Grandma Susie's House of FUNNERS 'N FLOOZIES Volume VII)

Hey, alleycat was extremely nice today. He posted my Grandma's pic for me.

Of course, I sent him a link in return of some of Grandma's pin-up modeling she used to do for Vargas, but he couldn't have known I was going to do that at the time.

It was the type of stuff that you saw as nose art on WWII aircraft. Grandma was seriously beautiful.

She was a lovely person, too, of course, but her story was definitely...not exactly what I expected when I sat down with her to do interviews of her life. I was expecting, you know, Great Depression adversity, WWII and such, and I definitely got that, but I got a lot more, too. 1800 words today and I'm beat. Biography is much harder than fiction. I can't toss in a touching death, unexpected violence, or a moral crisis to jazz up the narrative whenever I like.

Sorry I'm a little out of touch; I'm extremely focused on this thing. I really loved her, and I want to do her proud.

Cathleen, I'm so sorry for your loss. You're in my thoughts.

What thread did AC post a pic of your Gran in? Could you post a link. I'd love to see it.



In other news, my spring cleaning is almost at an end. Then the Christmas shopping begins. But I've managed to drop a dress size, which was a bit more than I'd planned so...Bring. On. That. Cake.

Good morning, Christmas shoppers.

Major emergency! Major emergency! DD #1 didn't get her replacement phone yesterday and now doesn't have a phone. Repeat, she doesn't have a cell phone. I'm not sure life can go on . . . well, at least not until 11:00 when she can get the new phone.

Gah!

Wait...how do you know about this, ac? Is it possible to communicate without phones?

*capers*

I got an e-mail from her from work late yesterday.

I have heard that people can talk to each other directly, but I'm not sure about that. I don't think teenagers can.

We're having our Christmas dinner today or tomorrow. DD is taking a trip to China next week. The best news: I don't think she'll be able to take photos of palm trees in China.

Where there's a will, there's a way, ac! Perhaps she could take one with her in a pot?

ROAR

Please, no . . . no more photos of oceans and palm trees and sand.

"Here's a photo of the beach, and here's another one of the beach, and here's the sky, and this one is the beach, here's sand on the beach, and palm trees, and the ocean, and here's the sunset, and palm trees at sunset, and the beach again . . . "

Has the phoneless one tried smoke signals?

I've sometimes been tempted to take the thing away from her anyway.

She has 500 friends she needs to be in constant contact with at all times. Me, sometimes I don't even answer the phone.

Oh, And this is DD #2's birthday!

I'm celebrating it by taking someone else out to lunch.

That'll set her up great for dealing with the crushing disappointments of life!

*capers*

Cathleen, your grandmother indeed sounds fascinating. My own grandmother, may God rest her, was a rather amusing lady. Married and divorced 4 times, and her legs were so smashing she did hosiery ads.

Vargas girl? Wow, Cathleen. I'd love to read your tribute sometime.

Mary: Hosiery ads? That is really cool. I hope you have some of the pics.

AC: how will she ever manage without her phone? Oh, the horror.

Today is Andrew's first day of winter break, and we're leaving in a few minutes for a college visit. No rest for the weary!

Try to behave, everyone. Nah, just kidding.

Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Wow! Vargas girl and hosiery ads...Cathleen and DM, you ladies had splashy grandmas! The major claim to fame mine had (besides 10 kids) was helping found a tiny New Age (before the New Age) sect called the Teaching of the Inner Christ. That was in San Diego, but I've met people in Oregon who've heard of her.

and pie and and whatever else we need here to feel festive.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

DD #2 at her workplace birthday lunch.

This does not surprise me at all.

Hey, I'm poking my head in from my writing cave.

I'm nearly done with the first draft; I'm up to the new millenium.

Grandma's pic is posted here: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=300586 , about seven posts down.

For any who are interested, the type of pin-up girl modeling she did is here: http://www.thepinupfiles.com/vargas/alberto-vargas-pinup-artist_69.jpg .

And if anyone is willing to beta read, it's currently a little over 4k, and should come in under five. Very definitely probably. Certainly five after cutting.

I want it to be interesting, within the limitations of working with biographies. I'm going to embed photos in it, too, and I talked to Aunt Nancy today; the memorial is scheduled for January fourth. So I've got till then to get this thing as good as it can get, formatting, cover, printing and all. Staples is going to take four days to print the thing, so that really means I've got a little over a week. A week that includes Christmas.

Thanks to everyone for the condolences. I'm just starting to feel normal-ish again. My head has been in a very strange place. Writing has been the only thing I've been able to concentrate on at all.

*Pops in, brushing cave dust from sweatshirt*

Okay, done. Not as bad as I thought; I was a thousand off. (Did I mention my head was in a weird place? Sheesh.) For some reason, I feel much more like a sane human being. 3,829 words currently, although I'm sure that'll change as I shake my head at what seemed such eloquent wording as I typed. But still, at least I have a draft to fix now.

Cathleen, your grandmother was a babe! How funny, I have an Aunt Nancy as well. Best of luck on your progress.

I don't have as much cheesecake now as I did this morning.

I much have mice.

Good morning, sleepyheads.

all! I just had this weird, freaky intuition that I'm meant to go take pictures of sand and palm trees and such and share them with you. BRB.

I love a good picture of sand.