Zoo.  Going to the zoo is special, and my most local recently added giraffes.  We decided to go meet them with my nephew, and had a very fun day in June.  Mack and my mom meeting giraffes at the zoo last summer (above), me and my mom meeting giraffes at the zoo during an earlier summer (below).

This was not my finest photographic effort, nor was it my Z when I took the pictures.  I took a picture of Queen Ann’s Lace that day, and that was definitely with Q in mind, but not Z.  This one was hard… I think I’m a little past pleasing for zaftig, and I’m not sure quite how I’d portray that, anyway, so Z for Zoo it is!

Have I ever mentioned how much I’ve enjoyed participating in the ABC-Along?  I was sometimes rushed and sometimes fell behind, but I so enjoyed thinking about each letter and how best to represent it, taking pictures to reflect a little of me and making it personal.  In the beginning, I’d intended to photograph each letter as it came up, but it didn’t work out that way — for the most part, it did, but there are a few "out of order."  I’ve definitely had some favorites — okay, I was just going to go back and link to a few, but they’re all favorites, they all really do reflect me — people, places, things that I love and that are special or important to me.  I was inspired, N was just too much fun, O took me miles off my route to get to the spot after finally finding the one, V was pure chance, and X was a last-minute save; I wish I had a do-over or two… I forgot that I’d intended to do watch pins for W, though I guess that turned out okay.  Some of the pictures could be better…  From the very beginning, I’ve planned to print an Abecedary of my very own, and now I can finally do it!

Thank you, Anne, for sharing your inspiration and being such a fine hostess.  I’ve enjoyed every frame.

Yard. The picture above was taken from high atop the other end of the back porch roof on the day of the “N” photo shoot.

Most of our yard is planted with things other than grass, and a lot of the rest is wooded ravine which we’ve never been inclined to change. It takes about ten minutes to mow with a push mower and that’s the way we like it. It takes longer to get the mower to the grass than it does to actually mow the grass. Hm, perhaps we could plant something else in some of those places…

When the kids were little, there was a large patch of grass on the east side of the house — the back yard — where they played and where we installed various sandboxes over the years, combination picnic/play tables and lawn chairs of all sizes, plank-and-sawhorse “balance beams.” The biggest back yard attraction for the kids — all the neighbor kids as well as my own — was the playhouse that DH built at his earliest opportunity, which wasn’t until after he re-built the stone retaining wall that he had toppled over early that first spring (it took ’til November and just don’t ask).

And when the kids outgrew the play tables, we built a garage, then a deck (and then a pergola over the deck) on their back yard. There have been a lot of changes to our yard over the years, always striving for improvement and better use as we all change and grow.

X-acto.  At one time — for many years — when I worked as a typesetter, an X-acto knife was practically an extension of my hand, along with a hand-held waxer or trigger can full of rubber cement.  Cut & paste, for real.

Wardrobe.

W is also for wonderful, as in my best friend of almost 30 years who I think of every single time I open my closet, contemplate my wardrobe, and choose something to wear.

My best friend is six years older than me; our birthdays are exactly a week apart, making us both Scorpios.  People often mistake us for sisters — they always have and it amuses me that they still do.  A couple of years ago, I bought her Dan Fogelberg & Tim Weisberg’s "Twin Sons of Different Mothers" — because it’s one of my favorite CDs of all-time, but also because we were still "Twin Daughters of Different Mothers."  Funny thing is, she actually does have a sister named Vicky, and often, when the three of us were together, we would still be mistaken for sisters.

We met when one of her brothers hired me to work in their family-owned business — she was the one female in the production area of said business and they kind of wanted another female so she’d have a work pal.  Something like that.  Being a girl wasn’t a requirement, but it didn’t hurt, though they hesitated a little bit because of our difference in age.  She was already married, trying to start a family.  At 19 and 25, six years can still be huge.

We hit it off, though, more than anyone could have ever imagined, and our difference in age was probably perfect — she, a bit more worldly and wise and a lot more confident, and me, putty in her hands.  One night, we went out for a drink after work.  It turned out to be a major turning point in my life, really.  I don’t remember a lot of details, in fact I think it was a blur right from the start, but somehow a message was conveyed.  It sounds strange, but I got — found, was given — self-confidence that night.

A very small, but significant part of it — one that I think of every single day — had to do with my wardrobe: earth tones.  "Lose the earth tones."  Every splash of color in my still, mostly earth-toned wardrobe, reminds me of my wonderful best friend.  The self-confidence and self-doubt wax and wane, it’s sometimes a struggle to be strong and confident — I guess the periods of self-doubt help keep the self-confidence from turning to arrogance, though.

Vacant.

Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  I miss them.  Grandpa died a few years ago and Grandma has been getting more and more lost.  She recently dislocated her hip again, after falling while wandering the halls where she lives.  She doesn’t know where she is.  She will be 94 on Christmas Eve.

There were many, many holiday meals in that dining room.  The grown-ups around the big table, card tables set up for the kids.  My grandparents had six children and nine grandchildren.  We are lucky enough that there have even been meals with great grandchildren around the "kids’ table."

I remember my sister Sharon being made to sit at that table until she finished her mashed potatoes.  I know… it was Christmas (or whatever)… and she didn’t like mashed potatoes… but there were children starving in Africa.

I remember my kids and nieces and nephews, spending much of a Christmas afternoon building and decorating a gingerbread house, which we then had for dessert!  That little activity was one of my few-and-far-between strokes of genius!  Mothers, take note:  The kids were kept occupied and they had fun and they could slip a piece of candy or lick frosting from their fingers, there was little-to-no whining about when-this and how-come-that!  What’s not to love?

I remember my Uncle Jimmy coming home from his first year away at college.  His hair was longer.  A lot, lot longer.  He wore a braided leather headband.  We listened to Cat Stevens records and played board games in the music room.  Grandma asked him to say the before-meal prayer and he stood up, almost shouting:

Rub-a-dub-dub
Thanks for the grub
Yay God!

Well, yeah!  Grandma was… "stunned" is a good word.  It kinda blew us all away!  Grandma always thought more carefully, weighing potential risks, about who she assigned that task to from then on.  We remember it, warmly, and laugh at every single holiday meal.  "Remember the time when Uncle Jimmy…"

I’ve written about my grandparents’ house a few times.  It is very, very old.  During the ’30s and ’40s, a doctor lived in the house and it also served as the "hospital."  When I assisted at a rummage sale there a couple of years ago, lots of people came just because they wanted to see the house.  One woman asked, "Do you know which was the Birthing Room? I was born in that room."  I didn’t really know which was the Birthing Room, but I gave her my best guess(es).  All I really knew about the use of rooms at that time is that Grandma’s "dining room" was the "operating room."  Another man had a little blast from the past as he walked up the back steps, remembering the same walk some 70 years earlier when he’d come to have his tonsils removed.

My favorite room was always the music room.  It could be accessed from the vestibule, had sliding doors to the living room, and there was also a door to another adjoining (possibly the "birthing" room).  My dad built a huge book case and cabinet surrounding the window on the entire east wall; it held books, of course, and also the stereo and record collection.  I used to spend hours in that room when we visited, with the doors closed, listening to records and looking at Grandma’s old photo albums.  I memorized every word of Jesus Christ Superstar in that room.  One Easter at Grandma’s, there was a little scavenger hunt for us to find our baskets.  The last clue led me to the music cabinet where I found a "45" of Don MacLean’s American Pie nestled among the jelly beans in my basket.

The room that adjoined the music room was occupied by my great grandfather, Grandma’s dad, until he died.  He loved doing jigsaw puzzles and my sister Karen would often help him; in high school, she worked at a nursing home, the only one of us who ever did.  I was always a little scared of Great Grandpa, he was old and thin and quiet and whiskery, and I didn’t know what quite what to make of the well-read Bible alongside the Playboy magazines on his shelf.  During a family meeting in the music room once, my brother Mike and a cousin carpeted the entire living room floor with Playboy centerfolds, giving Grandma quite a shock as she emerged from the room!

Those two rooms were later used as showroom, classroom and studio for many years after Grandma retired from the bank and taught ceramics or painted.  She had huge kilns in the basement, shelves and shelves of plaster molds and tools, glazes, greenware, bisque, books and trade rags, buckets and boxes of slip and clay.  After Grandpa retired, he did all the pouring and took great pride in doing it well; he liked the compliments of the ladies, Grandma’s students.  Grandma was a prolific painter, as well, generally watercolor, mostly scenes from the lake.

I always loved the attic in that house.  It was a walk-in attic, in the space above the dining room and kitchen, accessible through a small door in the upstairs bathroom.  It was fascinating — all that stuff.  Furniture, clothing, books, paperwork, holiday decorations.  I remember finding a really cool old vintage coat, way back in my high school days, that Grandma let me have — it was wool and pink and had a huge, decorative button.

It was interesting to me that my grandparents did not share a bedroom.  They had adjoining rooms, though, hers a little bigger and only a tiny bit frillier than his — Priscilla curtains at the windows.  They would share Grandma’s bed if the house was full and they needed Grandpa’s bed; it was the same at the cottage.  I remember Grandma’s dresser with all the Avon jars and bottles, her jewelry box and earring tree.

The most flattering full-length mirror in the world was at the end of the upstairs hall.  I used to hike up my skirt and do the runway walk — oh, if only my legs really were that long and thin!  I remember mentioning the magical mirror to Grandma once and she laughed, "Oh, you mean I don’t really look as good as I think I do?"

I am thankful for family, thankful for memory, thankful for friends — friends like you.  Thank you.  Thanksgiving.  Rub-a-dub-dub…