Grandma's Button and Pins a Memory No One Wanted

Christmas is a time of giving and a time of remembering. I have memories of endless Christmas Eves playing hide the thimble with rowdy cousins, memories of waiting waiting waiting for Santa to appear so the opening of the gifts could begin. Every Christmas my Aunt G.G. (Golden Goddess, Gripy Gut, depending on her mood) would send my Grandpa a box of See's candy. See's candy was my favorite candy of all time, as well as my cousin's favorite. When Grandpa got his box of candy, he would hide it in the house so all the grand kids wouldn't eat it all. My cousin and I knew he had some so we would quietly ask him where it was hidden. Initially he would act like he didn't hear us or couldn't make out what we were asking, but with a little persistence he would finally give up the secret with instructions we could only have one piece. We would run to the hiding place with me secretly praying there was a "hairy" chocolate among the bunch. In case you're wondering, I called the ones with chocolate sprinkles the hairy ones (it wasn't anything gross). We would pick out our one piece of chocolate, put the box back in it's hiding place and walk away with just a tad of a smirk.... We would be back.  When we were at Grandma's and Grandpa's I usually stayed with my cousin. She was older, more level headed, but I had a way of bringing her down to my young level like no one else could. In fact I believe I still hold that unique place in her life.  She lived across the garden from Grandma, and it always tugged at my heart that Grandma really knew her. I wasn't jealous, I just remember wondering what it would be like for Grandma to know the secret places in my heart like she knew my cousin. There were a few times though when I would spend the night with Grandma. Grandma wasn't a well woman. Of course after giving birth to 9 kids, who would be. She had sugarbeitis (my word for diabetes) which my imaginary friend also suffered from. I remember she always looked like she was 9 months pregnant but was tiny everywhere else. I guess her stomach got so used to protruding with child, it didn't see the need in going back to it's original state, and really who could blame it. She had silver hair that she wore in a bun, well it wasn't really a bun but kind of a bun, not sure what you would call it. When I spent the night with her, she would sit at her dressing table and carefully take the silver pins out of her hair. I was always intrigued with how long her hair was. It hung down her back, almost to her waist. When she got it untucked, she would hand me the brush and I would gently brush her long beautiful hair. I was in complete awe. Would I ever have hair like hers? I didn't think so. Other than her being sick, the memory that sticks out the most in my mind, is her sitting at her dressing table with her hair flowing over her shoulders and down her back (yea, I'm typing through the tears as we speak).  When Grandma died, the family, which was many, began to change and it has never the same again. Last weekend I went to visit my Red Aunt and my cousin. My Aunt is now living in an assisted living home. When she was moved her stuff was either sold in an estate sale or given to relatives. She had taken care of Grandma and would have had any of the items that wasn't sold after my grandparents died.  I was sitting on the couch talking to my cousin and she pulled out a bag. She had found just a couple of items of Grandma's in her mother's belongings that she thought I might like to have. She pulled out an old jar filled to the brim with buttons. It was Grandma's button jar. The label was scuffed with time, but I immediately knew what it was and a huge lump formed in my throat. Then she pulled out a cup filled with the silver little hair pins Grandma used to put her hair up with and larger pins that were still wrapped in the newspaper wrapping when she bought them.... The lump only got bigger. These were two things that everyone going through Grandmother's belongs had looked past as if they had no value; but they had a tremendous amount of value to me. The things we believe are valuable here on earth varies from person to person; to me nothing is as valuable as those seemingly insignificant memories of watching Grandma at her dressing table taking down her hair, or a jar where she kept every little button that fell off of a dress because a Sharecropper's wife couldn't just go out and buy a new dress when a button fell off or something needed mending.  These items were a precious gift from my childhood. I came home, moved aside a knick knack that truly had no value and gently placed the jar of buttons on the shelf next old photographs from a time far far away.

The Pickling of Ones Own Self

I have a penchant for getting myself into a pickle... Without even trying. It's probably due to the mischievous streak in me that's a mile wide. It has always caused me trouble even when I try my darnedest to

keep it tamped down. I'll go for a while, keeping everything closely in check, then it just seems to bubble out of me like a carbonated water bottle that's been shaken at the most inopportune time. It's common for me to worry myself sick about something I've done or something I've said in jest. I have the pleasure of working for one of my best friends husband. When I applied for the job, I had some reservations about working with a close friend. His wife and I are a lot alike in the fact that she also has a mischievous streak and unfortunately (for him) he has been on the receiving end of a lot of our... Well, our shaken water bottle mishaps, if you will. That being said, I really wanted to maintain a professional demeanor at work. A couple of weeks after I started, I made a tiny joke (at his expense)in front of a co-

worker. Afterwards he pulled me aside and informed me that was a boundary that should not be breached. I took my rebuke and rebuked myself for the rest of the day, went home and cried all evening then showed up in his office first thing the next morning to sincerely apologize for my unprofessional manner. He looked up from his desk with complete bumfuzzlement. I expected him to accept my apology, but instead he just chuckled.

What the heck? I'm trying to apologize and he's laughing at me. That's when he tells me he was just joking when he reprimanded me and that afterwards he had forgotten the incident and assumed I had too. Little did he know I had spent the entire evening crying my eyes out. Needless to say, he hasn't gotten many apologies from me since. Onward..... Last weekend was the annual banquet at work. The theme was Bedlam. The drum line for a local school entertained us and ultimately there was a dance off between 5 OSU fans and 5 OU fans, which included not only my boss, but his boss. Nothing is as entertaining as seeing your bosses step outside their usual no muss, no fuss selves. Before

running things through my wisdom checker, I uploaded a video of the dance-off to my Youtube account and posted it on Facebook. I've sat on pins and needles ever since. This afternoon I got a call from a co-worker who wanted to know if I could email the video to the owner of the company. Okay, wisdom checker activated and serious pause given to this request. I might be able to squeak past a minor infraction with my boss, but I wasn't sure I could squeak by with posting a video of "The Boss". My co-worker assured me he had requested she have me email him the video link. I emailed him the link with MUCH hesitation, now I'm just waiting to see if I'm in a pickle or just mildly puckered.... Yeah, that probably did come out right, which just reiterates my ability to find myself in a self-induced pinch. I'm sure you get the drift......