Quote of the Day: "Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out of it alive." -- Elbert Hubbard
After all that thinking yesterday, I need a break or I'll get a headache, so today I thought I'd just give you all some fun things to do.
From the Evolt Chat list ... You can take the Web IQ test. Kind of fun. Good timewaster. There is a trick. See if you can figure it out.
And from the Web IQ test, I found The Useless Pages. Read what Wired had to say about this site or see it for yourself.
I have time for one quick story.
I never met my maternal grandmother because she died long before I was born, but I think I would have like knowing her. She came alive for me through the stories my mother told about her.
My grandfather worshipped her. When she died the sunshine went out of his life and he was never the same man, afterward. He would do anything for her, and I have letters he wrote to her to prove it.
Shortly before they were to be married, her mother died. She was quite disheartened and sad, so a friend of hers (whose father was the skipper of the Vanderbilt's yacht) invited her to spend some time up in Providence, RI with her family. My grandmother went.
I have no idea how my grandmother spent her time up there, but I do know she wasn't much of a letter writer. My grandfather wrote her nearly every day, and every so often he would ask her to write back. She may not have been much of a writer, but she did save all my grandfather's letters all nicely tied up with a blue satin ribbon. I found them years later when my mother's sister died. They were in a little wooden trunk with some old pictures at the top of one of my aunt's closets. My cousin had said that we should take whatever we wanted, because he was just going to throw it all away. I'm so glad I was there, or this treasure would have been lost to my family for all time.
After my grandmother and grandfather were married and had four children, they settled into a big Victorian-style house in Staten Island. My grandmother went into the parlor one night after dinner and asked my grandfather if he wanted to go to the movies. My grandfather, who had settled down in his Morris chair to listen to his favorite radio program, said, "No."
My grandmother told my mother to get ready to go to the movies. My mother, said, "But Daddy said he didn't want to go."
My grandmother responded, "He wants to go, he just doesn't know it, yet."
So my mother and her two brothers and sister would get ready to go. My grandmother would meet them in the hall outside the parlor in her coat and hat. After she'd checked to make sure they were all bundled up properly, faces washed, hair combed, she would go into the parlor and call to my grandfather, "Charlie, we're ready to go to the movies now."
My grandfather would look up, see his wife and children standing there in their coats, then he would get his coat and they would go to the movies.
According to my mother, this happened on a regular basis.
Posted by Cyberkat at February 24, 2002 3:41 PM | TrackBack