Dearest T,
It has a crazy weekend here on Donna Street. Saturday morning, the girls and I met up with the woman I most admired when I was a teenager. I should mention that as a teenager and like most other teenagers, I despised all grown-ups! They didn't have a clue about our lives, and we got no respect (as if it was deserved!). I can't remember exactly how Paula stumbled onto me, but I guess word got around that I was the best neighbourhood babysitter - or I hadn't a better social life. Her two children became my children - I honestly loved Krista and Graham. Krista was 2 years old, and Graham was only a few months old when I began watching them while their parents curled a few nights a week. Our favourite movie was Charlie & the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder - we watched it a few hundred times, the three of us squished onto a little sofa, and covering our eyes during the boat scene! It's a classic. It would take me years to type all the funny tales and kooky things we used to do. It got to be that I would cancel on my friends to watch these two on Friday nights. They were so cool. Still are . . . It may come as a shock, but growing up, I had the lowest self-esteem, and I was extremely introverted and shy. I know, now you can't shut me up, but it's true. But that family absolutely worshipped me. I was Graham's lunchdate at nursery school. I was the first person Krista would call when she earned a skating badge - before her Grandma! They used to pay me when I would drop in to chat over tea after school. When I was saving up for my trip to France, they made up babysitting jobs! When I moved across town, in my last year of highschool, and Krista could not see me from her backyard, she sobbed uncontrollably. I loved this family, and I worshipped them back tenfold.
So about two weeks back, I emailed Paula out of the blue. I literally had not seen or talked to her for ten years. She still teaches at Beal S.S. - two blocks from work! And she wrote me right back, and we had so much to catch up on. This weekend Krista was home from Carleton where she is taking Journalism, so Paula and Krista met me and the girls at Tim's for tea and hugs. I was very good and did not cry. We reminisced all the fun and tales for B and E. It was so special - I can't even begin to describe it. We plan to get together again soon.
Sunday was the big Family Fun Brunch. It was a great success! There was an endless supply of Starbucks coffee and hot chocolate - absolute heaven. The weather was horrible, but pretty outside my front window.
There's the shovel - get to work!
Here's a ruffly scarf I knit up in one night while watching A Good Woman starring Scarlett Johanssen (sp? - I can't be bothered to look it up). It was well done. It's hard to imagine Helen Hunt as a bit of a whore, but she pulls it off. I also watched Down in the Valley with Edward Norton - really freaky cowboy stuff. I heartily recommend it. Yesterday I knit up a black scarf exactly the same. Now here's the real shocker - I think I will wrap it up for sryans' 60th. She isn't a ruffly person, but I am sticking to it. The pattern is all in my head if you should ever want it. Here's B modelling it over oatmeal and naked Ken.
She says it is much too itchy, and she now prefers yellow to all other colours.
Something completely random -E's collection of monkeys - one's a Folkmanis (far left). They kind of scare me. And the one wearing high-tops is one of those Build-a-Bear things - she made a monkey, and the shirt has skulls on it!?! And the big yellow monkey is her first and favorite - it's from Canada's Wonderland and was a gift from Julia. E throws a fit if she can't take it with her overnight anywhere. She is so ga-ga over them, she took this picture, and I now have it permanently on the computer. Fantastic!
Back to you,
N
I spent my Minneapolis money for the next three years on a 2007 Ford Escape. Are you mad?
He's from the 
