My fingers can still find the right keys....

Checking the date of my last entry here, I haven't typed anything since the 8th of September. That was the day when I was determined to write-- really, truly write. Well, la-dee-da. It isn't so easy. This seems to be a piece of cake, for some reason. I just sit down here in front of this laptop and the words just flow, the fingers just fly, and at the end of a few minutes, I have paragraph after paragraph, filled with sentences and phrases that make sense.

It doesn't work that easily when I sit in front of this laptop and try to really, truly write. I don't know why.... I haven't a blessed idea to explain it. That's just the way it is, and I'm tired of trying to fight against it. Or should I say "write against it."


Invitations for our Halloween party have gone out. There will be 40 people, if everyone shows up, but we've learned with all of our parties that not everyone shows up. The house is all decorated for the party, and as I get the RSVPs in, I've been filling up the gift-bags. We will also have prizes for the costumes, which we did last year, and that was a big hit.

Thinking of Halloween.... and Queens.

We will most likely have our annual Halloween party next month. I can't remember how many years we've been doing this now. All I have to do is look it up in our party book, or our guest book, but I think it's been about six years now, maybe even seven. I keep notebooks of all those things.... invitations, place cards, party guests and gift-bags. I don't know why.... they don't mean anything to anyone except me. And maybe young Miss C, who pages through my party book whenever the mood strikes her. She loves to look at all the invitations we've sent out over the years, and she enjoys all the place cards I've made. She calls it my "party scrapbook," but to me, it's just a notebook, a reminder, so I don't send out the same invitations or give away the same party gifts from year to year.


It's been an emotional week. My grandmother's house is just a memory now, with my Aunt Dolly safely in Florida, and the house being sold. The porch furniture from her house is now at our lake cottage, a silent testimony to all that happened in the 89 years that my grandparents lived in their Queens home. The little stool from grandma's kitchen waits for me by the counter in our lake kitchen, with the memories of everyone in the family hovering around it.... there wasn't a family member or a visitor who didn't at one time sit on that stool next to grandma's stove. It was the favorite spot in the entire three-story home..... prime real estate, next to grandma's stove and in front of the tiled chimney. We all sat there...... to be close to grandma, to watch her cook, to talk to her, to listen to her stories.

That big house in Queens has a memory in every corner, a spirit in every room. It was home to a family....... my grandparents and their ten children.... and a second home to their grandchildren. And now it's sitting empty. Waiting for either the new owners, or for an investor to come and knock it all to the ground and start rebuilding two houses where just one stood proud for 89 years.

My grandfather built that house, brick by brick...... my grandmother told him where to put the windows. She wanted lots of windows, so the house would be very bright.

I started writing about a Halloween party. Now I'm writing about an 89-year-old house of brick and stucco. Maybe it's time to really write. Really, truly write.

September..... already?

We were up at the lake cottage for a few days..... and young Miss C and her mom came up, along with C's friend T. This was the first time we've met this friend of C's, and my husband and I were both impressed (once again!) with C's choice of friends. She has such a good circle of friends, and I hope they will all be able to keep in touch when they leave high school and get into college.

Even though they were able to stay for two nights this time, instead of their usual one, it was still slow-going when C's mom said they had to get ready for the drive back into town. Poor C.... she couldn't have eaten her breakfast any slower this morning if she had tried. She just loves that lake cottage-- mainly because she has her own private cabin on the property, I'm sure. The decorations are finished now, and with the latest addition of a daybed (with a second trundle-bed tucked underneath) the cabin looks like a teenager's dream.

The girls swam in the lake, took turns with the kayak, plus they raced the remote-control power-boats and even caught a few fish (too small to be keepers, so they released them back into the lake). As C was swinging back and forth on the wood glider that's facing the lake, she was making a list of how she'd like to have the property decorated for her wedding. (She's just 16, so that's quite a few years away, but she already knows that she'd like a small ceremony up at the lake cottage, rather than somewhere in town.) Tiny white twinkle-lights on all the trees, white flowers here, red roses there, white chairs for about thirty people under the trees, a white canopy on the wood deck in the center of the yard, with C and her groom facing the lake for sunset vows. I was totally amazed that she had planned out so many details so thoroughly and thoughtfully. Now, if only she could have the Astros' Craig Biggio as her groom, everything would be perfect in her little world.

We drove into town on one of the afternoons (me, C and T, and C's mom), and we browsed around at one of the local antique shops.... the largest one, which is always the most fun because it has so much to look at. C found a little musical snow-globe for her cabin..... a little dark-haired girl playing with a black puppy-- when you wind it up, it plays "You Are My Sunshine," which is a song that her dad always sang to her when she was a little girl. (Hmmm--- we'll have to remember that song for C's future wedding, whether it's up at the lake cottage or not.)

In one of the corners of the antique shop, I found a huge wooden wall hanging.... actually, it can be either hung up on the wall or used as a table top. It's a wood circle, about 30" wide and two inches thick, and made up of thousands of separate pieces of wood..... a Peruvian Calendar, all handmade, beautifully stained, very intricate in design. All those small pieces of wood fit together like a jig-saw puzzle, making it a feast for the eyes. Every symbol/design/animal stands for the months, weeks, and days....... there is a very detailed description of how to use the calendar printed on the back of the wood. It's a wonderful art piece, and instead of using it as a table-top, we're going to hang it on the wall in the TV room of the cottage. I just need to buy heavy-gauge wire to attach to the hooks that are already set into the wood. It's the perfect thing to hang up on the wall over my grandmother's sofa which is in the TV room.... the one perfect piece of artwork that will "make" the room.

So nice having that furniture up at the cottage...... my grandparents' porch furniture. Sitting in my grandfather's chair brings back so many memories. I can't even count the number of times I sat on that porch sofa at Grandma's house while Grandpa sat in his chair and read the Italian newspaper or just looked out the windows and watched the world go by as he enjoyed one of his tiny cigars. Grandpa's chair always looked so massive when I was a kid. Then when I was older, I would sit on the sofa and do my homework there, and Grandpa would be in his chair.... but by that time, the chair didn't look as massive as it once did. And neither did Grandpa. Now I see that chair and realize that Grandpa's chair is the same exact size as Grandma's chair. Why on earth did one look so much bigger all those years ago? Maybe just because Grandpa was taller and bigger than Grandma.

I also found a little pillow in the antique shop this weekend...... small and round, with a butterfly on the front of it. Along the outer edge of the pillow are the words "Grandmothers are always the heart of the home." My grandmother had a wooden plate that hung up in her kitchen for years, with those exact words on it, so I couldn't resist that pillow--- I bought it and set it down on Grandma's chair.

So many memories up at the lake cottage... we've had that property now for about a year and a half. Between Miss C planning out her lake-wedding, and my grandparents' chairs in the living room, their sofa in the TV room, and my special little stool from Grandma's house now in the kitchen of the cottage, and my husband's mom's paintings hung up all over the cottage.... it has truly become a home away from home, not just a little house on the lake.


We met the new lake-neighbor this weekend....... he stopped by our fence for a quick hello, then we went back to his house before we left to say hello again and welcome him to the lake. We're trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, to be very friendly instead of judgmental..... but we'd still rather have our old neighbor next door to us. This man has an eleven-year-old daughter who's sort of a "wild-child," but at least she did ask us if she could jump into the lake from our boat dock. We told her no, telling her that we didn't want to take the chance of having her get hurt while on our property. I'm hoping that she will stay in her own yard, but once we leave the lake, there's no telling what she will do. As it was, she was in our yard less than two minutes after I suggested that she use her own boat dock for diving into the lake. I went into our yard as she tried to come into it, and again suggested she stay on her own property. I don't believe for a minute that she's going to take my advice, but there's nothing we can do once we leave.

What happens at the lake, stays at the lake.