Saturday, Jim, and My Mother-In-Law

I thought I'd have to run over to Von's for something to give Jim for lunch, but as it turned out, my larder (read "freezer") was well-stocked. I found a good amount of pasta and meatball, left over from when he was here a month or so, plenty for both of us. I just added a little more sauce.

I did go over to Von's for whole milk because I wanted to make pudding (the milk I use for my oatmeal is low fat). Went, and found the Friends of the Library were having their semi-annual book sale. I bought five, including one of the poetry and two plays by my hero, William Butler Yeats; one on Lew and Edie Wasserman, movers and shakers in old Hollywood; another show-bizzy tell-all book; and a manual on improv. I can hardly believe myself, as I'm still working on Elderhood and Superpatriots, not to mention all the books I haven't started yet. 

Jim got here at his usual 12:30 and I was happy to see he seemed in a better frame of mind. We followed our usual routine: chat on the couch first, repair to the table, eat, go back to the couch, talk.... He picked up the tell-all and proceeded to read me a short passage on how unpleasant Steve McQueen was. I asked if he'd drop me at Office Depot so I could get ink and would get the 11 bus home. To my surprise, he said he'd also take me home and he did.

I'm not sure if I mentioned that my brother, Frank, had asked my mother years ago, to record her memories on a tape recorder. This was passed around the family, but I had forgotten about it until my nephew, Wes, messaged it members of the family. My son, Mike, asked for it, I forwarded, and he had some kind of app that wrote out what she said! He PMed it to me, I transferred to a document, and I intend to re-type it (there are some obvious errors) so the fam can see it. 

More family re St. P. day: I got this card today from the trees (?!) in Japan:

I'm not sure if my daughter-in-law meant to write "three," but I found it amusing. (Names are obscured as my son doesn't allow them on the Internet.)

More family--in-law type: My niece-in-law, Amy, posted on Facebook that her grandmother, my mother-in-law, had won a medal in an Irish dance contest. (When? Why, 109 years ago.) Here she is with her dance partner, her brother, along with the medal. 

Having known her in later life, it just seems incredible that she was ever young and light-hearted enough to dance, let along win a prize for it. She always seemed somewhat morose and world-weary to me. No, we were not close. 

Addendum (mostly just to clarify things in my own mind): I forgot to add that son Mike called me, as he does on weekends.  We started to talk about income taxes and he said he'd do mine--free, of course. I agreed, but now I'm having second thoughts. I think I want to just let Michelle do it, as she has these past eight years. More on this later.