Ann Shields on Letting Go

Italian Grandmothers

I got to be a traditional Italian grandmother last week for a couple of days  and I still feel the glow.  Turned out, through some  serendipitous blend of events, my family up north blended with my local family for one grand dinner at my humble abode where the menu was Spaghetti and meatballs.  What else?  Well, add green salad, sauteed zuchinni with onions and tomatoes, and black olives, garlic bread, frozen red grapes and various cold beverages.  Everything gluten free and non alcoholic. 

The gathering included my grown-up kids--David and Judith,, their mates--Babara and Joe, my grandkids--Suzanne and Elle and  and their mates Ryan and Kevin plus three single grandsons---Andy, Matt and Sam,  and 3 great grandkids--Lucas, Nathan and Gracie.  It wasn't even a holiday either.  3 yr old Lucas and soon to be 2 Nathan got to meet 14 month old Gracie..the northern tyke.  Loved watching Luke be ever so courtly and gentle with Gracie.

People spilled all over the house into the back yard and out the front lawn where kids nestled in a wild limbed jacaranda tree made for tree climbing.  In the master bedroom - out of bounds - Des and the two cats hid out.  Feeling poorly, unsociable and wary, they hung out together.

The next night we went to dinner at China Palace where some of them were adept at chopsticks.    Joe, flies regularly back and forth between home and China for his company.   Matthew just returned from a 6 months foreigh travel adventure where he couch surfed his way through  places like India, Pakistan, Malaysia and other 3rd world sites.  

In the  afternoon, Judith, my pal Donna and I took in, The Help and sniffled our way through the ending.  Wonderful movie by the way.  All in all, a satisfying mini reunion with family. 

I flashed back to my own Chicago family where cousins and siblings mixed it up and Grandmother reigned over all.  Well, actually, my "Aunt Jennie did the reigning because my fraternal grandmother died at 49 when I was a toddler.  My maternal grandmother stuck around until she was 92, shy and retiring and content to be in the background.

So here I was, the matriarch of the brood, enjoying everyone up close and personal.  Snippets of conversation revolved around Ipads, electronic games, Smart Phones and the technology world.    Now you can Skype with your IPad.   How cool is that!

When I was a child among cousins, we just played cards and rolled dice, snuck sips of my grandfather's wine, with the musical background of Sinatra wannabe uncles who sang That's Amore.  We ate pasta to the urges of grandma to manga, manga--eat, eat.   Little did we know how content was grandma just to bask in our presence, how happy we made her simply by being.  That's the melody of family.  And it sings silently in my heart.

So says Sassy

Breaking the Blog Block

My writing block is the size of Mount Everest, but I am chipping away at it.  Obstacles range from nasty viruses to frustration with the size of this font and how to get it larger.  Here we are half way through summer and brilliant blogs flit through my head.  Then I take a nap.

Visits to doctors, lab and the ER have interrupted the flow of words spilling over.  Nothing major so forget the organ recital.  Meanwhile, I am now the solo licensed driver in our household of two people and two cats.  Pray for me...or light candles.  Maybe rub Buddha's belly.  Whatever works.

I am distracted by the time I spend mastering my toys.  My cell phone gives me fits, like the other day while sitting in a waiting room, the music started playing.  Even if it was Frank Sinatra inviting me to fly with him, it was annoying.  The receptionist, younger than a fetus, fixed it for me in a jiffy.   Determined to avoid becoming obsolete, I am even toying with upgrading to a smart phone or an ipad.  How smart do I have to be to own a smart phone? 

Meanwhile, I cuddle with my Kindle at night and exult in all the freebies I haave downloaded.  But, since I have been told the kindle will let me do email on it, that's one more tyrant I need to master.  Although I am not sure why I need to knw how to do that, since I have my desk top and laptop computers side by side in my home office.   Oh, about that  My laptop has been flashing an orange light on and off for days, no matter what I do to shut it down.  My husband asks me what the problem is there, and I said, no problem.  It's just a mini night light.

Speaking of him, my husband cheerfully uses his selectric IBM typewriter even though changing the ribbon has him popping nitros under his tongue.  He also, longs for our rotary phone that never roamed anywhere.   I won't even get into ther remote for our Dish Network that is the major reason he will never leave me.  He can't work it without me. Call it a form of job security. 

I guess I do have a love affair with technology. Portability is power, even when I have to use my cell phone to call our land line phone in order to find the sneaky cordless handset hiding among the cushions

Back when dinasauers roamed the hills behind our old courthouse, cell phones were a distant fantasy.  In those days, I worked for a brilliant albeit eccentric boss who had a habit of sending me on errands.  It was one thing to hunt down the goat lady along the river bottom, but when he took to having me paged at  Penney's to pick up some diapers for his baby, I felt stalked.  He would have been a maniac with a cell phone.

There.  I feel better now that I have unblocked the blog.  See you next time.

So Says Sassy

Breaking the Blog Block

My writing block is the size of Mount Everest, but I am chipping away at it.  Obstacles range from nasty viruses to frustration with the size of this font and how to get it larger.  Here we are half way through summer and brilliant blogs flit through my head.  Then I take a nap.

Visits to doctors, lab and the ER have interrupted the flow of words spilling over.  Nothing major so forget the organ recital.  Meanwhile, I am now the solo licensed driver in our household of two people and two cats.  Pray for me...or light candles.  Maybe rub Buddha's belly.  Whatever works.

I am distracted by the time I spend mastering my toys.  My cell phone gives me fits, like the other day while sitting in a waiting room, the music started playing.  Even if it was Frank Sinatra inviting me to fly with him, it was annoying.  The receptionist, younger than a fetus, fixed it for me in a jiffy.   Determined to avoid becoming obsolete, I am even toying with upgrading to a smart phone or an ipad.  How smart do I have to be to own a smart phone? 

Meanwhile, I cuddle with my Kindle at night and exult in all the freebies I haave downloaded.  But, since I have been told the kindle will let me do email on it, that's one more tyrant I need to master.  Although I am not sure why I need to knw how to do that, since I have my desk top and laptop computers side by side in my home office.   Oh, about that  My laptop has been flashing an orange light on and off for days, no matter what I do to shut it down.  My husband asks me what the problem is there, and I said, no problem.  It's just a mini night light.

Speaking of him, my husband cheerfully uses his selectric IBM typewriter even though changing the ribbon has him popping nitros under his tongue.  He also, longs for our rotary phone that never roamed anywhere.   I won't even get into ther remote for our Dish Network that is the major reason he will never leave me.  He can't work it without me. Call it a form of job security. 

I guess I do have a love affair with technology. Portability is power, even when I have to use my cell phone to call our land line phone in order to find the sneaky cordless handset hiding among the cushions

Back when dinasauers roamed the hills behind our old courthouse, cell phones were a distant fantasy.  In those days, I worked for a brilliant albeit eccentric boss who had a habit of sending me on errands.  It was one thing to hunt down the goat lady along the river bottom, but when he took to having me paged at  Penney's to pick up some diapers for his baby, I felt stalked.  He would have been a maniac with a cell phone.

There.  I feel better now that I have unblocked the blog.  See you next time.

So Says Sassy