Humidity happens.

Well, no dining room table yet....... B couldn't bring it back because the last couple of days have been so hot and humid that the top coat on the table isn't completely dry yet. B now says he will bring the table back on Monday. Are you sure? "Of course I'm sure-- Monday it will be, bless your heart."

I'm not worried about the table... B is an expert woodworker, and well known in this part of the state. His Victorian home is filled with all of his woodwork, so much so that the interior of his home was featured in a nationally famous home decorating magazine a few years ago. B can take a piece of wood and turn it into something that looks like it was handmade a hundred years ago.

So Monday is the day.... and I told B I was holding him to that. We really miss the dining room table-- we use it every night for dinner. The cats keep walking into the dining room and looking--- they know something is missing, I'm sure.


Today is the Rodeo Parade in downtown Houston.... scores of riders and horses, wagons and trail-riders. It's so weird to see that parade as it winds its way through the downtown business area and the theatre district of the city. The Rodeo Parade is Houston's day to celebrate the start of the rodeo in town, and the parade (just like Galveston's Mardi Gras parade) is televised on one of the local channels. We've never seen the parade (except on TV), but we have gone to the rodeo-- the year that Barry Manilow was scheduled to sing there. Had Manilow not been there, we wouldn't have gone.

The rodeo has too many events that I don't care to see--- the pig races, the calf roping, the mule drags (a mule has to drag hundreds of pounds of dead weight across a corral). Just watching thirty seconds of those mule drags made me walk out of the arena-- as soon as one of the mules fell to its knees, I was up out of my seat and headed for the door. But we did get to see Barry and hear him sing at the rodeo that year. Barry hasn't been back to the rodeo since, and neither have we.

As the trail-riders made their way into Houston these past couple of weeks, one of the horses collapsed on the street. The rider managed to get the horse up again, but a few streets on, the horse fell again and died right there. It took a good long while to have the horse moved out of the downtown road, and it was determined that the horse died of exhaustion... he was over-heated, for goodness sake. It wasn't an older horse-- just four years old, poor thing. The horse's first rodeo, and he never made it. (If I were a real born-in-the-state Texan, I would have ended that sentence with Bless his heart.)

Go Texan Day.

The rodeo festivities have started, and today is "Go Texan Day." Everyone dresses up in every bit of denim, turquoise and silver that they have on this day. I remembered this morning what day it was, but by the time I had breakfast and read the paper, I forgot what to wear when I took clothes out of my closet. (Hmmm.... I wonder what Stacy and Clinton would think of Go Texan Day?) But I did have jeans on today, so I was half Texan. I have a denim jacket-blouse that's covered in silver do-dads, beaded fringe and turquoise embellishments--- my great two dollar estate sale treasure that comes out of the closet just a couple of times a year.

The barbeque cook-offs began a few days ago, and the rodeo fairgrounds are filled with smokers, grills, and hundreds of chefs cooking their little Texan hearts out to win one of the prizes. I would bet that all of the neighborhoods surrounding the rodeo grounds are saturated with barbeque-sauce and grilling-spice aromas. Sort of like here when our next-door neighbor B gets out his grill. We call it a Bob-be-que, since his name is Bob. He loves to barbeque, and he's always cooking some sort of meat on that grill. As soon as he starts cooking the meat, our back porch fills up with a delicious spicy aroma that even makes me hungry-- and I don't eat meat.

Gorgeous day today...... summer is here....... but the weatherman has promised us one more cold snap which will last either one day or two, depending on which way the wind is blowing. Even with all the equipment these weathermen have, they still have to make an educated guess.

Our dining room table is coming back today.... the famous B told me this morning that he would be here sometime after 2:00. I spoke to him this morning, after he brought his cat to the vet, before he got to his shop, and before he was due to take his truck in for an inspection. I love how business is done here, honestly.... B quoted us a price on refinishing the table, took it on out of here without so much as a deposit or a work order, and will bring it back today as long as his cat is feeling better (which I can relate to) and after he gets his truck out of the repair garage. And if I don't make it to your house today, little lady, then you can bet the farm that you'll see me tomorrow, bless your heart. (He didn't really say that, but I know that sentence was on the tip of his tongue.)

Fat Tuesday.

And that's what today was-- Fat Tuesday. Translation-- Mardi Gras: the last party day before Lent begins tomorrow, if you're into following the rules of the Lenten season.

Our next-door neighbor V came by this afternoon with two plastic Mardi Gras cups filled with genuine New Orleans' Mardi Gras beads. Rather than going into Galveston for Mardi Gras, she and her husband drove to New Orleans "to see the real thing." I told her not to say that too loudly the next time they drive over the bridge into Galveston. If the Galveston residents hear her saying that, they will boot her back to the Mainland right quick.

V said the most celebrated parties in New Orleans are on Bourbon Street, but they didn't go to those. Too much drinking, too much celebrating, too many exposed body parts, according to V. Their favorite Mardi Gras parade was the parade of pets--- it has a different name, but I can't think of it just now. Pet owners dress up their pets (dogs mostly, but there have been cats, parrots, snakes, large lizards), then also dress themselves to match up with their pets and/or creatures. I've seen those parades on TV here-- the local city channels will show the entire Mardi Gras parades from Galveston. I would imagine that the television stations in New Orleans do the same with their own parades.

V also brought us two slices of King Cake-- a sweet coffee-cake, cinnamon, sugar confection which is sprinkled liberally with purple, green and gold sugar crystals-- those being the "official" colors of Mardi Gras. The cake is traditionally made in a wreath shape, and a tiny little plastic "Mardi Gras baby" is hidden somewhere in the cake before all the sugar crystals are sprinkled on. Whoever finds the little baby in their slice of cake has to buy (or bake) the King Cake for next year's Mardi Gras.

Well, wouldn't you know it... one of our slices had the tiny little baby inside of it. I don't know if V put that in there herself, or if it was really baked into the cake at the New Orleans bakery. We'll never know.... but I will have to make sure I get some King Cake to V for next year's Fat Tuesday.

I took all the Mardi Gras beads she gave us and arranged them on the wrought-iron sculpture on our front porch. On the top of the sculpture, I put one of my feathered Mardi Gras masks. I've got a bunch of those, all bought for pennies at yard sales. That sculpture has been decorated with something ever since Halloween, when I filled it with little pumpkins. Then I covered it with large red ornaments for Christmas. Then with pink and red hearts for Valentine's Day. Now it's wearing a mask and colored Mardi Gras beads.

I'm so glad I rescued that sculpture from our own trash after Hurricane Ike marched through here. And to think I had wanted to toss it away because I was tired of bringing it in out of the storm winds every summer when I had it standing in the backyard flowerbeds. I had visions of it flying across the yard and smashing through the screens of the back porch. It was just a "found treasure" from a yard sale years ago, but it's become a welcome fixture now on the front porch.

The Oscars.

I think the first year I watched The Academy Awards was either 1961 or 1962, and I've been watching them ever since. When I was a kid, I couldn't manage to stay awake till the very end of the show, but I usually made it at least half-way. I loved seeing all the gowns and the jewelry, and when I was able to watch the show at my grandmother's house, my Aunt Dolly made the night like a party. We had a special dessert while watching, plus Aunt Dolly knew the names of every single star, plus the names of the movies they had made during their Hollywood careers. She kept a tally of the awards and the winners, comparing one year's list to the previous year's winners. Aunt Dolly was, and still is, a lover of movies-- "but only good movies."

Last night's Oscars show was better than most-- the staging was beautiful, nothing seemed to drag out, and it was classier than a lot of other years. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to see Johnny Carson walking out of the wings to host the show... but of course those days are gone.

We have yet to see "Slumdog Millionaire," but it should be coming back to our theatre now, especially with all the Oscars it won last night. Our corner-neighbor S has been raving about that movie for weeks and weeks now-- she's seen it twice, and would gladly see it again.

The gowns were beautiful last night.... I wish that someone had told Sophia Loren to choose a different dress, though. Her gown was very pretty, but way too busy for someone of her age. She's still such a beautiful woman-- she didn't need all those ruffles and flounces. Instead of her wearing the gown, the gown was wearing her. Never a good thing.

On my way to Kroger this morning, one of the houses a few streets down from us had white wooden letters propped up on stakes in their front yard. The letters spelled out HOLLYWOOD. I told my husband that they probably had an Oscar party last night during the awards ceremony. Well, I wish I'd thought of that.... and my husband said we'd have to "borrow" their idea for our own Oscar party next year. I'm sure my husband could download a photo of the gold Oscar statue from the Internet, and that would be the invitations for everyone. And if one of the hobby stores had gold Oscar-like statues, they would make perfect party favors. (And this is how a party starts.... from one little idea.)

Gorgeous day today...... and getting warmer and back up into the 80s. Which is right where the temperature should be, instead of the mid-60s of last week. I saw part of Galveston's Mardi Gras parade on television yesterday--- even with the colder weather, the streets of The Strand were crowded with people waiting to catch Mardi Gras beads. A spokesman for the Mardi Gras committee said that even after Hurricane Ike, the Island just needed to celebrate Mardi Gras in its usual way. "It's time for the Island to have some fun," he said. Well, after all they've been through, there's no arguing with that.

Mardi Gras weekends.

I think the island of Galveston is trying to make believe that Hurricane Ike was a figment of everyone's imagination. I realize that life has to return to normal on the Island, but still, it's hard to be normal when half of the Island is still in bits and pieces.

More than half of the stores and shops on The Strand are still either boarded up or closed. Mostly all of the small homes on the Island that sustained major damage during Ike are still damaged and probably still not habitable. And I'm sure that the owners of those homes who have nowhere else to go are still living right in them, habitable or not.

Mardi Gras usually brings a lot of money into Galveston-- restaurants are over-flowing, hotel rooms are all filled up, tourists and locals are shopping and browsing in all the stores, the local bars can't mix up the drinks fast enough. But this year.... I just don't think the Island will see much of a profit. Added to the devastation on the Island, the weather last weekend and this wasn't all that great. The warmer the weather, the more crowded Galveston usually is. Rainshowers last weekend, cooler temperatures this weekend-- not our typical Mardi Gras weather.

We haven't been to any of Galveston's festivities since Ike tried to drown the entire Island last September. The Dickens On The Strand Christmas Festival this past December went on as usual, but we just didn't have the heart to go there. We had driven across the bridge onto Galveston Island in early November and it was heart-wrenching to see the path left by Ike. Path? More like a rocky, debris-strewn road. The thought of watching the Queen's Parade in the Dickens Festival, while most of the Island was still littered with damaged boats and dotted with roof-less homes just seemed a bit ridiculous.

The Powers That Be in Galveston are now saying that the only way to revive the Island City is to bring in legalized gambling. Well, how nice that Hurricane Ike gave everyone a reason to introduce gambling (once again, only legal this time) to Galveston. Are they going to spend millions building fancy-dancy casinos and hotels on the Island, and not spend thousands to help rebuild the out-of-the-way streets filled with century-old private homes?

As in all cities, whether they be Island or Mainland, those with the most money and the most influence will win. I liked Galveston just the way it was, pre-Ike, with its eclectic shops and cafes, the restaurants-on-stilts hanging over the Gulf, the clapboard homes with open porches, the purple and yellow house with the green shutters, the trolley cars and the horse-and-buggy rides. It was a unique little Island always in danger of hurricanes coming up into the Gulf. If they bring in legalized gambling to "help the Island recover," it will be an Island in danger of greed.... much more dangerous than any hurricane.

Disappearing week...

How did it get to be Friday already? I swear, the older you get, the faster the calendar moves. Aunt Dolly used to always say that when I was a kid... now I know what she meant.

We have a nearly-empty dining room this week. The dining room table is in a wood-working shop for a few days, being refinished. The table belonged to my husband's mom and over the years had collected quite a few stains, scratches and unidentifiable marks-- so scarred that we always had to keep it covered with a tablecloth. I finally called the locally famous BLC in his wood-working shop and he came here to pick up the table and do his magic with it. When he brings it back, it will look brand new. I'm sure that when the "like new" table is brought back and set up against the chairs, I will be heading out to the fabric store to find new material for the seats.

Speaking of seats, one of the springs underneath the cushion of my desk chair snapped--- which is what I get for using it as a step-stool. Now I'm on the look-out for a new desk chair. Not a really new one, since my writing desk is an antique. I've browsed around the biggest consignment shop here, and there are still a few more to look through. I'm sure I will find an antique-y chair to go with my antique desk. If not, then I will just have this one repaired-- but I know the cost of the repair will far exceed the value of the chair, so I hesitate to do it.

All the Valentine decorations have been taken down and packed away in the closet. The last things to come down were the red and pink hearts and balloons on the front porch. Actually, I had forgotten all about them. A few days after I de-Valentined the inside of the house, I realized that the front porch was still covered in hearts. I took two of the heart-shaped balloons and released them into the sky.... up they went, taken by the gulf breeze and they went bouncing along towards the clouds. Valentine's Day is officially over.

Pink and red all over.

Our Valentine's party was last night-- right on Valentine's Day itself, which somehow hasn't happened before. Has it been that long since Valentine's Day fell on a Saturday? We had about thirty friends and neighbors here, nearly all dressed in something pink or red. Our friend J came in a blue and white shirt, telling everyone that neither pink nor red were his colors, but he was wearing red undershorts, he said. We all took him at his word, telling him he didn't have to prove it. If our dear friend Frankie were still here with us, I can just hear what she would have told J at that point-- "Come on, darlin'... show us your pink shorts and they'd better have hearts on them!"

What a great night it was... everyone came in the door smiling-- must have been the heart balloons on the porch, plus I dressed up the little Mexican lady statue in red Mardi Gras beads and red hearts. That statue has been on our street for years and years, once belonging to our across-the-street neighbor H who moved up near Austin. I bought the Mexican lady (actually I think it's a goddess) at H's yard sale before she moved, and she's become the greeter on our front porch, getting some sort of accessory for each party and holiday.

The Valentine decorations, the balloons, the candles.... the living room, dining room, and breakfast room were all decked out in pink and red. Candles all over the place, balloons floating up towards the ceiling, pink and red hearts everywhere you looked. I even took a pink ruffled shawl and dressed up the Venus de Milo statue next to the fireplace-- she looked heavenly.

As always, our potluck-dinner menu was amazing... all sorts of home-baked desserts, two huge tossed vegetable salads, chicken casseroles, vegetable dishes, seafood dips, Tex-Mex foods. When we started these potluck dinner parties some years ago, I tried to keep track of who was bringing what, so we would end up with an equal number of sweets and savories. That quickly got out of hand because people would change their minds at the last minute and bring something totally different than what they had originally planned. It's best to just step back and tell everyone to bring their favorite dish, or their favorite party food... somehow it always works out just fine. Besides that, it's a potluck dinner, not a gourmet sit-down dinner party.

For the party favors, all the ladies got a heart-shaped candy dish filled with Dove chocolates.... all the candy dishes were different-- some with covers, some without, some very modern-looking, other very traditional. I searched the little resale and consignment shops for pretty porcelain or glass candy dishes with a heart design, and tried to match each one with the personality and style of who would receive it. When the local Hallmark store switched owners last year, I bought just about all of their Valentine gift bags-- for about 26 cents each-- and all of those favors were wrapped up in pink tissue paper and tucked into small red shopping bags covered with white X's and O's-- they were cute even before they were unwrapped. The men received boxes of candy or bags of chocolate pecans.

Some of our friends and neighbors called us today, to tell us what a great party it was... and they all said virtually the same thing---- all the parties tend to be great, but last night's was over-the-top and just special somehow. "Did you put something in that pink punch?" "Was there a secret ingredient in those chocolates?"

Everyone just walked into the door smiling last night and stayed smiling. The hearts, the candles, the balloons, the food.... it was all that and more--- the company. We truly have a wonderful group of friends and neighbors. All the decorations and candles and food in the world won't make a perfect party unless you have an outstanding list of guests. And we truly do have that. We are very blessed.

Heart-shaped balloons.

Well here's the question of the day--- How many red and pink heart-shaped balloons can fit into the passenger seat of a two-seater car? (Answer: 16.)

I went to the local Dollar Store to get those Valentine balloons this afternoon. I use them as decorations around the living room, dining room and breakfast room, then give them away to the couples as they leave at the end of the night. At a price of just a dollar for each balloon, it's a pretty and festive way to decorate-- you can't resist smiling when you see balloons floating up towards the ceiling.

The customer ahead of me at the Dollar Store was buying 36 balloons--- one for each year he and his wife have been married. He didn't pick out just one design, either... he stood there and carefully made a colorful selection of all those balloons. To get them out to his car, he had to tie the ribbons to a shopping cart and wheel them across the parking lot, and I'm sure his vehicle wasn't a two-seater.

As I got to my own car with my 16 balloons, a guy pedaling by on a bicycle saw me unlocking the door to my little car and he said "Now this I need to see!" He stopped pedaling and stood there with his bicycle, watching what I was doing. "Do you think you'd want to be trying to fit those into that there trunk?" I had no intention of telling that man that there was more room in the passenger seat than in the trunk, and besides-- I could just see that trunk slamming down on a few of the balloons as I tried to close it. I just smiled at the man and prayed that the wind wouldn't kick up until I had all the balloons inside the car.

I did have a system-- I had a small umbrella in the car and I wrapped all those balloon ribbons around the umbrella and set the umbrella on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Then I started to arrange the balloons, getting as many as possible near the floor of the car, using my purse to anchor the ribbons. "Would you be liking some help there, missy? All those balloons might just lift that itty-bitty car right off the pavement." I told the man that I was doing just fine, thank you, and told him I'd done this before. (I resisted the urge to tell him "This here ain't exactly my first rodeo.")

When all the balloons were safely in the car and low enough so I could see out of the windows, I shut the door and went around to the driver's side. Before I got into the car, I told my one-man bicycle-riding audience to have a happy Valentine's Day. He tipped his Astros' cap to me and told me "Y'all do the same, missy." And off he went. (I also resisted the urge to tell the bicycle man that I wasn't his missy.)

Before I drove from one end of that parking lot to the other, some of the balloons near the top of the pile started to shift a little bit. In order to see out the passenger-side window, I had to use my right hand to move two of the balloons towards the back of the car... not an easy thing to do with high bucket-seats. To see out of the passenger-side of the windshield, I had to keep my right arm extended over the top five balloons. Thankfully, I only had to stop at one red light on the way home, and -- miraculously -- I didn't see one sheriff's car as I passed by the police station.

I'm sure anyone looking at my car from the passenger side saw just a window full of red and pink Valentine balloons. If I couldn't see out that window, then surely no one could see in.... it must have looked like the car was driving itself.

But I got home safely, got the balloons into the back door without losing any of them to the breeze, and now they're all around the living room, dining room and breakfast room. Looking around at the arrangement, I could have bought half a dozen more... but there would have been no way to get six more heart-shaped balloons into my little car unless I took a chance with the trunk. When I told my husband that, he said I could have brought home as many balloons as I wanted if I had thought to put the top down on my car.

Now that would have been a sight-- driving down the road with the top down and holding onto thirty-seven red and pink heart-shaped balloons. (I can hear that man now--- Yee-haaaaaaw, missy!)

Mice? What mice?

We haven't heard a sound from up in the attic lately, and the three mice traps up there are empty. Not a squeak, not a peep, not a sound up there. My husband has checked the traps at least three times since the pest control guy put them up in the attic. I guess the mice have gotten the word out to every field mouse on the street. Stay away from that fancy cheese up there!

I have to laugh at the pest control guy and his traps, though--- we thought he'd put "humane" traps in the attic which would catch the mice without killing them. I had visions of him taking the mice and relocating them, bringing them to the grounds of the nearby Nature Center where they could live happily ever after. As my husband said-- we could have just gone to the hardware store ourselves and bought the wood and metal spring-traps that the pest control guy brought over here.... and saved ourselves the cost of his service call.

The little mice that munch on the birdseed in the yard are still there, but they don't hang around the feeders as long as they used to. I've stopped filling up the lowest feeder, and it seems that the mice don't want to compete with the squirrels in the feeders hanging from the crape myrtle branches.... the mice just eat the seeds that fall down into the grass.

Speaking of crape myrtles, our lawn guys decided to clip all the growth on the crape myrtle trees in the front of the house. When they came here last week, there wasn't much grass to cut and not many leaves to rake up, so they took out their clippers and went after the thin branches on the crape myrtles. I didn't realize what they were doing, and by the time I went out front, they had already clipped one of the trees and had started on the other. My face must have fallen, because the guy up in the tree started to climb down as soon as he saw me.

I told him that he may as well finish the job he started-- I didn't want one tree to be clipped down and the other one to be left half-clipped. I also told him not to touch anything else in the front front flowerbeds. He was all set to start clipping the boxwoods after the crape myrtles, I'm sure. He did that last year, and clipped them back so much that they looked as if they'd just been planted. It gets to be a joke here as I go out into the yard and play Charades with the lawn guys-- they don't speak much English, and I don't speak much Spanish, so I can't really "tell" them anything--- we both use gestures and hand signals to communicate.

How do you say Don't touch my crape myrtles again or I'll toss that clipper of yours into the bayou! in Spanish?

Hammer, hammer, pound, pound.

Those are the sounds in the subdivision here an any given day-- Ham-mer, ham-mer, pound, pound. I would guess that one out of every three homes had roof damage after Hurricane Ike blasted through here. As a result, on every day of every week, you can hear the roofers removing and/or repairing the old roofing materials.

Their hammers will slowly tap twice against the roofing nail to set it into place (ham-mer, ham-mer), and then you'll hear the smashing of the hammer against the nail to drive it into the shingles (POUND, POUND). As I walk around the Greenbelt, those sounds echo around the walking trail and reverberate up from the bayou. Hammer, hammer, pound, pound. It's become sort of a marching song as I walk and I swear I can hear it in my sleep.

Two houses on our own street had roofing material replaced within the last couple of weeks... it was loud enough for us to hear, so I can only guess how loud it was inside our neighbor's houses while the work was being done. Our corner-neighbor S took her dog out for a drive while the worst of the noise was going on-- it was either that or give the dog a tranquilizer.

Two houses in the subdivision are still in the process of having interior repairs done in their homes--- in both cases, they had massive water damage when the ceilings fell in. Both homes have travel-trailers in their driveways, and that's where the people have been living while the workers are busy inside their houses.

We keep thanking our lucky stars that we had such minor roof damage which my husband fixed easily the day after we returned when the storm was over. I couldn't imagine living in a small trailer with the dog and three cats.

Speaking of pets, there was a story on the news tonight about low blood pressure and pets--- if you have pets, you most likely will not have high blood pressure, and it's been proven that people with pets will live longer than those without.

I will have to remember that when Mickey Kitty wakes me up at 3:30 in the morning by jumping on top of my husband's dresser and using his paw to drop my husband's wallet down to the floor..... which prompts ShadowBaby to jump on top of my dresser and stretch up against the painting hanging over the dresser, which makes the painting shift to the left.... which wakes up AngelBoy who then knocks on the laundry room door because he has heard the other two and thinks that it's time to start the day.

The weather has been warm during the day, cool at night.... too cool for the cats to be sleeping on the screen-porch. I am so ready for summer.... and for an uninterrupted night's sleep.

No autographs, please.

The local Chronicle ran a story last week about the work my husband is presently involved in... we knew the story was going to be printed, but we didn't know exactly when. We kept checking the paper every day, getting up at five o'clock in the morning when the paper is delivered here and looking for the photo and the article.

We were disappointed on all those mornings when we didn't find it, thinking they had decided not to run it, but then we were elated when it was finally printed... front page of the business section. Our neighbors saw it in the paper and saved their copies for us, and I mailed them to friends and family.

The following week, a business journal ran a similar story with a different photograph. The second photo and story was much better than the first... a nicer photo, better writing style for the article.

A couple of days later, my husband found out that "USA Today" picked up the story and ran it in their paper. We didn't expect that, and we didn't see it printed, but my husband found it on line.

Our next-door neighbor V is calling my husband the neighborhood celebrity. My husband updated his web-site to show the three articles, and there's a big "Congratulations!" balloon hovering above his desk in his office here at home. I surprised him with the balloon when the first article came out, but didn't get another balloon for the second printing.

Of course, I told my husband that his timing for buying all those new clothes couldn't have been more perfect. Those older shirts and out-of-style ties just wouldn't have made as big an impact in the publications. Timing may be everything, but good style is a bonus.

Think pink.

I've been going through my closet-- yet again. The more I watch that "What Not to Wear" show on the TLC channel, the more I look into my closet and take out things that neither Stacy nor Clinton would approve of. I have donated another box of clothes and shoes to the "Free Clothes Closet" at the local church.

Last summer, I bought a bright pink leather handbag... as pink as pink can be, I loved that purse when I found it in SteinMart last year. I carried it all over Germany, and used it for the entire summer. At the end of August, it looked so brand new that you would have thought I'd just bought it the day before.

I took that purse out of the closet a couple of weeks ago, looked at the bright pink outside, and the pink and white-checked fabric inside and thought Why on earth did I buy this handbag?! Well, what do you do with a year-old purse that looks brand new? I was going to put it into the donation box, but it just looked too new for that. Then I remembered the teller at the local bank. Every time I walked into the bank last summer, that girl oohed and aahed over that pink purse.

Into a shopping bag went that pink handbag, and I brought it up to the bank today. As the teller was cashing a check for me, I asked her if she remembered my pink purse from last summer. Indeed she did, and at one of the end-of-summer sales last year, she bought a pair of pink and black shoes but she never could find a pink purse for herself that she liked enough to buy, and the ones she liked weren't in her price-range.

Well, how perfect was that. I told her that I've decided that bright pink was just not for me anymore, and I asked her if she would like to have that purse. She thought I was joking. I told her I had the purse right in my car and that I'd go out and bring it in to her if she was still in love with that handbag.

She told me that I made her day, especially since she had been sick last week and used up a lot of her sick days and she'd be on a limited shopping budget for the next couple of months. As she held the purse in front of her, this very nice girl who is less than half my age, I knew that I had done the right thing. She just loves that pink purse, and it suits her-- both her style and her age.

She will be pretty in pink this summer. Stacy and Clinton of What Not to Wear would very much approve. And I didn't make her day-- she made mine.