Happy Birthday Grandma!

Gramma gave me my loves of

hanging out by the pool in the hot summer sun
(lying on the hot concrete patio stones until they seared your flesh so you had to roll into the cool blue water but then only swim on the left hand side because it was farthest from the creepy filter where the dead frogs & mice would be found)

sipping on a shandy to cool off
(bubbling ginger ale & lager clinking over a couple of ice cubes in a tall clear glass)

holiday dinners feasting on gravy & rolls
(thick delicious gravy made in double or triple batches because the standard amount was never enough)

rhubarb jam & crabapple jelly
(tart homemade goodness from the fruits of our land - is rhubarb a fruit?)

good table manners & politeness
(always saying thank you & please)

standing on the kitchen stool helping with the baking or drying dishes
(i still have the stool with it's 1950's laminate & wonky legs)

building gingerbread houses
(coloured icing & gumdrops holding the pieces together)

sliding down the bannister & the slippery stairs
(hours of fun bumping our butts along the edge of each step racing to the bottom)

doggies
(Bridget & Breichen you were so pretty even covered in mud from the clay banks of the Red River)

lilac bushes
(the heady smell fills me senses)

snow forts in her yard
(where the white stuff blew into a small mountain through which we dug tunnels & foxholes so deep we could be lost for a day)

acting like a monkey on her trees
(scratches & woodticks ignored until after dusk)

shortbread and scones
(almond, plain, currants, butter)






Thanks for these & so much more.

I love you Gramma!






~Birthday wishes also to my old friend Kelly. I am the worst returner of e-mails.~