My TIme Capsule (Prompt 8)

A series of shelves in my living room currently symbolize my "time capsule." In each cubicle there are mementoes of happy times, trips, people I loved and love, books and CDs. I have taken photos tonight, November 4, 2013, of the cubicles as they are currently constituted. So many trinkets, china figures, photos

I am so glad that I have a few items that I grew up--the penguin and rabbit families, the elephant, the marble horse bookends, three small watercolors prettily framed. And I have photographs of family--cousins, nephew and family, my darling daughter, and my wedding day. Two Lladro figurines, one that I gave a friend's parents and my friend returned to me after their deaths. The other a gift from my husband one Christmas, which means a lot to me because he is not in the least sentimental yet he saw the figurine in a shop and remembered how much I cherished my other. Mementos from our trip on the Queen Mary--a photograph and a tea pot. A santon (woman in traditional dress) and miniature Gault buildings from our trip to Provence. Lilliput Lane cottages from England. China and glassware from Portugal and Ireland. A biscuit tin celebrating the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

I think that my daughter knows what most of these trinkets mean. My two year old granddaughter plays with them, much to my daughter's horror. However I point out the small chips on the penguins and rabbits and tell her that my two year self made them almost 60 years ago. I learned to handle things carefully and Quinn will as well.

Comments

Life on board the Queen Mary

Passenger's log on the Queen Mary 2: Dec 9th - First Day at Sea Didn't sleep well--think it was the soused mackerel at dinner. Anyway, R and I woke up at about 6:00 am and discussed the order of the day. Quite the swell outside and I can feel the roll of the ship. (No seasickness thank goodness!) Despite the mackerel, I was hungry so we went to King's Court at 6:30 a.m. Buffet with loads of choice of course. We sat in an alcove looking out at the ocean. Our server was from Croatia, Slavan. I asked him my burning question of the day--why did we get a free bottle of wine but a regular bottle of Diet Coke cost $3.75? Diet Pepsi is $1.00 less. Fruit juices are free on tap. Coffee, tea, milk, ditto. But you have to pay for soft drinks. Very odd. Slavan says it is because Cunard can't get a good contract with Coke. Hmmm.... our local School District back in Sierra Vista can negotiate .50 a can for the soda machines in the teachers' lounges but Cunard has to cha...

There's got to be a morning after

And today is the fourth "morning after", with each "night before" a little easier, a little more "make the best of it but take care of yourself." Before I move back to writing this memoir style blog--going to continue with the South Africa trip of 1977--I feel I would be shrinking if I didn't say something about how I feel about this week's US election. As of this writing, Saturday, Arizona still hasn’t finished its count—the GOP did a great job of preventing the mail-in vote for being counted early and messing up the ability to use the machines—so I still don’t know if we are going to be saddled with the odious Kari Lake or whether the House is going to be Republican too. Still, it’s becoming more “academic” than visceral for me, if you know what I mean. Necesitamos avanzar. Sera dificil, sabiendo que muchos, especialmente aqui donde vivo, creen en los planes de Trump y Vance. (I have been practicing Spanish in preparation for a 10-day December cr...

December in South Arica 1977, Part One

December in South Africa 1977, Part One I had never understood candlelight in quite this way before. Oh there had been candles on the table Christmases past back home in Canada. For atmosphere, for festivity. While the electric crystal chandelier above cast the “real” light on a table laden with turkey, potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce.… But this, this was different. Here in the corrugated iron shack that my friends had referred to as “the cottage”—not any cottage that I had ever seen in my growing up in Quebec—with no other light either inside the cottage nor outside in the black night of the Transkei, I understood how candlelight could draw a world down into the narrowness of those around the light, as if nothing else in the world existed. I looked at the six faces around the table, illuminated in the candlelight, my own pulsing with sunburn. "Oh you’ll be grand," they’d told me down at the beach that day. "We’ll tell you when to get out of the sun." And toni...

valeriesbookofme

Search This Blog