I was thinking about relationships the other day, what makes some work and others not. I saw Carl Reiner on a talk show and he and his wife Estelle (now deceased) were married for 64 years. He said that once she was asked what's the secret for a successful relationship and she answered, "You have to be able to stand the other person". Estelle was famous for one role in the movies, in her son's production of Harry Meets Sally, she had the line: "I'll have what she's having". Anyway, at first I thought she was setting the standard a little too low. Like he has to be able to use a fork (not even a knife). But when you think about it, it might just come down to that. You have to be able to stand the person to have the relationship go on and on.

My mother Bucky use to say "like finds like", but I lean more to "opposites attract". I met Mr. Haley 23 years ago. Maria, Jer and baby Rachael drove to Beacon to show Aunt Lillian and my mother the new baby. My brother came up from the cellar with this strange looking guy wearing overalls and my brother started apologizing right away. "I'm sorry about this, but he wanted to meet you" and that's how Harry Met Sally.

23 years is a long time (we've been engaged for 22 of them) and I think it's because he interests me in a strange way. Like his bathroom habit of playing boggle whenever he feels the need to go. He's done that for years and no one ever questions the boggle game next to the toilet. One year he measured the sun everyday, covering the floor with little yellow stickons and typing measurements methodically into the computer. He even measured the sun on our trip to Florida, which was quite exciting because the numbers are all different down there. One day in the summer he was measuring on the Bird's Nest deck to take advantage of as much sun as possible. A lady came to see the B&B, and as we passed him on the deck, with all the yellow stickons, I just explained "He's doing a scientific experiment". I don't think she ever came back.

We're alike in some ways, both like puzzles, crossword or suduku, and both like to sing. Sometimes we sing together, he is much better than I am, but singing together is always fun. Ironically, I sang a song with his Uncle John 52 years ago. He was my sister's best man at their wedding. We sang Down By the Old Mill Stream. It was fun because it goes: down by the old (and I would say 'old not the new but the old')and he would say where I first (and I would say 'first not the second but the first") met you (not me but you), dressed in gingham (not silk but giingham). Well I guess you get the idea. What we sometimes do is get the other person stuck on a song. It's really easy to do. First get a good tune. Yesterday I heard in Shop Rite, "Keep on Believin' by Journey, "she took the midnight train going anywhere'. Then you just sing it a few times and before you know it, you hear the other person humming or whistling or even saying the words to the song. Timmy is more the "Whip It" type, and me the "Zip A Dee Dooda" but it works with almost any tune.

So, I think Estelle was right. If you can just stand them, it can work out.

Today is a beautiful, almost summer day. The sky blue and sunny after more than three days of clouds and rain. Ria's grave was beautiful, the flowers really picking up now and some starting to bloom. I added flowers from Stop and Shop having brought scissors and water with me. I had to clean off the stone, it was covered with bird shit. A pair of mockingbirds were flying around. Ria's stone is one of the highest perches for them, and you can tell they like to use it to spot the next bug they will take to their babies. The date June 15, 1962 kept drawing my eyes. I remember it so well. It was a Friday morning, a little after 3am that she was born. An easy delivery but I was too excited to sleep much and starving when they brought me breakfast on a tray early in the morning. The tray held a card with a baby wearing a graduation cap that said class of 1980. I kept that for her baby book. The breakfast was hash, toast and two runny eggs. (One time in a diner the man in back of me ordered eggs "overeasy, no snot.") He would not have been happy with these. But I ate everything, wiping the plate with my toast. The orderly smiled at me as he picked up my finished tray. "Look at that", he kidded, "you ate the design right off the plate." I was anxious to see my baby. After delivery, they took the baby one way to the nursery, and sent me the other way, to my room. Finally, a nurse stuck her head in the door. "Do you want to see the most beautiful baby in the nursery?" she asked and brought in Maria. And she was beautiful, big, big eyes, rosy clear skin and a soft halo of red hair. I remember staring at her, watching her pulse bobbing in her "soft spot" thinking all kinds of thoughts.

The Soft Spot -that's what Bucky had explained to me when she brought home my baby brother and baby sisters. "That's their soft spot" and she pointed at the top of their head. "The fontanel," she added, impressing me with her knowledge. "Their skull is not quite formed yet. They need that soft spot to be born. But you can never touch them there.....their brains are covered with just that little bit of thin skin." I was horrified, but interested too. A soft spot.

At the grave today, I thought about that soft spot. Ria's death is kind of like that a soft spot that is tender, pulsing with memories. Proof of the love we all felt for her and the love she so generously gave to us. Happy Third Birthday in Heaven, Maria. Love, Ma

I spent the weekend at Laura's cabin in upstate New York with two of my grandchildren, Regina and Atticus. We left Friday morning - it's a four hour drive - and came back Monday afternoon, so that's what? about 72 hours all together. And what stands out from all that time is not the beauty of the lake, or the quiet uncomplicated life. Nope, it's the conversations with the kids.

One was the retelling of how Regina's father recently ordered Chinese food to be delivered to their house by taxicab. (Atticus was spending the weekend). Kevin couldn't use his truck, as they explained, because it was full of rhubard. Now, Laura and I had heard the story earlier and had wondered what was he doing with a truckload of rhubard, but had accepted it as certain, didn't even question it. After all, it is rhubard season right now. At the lake, we dug a little deeper, "What was your father doing with all that rhurbard?" "You, know" Regina explained, "he needs it for work." Now, Laura and I were really puzzled. Rhubard for work? "Yeah, well it sounds like rhubard"......Laura and I looked at each other and said it together....REBAR...they mean rebar, of course. It makes a lot more sense that a mason would have a truckload of rebar, but then maybe someone had too much rhubard so they gave it to him. Could happen.

Another conversation had Regina roaring in her seat. Atticus was telling about a boy in high school that came to school with a dead squirrel stapled to a Yankee baseball cap, the squirrel's tail flopping in the wind. Now, that's something you don't hear everyday. Then Regina told about her class seeing a movie called "Here Comes Puberty", the boys separate from the girls. Regina said the boys version only lasted a few minutes, but the girls was longer. One girl felt faint and had to go to the nurse to lay down. Then each girl got a "goodie bag" of supplies, which I guess they promptly opened. Regina said the item looked "like an old ladies diaper" and some more girls went down for the count.

That's always been the way with our family...the kids provide the most amusement. It started with Jer. He had been punished for using bad words, common swear type, so he invented words to call peole. He had "ash tray" which was good, "dog smell", even better, but my favorite was "air hole". Now that's original. I even used that at IBM, one guy really got to me and I called him an air hole, and he told his manager and his manager just looked at him like he was nuts. "What's an air hole?" he asked, like it might be a new scientific wonder.

Atticus had other names for people...her cousin Rachael was FooFee and Liz was Wren. Jer had named me Loggie Linds, which became Loggie, which became Linnie. More than one of them has called me Ninnie, with the L a harder letter to say. And it wasn't just words...sometimes they asked for strange things. One Christmas all Rachael wanted was "a monkey with clean hands". Maria had to search , but she found one with light pink palms - just what Rachael had wanted.

Recently, Henry discovered my hamper, a dark small closet under the stairs in the bathroom. Playing hide and seek, Solomon and Henry hid there. Henry renamed the hamper, the "Underwear Cellar", probably because it was dark like a cellar, and had dirty underwear in it.
Sabra said he now calls their cellar, the underwear cellar.

I can go back even further. One time Paul came home from school and looked annoyed. He said the teacher had asked them to name birds and he had said the "bra bird" and the teacher looked surprised and said she never heard of that one. It took me a while, but I figured it out. He meant tit mouse. When Maria's class was covering monies, Maria told the class she was going to bring in some money that her grandfather had from the war. So, she took it to class and presented it as "Peen" money. Again, the teacher was surprised, looked at the coins and corrected Ria, saying you mean "European". Maria never forgot that and every now and then would say how "we" embarrassed her by letting her go to school thinking it was Peen money.

Art Linkletter knew kids were funny, all you had to do was get them talking. The section of his show called "Kids say the darnest things" was one of my mother's favorite TV shows. The kids certainly had me entertained this weekend.