Stella, the musician

When Rane was here last week, we attended a short concert at the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum and heard a flautist "flaut." In between her breathy flute playing she would stop to grunt, count, or have some sort of other outburst. Not my kind of thing. But if a bird does it.....well, that's different.

Stella was compelled to try out a new pot to explore tonight, a rather large and empty pasta pot sitting on the stove. Lots of exploration to do but the exploration was almost like soft percussion and when she contributed a couple squeaks and sounds, I thought of the flautist from the previous week. I was captivated for a long time but I will subject you guys to just a minute of Stella and her new musical skills. :-)

Santa Rosa, CA 1979

When Rane was visiting last week, he brought along some old photos from our past. There was one picture taken in a photobooth of Rane and his grandmother and when I saw it, I realized that I too had a photobooth picture and it was probably taken on the very same day. It was a picture of Rane's brother Tom and me. The four of us must have been at the mall together that day. I remember I was not too enthusiastic about getting my picture taken because I had an enormous zit on my chin (but thanks to Photoshop, that 30 year old photographed blemish is now gone!). I showed this photo to Rane and he was horrified by the hair and mustache but then realized it wasn't him, it was his twin brother Tom. Ha ha ha.

And this is Tom and Rane's grandmother Moey. Tom dropped out of college to take care of her because she could no longer be trusted to take care of herself. 

She was quite the creative dresser. Those outfits she wore would constantly be rearranged and added to throughout the day. She might start out with a blue print dress...

...but later might feel the need to add a blouse over the dress.

...and maybe a skirt too. And those shoes match but um, the socks don't anymore. 

Moey would also constantly rearrange her clothes until sometimes she had managed to tie her arms behind her. Then she'd laugh because she had no idea how her clothes managed to do that. And they did that a lot. Old people repeat themselves a lot, usually when talking but with Moey, it was with her clothes. 

That woman and her clothes were constantly on the move. I helped take care of her just one time when Tom flew back for a high school reunion and good grief, that was something trying to keep track of her. 

Back in the day when Moey used to drive, she knew the fastest way to get someplace was by freeway. If she was missing for five minutes and you couldn't see her walking in the distance (she liked to collect leaves in her purse), there was a possibility that she was on her way to find an on-ramp to the freeway. Luckily 911 knew all about this and knew where to look for the on-ramp seeking runaway grandmother.

Vince's Penguins

Vince drew this little sketch ages ago. When I saw that blue penguin on the right babystepping across the 3x5, I had to have it. Vince was nice and let me keep it. Why post this? Because I'm freezing. Freezing. It is so darn cold out there. I can easily imagine penguins skittering across the backyard, hitting a fence and then skittering in the opposite direction. Brrrr.

Santa Rosa, CA 1978

Rane and I briefly lived in the upper flat of a large Victorian in Santa Rosa, CA. Downstairs from us lived these two guys, Jason and Njama. Njama's real name was David but one day he came home from school and announced to his family that his name from now on was going to be Njama and from then on, that's what he was called.  He was a very sweet kid. He liked to save part of his lunch every day and bring it home to his little brother Jason.

There was a big veranda that went around three sides of the house and that was just the best place to hang out and drink coffee. Njama used to come upstairs and I would make coffee for the two of us. I think his was mostly milk but still, there was some coffee in it so I guess you could call it coffee. He took his coffee drinking seriously. :-) That's what we did. Sat on the veranda and drank our coffee seriously and talked about things.

Njama was fascinated with a battery operated drill I had (a very weak one). There was nothing more fun than to run that thing and try to stop it with your fingers. Fun for an entire morning.

And this is Kelly. She and her little sister Lacey lived next door and they would come over too... sometimes climbing in through the windows in the morning to wake me up if I didn't respond to their knocking. Gawd. Kelly was something else.

There were also a lot of dogs that liked to come up and hang out on the veranda too. I have no idea how but I think they were there by my cat Jack's invitation. And in the middle of the night, since there was a private cat door in the pantry, sometimes the kitchen would be filled with the cats of the neighborhood taste testing Jack's cat food. When I turned the light on, I'd see a lot of happy cats, all with their tails straight up. 

I don't think we lived in that house very long-maybe just the summer. I think we had to move because the house was sold. It's a good thing we moved when we did too because in the backyard was an enormous fennel bush. I told Kelly it was a licorice bush and that by the end of summer, there would be licorice growing all over it. It was not very nice of me to say that but she was such a in your face know-it-all, it was kind of fun to make her believe such a big fat lie. Good thing I moved before that licorice "ripened" on the fennel bush. I would not like to face the wrath of Kelly when she found out I was pulling her leg. >:-)