The Pilver

“No sweetheart,” I said. “She died when I was 14 and she’d gone forever.”

He revised his question to ask if there was a way he could dig her up so that he could see her face not inside of a picture. I had been telling him stories about how she could mimic Woody Woodpecker’s laugh in the greatest way. I told him that her chocolate cookies were tastier than any other grandma’s cookies ever could be. My grandma died fourteen years ago and I still remember there being hundreds of people at her funeral. So many people that I had never seen before. Whenever we went out to eat with our extended family my grandma would run into one of her friends. I was convinced Grandma Pearl was famous.
I also remembered the way my mother would speak so highly of her grandmother who came to the United States via Ellis Island. Her name was Kristiane Erickson but everyone to this day refers to her as Grandma Kitty. I wanted to know the woman that my family thought of so fondly that they named me in her honor. I recall how my mother’s eyes appeared open when she told me stories about her grandma, but she was really looking at scenes of the past and the visuals of what she remembered.

As I was talking I knew I was doing that very same thing, and I had tears in my eyes. When I looked in the rear view mirror at my little boy I noticed his eyes were red and wet as well. We were driving down a boring street in our boring car when this discussion took place. I don’t know how it’ll play out for sure, but I told him that when we all get to heaven I was going to personally introduce him to Grandma Pearl. That thought made both of us smile.

Sometimes the only way to seemingly answer small children’s endless car ride quizzes is to lie with the best intentions.

Ok, nothing is alive. At least not until next week or so. What in the world is that crazy girl talking about?

Tonight, my son told me we HAD to get ready for Halloween. This would involve a trip to CVS and yards of polyester spiderwebs and orange mini lights. Now as I sit in a quiet home with the exception of the earthquake of pizza hood fans exploding under my feet, I am loving the glow of the lights. And I am aching for the time when I will replace them with multi colotred lights and fake evergreen. I think I might get a real tree this year. No I won’t, but it is a great thought. I thought about you real tree, but you are not yet large enough to cut down and bring got my home. Next year maybe.

And beyond the Halloween ending and official Minnesota beginning. I get the cold. Mr. Global Warming you cannot ever make it to the actual day of halloween, although you try so very hard each year. Tomorrow is expected to be cold and rainy dispite the temps in the 60’s today.

Good golly I am talking about the weather. Time for bed.

Sometime, hopefully in 2-3 years, I will have earned a degree in writing. Which will be fabulous, it is what I love to do. As of yet, however, I have written little in the way of fiction. And for my degree I will have to write a boatload of fiction. So, to slowly work my way into the world of made up stories I am going to attempt the challenge at nanowrimo.com, or as I like to call it sodogotowodogboho. Essentially it is an event in the month of November where you attempt to write 50,000 words and call it a novel. I am going to try this because I’d like to shun the people in my life for a four week span this fall. I am not saying I will finish it and I am not saying if I do I will ever let anyone read it ever. But I am going to try. And if I do finish it I will be able to say I wrote a novel. Whee!

The first time I heard anything about the internet was probably 1995. Pat, who lived across the street told me he had spent a lot of time during the summer “surfing the net”. I thought because he played tennis he was speaking of a different sort of net all together. To be fair, this was in a town that had not yet provided internet access for students when I graduated in 1997. To this day is not wired for broadband connection

The last time I was in college the internet was a baby and I used it not knowing what the heck it was. We were allowed a half hour of online time in the computer lab each night. I knew how to get onto my now defunct hotmail account, and I could buy terrific clothing at the stores that had at that point bothered to set up websites. Beyond that, it didn’t capture my interest in any form.

This current journey through upper education has allowed me the luxury of never having to set foot inside a library. This is amazingly helpful as I would be required to bring along a little boy who has only one set volume which is full blast. I have a couple required classes this semester that have assignments of research projects just for the practice of researching. Now, since I hope to earn myself a degree in the area of writing I have been doing my research on the way that internet is slowly taking over some forms of print writing.What I have found it is definitely hitting daily newspapers hardest of all.

In one of my searches for early internet usage I came across this video that made me audibly giggle while wearing sweats and sitting at my desk at one am last night. I cannot tell exactly when it was made, but I am assuming it was from the very early nineties. In all fairness it isn’t meant to be funny, just educational and newsworthy. I am sure that it was the first anyone had heard of the internet at that point. Then I thought of what I would be like today if the web had come along ten or fifteen years later. I don’t like that thought and I choose not to think about it any longer.

Here’s the thingy:

The most wonderful time of the year is in full swing. Halloween decor has sat atop the shelves at the pharmacies and discount stores for a full month now. In just a couple short weeks it will be all shoved into the carts sitting near the registers begging for your mercy with brightly colored discount stickers. But don’t feel badly, because at this point there will be Christmas supplies to ooh and aah over. And you will. Even if you are the type who believes the season should last two weeks and be done with. And you people bother me by the way. I never ever say nasty things here, but now I will:   LET US WHO LOVE ALL HOLIDAY MAGIC HAVE IT! Please stop complaining that the Christmas lights are up after January 1st. Would you rather there were Valentines lights that replaced them? And in this area of the nation where there is snow for so many months of the year, the lights look terrific even in March. I mean, they are lights.    LIGHTS.    Don’t curse the sight of beauty in it’s purest form.

OK. Rant over. I have decided that this year instead of creating a list of holiday fun that I must complete I will just choose one thing every weekend to do. This way I have one task a week. And it will be something I love to do. This weekend it was Pumpkins. I went to Kawalski’s with my son and told him he could pick out whatever pumpkin he wanted. So, I had to lug the largest pumpkin in all of Saint Paul down the street, because of course there would not be parking near my front door today, then up two flights of stairs. And THEN, we carved

Now, I am all for traditional looking jack-o-lanterns. This would be because I have no artistic skill when it comes to stabbing vegetables. So, we did the triangular eyes and jagged mouths.

And the seeds, oh the seeds. I made three pans with the two pumpkins that we carved. (I of course had to get one for myself) Well, here’s the pictorial evidence of my first weekend of holiday fun.

And just so YOU know. Holidazzle is 41 days away and last year opening night was unseasonably warm and we had a blast, so go this year with us and it will be even better. I don’t know why better, but anyhow. Come, yes you. You internet people you.

Outside my apartment there are lots of great deciduous trees. And right now they are full of red and orange and yellow leaves. I love that. One tree today was full of an albino squirrel. If you have never seen one before they are just as they sound. White with red eyes. At first I thought it was a little white cat. But no, it was a squirrel. And kinda ugly freaky looking too.

See for yourself: