A Chorus Line...

So it's been well over 30 years since I did this show. Which also equates to over 30 years of not being able to imagine ever NOT doing it as well. But that's pretty much the way it always is with things you do... right?

But I still believe it must have been my destiny somehow, because it was the thing that really defined all of those other things that came after it. And I tend to wonder about those kinds of things sometime. Like if something hadn't happened just exactly the way it did (on that one day), would I still have my children.. or my grandchildren? Would they look the way they do? Would they still be who they are? Would I have gone back to school? Would I have had this same job for 18 years? Would I have ever (EVER) lived in Michigan? Would I even be typing this right now? Because there is so much it seems... that could have the capacity to change one's life entirely, just by the direction of one's path or a decision made in a millisecond.

But I think I already wrote down some similar thoughts like this once, so I suppose there's really no need to reinvent the wheel.

A Simple Twist of Fate...

Anyway, rewinding back to the 70's...

I think that when this show hit the NY scene in May of 1976 it suddenly became every dancers dream. I think that, because the 5 auditions I attended (and all of which I was almost immediately cut from without given a second chance) was fairly similar to how I picture the American Idol cattle calls of today. They were crazy and exhilarating... but also totally humiliating.

And I don't even know what kept me going back time after time except for that little voice inside that kept telling me I could TOTALLY do that role. (To be honest I don't think that I ever really "pictured" myself doing that role... but I just really, really wanted to do it!)

So I suppose you'll now (in case you didn't do it before) have to click on that little link up there to find out how it all went down...

I guess I'm only saying this because, really?... I don't think anyone should ever doubt their potential to do anything that they're willing to set their sights on and work to achieve. Because although nothing usually comes from nothing... something will always SOMEHOW find it's way... I truly believe that.

And that one moment, on the Shubert stage, when I was finally, FINALLY offered the show?... Well, all I can say is that everyone should be allowed to have at least one of those moments in their life.

Because wow... What a really, REALLY great sixty seconds!









Here's an audio tape of a recording from a portion of the show in from San Francisco, Golden Gate Theatre, 1980 (not 1979 btw.. my goof! But when you get to be my age what's a year or two in either direction anyway?...) And what an added blessing to our posterity that Brad also happened to be on that night!..



And see? Sometimes you don't even need to be able to sing! (2:06-2:38) and (3:47-4:36) But at 6:50?...well, I think those seven syllables were pretty good : )... lol

Cast List:
Don - Rick Conant
Maggie - Stephanie Eley
Mike - Jamie Torcellini
Connie - Sachi Shimizu
Greg - Stephen Moore
Cassie - Wanda Richert
Sheila - Rita O'Conner
Bobby - Ron Kurowski
Bebe - Tracy Shayne
Judy - Jannet Moranz
Richie - Ralph Glenmore
Al - Brad Moranz
Kristine - Kerry Casserly
Mark - Scott Plank
Val - Pamela Ann Wilson
Paul - Stephen Crenshaw
Diana - Gay Marshall
Zach - Tony Teague
Larry - Marshall Hagins

Up next I suppose... All the other stuff that came before.

I Left My Heart In San Francisco (B L M)...

My memories must be pretty disjointed. Because this isn't the exact order I'd hoped to present it in when I started all this. There's a ton of stuff that came before. A ton! But if I don't do this now it might all get buried amongst the countless piles of life's living, so I guess I should just share it now while it's still somewhat fresh on my mind for the first time in well, a long time...

So anyway... Somewhere along the line I found my self lucky enough to be cast in this show.. "A Chorus Line." I toured with it for a year, which looking back, was probably one of the sweetest years of my life. San Francisco fell about half way into that tour with Baltimore, Minneapolis, Denver, San Diego, Portland, San Jose and LA lying on one half and Memphis, Buffalo, Cleveland, St. Louis and Louisville on the other. I seriously don't remember too much about the "before or after" halfs. In fact, I even had to go searching through my old scrapbooks even to be able to remember where they fell in the scheme of things... and even then, I'm pretty certain I haven't gotten them in the right order.

But I DO remember San Francisco. It was where I fell in love. And the whole thing of it was sort of odd because I hadn't really been attracted to him at all during that first half. And I was staying in this (seedy) apartment, right in the middle of the tenderloin district at the time. So how it all ended up, somehow, equating to love... I'm not really sure. It just did.

Perhaps it all began that night he returned from Aspen...





Or, during that foggy evening at the Cliff House, gazing out at the seals...



Or that beautiful afternoon at Stinson Beach...



Or during that trippy trip to Tahoe...





Or over that incredible weekend in Maui?





Or during that (icky) month in Europe?





Honestly?.. I'm thinking it could have been any one of those times... if memory serves me correctly...



But Memory's getting ahead of herself here... (she tends to do that sometimes...)

And right now, she's thinking it was still all the tenderloin's fault somehow...



Or the fact that she just really liked bowling...



~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

P.S. Just found this. Written some time around 2004...

I've always heard the saying "lightning doesn't strike the same place twice" or something like that. So since i've already been struck I think I can safely assume that I am now relatively safe from any future calamity..

The "striking" occurred in the winter of 1980. San Francisco. He had verdant eyes the color of mossy pools and lips that were plump and ripe shell pink... and he spoke of truths. He was kind and gentle, witty and snarky, yet firm and deliberate when the occassion warranted. The lightening clouds began rumbling overhead but the ZAP held back. Because he was way to "sensitive" to be the macho man of my dreams... and I'd already had a pretty long relationship with one of those "sensitive" types, if you get my drift...

But then he sang.

And that zigzaggy cord of light and energy zipped and zapped me every this way and that. And there would be no relief, not for a long time to come...

Not for years and years in fact...

But then about 20 years later...

Somehow, there it was...

Long story short - If you wanna make God laugh ~ all you gotta do is tell Him your plans...

Anyway, all I really meant to do here was just share some of these pictures with our kids... and of course, this vid...

My First "Girl Crush"...

It's Saturday Night! And at least seventy Saturday nights since I last posted, I know!... but I've been kind of busy. And I guess I just wasn't sure what else to add to my "memoirs." I mean, you've already learned about my family... and all my very first memories. The next several years were just pretty much well,... embarrassing.

But I guess now seems like just as good a time as any to jump in and tell you this little story...

In 1967 my family moved me from being a big fish in a little pond (La Puente, California) to being a very little fish (though already 5'7" with a fairly big nose) to a much bigger pond (Hacienda Heights), and, being only 13 at the time, I really didn't really handle it very well.

I had just recently seen a production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" at my big sister's High School and so immediately, upon moving into our new home, found the perfect spot (under the staircase) where I could lock myself in for hours at a time to write in my "journal," pretty much only coming out for school, mealtimes, or to watch my favorite TV program "The Patty Duke Show."

Remember it?

*sigh*

It was already in syndication by that time so, depending on the night, we'd get different versions of the show's opener. Here's one of the earlier versions...


But enough of that...

And then she began appearing on all these variety shows. So many in fact that I could hardly keep track, given that we only had this one little printed version of the TV guide that we had to actually go to the grocery store and purchase each week. But I loved this performance!



Anyway, I suppose my real downward spiral and decline began very innocently one night while attending some family friendly movie at the local Eastland Theater. I was simply out there in the lobby buying either popcorn or one of those 15 cents (at the time) packages of "Charms," when I happened upon this poster of upcoming attractions...



Ok, so who's to say that posters like this shouldn't be allowed to be displayed in the lobby during the normal "family friendly" movie nights? But bingo! It hooked me.

I'm not sure exactly what happened after that. I can only assume now that, at the time, I realized it was actually possible for a dorky, gangly little girl to still have a chance of blossoming into a mature, sexy, pill-popping, slut. Though I don't really think those were the actual adjectives that were running through my mind at the time. I just suddenly wanted to BE her... or at least know that there was a chance I'd ever be able to escape my boring little world. Because I really DID want to become an actress... eventually. In fact, during that very same time I remember standing in my backyard at night and looking down over the lights of my little town thinking... "Someday they'll ALL know who I am!" Haha, as if the lights of Hacienda Heights was "the world."

But so, the very next week, I BEGGED my mom to take me to see "Jungle Book" at that same theater... secretly hoping that they'd show previews of the upcoming attractions. Little did I know that even back then they typically gear the previews to the general demographics in attendance... And so anyway, by the way, I hated "Jungle Book."

But I somehow eventually snuck into the movie illegally anyway and it was AWESOME!





(Watching it 30 years later though, not so much...)

Memories get a little mixed up here, but I think it was shortly after that that I changed my journal entries from "Dear Diary.." to "Dear Patty.." Yeah, I know. But hey, I was still only 13. I wrote to her every day, religiously. I still have them. Every single entry, of which I will most likely burn shortly before I die... : ) And I bought and clipped out every single thing I could find about her from "Teen Beat" etc... as if it were all spot on true... and made the most amazing scrapbook! Followed everything about her for years! Ask mom.

And then somehow I ended up with mononucleoses during my 15th year which confined me to bed-rest for about 2 months. My grandma was there to bring up my meals during the day... I had a tutor from school come in once or twice a week... and of course the best thing about the whole thing was that I got a TV moved into my room! My mom even surprised me one day with this little gift to keep me company!



Which included a bunch of golden oldies...

Say Something Funny

Funny Little Butterflies

And the all time Shindig favorite...Please Don't Just Stand There

But still! I wore that thing out!

And then, well, after being confined to bed for a month or so I remember not being able to sleep at all one night, and so I most innocently stumbled into my parents bathroom, and into their medicine cabinet. It really didn't seem like such a bad thing to do at the time. I mean, wasn't that what Neely O'Hara did whenever she wanted to get some shut-eye? Turned out to be not such a great idea though. Oh I lived alright! But only after an emergency trip to the hospital. It also cost my parents a couple of sleepless nights of their own. I was a pretty dumb kid back then...

But I don't think it was until the evening I watched the Golden Globe Awards in 1970 that I even realized something might be wrong with her. And even then, I still thought she was so beautiful and went right back afterwards to my journal and wrote... "Awww, are you ok??? Call me... !" As if. I just love how completely innocent I was at the time. This video is quite telling and I'm sure much more complicated than I made it out to be at the time.


And yes, that was Desi Arnaz Jr. sitting beside her...

But as with all phases... they eventually pass. And by 1971 I'd pretty much changed by journal entry benefactress to "Barbra"... which I guess will now probably be the NEXT story I'll have to write...

It would still be years before she'd be officially diagnosed with bi-polar and would eventually become a major spokesperson for the disease. What an amazing life she's had! Long time President of the Screen actors Guild, mother and grandmother of many... and a happy wife (who now lives in Idaho!) There is just so much more I could say about her!

There are so many wonderful videos out there on YouTube but I really like this interview with Ernie Manhouse that I recently found.

One of the best autobiographies I've ever read!

Call Me Anna

Anyway... to finish off this post.

GoGo Bewts!...


...verses Social Security...


Gotta love it!

Memories of My Grandparents

I have six. Though I can really only remember three. And even then, mostly vaguely.

Of course I remember my Grandma on my mother's side the most since she lived with us during much of my childhood. She'd had twelve children, so after Grandpa Brigham passed away she spent most of the rest of her life visiting with and caring for her children's kids, of which I was probably one of the primary benefactors.

This is how I will always remember my Grandma Peterson...


Stella Jarvis Peterson

She had long gray hair, down to her waist and even beyond, that she would tie up in a little tiny knot at the nape of her neck. As a child I think I figured that the older you got the longer your hair grew. Anyway... her hair was really, really long. And her skin was very wrinkled and "baggy." During those many long hours in church pretty much the only thing that kept my attention was playing with her wobbly neck and then, after I got bored with that I'd sleep for the rest of the meeting with my head on her lap.

We'd take a lot of trips. My family would travel to Arizona or Utah practically every summer (in my Aunt Clara's Ford Rambler through thunder and lightning storms as I mostly remember) and we'd be driving through the deserts with all those vast mountain ranges or intermidable stretches of desert on all sides and we'd sing songs like "We Are Sowing" or "High On A Mountain Top" or "They The Builders of A Nation"... and I've never been able to sing those songs in church since without thinking of her... and the landscapes.

Sayings she had a plenty. One I remember the most was "When mother speaks obey! Do not falter, do not stay, but quickly say "I Will!" And when she said it, she meant it!

Another favorite saying of hers was "Work while you work and Play while you play." That never really made sense to me as a child, but it does now. And a little song that went like this... "Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need? Have I cheered up the sad or made someone feel glad? If not I have failed indeed."

I think one of my greatest memories though was of that little black purse and of the lemon drops hidden within her little hanky. That little black purse was like a treasure trove to me!

There are many, many bedtime stories out there. Some traditional and some not so much. But I think I may be unique in having this poem (by annonymous) recited to me (by heart) probably at every single bedtime of my young life.. or at least it seemed that way to me. I can still recite it (by heart) too! But I was so glad to be able to find it!

The Little Blackberry Girl

I think the thing that impressed me most about Grandma was her ability to work her fingers to the bone and then to just find the time to "sit still." She used to love to go on drives and then just sit in the car while we carried out our errands and I don't ever remember her complaining about how long she'd had to sit and wait. She could always find something to think about...

Oh yes, and I remember that she also loved to mend socks...

Grandma Stella was always old to me. But what's funny is that she wasn't ALWAYS.


Grandma Stella as a young girl with her little sister. She was so pretty!


Marriage to Brigham Young Peterson in 1904


Young Wife and Mother


Brigham Young Peterson

I never knew my Grandpa Brigham, but have always regarded him as so dapper and handsome!...

And distinguished!


When people tell me I'm a "Peterson" I take that as a compliment.

Grandma Stella in her prime...


And a brief note from her...


Dad's Side

We'll as I've mentioned before, the whole story is a little complicated.

My true grandparents on my dad's side are Henry Howard Lamoreaux and Ivy Delilah Allen. Though I never knew either one of them.

My paternal grandparents were divorced when my dad was a child and their temple sealing cancelled by Heber J. Grant. So I guess that made it pretty official...


Ivy Allen - Dad's Mom

She was a great-great-great grandaughter of the lyricist William Wines Phelps who wrote many of the LDS hymns including "The Spirit of God" and many others, so I guess in a way I'm still sort of related.

Ivy eventually married Tom Horsley, afterwhich he was asked which he liked better... lambs or horses in choosing his ultimate last name (or so the story goes). And again, I have very little information on my dad's life during this time or virtually about ANY of his time growing up.


Thomas Leroy Horsley

I do know that Ivy passed away while my dad was in the Navy... and sometime later Tom married Enid... and that they would then turn out to be the paternal grandparents I would come to know and love. And it never occurred to me in all those years of growing up that we weren't blood related! So I guess it just goes to show...

The thing I remember the most about visits to Grandma and Grandpa Horsley's house was the suffocating heat. They lived in Mesa, AZ. But in their house they had all these little nic-nacs and a curio cabinet full of all sorts of cool stuff. A recliner that you could lean back in and put your feet up and a foot pump organ which I would spend hours on, and which I think we inherited later... And grandma, being the church music director, had this baton that always fascinated me. She was always telling me to be careful with it when I'd swing it around.

And they had the oldest car in the world. Even at the time I knew it was old. It smelled old! And they had these little nylon visers on the windows to deflect the heat and the sunlight but I think the fact that they had deteriorated so badly from all of the heat and sunlight was one of the reasons it smelled so bad in there.


At age 4 in front of the car

Grandpa was on the Mesa police force for years and years, but I never knew it. Not until his funeral service when there were blocks and blocks of police cars escorting the caravan to the cemetary. I always remember him being so quiet and reserved. Or maybe it's just because he was finally able to rest from his duties. At any rate... he never seemed like a policeman to me. Grandma was the robust one. Always laughing! Always smiling! Always singing! I remember she had an obsession with this late night radio talk show which she would often call into to share her thoughts, especially after grandpa died. She also had a very strong kinship with Alexander Schriener, the late LDS Tabernacle organist, but to this day I'm not quite certain what that relationship was.

The best thing I remember about visiting them was that they'd always take me shopping to buy "a dress" and "a toy." The dress I could have probably done without, but I'll never forget the feel and smell of Mesa's "Main Street" and "shopping" with my grandparents!



Aren't they SO friggin' cute?

A letter from Grandma Enid...


Anyway, I've only included some of my most vivid memories here as the geneology on both sides of my family has pretty much been completed for the most part. But there is still a detailed abundance of family treasure to be found in this wonderful book my mom compiled...


it's on the coffee table...

...Along with quite a bit of fairly well organized stuff that I've collected over the years which is in that old trunk of mine...

The one in the front hall...

Letters to My Sisters...

Excerpts from previous "Happy Birthday" blog posts.

To Lala... or that would be... Carol Ann to the rest of you...

Ok, here goes... Well, first of all... thanks for not doing anything like trying to suffocate me after mom brought me home from the hospital.

After that... one of my favorite childhood rememberances was of our times at night in our little twin beds... creating those yarns with a twist. The twist being that the stories always had to end with the phrase "...and the jennifer cleaned it up." Omg...wouldn't this just be TOO entirely too complicated to try to explain the premise of to anyone else ???!!!... or to explain the reason why we were able to laugh about the irony of it so many years later? Anyway...

Do you remember when you and "Biggie" (bwah) had me going on thinking that you guys went to some place in your dreams every night where you got to ride horses and stuff? And do you know how many mornings I woke up sobbing because I somehow hadn't figured out the magic password that I was suppose to somehow come up with in my sleep?

And then there were all those slimy pollywogs.

After that you left me alone and ignored me for like 10 years except for those times when you and Regina would make fun of me for some reason. Was I really that weird back then too???

But haha... then you went off to college and yet actually wrote to me like almost every day, and I can prove it because I still have all your letters! Guess you must have been homesick or something. Anyway... through your stationary you even subliminally tried to encourage me to incorporate your hot pink and orange dormroom scheme into my/our very own bedroom... which, btw, was by now all mine! (neenerneenerneener) Unfortunately I succumbed...

And THEN you went and got married. And I wanted to BE you! Ha! I bet you never even knew that that did you? That whole summer while I was behaving like an absolute brat as I was being forced to help address wedding invitations and glue all those hot pink and orange flowers into those bridesmaids baskets? Yes, big sister LaLa... it's all true.

But then kids and husbands... etc... etc... etc... began to fill up our days. And before we knew it some 30 odd years had past!...

But ya know it's funny, because as it turns out...some of the very best times I've ever had in my life have STILL ended up being the times I've shared with you! And so how did that happen? Perhaps it's because we're the only one's on this planet who completely "get" each other!...

Anyway...

Happy Birthday Carol Ann!

Hope you had a good one!


And it's not THAT bad getting older... is it?


...is it?



* * * * * * *

And To Jeannie... or I guess that should be... Alison...

So did you think I'd forget?

Fat chance! bwahahahaha.

So anyway... Here's what my little sister jee-nee looked like somewhere around 43 years ago today.



Isn't she just adorable? The most perfect bangs... nice little curls... and a to-die-for tie pin...

And yes, I coveted it ALL. I did.

Too bad that she turned out to be such an agonizingly unnactractive young woman...



So yes... Sibling rivalry at it's best I guess it was. She always did have the most perfect curls or the perfectly straight and silky locks. Whichever and whatever she wanted... But then it's always been that way! She even got to get married three times!!!

Mom!!!...

**Switches to first person to make it more personable...**

OK... you know I'm kidding, don't you? Just joshin' with you, right? Because right off the top of my head... I have 2 of just the most wonderful memories that are so vivid in my brain right now that they are about to burst out of it:

Like the time that I was babysitting you and I made you go outside on the driveway wearing my oversized pair of rollerskates, even though I knew you didn't have a CLUE how to rollerskate... But somehow you came through. And so yeh.. I never DID get to borrow that pair of crutches from you that I was hoping and praying that you'd end up needing...

And then there was that time when I was directing that production of "A Little Princess" in our basement... and out of ALL the kids in the WHOLE neighborhood I let YOU be Sara Crew. Oh, I KNOW I didn't have to... but then "I guess that's what makes me so nice" tm Glinda from "Wicked." Nevermind that we never actually performed it... even though we did rehearse it a lot! And it's always the thought that counts anyway.

Now don't get me wrong... We do have several, OK... multitudinous, OTHER memories ... but I think you'll probably agree with me that most of them are just much too embarrassing or too private to share. So shhh, don't you dare tell and I won't either.

My one serious question, however, is... how did you end up somehow being such a wonderful sister afterall? Because truly... you are one of the few people on earth who really knows me. And I just never would have expected that of you when you were like... 5. And even though you are now... 48 (omg!)... you are still, in my mind, my adorable little sister jee-nee, except who is now Alison, and probably always SHOULD have been. You've just always been the "Alison" type, ya know?



And STILL not too pathetically atrocious to look at...

I love you! So much!

Your sister

Oh! And THIS just in. I knew all that acting training I gave you would eventually pay off!

* * * * * * *

The Best Mom Ever

Ever noticed how MoM is still always spelled MoM.. even backwards?

And then just look what happens when you turn it upside down!

Anyway.. I am completely convinced that I have... and have ALWAYS had the very best WoW!

I've jotted down some memories in the past about all the reasons I think she is so incredible, which you can read about here and here, but today I just felt like sharing a couple more:

Nurturer
Here's a picture of my mom as a baby. The youngest of 12 children. You would have thought she'd have grown up spoiled rotten with all those older siblings doting over her.

Ironically she turned out to be the most selfless caregiver of all. Caring not only for her mother and many of her sisters at various stages of their lives, but her own children, her children's friends, her students, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the homeless, the sick, the elderly... and I think at one time even my cat.

She just doesn't know how to say No. Nor would it even occur to her to want to...


"Singer" Extraordinaire
My mom has always been a wonderful seamstress. Having been rather poor as a child and then growing up during the Depression she learned how to sew her own clothes early on. Her mother had always taught her how to make garments that were as beautiful on the inside as they were on the out. Here is the pink taffeta dress she made for her 8th grade graduation. She entered it into a 4H sewing competition on a chance to win a trip to Europe but was disqualified because she wasn't yet 16.

She tried her darndest to teach me sew, however the skill never quite caught on. I did end up making a couple of Halloween costumes for my own kids many years later... but only out of dire necessity. Thanks Mom!

Here's me wearing that exact same taffeta dress in one of my theatrical productions nearly 35 years later! So it was obviously made to last. Hope I didn't trash it TOO much. If I did... Sorry Mom!

Graduation dresses, formals, recital costumes, you name it... I'm sure it must have been tons of work for her while teaching full time. And I'm not sure I completely appreciated it until I was in the midst of raising my own.


Glamour Girl and Homecoming Queen Runner-Up
She definitely should have won!

Teacher
Here are a couple of pictures of mom as a teacher which span four decades. She taught for 37 years!

My first memory of mom as a teacher was attending "Nursery School" for her Child Development class. I don't know where the other kids came from and I'm not sure how long it lasted, maybe just a couple of days or a week. But I especially remember sitting around in a circle for singing time, and playing on the wooden rocking horse that was really MINE.

But my very favorite memory from when I was a little older was when she'd let me go to school with her once or twice a year. There was an office, a cooking room, a sewing room and a regular classroom all lined up in railroad fashion and it was like over a mile from one end to the other... And after exploring I'd sit at her desk in the office and pretend to be a teacher myself.

Eating lunch in the teacher's lounge was always an awesome treat!

Mom taught at that school for 22 years and then transferred to a brand new one as department chairman for another 15 years. I remember how much she loved those orange counter tops in the cooking room. And they WERE pretty awesome! In the new school she pioneered one of the first "On Your Own" curriculums ever I think, teaching her students all about the logistical facts of life. There were budgets and weddings to be planned and I think also a few babies.

It was here where I learned not only how to operate a mimeograph machine but also how to appropriately color code and organize every imaginable thing!

She loved her students and they loved her! I remember more than once hearing that a new student was so excited to have her as a teacher because of how much her mom had loved being in her class!

I was able to attend her retirement dinner in 1986 and it was quite the tribute! What a touching event it was in celebrating 37 years of a wonderful career! And that was 20 years ago! She's lived right I guess!

Everyone's MoM
And I mean that when I say it.

It wasn't unusual for our home to be filled with a dozen kids after school on any given day. And we didn't sit quietly and play video games back then. No. but we'd tear everything out of the cupboards and dress up closets and every nook and cranny imaginable!

She was always the one to host the the birthday parties, the pre-dance gatherings, the swimming parties for all the kids from church and eventually many of my cast parties. I'll never forget one afternoon during the summer of '69 when our living room was "the place" where over two dozen teenagers witnessed man's first walk on the moon!

And when she wasn't hosting she'd be chaperoning... Girl Scout trips to the mountains or Catalina... beach trips with the youth... taking her Primary students to the park... or Knott's Berry Farm. I'll bet she doesn't think I probably remember the time that we all played hide and seek on that little island across the road from it... or the time we dared her for nearly two hours to just jump off of off that playground structure into the sand, which she eventually did! What a game girl!

I could effortlessly name several handfuls of friends who at one time or another have called her "MoM." Did I mind? Not at all. It truly always made me feel really proud. Like I had a really, really special one. Ya know?

MY MoM!
Funnest day ever! Just HER and ME!

I took this one of her...


And then she took this one of me...


Negotiator
I'll never forget the time my MoM got caught going 30 mph in a 25 mph zone. Where after going back and taking a picture of the posted speed limit sign (completely hidden by a conglomeration of tree branches) she took it to the judge... magnifying glass and all! Needless to say she didn't hav'ta pay.

I so seriously wish that I had that picture!

Orchestrator
Family Hawaii Cruise of 2008... Need I say more? But in the end? It was the best time ever!

Writer
Ok, so she didn't actually write it, she made darn sure that everyone else did! And then she put the whole thing together! And what a great tribute to her own parent's legacy it is!

I hope that everyone lucky enough to be blessed with a copy of this book reads it! I have to admit that once I started I couldn't stop. No, seriously! That must have taken a whole lot of work! And a whole lot of love!

Grandma
Grandma of 16 and Great-Grandma to (oh my gosh I don't even know how many!)

But what I do know is what a GREAT Grandma she's been to mine.


I could never have done it without her!

Always there through the thick and thin... and sticky. If not for Grandma I am certain my kids would have never experienced the wonderment of sugar easter eggs... and multitudinous other messies...


And it's just been such a comfort having MoM so close by for my kids who now live so very far away from me, with never the lack of an "Omelette for a Crowd."

Grandma's house is just special! From the 'scary' pictures in the bedroom downstairs to the Celestial Living Room just above. Along with the early morning musak...

And I Also Want to Thank Her Again... for this:
Because she probably thought I was a complete and utter weakling after this experience. But I want to thank her so much for being there for me! For holding my hand through it. And also for supervising all those nurses...
I was somehow thinking about this just the other day and suddenly remembered that it wasn't just me all alone in the delivery room the morning my precious little second child was born, afterall.

And then I got pretty much choked up on that humungous memory.


Wife and Soulmate
The love of his life and vice-versa...
I swear... Probably one of the best matches ever made to date on the face of this planet! It's rather amazing really!

And if my siblings will allow me to speak for them as well, I think that we would probably ALL say how happy we are for them and for all of the precious and priceless things they have managed to discover together!

A match definitely made in Heaven... for all Eternity and even way beyond if that's even possible. For sure!

Ya know, it's really hard to try to express it all in this one little blog entry. And I realize this has been pretty long as it is.

But thank you MoM, really. For being the best one ever! Then, Then and NoW.

I Love You! I Do!


Happy Mother's Day Mom!