinnamon...I always made apple and pumpkin. It was easy enough to get pies without going to the bakery as there are always fundraisers during November. I've even got the frozen Mrs. Smith's for her. Her last year, we had her for Thanksgiving at our house. I had forgotten all about the gravy, and figured no one would miss it...yes, I had a freakin' coconut custard pie for her. We're all settled in, my sister Nancy came running in to say hi as she was in town to see her in-laws. Gramma asked for t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mom...written to remember

   My Mom, Irene, would have been 87 today. She has been gone nearly 10 years now and I still talk to her. We miss her, of course. Her life force was still there, even at the end, yet her life quality was certainly not. As many know, dementia takes it all in the end anyway. We continue to love the bits and pieces that remain, learning to live with less and less each day. Our love stays with us, even after there are no bits left.  Irene was a force to be reckoned with, even when young. Tomboy doesn't begin to define her. She spent the first few years in Queens, NY, in the bosom of her extended family, with relatives from that big wild Irish family all around, going to Rockaway/Breezy Point on the regular, sleeping on the decks of the family houses there - the Irish Riviera. A fish in the water, she fit right in, and was loved by the cousins as well. Her aunts and uncles ignored all the kids, as was the way in the thirties and forties.  As the family got bigger and she...
Post a Comment
Read more