I couldn't respond yesterday, I was at a graduation party and then I went to see Jim Gaffigan (funny!).

It reminded me of "signs" that I saw after my father died.

I was charged with bringing some food to my parents apartment for the wake after his funeral.
I had to put one of the paper bags down to open the door. When I came back to pick it up,
the frozen food inside left a definitive heart-shaped wet spot on the cement. I felt my throat
and my stomach constrict, I have to say that my IMMEDIATE thought was that he was trying
to communicate his love to me from "beyond"....

A couple of days later, as I was driving on an expressway, a single, red, heart-shaped balloon
drifted across the eight lanes of traffic. Its string tangled on my side-view mirror for a moment before
sailing away. By this time, I'd had a little time to absorb the loss, but I did realize that had
I been LOOKING for "signs", this would have qualified.

I understand the impulse, the need, to override the finality of death. I see how it can come,
unbidden.

It freaks me out a little that some people never question the place where it really comes from.

Our own feelings of fear, sadness and loss.

There were usually three or four of us bouncing around in the back of the station wagon
at any given time. We were all very cute....

The object of the game was to make the people behind us get "fed up" and
pass us.

We would wave sweetly or throw a peace sign at the people behind us, then we WOULD NOT STOP
waving and being cute. This would eventually make the travelers behind us acutely uncomfortable.

The game was scored thusly:

Driver or passenger waves back: 1 point
Driver passes us: 2 points
Driver or passenger flips us off: 5 points

We played this game for YEARS before my father, who always drove the speed limit,
figured out what we were laughing at, and why people gave him dirty looks when they
finally managed to speed past us.

we had two cats. One day, I went out and bought some catnip, and the cats
tore the bag apart. I put the catnip in a baggie and stuffed it into a drawer
in the dining room.

My mother, the world's greatest SNOOP, came over and under the guise of
"looking for her tupperware", opened the drawer, took out the baggie and
nonchalantly said "You kids sure keep a lot of WEED around the house."

She was trying to be so cool and bust us at the same time.....

We still laugh about that one.

at my cousin's wedding.


Everyone thought he had exaggerated.

Months later, we were forced to watch slides of the wedding, and sure enough,
in SIX OR SEVEN pictures, taken one after another of people greeting the happy
couple, you can see, in stop motion, my AWFUL grandmother FULL-ON SHOVING
my brother out of the way to get to the groom.

Stop action of my brother's shocked face as he is almost pushed down the
church stairs, and of the adoring crazed fan-like expression on my grandmother's
face as she attempted to reach her other grandchild.



My OTHER brother had unwittingly captured the whole thing on film!



This is the SAME grandmother who lifted my husband's kilt with her cane
at MY wedding the year before.....