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Thursday, December 06, 2007

Happy Birthday Sally

You like to say things are beastly when you feel strongly that they're disagreeable. Such as the cold weather or a fierce snow storm. Or even if there's a slight chill in the air, "It's beastly cold out." This is an endearing thing about you. Your sense of exaggeration. I miss it when you're not around.

Sometimes you say that you have "no earthly idea" about something. Usually it's regarding why or how someone could believe something so stupid, or how they could NOT know that the word is pronounced "filthy" with an /f/ sound and not a /th/ sound at the beginning. Often you're amazed at pronunciation flaws. It kills me. And once I read a poem someone had written about a person who said, "I have no earthly idea" a lot. I assumed it was about their mother. It made me think of you. I fell in love with the poet, though I can't for the life of me remember who they were. Sometimes you say that too, "I can't for the life of me . . . ."

Every night after you get home, you feed the cats (Yum Yum and Koko) a bit of tuna fish. Then you put your pajamas on. Perhaps you eat some tomatoes and a peanut butter sandwich. You read on the couch with the plate of food in your lap, snacking lightly as you turn the pages of your book. Sometimes it's a comic book, Walt Disney -- Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, or (my favorite) Uncle Scrooge.

Even though I'm way out here in Nashville and you are there, snuggled in your home beneath the Wasatch Front in Utah, I know you're somewhere in the world, reading on the couch. And I feel close to home.

2 comments:

Dani said...

oh the traits of our mom! What a lovely woman whom we cherish.

Nicole said...

So true. She's a real dear.