dear candy....i kinda like you...

this candy reminds me
of the little yellow corner store
that used to be
next to my grandparents house…
lois’s
”run over to lois’s and get a can of chicken gravy”
”can i go to lois’s? i have a quarter.”

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this was always my favorite
penny candy
(back when penny candy was really
a penny
and pennies
really existed)…

i got stitches just under my eye
from this penny candy…
my cousin & i found a pop bottle
in the backyard
when i was like…5…
he would throw it & whoever got to to it first
could take it to lois’s….
and me being me…i ran out in front of him
just before he threw it…
it hit me in the face and i had to get stitches…
heeheehee.

(i normally just tell people i got hit the face
with a bottle during a fight…it sounds more interesting.
heh.)

they said my biggest concern
was that my cousin william
wasn’t going to get in trouble…
heeheehee.
he was my favorite.
which is pretty obvious from these photos…heehee

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mary, mary...quite contrary...

how does your garden grow...

the whole time i have been working on this garden
(and i'm telling you...it feels like a LOT of time...
i had no idea how much time this would take...)
i keep thinking about my uncle emmett.

when i planted my first garden
(back before i started shooting weddings)
my uncle emmett would stop by
to tell me how to keep the birds from
pulling my shoots up
and what to plant next to what
and when...
he would drive by the back lot
where the garden was
in his big old blue truck
to check on how it was doing
even when i wasn't home...
and then would call me when i
did get home to tell me that he was by
and it looked like the string beans
were finally coming up...

i can't tell you how much i miss that advice...
the sound of that big old blue truck coming up the road,
the little dog on the seat next to him...
i miss his big booming voice, his wheezy easy laugh
especially when he was making a joke at your expense
(cause that's what we do best in our family...
it means we love you...)

so today, when i went out and saw that
where last night there were NO string beans,
today they were popping up all over the place...
i immediately thought of him...
and how he would tell me to get some
aluminum pie plates out there to stop the birds
and how he would laugh when i told him
i already had to yell at 2 crows and a robin.

♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥

tuesday truths and chicken fricot...

I don't like to cook.  Not normally.
Usually Stirling does most of the cooking
and by most...
I mean most.
If left to me, supper would generally be
sugary cereal with
more sugar added....
or toast
with butter
and brown sugar.

But I do like to make chicken fricot
or what I consider to be my version of chicken fricot.
In my non-vegetable loving world,
chicken fricot is chicken, potatoes and chicken broth...
no dumplings, no carrots, definitely no turnip...
lots of salt and pepper...and maybe, a little more salt.
Onions are ok now (not so much when I was a kid).

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Chicken fricot makes me think of my grandmother's
teeny-tiny house that was always filled with kids
and where we jumped on the bed
and ate home cut french fries (if one of the boys would go
to the basement to get the potatoes)
and meat pies
and ice cream
while watching the carol burnett show
and cable tv (a luxury we did not have at home).
When my grandmother wasn't holding one of my many,
many younger cousins, she was knitting...or cooking...
or laughing...or all of these things at once.

When I make chicken fricot,
I think of her english mixed with french and vice versa.
I think about how she was the most down to earth person
I have ever known....and how, even though there were SO
many of us, she was always able to remember the little things...
when I would come over she would let me go out to my
uncle's room to read archie comics and color in peace...
she remembered what we liked, what we didn't.
And she listened when you were telling her something...
like...really listened...really heard you...
even with so much going on all the time.

So yeah, I like to make chicken fricot.
:)  It'll never be hers but it always makes me feel better.

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