– – – –

Where’d the weekend go?

Well, part of it went to attending the funeral of my kindergarten teacher and parents’ neighbor, Mary Collins. The service was homey and friendly, just at her parish church and then on to the cemetery. Her nieces and nephew, surrounded by their children, spoke words during the liturgy. The niece I knew most growing up got up to speak more of a eulogy at the end. First off, somewhere along the line, she started looking like my memory of her aunt when her aunt was younger. That was a bit of a shock. The stories she told of growing up with her family and aunt were wonderful and rang so true. A real tribute.

I had been thinking about Mary (or Miss Collins as she told us to call her when at school) and there were a lot of nice memories there – growing marigolds in little paper cups at school, helping her put together new cardboard building blocks, going out to lunch with her.

She took my brother and I out for lunch for our birthdays. How special to go out with a non-family grown up. We’d go to places like The Boulevard or, later, l’Ecole for lunch or early dinner. Then to a shop for a quick treat and perhaps something for the non-birthday kid at home.

What else?

• A little cleaning and straightening – some inside (living room) and some outside (front and side garden).
• I had my first lettuce out of the garden.
• Straightened up some paperwork and got ready for round two of name-changing stuff.
• Found some red and some black raspberries along the edges of the yard- enough to pick a half-bowlful tonight!
• Still sewing on the new quilt – about 1/3 of the second half is done. You do the math.
• Tonight I made pizza and ciabatta. I figured, what the heck, the oven is going to be hot anyway!