The Many Faces of Gracie

On Tuesday (Jan 27) Ashley, Gracie and I drove down to Long Beach following a visit from the Strombergs (Ashley, Jim & Gracie) over the weekend. It was a busy weekend with a wedding reception and shower for Rob's sister, Kathy, and a Sunday brunch at Rob & Alyssa's to celebrate my b-day.

And on Friday (Jan 30) Ashley went to work and "Grampy" and I stayed with Gracie and had a perfectly lovely day. These are photos of Gracie "vamping" it up while having her lunch.

Column: Facebook 'R Us!!!

Yes, it's another column. After hearing about Facebook for about the umpteen millionth time and totally not "getting it" I actually found myself on this site. It all starts innocently enough - a couple of questions here, a couple of clicks there and - VOILA!! Suddenly you're networking with the universe! If you're up for a whole column on Facebook craziness, click on this: http://mushroom-city-memoirs-the-column.blogspot.com/.

Birthday "Girl" Reaches Social Security Entitlement

The bad news is the above-named "entitlement," and hey! I'm takin' it early! But the good news was spending my birthday in Yosemite. We wined and dined at the Tenaya Lodge at the south gate of the park. Although I'd swear to taking a picture of every inch of Yosemite, I still find it necessary to start firing away upon arrival!

Column: Jack is Back!

Yesterday when I opened the Morgan Hill Times and came upon my column page, I had a little surprise. I'd written about one of my TV "faves," the hard-slamming, pulse-racing, nail-biting FOX series, "24." After a year and a half of no "24," thanks to the writers' strike, we Jack-fans were anticipating the return of this show like a teenage girl waits for her date on prom night.

What I hadn't anticipated was the normal picture of me, the column writer, to show up right next to a super-sized photo of Jack Bauer (aka Kiefer Sutherland) himself! Now this was quite eerie, I swear! It was sort of like we were "keeping company" as it were, located side-by-side in the Features section of Friday's paper. My heart sorta skipped a beat like maybe I was somehow ASSOCIATED with this fearless freedom fighter. Yes, I kind of felt like, well...like maybe an older sister or something. Certainly not his mother - oh, heavens no. Just an older sister. Yeah, that's the ticket.

If you care to read the actual column, it's posted here: http://mushroom-city-memoirs-the-column.blogspot.com/. Or you can just drink in the picture located above this post :)

Bad (Foot)Wear Day Revisited

So last week when admitting to a major style faux pas and making a total fashion victim of myself, little did I know that I was closer than I thought possible to actually making a trendy "Fashion Statement." Here is what happened.

A couple of days after wearing my sandals with socks, the NBC hit "30 Rock" aired. AND, would you believe it, there was mega-Emmy-winner Tina Fey/Sarah Palin clone about to leave on her vacation to the tropics, saying she was going to be hanging out at the beach in her SANDALS and SOCKS JUST LIKE THEY DO IN PARIS!!! That's PARIS, people, as in FRANCE. The Glam Capital of the World!! And ok, Tina was saying "dark" socks and mine were, well, technically, white. But I would just like to mark that day as being "darned close" to being a major fashionista trend setter.

On a related note, I have oodles of pictures of my mother taken back in the late 30s, early 40s, and she was definitely a "babe." Let's just say Julia Louis Dreyfus is a clone of my mother. Yes, she was pretty hot. EXCEPT for (I USED to think) - her sandals and socks!!! That's right - it was an actual trend back in the day and I have pictures to prove it.

So if you want to know what's hot in the world of fashion, just give me a ring...at least if it pertains to the whole sandals and socks thing.

Thank you, Ma Bell

Geeze - I LOVE telephones. Yesterday I received my first "official" telephone call from our little granddaughter, Gracie. Even though her mommy had dialed the phone, the "heavy breathing" I detected issuing forth from the other end of the line could only be from one source: Miss Gracie Elizabeth. Eventually, after a couple of button pushing episodes, I heard "Hi!" although it came out more as "Hah!" - as if she'd been growing up in southern Texas versus southern California.

The preliminaries out of the way, we ventured into territory that I knew would keep the conversation flowing such as "what does a dog (cat/horse/monkey/elephant/birdie/cow) say?" with the corresponding answers (woof-woof/eow/nay/oo-oo/elephant-ish-sound/teet-teet/moo). Eventually I got a big "BYE" or "Bah!" and spoke with Ashley, aka "ma-ma" while Gracie entertained herself with toys and lots of "Oh-ohs" (which is the standard reaction for most traumas in the life of an 18-month old).

I don't suppose I could get her grandpa (Grampy) to agree to let me get Gracie her own cell phone for all those future calls to Grammy???...oh,well, maybe not.

Bad (Foot) Wear Day

I've always equated to the "little-old-lady syndrome" (LOLS) open-toed, sling-backed shoes worn with socks of any type. That's why this startling self-portrait of my right foot is big-time scary. Now why would someone of at least average intelligence (me) make such a fashion faux pas by wearing not-so-glamorous but super-comfy SAS sandals with these ankle-high socks? It goes without saying that there were no witnesses to this travesty to trends - so why, then, would I subject myself to ridicule by exposing my tragic foot-attire error to the world at large? I dunno - go figure!

In my defense, this morning was chilly. Hence it was a sock day. BUT - we've had super high temps this week; hence the sandals. Now I was tempted to just hang out in my comfy slippers but I had to work today and by "work" I mean true manual labor: taking down the Christmas decorations - and YES, I KNOW it's January 13!!! So a long day on my feet schlepping around numerous bulky boxes required a bit of good foot support so my back didn't rebel by the end of the day. I know about arch support, I'm afraid. Too many years wearing "cute shoes" (pointy-toed high heels) to work did its damage. So - I confess to this total violation of the footwear code and may possibly suffer ticketing for same by the fashion police. Except ya know what? I'm not really caring right now. Maybe I'm a little closer to the LOLS than I thought!