Oh, I memorialed
I hope y'all's Memorial Days were good. Last Friday I was at Albertsons and noticed a veritable sea of potted & wrapped chrysanthemums in front of the store. The volume was surprising, as was the part where people were snatching them up like nobody's business. I thought, "Huh. Who even knew that mums were so popular here? I always thought they were kind of lame."
Then about 6 hours later I remembered about Memorial Day. And how some people actually live near the grave sites of deceased loved ones and so would be putting flowers on said graves in commemoration of the day. (Note: May wish to consider selling potted mums at roadside stand near cemetery as money-making venture next MD.) The purpose of the flowers didn't automatically occur to me because I think the last time I was in proximity with an ancestor's grave I was about 5 years old. I think if I did live near my family plots (all located in Virginia and North Carolina) I would probably be tempted to whisper shocking things while placing the flowers. "I belong to the Mormon cult!" "We have a black President!" "This one time I made biscuits & gravy and I completely screwed it up and people thought it was French!" Stuff like that. Note: I would not do this to my grandparents, but instead to the relatives I never actually knew. Nanny and Grandaddy would only get sweet words.
My day was lovely, though. I kissed GH goodbye as he got home from work and got in to bed (no holidays for him) and then drove down to Provo to hang out with the Precii, their parents, and coolboy. We drove up South Fork Canyon and had a picnic lunch and did a little stroll and enjoyed the gorgeous, gorgeous weather. A group of not-at-all-socially-awkward-
I brought the kiddies a completely kick-trash library puppet stage that had been destined for the thrift store. I do what I can to solidify my favorite auntie status. We got to watch several theatricals. Savannah's were puppet based, mostly featuring Minnie Mouse, whereas Ethan's were about matchbox cars and airplanes. He was a courteous narrator who would let you know who was about to come onstage so as to alleviate any potential viewer anxiety. "Now it's going to be Lighting McQueen!" "Now it's going to be a stealth bomber!" "Now it's going to be Chick! Chick's naughty . . . "
Got home in time for a fried chicken & limeade dinner in the park with GH. So it was pretty much perfect.
(photo by the famous and talented Ed McCulloch on his iPhone--because I like to have famous people take pictures of my niece & nephew for me)
I'm Steph, a librarian and mom of 3 (not sure how that happened). Let's chat books, food, Sumptuous Literary Adaptations, poop, knitting and maybe some crazy Mormon Feminism.
3 comments:
My grandfather is buried in the Salt Lake City cemetery (Is it funny that it is probably the best real estate on all of the Wasatch Front? Do the dead people care?) and we used to make the trek every May to visit his grave. My sister and I, of course, took this all very seriously and acted accordingly.
Actually, we usually cruised around playing hide and seek among the headstones until severely reprimanded. We were always fascinated by the weird inscriptions, especially the older ones; and heartbroken by descriptions of dead children whose tiny markers were long forgotten and much weathered. We loved the ones written all in Chinese. But our favorite? This inscription from the mid-1900's:
"Victim of the Beast: 666"
I promise. I am not making this up.
STM: I feel all Anne of Green Gable-y just reading that.
STM: I've seen that headstone... the victim of the beast one. It freaks me out to the max! My husband and I went there once when we were still dating because we were both broke and needed something to do. We were strolling around and he thought it was funny... I thought we should walk away before the zombie corpse made us it's victims.
ANYWAYS... biscuits and gravy are the best. I grew up in Alabama and I have them as often as I can (which is not much unless I want poor quality). However I have found a place in Layton called Doug and Emmy's that is just about as close as my grandma's as I can get without traveling across the country. In commemoration of good southern cooking, my southern father made us some incredible dutch oven chicken, potatoes and peach cobbler a la dutch oven. OH YEAH!
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