Author Archives: Ginny O'Donnell

There’s no way I am posting a photo of the minutes-ago incident that inspired this ginnygram. This Kiss will stand in very nicely.

When Ginger was four, Santa brought her a Sheltie puppy. Our first family dog. And we proceeded to paper train the pup in the kitchen.

Why I was decorating cookies after Christmas, and why I was using store-bought tubes of icing, I’ll never remember. But as I piped out a squidge of chocolate icing, the devil with his little bitty pitchfork settled on my shoulder and giggled in my ear.

“Squirt some of that dark chocolate on the kitchen floor.”

I did.

And I called for my little daughter, “Ginger, come in the kitchen right now! Your puppy has pooped on the floor!”

(Like I would ever make a four-year-old clean up puppy-doo.)

But Ginger apparently felt a sense of duty (great word choice) and hustled to the kitchen and studied the ‘doo.

I said, very seriously, “I’m pretty sure it is ‘doo.” And I swiped it up with my bare finger and popped into my mouth.

“Yup, it’s ‘doo all right.”

“DAAAAAADDDDDDYYYYYYYY!!!!!!” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

We’re headed home to Danville for my mother’s birthday in a couple of days. We’re bringing Pixie and new-puppy Boo. There’ll be a few children at the party. And there’ll be cake.

I think I may have some leftover chocolate icing, don’t you?

When you bring home a lil white puppy on Halloween, there’s really only one name for her.

At 1:01 in the morning of October 26, 1982, the doctor who delivered Ginger sang “Happy Birthday to Us,” because it was his birthday, too.

Afterward, I slept in my room, and my little daughter slept in the nursery.

Bill made all the phone calls, waking everyone to say, “It’s a girl.” And so everyone went back to sleep, knowing mother and baby were happy and healthy.

Almost everyone.

At 6:00, my mother-in-law walked into my hospital room, carrying my new little daughter. Vivian’s hair and makeup were perfect, her heels were polished, and over her impeccable business suit, she wore a yellow surgical gown. Vivian was the tough and exacting head of nursing at the hospital.

Thinking she’d only just gotten here, I smiled and teased, “Hey, Grandma, what took you so long?”

“Oh, I’ve been here for hours, getting to know my granddaughter.”

Because she could.

This afternoon, I was already looking through our college yearbook for this photo, when Bill piped up, “Did you hear that? ‘Stay home!’ Remember?” He’s watching the Notre Dame v. Oklahoma game, and I’m hanging around on his sidelines, planning a ginnygram and looking for some new appetizer recipes. Before he quoted our famous “stay home” line, I had already decided to write about how we met.

Bill and another Bill coached the intramural flag-football team that I joined my sophomore year. That’s my Bill in the goofy white cap, and that’s me, in the shorty shorts and hair ribbon on the far left. I am paying close attention, but not to the coaching. I am pretty sure I was hatching a plan to get him to notice me.

And notice me, he did.

I was set, in my cornerback position, ready to show this hunky coach how cute and fast (speedy) I was. And do you know what he told me to do?

“STAY HOME!”

Stricken, I walked off the intramural field toward my dorm. Tears.

“WHERE ARE YOU GOING???”

Home! You told me I should have stayed home!

He put his arm around my shoulder and gently explained that it means to hold your position. Don’t go anywhere.

And I guess I never did.

Tonight, we need pie.

It will be sweet, but a little odd looking. It will have spirit, but no bite. And it will have a note of ginger. I will call it Skipper Pie, in honor of Cricket, an excellent schipperke, who is now chasing bunnies with Winnie.

I was just standing in front of our house, waiting for Bill to pull the car around and pick me up for our daily errands. I sighted something rare and lovely across the street.

Our little-girl neighbor, about eight years old, stretched up onto her tippy toes and placed a hardcover book in the lower right nook of the tree. Then, she hoisted herself up onto the left branch, fetched the book, and disappeared into the leaves of the buckeye.

And we thought they were extinct.

I think Mr. van Gogh would have gotten a huge kick out of this dusty roadside photo op today, somewhere in Indiana.

On one side of the road, this…

And smack on the other side, REAL art…

This weekend, we traveled to Danville, Kentucky, for a celebratory pig roast down on my sister ‘n’ her honey’s farmlet. Indeed, they have much to celebrate, and there were lots and lots of us there to help them–by raising a glass (or few) and by picking apart this mahogany beauty.

Just as my mother and I were about to collect our pickins onto our plates, we both started to smile and tell the same memory of our Uncle Lee!

No visit with our family in Kinston, NC, was complete without at least one trip to King’s BBQ. Their Eastern NC vinegar sauce cannot be matched. And to dine there with Uncle Lee was so joyfully horrific that you just didn’t know whether to sit right up next to him or hide under the table.

Because he picked out the pig’s eyes and popped ’em in his mouth! Every time!

He’d start talking about the eyes on the drive there. And he’d roll his own eyes in anticipation. And he’d get in line and say how he was hoping nobody else got the eyes first. And oh-my-lord he’d reach right over and POP POP them into his mouth! And he’d roll those eyeballs around in his cheeks with great and disgusting drama, then GULP.

And then he’d insist on giving you a big ol’ smacker-kiss on your cheek. EEEWWWWW Uncle Lee!

Guess what I finally realized? When I was about 30 years old?

They were grapes.

We call them Gingerisms, the little word-twists and expressions that spring from our daughter’s lips every so often. I just love the little seed of truth in each of them, don’t you? Here are a few favorites…

Underbrella

Drenchcoat

Pitch red (she thought “pitch” meant “very,” as in “her face turned pitch red)

Came apart at the hip (when she and her girlhood best friend drifted apart in high school)

Dreadmill

Pannycakes (she was little, and that’s what the nursery rhyme said)

The other day, I we got two darling thank-you notes from two terrific kids, who had just enjoyed a few days at our lake house with their parents and grandparents. I was extra tickled to read a genuine Gingerism in one of the notes!

This young writer has manners and style!