Tales from the Towers: Wallowing in nostalgia

I sat with my friend Erica when she took out some pink wool and started to crochet. I have endless admiration for people who can do that, never having learned or tried it myself.

"What will this be?" I asked her.

"A dress for the little princess", she informed me, "I don't care what my grandsons are wearing but my grand daughter will always be dressed like a princess!"

The princess is exactly 3 days old.

"You know", I said to her, "I don't know how to crochet, but I know how to knit!"

"Oh yes, I remember, you knitted a shawl in second grade all throughout the third grade, and tell me why in heaven's name did you make it so long? It became endless!"

"I'll tell you the secret, I simply did not know how to  finish it, how to close up the knitting so this was the reason I went on and on! After a while one of my aunts took pity on me and compassionately removed my impressive work  from the knitting needle!"

"Did you ever wear it?"

"Of course I did! I was so proud of my work. It was very long that's true, so I wrapped it around myself  3 or 4 times and it kept me warm!"

"Must have looked like a shawl walking. With something inside!"

Erica can be nasty at times.

But then I remembered Martha.

"Remember her", I asked, "she embroidered the same doily much longer than I worked on my shawl! Until the teacher told her to take it home and wash it, because it had lost its original white color a long time ago!"

"Yes, I remember that Martha had no way with a needle. Isn't it strange that she became a very good plastic surgeon years later? She could not stitch on the doily, but she stitched very well on human faces!"

It's nice to wallow in nostalgia sometimes and to remember our very first years of schooling which ended so abruptly when the war started and we found that suddenly our childhood was over.

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I finally decided that I am not happy with my I-Pod. Omri, my talented grandson, has loaded down some snappy music for me to help me run on the treadmill without dying of boredom but it turns out that they are the same 20 songs over and over again. Now they stick in my brain, I hear them awake as well as in my dreams and a disc of Bach or Brahms which I listen to on my disc player does not help to erase them. Now salsa plays in my head accompanied by Brahms. Presently I am waiting for someone who is computer-knowledgeable and willing to change the music on my I-Pod before I become totally brainwashed.

Winter came suddenly and with it the election circus in the US as well as here at home. We stand by helpless waiting for things to happen and wondering whether they will be good. Keep your fingers crossed with me!

Lucca