Eileen and Larry Somers

I was sharing some leftover squash with Joshua last Monday. (He wasn't interested.) I told him "it's sweet like candy." Just saying that made me immediately think of my mom. She used to love eating squash! I remember her describing it that way - sweet like candy. Loved my mom!

 A few days ago, Louie and I were TPed. Whoever did it didn't do a very good job, though. It was enough to remind me of my own teen years and TPing our friends' houses. One time, my friends had hit our house on Aldrich Avenue really hard. My mom didn't like wastefulness and disapproved of TPing. She made me pick up as much of the TP as I possibly could. Stored in brown grocery bags, she made us use it in the bathroom before we were allowed to "get" rolls of toilet paper that were from the store. Whoever TPed our house last weekend had left a 3/4 roll of paper by the garbage can. Louie asked me what I did with it. "Picked it up and put it in the bathroom upstairs." "You're going to use it?" "Absolutely! It was still dry." Then I thought of my mom and smiled. Perfectly good toilet paper - why throw it away? I also remember my mom having all three of us girls come into the bathroom so she could demonstrate how to select paper for wip...

 Larry often (daily?) said lovely things to my mom. One of his favorites was commenting on her "beautiful brown eyes." I thought of this recently when I told my dog he has such beautiful brown eyes . . . and realized that the phrase sounded really familiar! It sounded familiar because I heard my dad say that to my mom throughout my childhood. He also said "Have I told you lately that I love you?" or "Have I told you lately how much I love you?" So sweet to have this language poured out on a regular basis! I'm glad that there were as many "I love you" statements as there were in the household I grew up in. Thanks, Dad.

Eileen used to be a big fan of modeling clay. Louise recently unearthed this and of course all the clay was rock hard. The tin was nasty. "Throw it away!" I told her, but I made sure to get photos first. We would roll out snakes, make "snowman" balls, and create random stuff. I think we mostly had red and green, so a lot of brown happened! I'm not entirely sure why she was so very anti-Play-doh . . . too expensive? Too highly dyed? Too fun? (Just kidding! She was really a big fan of having fun.) She never tried the recipes to make our own, either. Perhaps that wasn't a "thing" in the 60s and 70s. My kids had store-bought Play-doh for the most part, but I think we made our own a few times, too. I also love seeing the old kitchen floor in these pics. I should do a post just of photos of how the house used to be with the lime green carpeting and the carpet squares down in the basement. This lovely rock-themed linoleum is still in the kitchen a...

Eileen wanted grandchildren so had to settle for Ann's grand dog Zurie.  Eileen would hold the ball for a while and pretend to throw it, then she would.  Good fun.  Larry was thrown to a barking dog when he was babysat as a child, so did not like dogs - even goldens, but Mother got to loving Zurie.  One Mother's day (or near Mother's Day) I came in the house crying, towing Zurie by the leash. She had found a baby rabbit nest in the snow on the mountain.  She was trying to sympathize with my sensibilities, but being a good farmer, couldn't help smiling.  I said: "you want her to get all the bunnies - right?  Then you go out with her and finish up any (maimed) animals. When she had dementia, I told her about Zurie and a hawk chasing a bunny and she didn't like that story.  Then, towards the end it was too much for her and she didn't want Zurie around anymore.  But I remember her loving her furry grand child.

Eileen was ahead of her time. She had a nativity scene and kept the straw separate from it. We had to to chores to get to put a piece of straw in the manger for the baby Jesus. She encouraged us to make good choices and be helpful so that we could get the privilege of putting straw in the nativity.

We would go out to eat after church once in a while. We would share dishes, mom and I. We'd get the weird thing and split it. Something like a Greek omelet. Dad liked that we split it. He got a kick out of it. He'd comment on it.

On a family trip to Florida (back in the late 90s or early aughts) Tom, Sam, and Chris were enjoying mom's and dad's hospitality. They went to an all-you-can-eat buffet. The girls got a kick out of Tom eating octopus. It was a good meal. Mom went to get dessert. On the way home, she started cramping up. We took a bus as far as we could, but we were walking through the park. She had to go to the bathroom so badly she didn't think she would make it. There was a Port-a-Potty, so she tried to get to it before it was too late. It was too late. Tom felt so bad for her! The "dessert" area was right next to the sushi area . . . and she had gotten some nasty stuff.