July 5th is the day I'm sad as my mother died today having heart surgery when I was 15 years old. And this year it's a bit worse as there is a Tropical Storm Elsa heading to Florida and Elsa was my mother's name *sigh*

Yesterday at the Museum of Modern Art I met for the first time a second cousin from England and his nephew Ralph McCubbin Howell, who now lives in New Zealand along with his girlfriend Hannah. As we roamed the museum we spoke a lot about our families and of course the artwork most of which I didn't really like though I am fond of Van Gogh's Starry ( Read more... )

I hate this spring. First Leonard Nimoy/Spock died then 2 friends online passed on one dying of lung cancer the other dying of liver cancer. A RL friend who I sometimes go to movies with had a check up for her breast cancer incident of a few years back and the doctors fear it might have metastasized into bladder cancer. We'd been talking about ( Read more... )

Many years ago one of my aunts in Sweden wrote a trio of children's books about her childhood early in the 20th century. Her niece (my mother was one of 7 children) just posted a link to them complete with the illustrations at http://www.nordvarmland.com/page.php?id=1039. ( Read more... )

Well it's my birthday and like Jack Benny I'm 39 and holding. Tonight we commemorate my day  with...leftovers! It's not as bad as it sounds. The first 2 nights we went out to eat then the following 3 nights we made a scrumptuous Cobb salad, then a mushroom and gorgonzola dish and finally last night when we celebrated my birthday (due to tonight ( Read more... )