All posts by Dona

Take time to smell the lilacs

The Great Outdoors,

I have an app or two on my phone and tablet that sends me “memories” of what I tweeted, or posted on Facebook or took photos of that day in history, back to 6 or 7 years ago. For the past few days I have been seeing photos of lilacs that I took and either tweeted about or posted about on Facebook. This morning I panicked, worrying that I’d missed the lilacs this year. That I’d been so preoccupied with a bunch of other things that the lilacs had come and gone and I’d not had the chance to smell them this year.

My lilacs are in the front yard and one would think that I’d notice if they were in bloom or not, what with my car usually being parked 10 feet away from them. But I’d not gone outside much lately and when I did, didn’t think to check the lilacs. I did check them about three weeks or so ago and noticed there were a few tiny buds, so I knew I was going to get a few blooms this year, but not many.

I was happy to see that there were some lilacs on the tree when I checked from the front window of the house but it was hard to tell if they were in bloom or past their prime. This afternoon, after my dentist appointment I got a close look at them and saw that a few of the small flowers were in full bloom, but most were still tightly closed. I’d not missed them after all. I took a few big sniffs, smiled and went on with my day. For the next week or so I plan to visit my lilac bush several times a day and deeply inhale one of my all-time favorite scents.

More lilac

I also took a moment to snap some shots of the other flowers in our yard. Spring is definitely the nicest season on our property.

columbine
Forsythia
Azaleas. Not my favorite flower.

A small box of things

Things

I have, once again, taken all the stuff out of my attic closet in the hopes that at some future time I will have a nearly empty closet. Yeah, that’s going to happen.

boxOne of the things I have kept, for unknown reasons, is a small box from the Joseph Spiess Company store in Elgin. It was a gift from my best friend at the time, Cindy. I think it either held my POW bracelet or else a gold metal mesh belt ring. Cindy wrote, “That’s a put-on!” on the cover of the box because she purchased the gift somewhere other than Spiess and used the box in which to put the gift. Spiess was an upper-end store — somewhere we certainly didn’t shop, and I guess Cindy’s family didn’t either, very much.

Inside the box now are three apparently random items.

ceramic figure with no head, holding a basketOne is a white decapitated ceramic figurine in a dress, holding a basket. I have no idea where it came from or why I kept it in the box. I vaguely recall finding it in the dirt somewhere.

monkeyAnother item is a one-eyed plastic monkey with a hole in its head which probably once held a tuft of hair. The monkey probably came out of a gumball machine, but I have no recollection about when it.

The third is a spark plug.

spark plugThe only item I know for sure why I kept was the spark plug. I kept it because my dad used to give me old spark plugs to play with. I guess I liked the combination of ceramic and metal. Or something.

These are going in the trash today. Honestly. Three down and 10,000 things to go.

An open letter of apology to Grandma Green for breaking Grandpa’s tall beer glass and your mirror when I was opening the dresser drawer

Memories, Musings, People, Things, , ,

Dear Grandma Green,

41HqzNaNplLEven though you have been gone a long time I still feel guilty every time I think about breaking Grandpa’s tall beer glass with the mirror (and breaking the mirror too) when I tugged too hard on the stuck drawer of the chest of drawers in your bedroom the summer after Grandpa died and I spent a few weeks with you in Chetek.

I don’t think of it often, only when I see a very tall beer glass like the one to the left or when I hear about one like the one I am reading about in Charlotte Gray, one of my “read-a-shelf” books. I may also think about it when I struggle to open a dresser drawer or see a broken mirror too. I know I thought about it when Clare did something similar with a case holding all of my glass unicorns.

Here’s what happened. I needed something out of the chest of drawers (notice I am calling it a “chest of drawers” like you used to call it) and the drawer which held that something was swollen and stuck fast to the rest of the dresser. I shook the drawer which made the mirror that was tilted at the back of the dresser tip forward onto the very tall beer glass in its wooden stand. They both fell down, shattering the beer glass and breaking the mirror.

When you heard the crash you came running into the bedroom. I believe you said “shit” or some other colorful word. You also mentioned how much Grandpa liked his very tall beer glass. You were momentarily angry at me, but I think you understood it was an accident. I don’t remember if I cried or not. I was 17 years old, so I may have. I probably said something about it being an accident and you may have said I should have been more careful.

We cleaned it up and never spoke of it again. I meant to buy you a mirror to replace the mirror I broke, but never did. I don’t know that I ever apologized for breaking the mirror and very tall beer glass.

Grandma, I am sorry I broke the mirror, but more sorry about the beer glass since it was Grandpa’s and it was something he really liked. You’d just lost him, now you lost something he treasured. As a 17 year old I don’t think that registered with me. I only thought about you being upset with me. I know you forgave me long ago, but I just wanted to get it out in the open.

Love,

Dona

PS I miss you