Happy New Year, darlings

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x o x o

Happy Weekend ~ Happy New Year

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Merry Christmas, darlings

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Merry Christmas ~ Happy Week

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Happy Birthday Dear Melanie

Melly Mel-Mel turns nine today.

Our first grandchild was born on the shortest day of 2004.

In many ways it was a difficult day. Within moments of her birth we knew Melanie had serious health issues.

They call children like Melanie "special needs" kids.

Well, I can vouch for her being special. And we need her, and she needs us.

Next year, double digits for our darling Melly.

And God is good, and we thank Him.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Weekend ~ Merry Christmas

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No stone unturned

On Monday we all met in Charlotte, North Carolina, to celebrate the birthday of granddaughter Melanie, who turns nine on December twenty-first.

First stop: The Green.

The Green is what's known as a pocket park: a grassy acre right smack dab in the middle of the city.

It's especially appealing to me because its theme is literature. 

If you're so inclined, you can stand beneath colorful signs pointing to Edgar (Wisconsin) Allan (Canada) Poe (South Carolina) and/or Emily (Minnesota) Bronte (Texas).

And there are several more authorly intersections from which to choose.

Or you can perch on giant stacks of huge bronze books, everything from Roots to Wuthering Heights.

There are oversized bronze "pages" lying here and there. And you can read them.

In summer a giant fish fountain spurts cooling water that you can wander through.

All the while, speakers embedded in walkways and retaining walls play gurgling and chirping sounds.

And there is a brick church with gothic arches. Charming.

The Green lies in the shadow of the Duke Energy Center, a most impressive skyscraper.

So there's lots to see and many places to aim one's camera.

As usual, the kids were irrepressible, running hither and yon, climbing, caroming, tumbling, falling, squealing, shrieking.

Or even occasionally, simply staring.

It was epic. I even got them to pose a few times.

Allissa was happy that this green-space visit was not like the last one she and I enjoyed together.

That would be back in October, when Erica and I took Allissa and Melanie to a cemetery. Just to walk and sight-see.

When we got out of the car, I was obliged to deliver a lecture: no running, no screaming, no leaning or sitting on tombstones.

And they were little angels.

But perhaps I've taken Allissa to one too many cemeteries (like me, she loves them).

Because on Monday night when we'd moved on to Red Robin for hamburgers, she got a trifle confused.

The subject was the set of stackable rings our daughter, Stephanie, received for her birthday last September.

As in, I asked Stephanie if she was enjoying her rings. Of course she said yes.

As we ordered various rings late in the summer to assemble Steph's knuckleful, we made sure to include stones representing each of her babies' birth months.

Blue topaz (zircon) for December, amethyst for February, and white topaz (diamond) for April.

Allissa remembered that her dad kicked in for one of the rings: the white topaz, representing the month of Allissa's own Tax Day birth.

Hence: "Dad bought the white ring," she blurted. "My tombstone."

*crickets*

You cannot make this stuff up.

Nice try, Allissa. But wrong stone.

She was quickly corrected between our collective mouthfuls of burgers and fries.

"Your BIRTHstone, Allissa," we chorused.

Oh.

She laughed at herself.

Something each of us should do more.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Wednesday ~ Merry Christmas

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Happy Birthday Dear Kay and Dear Joanna

Well has it not been a week of birthdays?

My favorite poet, Emily Dickinson, led off on the tenth. Uncle Dody followed on the eleventh.

And now my own beloved big sister and her youngest: daughter Joanna.

Joanna was born on her mother's thirty-ninth birthday.

And today Joanna turns nineteen. So you do the math.

Kay is a firstborn; Joanna is the seventh of seven children.

And although she was born in Quebec, Canada, I got to hold her when she was only eleven days old.

Yes. I went to Quebec for Christmas that year. TG took me up there. It was cold.

But now we all live in South Carolina.

Much more better. Apols, dear Irene.

Yesterday Erica and I traveled to Greenville for the birthday party.

My mother and my sister cooked up some luscious vittles and there was a confection: lemon blueberry pound cake with warm berry coulis.

And there were presents. Erica gave her Auntie Kay a beautiful decorative fleur de lis for her mantel.

Joanna got a cute painted box and a colorful scarf.

Then we took pictures. Naturally.

We parted full and happy. Erica drove home so I didn't have to. It was great.

And that is all for now.

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Merry Christmas

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