the three mums and vase story

my cousin called me yesterday....at least it wasn't at three in the morning so i was coherent. he wanted to know about the vase and the mums. the beginning. the best i can remember is that my dad gave the vase and three football mums to nanny, his grandmother, one thanksgiving when he couldn't be there. i think it must have been in the late 30's or early 40's. in any case the part of the story i didn't know was that my grandmother gave the vase to richard--my dad's cousin. then she decided to get it back. made richard mad so he went out and bought a 600 dollar waterford crystal vase. i can understand. my grandmother was always attaching great importance to things that did not necesarily have inherent importance. in any case she got it back, and i wound up with it ... it skipped my dad....and i gave it to my daughter. i think my sister would have liked it. not sure how i wound up with it.

in any case, my sister, myself, my daughter, i hope my son, richard (when he was alive), my mother(when she was alive), richard's son and i don't know who else... always have three football or other large mums in a vase at thanksgiving.

gobble gobble

it doesn't matter if you are a veggie eater or a meat eater, thanksgiving has lots of gobblers. but why, there is usually much more food than can be eaten. maybe the length of the meal depends on the stories told around the table. in that case you have slow stuffers. my relatives on my dad's side were all great story tellers. i was always mad because when the best stories were being recited, i was at the kids' table. sigh. now i am going to have to rely on my cousin's memory for the stories. he suggested i drive up to sioux falls with my laptop and write them down. i think that is a good idea. will have to find a non snowy weekend. meanwhile, i will find a good book and rest my digestive system.

holidays

it seems like the holidays instead of being relaxing, turn into a frenzied rush to get everything done. i volunteered to help put up the xmas tree in the chapel. i hadn't done it before so was relying completely on ms. m since she has done it for ten years with another (former) teacher. we spent the first hour trying to stablize the tree in the stand. turned out we had the middle section on the bottom. went way faster when we put the bottom on the bottom and the middle in the middle. bummer.