Posted by Sherry on March 9, 2012
One of Ben’s Facebook friends just posted this pic of him.
I didn’t know until seeing this that he was growing locks. I imagine it’s because he’s recovering from knee repair surgery. He’s several weeks out from the repair of a severed tendon and has improved down to one crutch now. Of course the series-lover in me had to find a match.
This was 27 years ago—1985—back in the Don Johnson/Miami Vice days. Takes me back.
Posted by Sherry on March 4, 2012
I have plenty of historic stuff already, stuff inherited or stuff from my childhood, yet I keep saying yes when offered more stuff. Last week, thanks to the generosity of my cousin “HK,” I added a couple of quilts, photos, jewelry, and my grandparents’ framed Certificate of Marriage, circa 1901, to my growing collection of ancestral treasures.
Still, I can’t keep everything. So I’ve taken to taking pictures as a way of archiving my stuff.
Like this sweater and booties set I wore as a baby. No good reason to keep them, but the picture is fun.
Or the quilt my grandma made for me when I was a child. There’s no batting and it has stains, so I think I like the picture better than the real thing. It warms my heart and helps me remember that my grandma loved me.
But when Quinn saw this picture of my childhood doll, she was sure she needed the real thing, not just a picture. So I delivered it in person a couple of visits back.
And while I was at it, I took this “real thing,” if only for the fun/shock value.
Frank is her grandfather, Paul’s dad. He keep really did everything. When we cleaned out his attic, we found burned-out lightbulbs that he had replaced in their original corrugated wrapper, each marked with the lamp it had lit, dated when it was installed, and when its filament expired. We also found an opium pipe! I’m afraid that story ended with Frank.
And I’m afraid his teeth have bit the dust. What do you think? Did I keep these?
Posted by Sherry on March 2, 2012
We get invited to our grandkids’ birthday parties in Philadelphia and Phoenix but the long drive usually prevents our attendance. That makes today a red-letter day for party participation! Sage turned one today and we got to say Yes to the party invitation because we live right across town from the birthday girl!
After being fed delicious Yumm! Bowls, we watched Sage open presents. She actually wasn’t all that interested in opening presents, not with all those people in the room.
She did sit still for the first measure of the Macy birthday song,
but quickly moved to the center of the room and rocked out all the way to the end. I was sure she’s been channeling Chubby Checker.
Oh, yes, we are party animals!
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![photo[1]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7047/6948200897_8fb42da108.jpg)
Just a few states to the south another grandkid celebrated a birthday today. Paul is seven! Happy birthday to you, big boy! Wish we could be in two places at the same time.
Posted by Sherry on February 29, 2012
I recently added these pictures to my photo collection.
These are workers at Gem Stone Company in Dayton, Ohio, in the late 1800s. My grandfather is the handsome one in the middle, arms folded, wearing the whitish shirt. He started working there when he was 14 years old. He eventually moved on to do bigger and better things.
Now it’s early 1933. Along with three aunts and an uncle, I can find my dad; he’s the handsome one with the dimple and his eyes mostly closed standing toward the middle top. I guess the pic is too small for you to find him anyway. Oh, and one of the pianists, the one stage left, was my dad’s “intended.” But I’m kind of glad he waited to meet my mom about a year later.
All these years later we still like to get a group to stand in rows and smile for the camera. Beth organized this shot by calling a “meeting.” She was pretty sure they wouldn’t show up if they knew it was for a picture. That’s my handsome son in the back row, directly below the word Baghdad, and Beth is to his left.
Three makes a series, right? But I have many, many more.
Posted by Sherry on February 26, 2012
This is Bailey the first time I met him. He would become my grandson. My first grandson. I now have four!
But this is about Bailey. Here he is in 2005 at his first Duke basketball game. He and his dad flew from Denver to Durham in order for Bailey to experience college basketball up close and personal. Bailey had some growing to do to reach the height of DeMarcus Nelson.
In 2008 Bailey and his mom made the same trip to Durham for another Duke game.
We watched them from the flat side of our TV.
All this to say the Andersons are bigtime basketball fans. Yes, they like to watch college basketball, but this year they have become huge fans of high school basketball. Bailey’s been suiting up with the varsity team although he’s a mere freshman. And look!
Our Bailey is a state champion! “Unreal experience and he was on the floor when the final buzzer sounded.” [proud father Dusty reporting]
Woot!
Posted by Sherry on February 20, 2012
I find this study fascinating. Since I’m a combination of left and right, I won’t consider myself totally boring. Just mostly boring. And it’s what draws me back again and again to writing such as this. Please don’t skip this one. I would love to know how you assess yourself…left or right.
Posted by Sherry on February 17, 2012
In January 2011 I posted this little “series” story. The only thing different about it now is that it has a new ending.
circa 1977 • Baby Taylor gets ready to pull the pans out of the cupboard.
circa 2004 • Baby Cassidy—the same pans/lids offer entertainment.
circa 2009 • Baby Oscar investigates our 43-year-old cookware. Chances are another babe or two will play with these pans before they become obsolete.
—–
Update!
circa 2012 • Now Baby Sage finds them entertaining.
Who needs toys when you have a 45-year-old set of pots and pans to play with?
Posted by Sherry on February 14, 2012
Please read this as though it were Monday. I’ve just been given the nod to broadcast!
While we enjoyed the beni/bennys of yesterday, our Linsey was laboring to bring forth her firstborn child. I’m sure the people around us at the concert thought we were compulsive about our phones, since we checked them every five minutes or so for updates on her progress. I guess they’d be right.
At around 7 p.m., William Merrick was delivered via C-section to Pete and Linsey.
This morning we were invited to head up to the hospital to meet the little guy. Pete handed him off to his pop for a closer look.
Naturally we were interested in his name. Linsey’s dad is a William, we knew that. And then there’s the other family connection; Margaret-Rose (Pete’s mom) was originally a Williams. But what about Merrick? Well, they just wanted a good name that had something to do with the beach (since they love the beach so much). So Linsey looked it up while we were there to be reminded of its exact meaning: “ruler of the sea” — and to discover its the Anglicization of a Welsh variant of Maurice. Our kids inadvertently named their son for both of his grandfathers!
Here’s the mama who worked so hard and still has to recover from surgical baby removal. She doesn’t seem to mind at all.
Grandkid number eight! Your crazy, mixed-up, Brady-Bunch Macy/Williams/Carlson/Anderson family welcomes you with open arms.
Posted by Sherry on February 12, 2012
We’ve had an eventful afternoon! First we filled our stomachs at a favorite eating place. I guess it’s well known how much we like Benihana because we used gift cards from Quinn and Dusty, Taylor and Beth to buy our meals.
It doesn’t get much better than this!
Then we headed on into Portland to enjoy a concert of retro, though timeless, jazz.
These tickets were a gift from friends who also know what we like.
Not only did we thoroughly enjoy the concert, but I got to use our “lower balcony” seats as a lab for the zoom on my new camera.
Here’s where we sat.
Zooming on the whole stage.
Look at this! A close-up on the star.
Then there’s one more “Ben” today. It’s just reporting that son Ben had surgery (to reattach the detached tendon behind his left knee) last Monday morning, and tomorrow morning he’s going back to work! Sounds crazy to me, but I’m glad he’s doing that well. The doc said it will take 6-8 months for a full recovery, but with lots of physical therapy he should be good as new. He sent me a picture of the staples that go from his thigh to below his knee, but I’ll spare you that visual.
Posted by Sherry on February 7, 2012
Look who’s three already!
We were invited to Oscar’s birthday party on Saturday, but given its remote distance (Philadelphia), we had to attend via The Oscar Files. His actual birthday is today, so Mauri and I had a short skype date to sing the Macy birthday song and catch some of the flavor of Oscar as a three-year-old.
Oh, before you click out of here, please note the shirt Oscar wore for his party (at least for this part of his party). His Anderson cousins had something to do with its design.
Welcome to your threes, Oscar. Gus and Gum love you!