life — Page 344

The Story of the Valentine’s Day Surprise

February 15, 2012 at 10:19 am by Claudia

See that (youngish) couple on the beach? There’s a Valentine’s Day story to this photo so I thought I’d share it with you.

Many moons ago, 1995 to be exact, when Don and I were courting, one January day we took one of our walks together on a local beach in San Diego. This particular beach was special to us because we’d met there. I was about to leave on a two week trip to audition prospective students for the theater program.

We had only known each other about 6 months. But we were in love, that we knew.

A man approached us, camera in hand, and introduced himself. He was a photographer for the San Diego Union Tribune and had been taking photos of us from the pier. Could he use one of them in a story slated for Valentine’s Day?

We were both surprised by the whole thing and after hesitating a bit, said yes.

He took down our information and gave us his card.

Almost immediately, I regretted saying yes. You see, we both worked at the same theater. I had students that also worked there. We were keeping our courtship very quiet because I didn’t want everyone, especially my students, to know about my personal life. At least not until we saw where this new relationship was going.

I panicked. I had visions of everyone at the theater talking about our photo being in the paper. Of someone ripping it out of the paper and posting it on one of the bulletin boards at the theater. Since I had to leave, I begged Don to call the photographer and say we had changed our minds. He did. We still wanted a copy of the photo if at all possible so Don asked him if we might be able to get a copy. We’d be happy to pay for it. No, the photographer said, it was against the policies of the newspaper to give a copy of a photo to anyone who was not willing to be credited in print. Ah well.

I left town. I came down with the flu while I was away and arrived home on Valentine’s Day eve, sicker than a dog. The morning of Valentine’s Day, Don knocked on my door with flowers, chocolate and a wrapped package in hand. Still sick, I unwrapped the package to find this framed photo.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

How did he do it? Well, Don has his ways. He pursued the photographer, told him our story, charmed and cajoled him until that lovely man said he’d make a copy for us. No charge. I had no idea any of this had been going on. I just sat there, framed photo in hand, and cried.

You do understand why I fell in love with him, don’t you?

This remains one of our most cherished possessions.

I hope you were surrounded by love yesterday and every day.

Tomorrow is the Day

February 8, 2012 at 11:40 am by Claudia

Happy Wednesday! I’m so excited about our Etsy shop!

It will open at 9 a.m. (eastern time) Thursday (tomorrow.) At that time, I will have a link up on my post and the Etsy widget on my sidebar. Meredith will have one on her blog, too. I’m crossing my fingers that all goes well; there is a learning curve to be dealt with as a new shop owner and I’m still smack in the middle of it all.

We’re starting with a modest amount of inventory. Everything is handmade and that takes time. So, please know that we are continuing to create new inventory and will list new items as soon as they are available. I know that everyone suggests having lots of inventory on hand before you open your shop. But you know what? If I waited for that, the shop would never open. I know that much about myself.

The Vintage section will open as soon as I can take pictures and list the inventory. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to be working with my sister on this. We both have a lot of stress in our lives at the moment and creating something new and positive and hopeful together is just what we need.

The hyacinth has bloomed. Its scent is intoxicating. Whenever I need a bit of what I call shoulder-dropping, I head on over to the hyacinth and inhale. Aaaah.

It’s sunny today after a gray day yesterday. Our car is in the shop getting a new starter. I have to say that Hondas (this is my second) are great cars. In all of the eleven years we’ve owned it, nothing has gone wrong except for the usual maintenance things: new tires, new brake pads, new battery. So I can’t really complain when the starter needs to be replaced. Well, I can….but I won’t. I’m going for gratitude, instead.

Note: I’ve added the Linky Followers widget on my sidebar. There’s been much discussion about Google Friend Connect being discontinued on non-Blogger blogs. Whether it will eventually disappear on Blogger blogs, I don’t know. But I’m just a tad leery about the whole thing, as Google is pushing Google+ and eventually might want to use it instead of GFC. I’m not at all interested in Google+. Linky Followers was started by Brent, who I’ve worked with on my linky posts. He’s a great guy and very helpful. If you’re interested in learning more about it, visit Linky Followers. If you’re new to the blog and want to follow, choose whichever widget you prefer.

Have a great day, my friends.

The Story of Shannon & the Dentures

February 5, 2012 at 10:19 am by Claudia

Source: Wikipedia, Irish Setter from 1915, W. E. Mason, Dogs of all Nations

My friends, I’ve been very blue this weekend as I contemplate the deterioration of my mother’s already fragile health and listen to my dad cry out his heartbreak during our phone calls. I feel as if I’m on the edge of a precipice of loss. When it will happen, I cannot know, but that feeling lurks in every corner of my daily life.

So often lately, I choose to remember my parents as they were decades ago. In my head I see a photo of us together in San Diego (I’ll have to share it with you someday), that first summer I lived there, just weeks before I met Don for the first time. Big smiles, still vital – happy to be with me in my new city. Or I picture my mom and I laughing over something or other. We laughed a lot together; we’d laugh so hard that we’d clutch our stomachs, tears in our eyes. Laughter is the best medicine.

With that in mind, I thought I’d share a funny story with you. A true story. When I was a teenager, we had an Irish Setter named Shannon. Shannon was smart as a whip and constantly into something or other. Oh, he was a handful, but how he would make us laugh! He’d grab a dish cloth or a hand towel and run through the living room with it in his mouth, hoping to get our attention. If one of us purposely ignored him, he would reverse direction and run back through the room, dish cloth still in his mouth. This would go on and on until, exasperated, he would finally just drop the cloth in our lap as if to say, See? I took it. Doesn’t anyone care???

My dad wore dentures. He would sometimes leave them on the sink in the bathroom when he went to bed. One morning, my mom was in the living room (dad was still sleeping) and Shannon tore by her with something in his mouth. Then he tore by her again. She glanced up. Not a dish cloth. Something she couldn’t see was hidden in his mouth. She called out his name – Shannon! He did what he always did when he had something he didn’t want us to get from him. He went under the dining room table – just far enough to make it hard to reach him. By this time, Mom had asked for my help. We got down on our hands and knees and reached for him – he moved his head away from us. We reached again. He moved away. Finally, Mom got hold of his collar. Then we tried to pry his mouth open. When we pried his teeth apart, we saw anotherset of teeth – my dad’s.Oh no.

In a panic, all we could think was that my dad would completely lose it if Shannon chomped on his expensive dentures. And he would have. As I kept his mouth open, Mom, with the skill of a surgeon, began to remove the dentures from his mouth – praying the whole time that he wouldn’t bite down on them. Somehow we did it. Adrenalin-infused strength, I bet.

Afterwards, she took those dentures, scrubbed the life out of them, used some denture cleaner and put them back where they had been – on the side of the bathroom sink. She knew she couldn’t tell my father about it. I was sworn to secrecy and dad didn’t find out about it until many years later. For years, mom, my sisters and I would tell that story and laugh our heads off.Shannon was always up to something. We had a travel trailer parked in our driveway (right outside my parents’ bedroom window) and many was the time that mom and I would be out there on our hands and knees, one on either side of the trailer, trying to get Shannon to come out from under it. He would invariably lay there, right in the place where we couldn’t reach him, taunting us. We’d do this in whispers, trying not to disturb my dad (sleeping again) or our neighbors. After what seemed like hours of this rigamarole (confident that my dad was still sleeping) one loud bellow of Shannon! from the direction of the bedroom would bring him out from under the trailer and into the house, making Mom and me, on our hands and knees, look ridiculous.

All these years later, those stories still make me laugh. And that’s a good thing.

The Story of the Valentine’s Day Surprise

Tomorrow is the Day

The Story of Shannon & the Dentures

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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