Who goes there? Please leave comments so (An Aries Knows)!
From my oldest to my newest:
and the many between them, happy fiftieth birthday to Barbie! You’re a toy, you’re an icon, you’re a collector’s dream, and you still have people arguing about you after all these years, which means you’ve done something right. Here’s to the next fifty.
Click here for a few of The Compound Barbies celebrating today.
My mother would have been 83 today, March 4. Last year, when she got her cancer diagnosis, she hoped she’d make it to her birthday. On March 4, I was making cupcakes for her when she decided that she was ready to leave her apartment for the last time. She was transported to hospice for a couple of days, then went into the care home where she lived for almost three more months. And that night, Tom, Rhonda, Lindsey, and Kathy went with me to deliver her cupcakes.
2005, 2006, 2007
Mother shares her birthday with rain_wolfe and my writing partner tjbtimmy. Happy birthday!
These birthdays come in the middle of a LOT of birthdays. My friend Ken, our friend Kenneth (KK!), Tom’s sister KT, and a couple of real cutie pies:
grand-niece Amelia and nephew John
Happy birthday to our literary agent Alison, and internationally to n8an in Canada and my lifelong friend Debbie in Sweden.
On the eighth, I’ll be wishing our friend Robin a happy birthday. But I’ll be missing this birthday guy just like I do every day (and I stole this photo from the MySpace page of one of his best friends and band mates):
Coming up on the twelfth, I’ll also miss my friend Tim R on his birthday, but I’ll celebrate the birthday of one of the best people in my life:
I’ll get to more birthdays later in the month. This has been a lot of celebrating for a simple slug.
I have been waiting since December to use this photo of our nieces Emily and Abby wearing their Mardi Gras masks they got for Christmas.
I have the best big sister in the world.
Happy birthday, Debby!
(Note to Rhonda and Lindsey: When I talked to Debby Monday afternoon, she muttered something about the two of you. I’m SURE it was a thank-you for the lovely gift you sent Harley, though it didn’t really sound like “thank you.”)
ETA: Two more photos behind the cut.
Those of you who’ve read Someone Like You–um, that would be ALL of you, right?–remember that the oft bitchy but troubled Natasha had a certain obsession. Among the vast array of Timothy James Beck characters, I admit that I have a soft spot for Natasha. Created mainly by Jim, with a few quirks and some action thrown in by the rest of us, she’s just such a big mess that even her Evil Retail Manager behavior makes me laugh.
I’d totally forgotten that a few days before Tim went into the hospital, I was poking around on eBay and found a steal. So when a box was delivered today, I had no idea what was in it. I hope it’ll make Tim laugh later. It will always make me think of Natasha Deere.
Current Photo Friday theme: The Team
In the center of this photo, near the band, stands Big Al, the Crimson Tide mascot.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Homecoming, 1986
I once worked with a woman who loved and collected giraffes. But she pronounced the word with a long “i”: gEYEraffe. The rest of us would talk to her about giraffes, always pronouncing their name correctly, but that never fazed her. They remained gEYEraffes. It actually became kind of endearing after a while, so from time to time I pronounce them that way myself. Who knows; maybe giraffes prefer it.
If you want this gEYEraffe to look in this book and find you a reason to be happy in the middle of your work week, please comment with a page number between 1 and 611, and another number between 1 and 25. And if you wish, you can tell me about mispronunciations you hear and like.
Current Photo Friday theme: Iconic
Current Photo Friday theme: White
This pier, so special to me because it was “Phillip’s Pier” in the novel Three Fortunes in One Cookie, was all but destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and is in the process of being rebuilt.
The other night when The Brides were at The Compound, Lindsey cracked some nuts from a bowl sitting on the table. The nutcracker and the matching picks were in stuff of my mother’s that I kept because I remember using them on so many occasions, especially holidays, when my father, uncles, and cousins would tell stories while we shelled pecans for my mother’s pies.
The others’ parents had similar nutcracker sets, including wooden bowls with slots for the nutcracker and picks, and they also had memories like mine of sitting with older family members and listening to stories while everyone cracked pecans and walnuts.
Some of those memories were in my head today when I stood in line at the post office behind a man–maybe eighty-ish–dressed in blue coveralls and a jacket and leaning on a cane. There were only two postal employees to take care of a long line of us, and I found myself hoping that everyone behind me would have a little patience as the clerk helped the elderly man. He was sending a couple of packages, and he also bought stamps to put on some letters and cards. Except he didn’t realize he didn’t need to lick the stamps, He couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t stay on the envelopes, and the clerk was the very soul of kindness as she showed him how to peel the adhesive stamps off the backing then helped him finish stamping his mail.
By the time I got to her, there was no way I could have said anything without crying, so I just tried to let my politeness convey my gratitude for the way she helped him without belittling him in any way. As I was walking out the door, I heard the next person at her window say, “YOU ARE SO NICE!”