This is Mrs. Smith. She lives next door to my dad's house and is in her 90s. She has a garden and often wears her hair in braids. She knows a lot about plants and her gardens always thrive under her care. She is never in a rush. She says the air quality has gotten really bad over the years. She has a strong, centered, female voice. She smiles warmly whenever you wave hello.

That's pretty much all I know about her, and I've known her for 27 years.

Yet, she is one of my favorite people in the world, an inspiration to me. I gave her most of my dad's gardening stuff. She was so happy when I asked to take her picture. I let her know I hope to be just like her when I grow up, including the long hair in braids part. Especially the long hair in braids part, actually.

And the thriving garden. My own garden this year is the suck. Probably the only good part about my garden is the irony of my conversation the day this picture of Mrs. Smith was taken. Mrs. Smith told me all about Queen Anne's Lace, a type of flower that is in her garden. As it turns out, my garden this year has a little wild patch of Queen Anne's Lace growing right near where I had my carrots all these years. It's the only flowers in the weedy mess, aside from the strawberry patch flowers that bloomed earlier in the spring.

Today I'm heading to the Summer Street pond with the boys, bringing a book to read but most likely will end up swimming myself for quite a while, too. We leave in an hour or two and pretty much plan to stay until we're all water-logged and raisin-looking, sun bronzed and sandy-pantsed. We'll leave when the mosquitos start biting, I figure.

It is one of the prettiest summer days yet. Hot but not humid, blue sky with a few white clouds, little breezes of gentle wind now and then. Nice.

:O)

Something so cool and full of irony and incredible coincidence happened recently, it almost makes me wonder if it was my dad's way of giving us all a smile.

There were many, many books at my dad's house, and I kept some of them and gave the rest to family. Out of the ones I kept, there was an autographed copy of a book about New Bedford's Acushnet Avenue. My dad had a lot of books about the history of local areas and points of interest, but this one on Acushnet Avenue was special to me because Kenny and I first met on Acushnet Avenue when he bought a booklet of poetry from me - it would be five or six years later before we actually dated and then married, but the initial meeting took place there. Actually, now that I think about it, all 3 (or maybe it's 5...) 'major' relationships in my life actually have an origin of Acushnet Avenue in New Bedford. :stunned at realization:

So anyways, I put all of the books on local areas in the bathroom, so we could actualy read them (often, the only time we have to read books is when we're in the bathroom.) Well, a few weeks ago Kenny got to the Acushnet Avenue book and came outta the bathroom holding it open to a certain page with a picture on it. "This is my grandfather!" he said. I looked at the photo and could see the guy in the picture had a Camille look to him. "We should ask my mom to be sure," he said, so that's what we did this 4th of July at a family gathering, and sure enough, it is Kenny's grandpa (father's side) ! :) It's a picture of the Portuguese Feast, and his paternal grandpa is at the skewer-filled marinated meat section awaiting an order of some of the finest tasting cooking in the WORLD.

So, I'm making a bunch of 8X10 glossies of this picture and sending one out to Ken's dad, and some for local family members. I never got to meet Kenny's grandpa, he was gone before there was a chance, but it's good to have a photo of him, and it's even better that the picture of him comes from a book on the place his grandson and I met. :)

Something about the whole thing just makes me smile. Lightens up my heavy heart in a year that has been the massive, royal suck. The little groovy things that happen along the way keep me sane. Keep me smiling. Keep me hopeful.