Monthly Archives: May 2013

Today is graduation day for the 2013 Class of the United States Naval Academy. I will take this opportunity to tell you a funny story.

There are a few hats in this photo. The guy wearing the white one is my brother Buck(y), who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1982. The guy with no hat is my brother Monty — who is going to see his own son (Eagle Scout Trevor) inducted to the Naval Academy Class of 2017 in just about a month. The pretty lady in the green hat is our mother, who was married to our father, a former Navy pilot. And the doll in the red hat is me, about “four months along” with the baby who will be Ginger.

I was such a proud big sister! I just wanted to walk arm in arm around the campus with Bucky. And he let me. For a little bit.

Then he whispered in my ear that I had to let go.

Wha…why?

Because nobody knows you’re my sister.

So?

Everyone thinks you’re my girlfriend. My girlfriend who is pregnant.

I would love to tell you that I immediately let go of his arm.

Fat chance! I just squeezed tighter and walked closer!

Teach him to mess with my Barbie dolls.

On May 25, my high school art teacher turns 90. And my mother, her longtime friend, told me that Mrs. Reynierson only wants homemade cards from her friends.

Holy cow. I haven’t picked up a paintbrush (for art reasons) in a hundred years. Shame on me.

I’ve been thinking about what to paint, draw, collage, to tell Mrs. Reynierson how special she is to me. And here’s what I’m sending her.

A text!

We moved from New Hampshire back to Kentucky when I was just minutes away from starting my junior year in high school. After a couple of attempts at finding a friendly table in the cafeteria, I just kind of gave up. And without really talking about it out loud, Mrs. Reynierson understood that I needed a place to be during unstructured hours. She gave me a key to the art room.

I didn’t need to escape, exactly. I needed somewhere to ponder this new place and to reinvent myself.

In the art room, I made a little corner for myself, where I painted and charcoaled, sketched and collaged. And soon, I emerged and friended.

I joined clubs, I pepped at pep rallies, and I even ran for student congress.

Mrs. Reynierson must have loved watching me find my way out of my corner and into my new life.

Because that’s what teachers do.

There are a few things that I try to remember to look for at yard sales and such. I try to remember to look for a bundle of stainless forks, because you just can’t have enough, and I don’t care about matchy-matchy at the lake house. I try to remember that I really want some of those hanging wire baskets that are small-medium-large, to hold stuff like gardening gloves in the summer kitchen. I need to keep an eye out for an un-wireless wall phone, for the bathroom, because there’s a hook-up next to the terlit, like in a schmancy hotel.

And I always keep in the back of my mind a Pyrex percolator, just because I think it will sound and smell so much better and old-fashionedy, and just right for slowed-down mornings at the lake house.

Found it at Aunt Patty’s Antique Mall on Tuesday, in Rockville!

So on Wednesday, I perked my first pot of coffee, with Pixie supervising. See that blue-ish light? That’s early morning shining in the kitchen window. Our lake house is situated smack up against the dividing line between Eastern Time and Central Time, so while the clock says 7:45, it is really 6:45, by only a mile or two. And lil Pixie has no idea of time zones; her inner clock says 7:14, and she’s ready to play.

I filled the pot with water and coffee grounds and put the flame under her.

Pixie and I stood there and watched her. And watched. And watched.

Then she got all bubbly.

Then bub-bub. Bub-bub-bub. Bub-bub-bub-bub-bub-bub-bub!

THEN from the other side of the kitchen came the shhhhhhhhh-bip-bip-bip from Mr. Coffee, who was auto-set for 8:00am.

After 30 years in children’s books, I find myself personifying pretty much everything. So you’ll understand why I felt kind of bad cheering for the new-girl percolator. I really wanted her to make a better brew than our old-boy electric coffeemaker who has served us cups and cups of morning goodness.

I was so happy it was a tie! Both were delicious. Phew! We can all live happily in one kitchen.

And do you know what else I imagine? I think with no humans around, they’re flirting and falling in love.

Mr. and Mrs. Coffee.

The Vidalia bone’s connected to…

…the butter bone…

…and the butter bone’s connected to the frying pan bone…

…and the frying pan bone’s connected to the dairy bone…

…and the dairy bone’s connected to the nutmeg bone…

…and the nutmeg bone’s connected to the pie crust bone…

…and the pie crust bone’s connected to the 375-degree bone…

…and goodness-gracious! Doesn’t the May arrival of Vidalias make you want to sing out loud in your kitchen, too?

Children in Chicago may have watched the Bozo Show on Channel 9, but in Kentucky, we watched Wendy Wonderful on Channel 27. And if you were a very lucky little girl, you got to be on the show on your birthday, and give Wendy Wonderful a big red apple.

I’ve read the script of the play, Mrs. McThing, and I cannot quite figure out why my mother loved it enough to quote it. But she did. And she quoted one quote often enough for three-year-old Ginny to file it away for Her Big Moment.

I am told that when Wendy Wonderful (the horse puppet) and Mary Ann (his pretty sidekick) asked me my name, I quoted Mrs. McThing and said, “I am my mother’s dear little white rose.”

Was I wonderful, or what?