Eileen and Larry Somers

 Our dad was born in New Brunswick, Canada. He never became a U.S. citizen, relying on his "Resident Alien" status for the majority of his adult life in this country. He talked about becoming a citizen a LOT. Especially the last few years of his life when macular degeneration had pretty much wiped out his eyesight. He'd listen to audiobooks and think about things. He would often start a conversation with, "What were the thirteen original colonies?" "I'm not sure, dad. New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, . . . Why?" Apparently, he was practicing the information he thought he needed to know to pass the citizenship test. Sigh. While going through his papers after his death, I came across an envelope with some old paperwok. It contained citizenship application papers. It was most recently revised in 1959! I'm not sure why he talked about it, thought about it, and even had relevant paperwork for five DECADES and never actually worked toward ...

There was a lot of swearing in our household, but there were definite limits. The F-bomb was not allowed. "Sheeshtamatchi" was the made-up swearword to replace the real thing when an effort to NOT swear was happening. Eileen could not tolerate the word "piss" and wasn't too fond of "pee," either. "Just say you have to void!" She would make us laugh so hard with this.

 Larry loved beating Frank (former priest) in saying the Our Father in Latin.  Ann still brought Eileen to St. Joan of Ark when she had dementia.  One time I told Frank what Eileen said towards the end of mass "Get me the hell out of here!"  He laughed.

 When I was a kid, a highlight of the long winter was the weekend in Jan, Feb, or March when my parents paid for a hotel room on a Friday night. We would pack up our stuff (especially swimsuits!) and drive the five or so miles to Burnsville to stay at the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge. It had a SWIMMING POOL! We were in Heaven! We put on our swimsuits and spent hours on Friday night and more time on Saturday morning swimming, splashing, and warming up in the hot tub. We called it "Ho Jo's Mo Lo" for short. Great memories! If/when I come across a photo from that era, I'll add it.

I had artwork in a show and kept asking my sisters to attend the opening, because I figured I had to bug them to get them to come.  When I was leaving the house I asked them "aren't you coming?"  They said no, that they had not been invited.  I inadvertently hurt their feelings because I assumed they would always be there.

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...