Author Archives: Ginny O'Donnell

Tonight is the last night of the 2013 Perseid Meteor Shower, which reminds me of this sweet, funny story.

As you know, we have a place on a lake, in a remote spot in the Wabash Valley. So the stargazing is pretty wonderful, even on a regular night. I love to drag quilts onto the driveway and feel the warmth of the blacktop on my back. Sometimes all of us line up, shoulder to shoulder, and we recite what we can remember about the dippers ‘n’ bears, Orion, and the North Star. We debate jet versus planet. And we catch our collective breath when we see a shooting star. I think almost all of us make a wish, because it gets really quiet for a few seconds. Why not make a wish? What’s to lose but the magic?

On one such occasion, it was just nine-year-old Mikey and me watching the stars out on the warm blacktop. Mikey’s grandma and grandpa were nearby, at the campfire, with the rest of the grownups.

“Do you believe in extraterrestrials?” I asked Mikey.

“Um, yeah,” he admitted. “I got a book from the library about creatures from outer space. I like to read all about ’em.”

“Well, I just think it is more fun to believe in them than not to believe in them,” I said.

“If you lose a library book at my school, it costs $4.00,” continued Mikey. “I think I’m going to lose this one.”

You know what’s funny? Bringing a naughty anonymous gift to a wedding shower.

Yup. You should try it.

You choose something that will raise eyebrows, make the grandmothers and aunties giggle, and you wrap it up sweetly and tuck it into the big pile of gifts without anyone seeing you do it.

I won’t go into all of the unmentionables that I’ve secreted into the shower gifts over the years, because this is a family blog (that my mother reads). But they’ve always given the bride an unexpected blush, and then lots of good-natured teasing and laughter. Kind of breaks the ice for the poor young lady who is “on stage” before dozens of women who may not even know her that well.

I’ve never admitted my guilt. I have always been too angelic to be considered the prankster. I just let all the ladies point fingers and insist amongst themselves, while I watch and smile.

With two exceptions.

Exception #1 happened three years ago at my dear friend Fran’s daughter’s shower. The gift that had no card (oh no! the card fell off!) was a Fertility Journal. When Lynora and her bridesmaids asked the roomful of ladies who had given her this gift, a woman finally raised her hand! And it wasn’t me! Well, let me tell you what Fran had to say about that. In no uncertain terms, Fran let the room know it was NOT the impostor. “And who do you THINK would give that to you”, she asked her blushing daughter, while holding her hand over my head! Oh, yeah, I was outted. And as a point of pride, I needed to be recognized as the true prankster, don’t you think?

Exception #2 happened yesterday at a couples shower for our friends’ son and his bride. The gift that had no card (oh dear! the card has fallen off!) was Making Babies, a book about what to eat to maximize your fertility. After the usual blushes and and giggles, the groom’s mother walked right up to me and smirked, “You are the only one here who would do this!”

Really?

I guess my reputation has finally caught up with me.

This is probably more suited to a Facebook post, but I am biding time while my ginnygram muse is apparently on vacation.

Remember how excited I was to find Duke’s Mayo so far north? Well, lookee what I found in a Kroger’s way down in Brazil, Indiana! New England Style Rolls, aka Lobster Buns! These babies just don’t exist outside of New England. My family lived and ate in New Hampshire when I was a teenager, and boyohboy, did we learn to love these buns.

They’re hot dog buns with bare sides, which you lightly butter then lightly grill then deliciously fill. They’re…they’re…what they give you in your Welcome to Heaven Wagon, along with coupons for foot massages and pictures of corgi puppies.

I don’t know why the whole wide world doesn’t get together and demand that all grocers stock New England Style Rolls in every bread aisle.

I’d mount a campaign, but I fear that doing so will call attention to some poor Hot Dog Bun Buyer for Kroger’s Midwest Bread Division who checked the wrong box on his Bun Re-Order Form, and he’ll lose his job.

And I just wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

You do it.

I’ve been getting lots of questions about Pixie lately. So here’s a little catch-up for you. (And no, the poltergeist didn’t return the darn collar. The Fedex Guy did.)

  Does she like going to the lake?

  Has she had her first kiss?

  Can she drive yet?

  Is she a mermaid like you?

Eight-month-old Pixie’s special training collar has disappeared. Overnight. Just like that. Gone. Nobody came in, nobody went out. Not Colonel Mustard. Not Miss Scarlet. There are two explanations.

Explanation #1 — Pixie pushed a chair over to the kitchen counter, climbed up, snagged the collar, and then…what, ate it?

Explanation #2 — Poltergeists.

As soon as I search the conservatory one more time, I will do as my mother taught me: I will close my eyes and firmly insist, “I AM GOING TO COUNT TO 10, WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, BRING BACK [INSERT MISSING THING HERE]. And I am here to tell you that this actually works. If it is a poltergeist, and not Explanation #1.

Long story, short: Yes, I grew up with the occasional poltergeist. My mother explained them as having to do with the cast-off energy of growing children. And no, it was nothing like the movie. Just benign and sometimes funny mischief. Hide and seek, mostly.

My two coolest stories happened in our pre-Revolutionary War home in Atkinson, New Hampshire. That makes me between 13 and 16 years old. Which means Bucky was between 11 and 14 years old. Between the both of us, I’m saying there was enough polter-energy to rearrange the encyclopedias, let alone these two beauties WHICH ARE 100% TRUE.

My First Significant Poltergeist Encounter happened on Derby Day 1971. I was sitting in the middle of our living room floor, cutting the names of the horses from the sports pages, so we could fold them and put them in the hat for drawing at our Derby Party later that afternoon. I put down the scissors to fold a few slips. And when I reached for them again, the scissors weren’t there. I hadn’t moved, nobody’d come into the room. Nothing. So I said what my mother taught me. “I AM GOING TO COUNT TO 10, WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, BRING BACK MY SCISSORS.” I counted, then opened my eyes, and my scissors were right in front of me. Not where I’d set them down next to me, but presented in front of me on the floor. I said “thank you,” and burst into tears. And went to tell Mama, who was proud of me for standing up for myself.

My Second Significant Poltergeist Encounter was similar, in that it involved scissors and that it was only seven months later and in the same house. This time, I was wrapping Christmas presents in our “back room,” which was actually the original kitchen in our circa-1700 house. I was alone, just me and the paper and the ribbon and the tape. I set down my scissors to fold and tape, and when I reached for them to cut my ribbon, they were not there. Again, I told the poltergeist what to do, and when I opened my eyes, a buncha boxes and stuff fell off the sofa across the room. And my scissors were revealed on the sofa. I didn’t hang around to wrap any more presents that day. Energy or whatever, it was just creepy.

I could go on, and I will have more stories for you. We’ve had quite a few strange things happen in this house, which may or may not be simple poltergeist shenanigans.

So where is the collar? And if a poltergeist is actually adolescent energy, where’s the adolescent? And what is another name for a mischievous sprite?

Hmmmm, Pixie?

Now, why I didn’t stop and snap a photo of the actual dress in the actual window, I’ll never know. Wasn’t on my blog game, I guess. But what happened was that Dave ‘n’ LuAnn and Bill ‘n’ I were touristing around Chicago on Friday, when LuAnn spotted a dress in a tony Oak Street shop window. “That looks like the outfit in Pretty Woman,” she laughed. And it did! It was hilarious that the very “dress” that was too trashy for Rodeo Drive back in 1990 is now being offered as couture in 2013.

And if this little irony isn’t enough for a quick lil ginnygram, there is also this…

On one of my many trips to Italy for the Children’s Book Fair in Bologna, my friend and colleague (yes, frolleague) Jennifer and I had just shopped for a Furla handbag for Jennifer’s mother. Jennifer was carrying the handsome white and black Furla shopping bag, as we chatted along the edge of the Piazza Maggiore.

“Excuse me,” said a young woman with a British accent, “but where is the Furla shop?” She nodded to Jennifer’s bag.

Jennifer explained there are actually two Furlas in Bologna, but we liked the one just around the corner, because they’re eager to practice their English and are very helpful.

“Oh, lovely,” the British woman smiled, “No one pays attention to me in most of these stores.”

She motioned to her outfit — t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.

“You know, I’m looking pretty grotty, but I’m feeling Pretty Woman!”

“Butterfly?”

“Flower?”

“UPS truck?”

“That’s not a UPS truck, silly! That’s a garbage truck!”

“He can call me a UPS truck, if he wants to.”

Please say hello to the Young Prince of Forest Glen Avenue. Born Saturday, no bigger than a house cat, and somewhat hidden by a boxwood, downspout, and a planter.

Today there were a skillion garage sales in the neighborhood! And I didn’t even know it until I drove to my hair appointment around 12:30. I hadn’t seen the signs going up on Friday, because I was home all yesterday.

So DARN IT. All the good stuff would be gone by the time I got my hair cut and got home to fetch Bill. You wouldn’t expect Bill to be a good sport about garage sales, but he has a really good eye for “treasures.” In fact, he spotted an old Trimline wall phone, which we purchased for a cool two smackers. It is avocado green. You may see it in the bathroom at the lake house.

Anyway, my point is that all the sales were totally picked-over.

Or were they?

And no, you will not see him in the bathroom at the lake house.

Hi! Miss me?

I just got home from this pretty little town in the middle of Kentucky, where I enjoyed five days of being my mother’s daughter. She and I thought about it, and we decided that it has been 30 years since I visited her all by myself. And guess what. There wasn’t one second when I thought I should open up my laptop and blog!

But I did think about it. I probably stored a few stories in my head, for later or never. Here’s my favorite.

Last Christmas night, a tornado ripped through Mobile, Alabama, where my brother Monty’s family lives. Their home was amazingly spared, but a few blocks away, my nephews’ high school suffered significant damage. Sadly, their English teacher lost his collection of Southern American Literature, so the call went out to help rebuild his classroom library.

Mama and her neighbor Kay collected 12 copier-paper boxes of books. Six boxes each. And while the tape got organized for shipping the boxes from Danville to Mobile, the boxes gathered dust in the front hallways of each lady. Kay’s son is a Delta executive, and is Monty’s childhood friend. He offered for Delta to ship the books on their dime. How nice is that? But the “how” of it got complicated. Finally, they decided to just Fedex them.

So Mama and I loaded the boxes into my station wagon, along with Miz Kay’s hand truck. Danville doesn’t have a Fedex location, but it does have a Mailboxes Etc. We weren’t certain they could deal with the boxes of books, but we headed there anyway.

I left Mama in the car and went in to talk to the big feller behind the counter. He was very nice, and explained that he could fill out the 12 bills of lading for $5 apiece, and then we could leave the boxes in a corner for pick-up. Oh, and there’s a particular way to tape the boxes, too.

Mama and I drove back home with the bills of lading, and filled them out at her kitchen table. Then we unloaded all the boxes to re-tape and label them. As we were reloading the boxes back into my car, Miz Kay was toodling past us on her way to a meeting. She pulled up and rolled her window down to ask if she could help. We were almost finished, so no-but-thankyew. She said something about stars in my crown, and I said something about no good deed going unpunished, and we all laughed.

Mama waited in the car while I wheeled two boxes into the Mailboxes store on the dolly. Inside, the guy took the dolly and said he’d come help with the rest. He was pretty big, so I knew he’d haul more than my measly two at a time, so phew!

At my car, he took one look at my mother and gave her the biggest squeeze ever! Miz Biles! If I’d a-known it was you with all these books! (But I’d let her rest in the car, silly me.)

This giant young man told her, “Remember my poem? Fat, Ugly, and Slow? You gave me a 10 out of 10 on it. And you wrote on it that I wasn’t fat, ugly, or slow. I still have that poem.”

Stars in whose crown, hmmmm?