Erin O'Brien

Saturday, December 26, 2015

An appropriate memory to share today

Lil' OB, Sept. 27, 2014

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Wednesday, December 23, 2015

My little chickadee

Frank-n-Goat

Just stick with me on this.

Yes, that is the Goat standing next to a life-size stick figure with a Frank Sinatra head. That wood thingie you see is a would-be palm that folds down. During the month of November, Ol' Blue Eyes gets installed on the exterior walkway of the Cleveland Metroparks' Brecksville Nature Center. The staff then removes the resident bird feeders and fills his wooden palm with sunflower seeds. Eventually, the chickadees, titmice and woodpeckers find Frankie's hand and start feeding from it.

Y'all see where this is going?

Over winter break, Frank gets retired and for scheduled hours, the birdfeeders come down and anyone can mosey into the nature center for a handful of seeds and feed the birds (I wrote about this last week for Freshwater). Despite having lived just a few miles from the Brecksville Reservation for more than 20 years, I did not know about this program until I penned that story. Hence, the Goat, Lil' OB and I went and fed the chickadees earlier this week.

Lil' OB meets a new friend while we warm up by the fire inside
the Brecksville Nature Center

Aw, readership ... it was just about the best thing ever. Those tiny birds check you out a few times, and then land right on your fingers and pluck a seed from your palm.

If you're in the area, get your person over to Brecksville and do this one. It's a short, sweet activity that will be long on memories. Sorry I did not get photos of the feeding, but sometimes your ol' humble hostess likes to simply enjoy the moment instead of recording it.

~tweet tweet~

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Monday, December 21, 2015

The shortest day of the year

INCOMING

Got pickle?

Yo, Rocky, which one's for me?

Sing it, Bing

Dream in blue

Hola dudes

Gimme hooka pipe ... gimme hooka pipe now

Razzle dazzle

Photo for which there is no caption

Polar vortex?

Don't shoot the one with the red nose, Santa!

Why, yes, I'd love a cuppa

Merry merry to all!

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Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Happy birthday Gram

This photo was taken on my wedding day, Nov. 28, 1992. Gram Soos was Mom's mom. She was a big part of my life up until her death in 1999. She was born on December 8, 1916 and would have been 99 years old today.

Gram never ate mushrooms. "I've always said that if you ate mouse, it would taste exactly like a mushroom."

On drinking: "After one or two, who's counting?"

Gram called the couch the "davenport."

Instead of humming or singing to herself, Gram used to lilt, "dooo do doodoodoo dooo doo doo doo" in an unrecognizable off-key way.

Gram made the best homemade mac and cheese you ever ate.

On getting her hair done: "I'm going down to Eva's to get my hair cranked up."

More on drinking: "Jude," she'd say to my mom, "are you going to the booze emporium? Pick me up a bottle of gin if you go to the booze emporium."

When making clothes for me: "Kid!" she'd say, shaking a straight pin at me. "I'm not going to make it so tight that you can't eat an olive!"

Gram used to make tapioca pudding from scratch. "I had to use up the milk," she'd say. She always sprinkled cinnamon on top.

Gram maintained that football players had the cutest little buns and that it was "a well-known fact" that body builders were not well-endowed.

Gram had an elaborate charm bracelet that fascinated me as a kid. There was a tiny working one-armed bandit slot machine, a itty-bitty leaning tower of Pisa, a little cuckoo clock ... the list goes on and on. She gave it to me before she died and now, ironically, my favorite charm is a plain tile that says, "Junior Golfers 1961."

I miss Gram Soos. Hug your gram today.

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