The Queen's Bs
Monday, July 7, 2025
Jacob, Grandson, Sun
Monday, June 30, 2025
He Ate His Twin!
HE ATE HIS TWIN!
My oldest has 2 different colored eyes - a brown and a green. When he was born they were both a gray color and as he grew to be a toddler his eyes changed into 2 different colors. We didn't think too much of it, until...Until he got married and cell phones and internet were the latest rage and the "information highway" stretched out before us. His new wife looked it up.
Chimera - Chimerism can occur when a mom is pregnant with twins. If one embryo dies, the other one could possibly absorb its deceased twin's cells.
"In humans, a chimera is a person who has cells from two different sources. Since those cells are from different organisms, it results in two sets of DNA."
"Not only can Chimera have split faces, but another noticeable characteristic is also their two different eye colors."
Ah, ha, grandma, on my mother's side of the family had a boundary line right down the center of her face! One side was almost red. She always wore makeup to make it blend! It looks like Rusty has inherited chimeraism.
Then came the day he and wife adopted 2 children.
According to Rusty, "This morning, Jayden noticed I have one green eye and one brown. He told me I need a new one."
We laughed.
Later, they had more children, and Rusty, though he had pulled the trick on brothers and friends, he now used it on his own kids. With his black rumpled hair, and curly beard, he'd squint one eye and in a gruff pirate voice declare, "I'm giving you the evil eye."
The mom in me asked, "And which eye is that?"
"Whichever I choose not to squint."
I laughed. He grinned.
Then last year, we were all in Home Depot at Christmas time. They always have a grand display of lighted trees, characters bigger than humans, and blow ups of current Christmas movies players. Rusty was walking behind his family. Wife pushing cart with newest baby in the seat. The little ones checking out the Grinch on wheels, and Nutcracker Suite hanging tree ornaments, and the blow up Minions.
7 year old Alayna grabs my hand all excited, "GrammyPam, GrammyPam come see!"
"There's a minion that looks like daddy." And we take off at a half run.
I'm thinking, "What makes him look like daddy?" Rusty's not wearing coveralls, he's short, he does have a round belly but surely that's not what this little girl is referring to. So I have to go see, I'm curious now.
"You have to see, GrammyPam. Don't you know? It's Bob."
"No, I don't know, I really don't know one minion from another."
"It's Bob," she says, "he's got two different colored eyes!"
And she smacks the inflated belly a good one!
Now, that's a belly laugh!
Friday, June 27, 2025
NO WAY! Ew! Gross!

Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Walk The Pair Home

Sunday, June 22, 2025
One of Us Is Going Night-Night
They said I needed to check the oil, the gas, and the left front tire that kept losing air. That meant I had to learn to operate the air compressor over the phone with Clint. Durn but if it wouldn't shut off. Called brother he said, (in the words of Gibbs on NCIS) "Unplug it!"
Saturday, June 21, 2025
The Comcast Man
Friday, June 20, 2025
Donna Kay - 2019 Revisited - God Blest
-- Donna Kay--
So, today, in January and NOT December, we took the next to the last Christmas gift, with shamefacedness for being so late, to my cousin Donna Kay. She's 2 years older than me and she’s been a friend for many years.
When we were younger, my great-aunt, her grandmother, held campouts in the sparse woods beside Donna’s house. Roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and singing gospel songs around the bonfire sure was fun.
Another time, in our teens, my cousin and her mother and sister said, “Let’s go to Castleton Square.” I thought, “What’s a Castleton Square?” Turns out what I once knew as a cornfield had sprouted overnight, in my mind, into a big shopping mall.
It was complete with a Sears, next to a J. C. Penney’s, and a Hallmark Store, the likes of which I’d never seen before. There I got my first look at a Studio greeting card, tall, and narrow, with a cutting-edge, humorous greeting.
Example, on the front: "Congratulations! It couldn't happen to a nicer person"
Inside quip: "If it did, it would be me."
Loved it! It was a new and fun experience.
Another time, with her mother driving, we all went shopping --- for empty cardboard boxes! We headed to appliance stores, and big box stores to find a good supply. The boxes that we found were then taken to church to make walls for a haunted house in the basement. That haunted house was a blast.
Another new and fun adventure.
Nowadays, my friend is confined to a wheelchair but sports a smile and still shows a good sense of humor with her infectious laughter.
For years, every Wednesday, we talked on the phone, “Hi! How are you?” “How’s your family?” “Have you heard from Andy?” “Did you enjoy your trip to Vero Beach?” "Mikkie lives down there, really?" “Wow, you really got quite a sunburn!”
Andy's my brother who she dearly loves. She thinks he's especially funny. And Mikkie is her family's friend that moved to Florida.
And then we began a pen pal correspondence; snail mail, as they say these days, which eventually evolved into email letters. It wasn't long before I realized I could communicate with her through this blog. Her caregivers would check for new blogs and read them to her.
Every Christmas she and I exchanged gifts. It was a running joke that anything chocolate, like brownies, had to be secreted away because her dad loved them just as much as she did, and sometimes he'd eat more than his share, LOL.
"Brownies? What brownies?"
But, I have to tell you about the crack shot in the movie theater at the Mounds Mall. No sense in even trying to remember the name of the movie. She would. She had the memory of an elephant, ALWAYS. It’s clean left my mind. There were several of us teenagers; we were between the ages of 15 to 22, and we helped cousin Donna from her wheelchair into a theater seat.
In those days, our family couldn’t afford the theater’s popcorn and soda pop, so we brought in our own snacks. And…in those days soda pop from the grocery store only came in glass bottles. After we’d selected our seats, rearranged ourselves, and sat down, we began passing out the snacks and drinks. Keep in mind, this was a no-no. You did NOT bring in your own refreshments!
And I sure shouldn’t have.
This glass bottle of 16 oz. diet Pepsi was tucked under my left armpit under my coat. Well ... it slipped. I couldn’t grab it fast enough. It slid out from under my coat. It fell between the seat and the armrest. It crashed to the floor. It hit that cement floor like the sound of a shotgun in a metal storage u-lock-it! KA-BANG! SHATTER! SPLAT!
Liquid and glass, everywhere!
As for us, we sat there stiff as mannequins in double starched clothes, hoping to high heaven no one knew it was us. We didn't move. We didn't speak. And we sure didn't look at each other! We looked around at other ticket holders instead! To this day, I don’t know how we didn’t give ourselves away by laughing out loud or how the ushers didn't discern the source, how they didn’t know from where that awful, ringing-from-the rafters sound came!
And, Donna restrained herself, too. She never cracked a cackle!
Until we got back in the car. Then it was an eruption of giggles and chatter and laughter!
What a memory!
Re-telling that story always makes Donna laugh heartily.
Today, some 45 years later, we made a new memory. Today, darling hubby, three sons, daughter-in-law, and grandbaby went with me to take my cousin Donna her yearly Christmas gift. We talked with her sister, and her caregiver, and told stories, and shared jokes, and petted their dogs Livvy and Maddy.
I accepted a gift that Donna had particularly picked out for me -- a beautiful angel playing a harp. It sets on my night stand and plays "Oh, Come All Ye Faithful".
Back to Miss Lilly, our granddaughter, who just loves dogs. She just had to pet them, she said, “Aw, puppy.”
And when her mother asked, “What does a doggy say?” 2 yr. old Lilly in her baby high-pitched gentle voice answered, “Woof, woof.”
Before you could shake a stick, Lilly, in her violet-red hooded coat, was out of her daddy’s arms and down on all fours, just like the dogs, face to face, black nose to pink nose sharing doggy kisses, ha, ha, ha.
Donna laughed. We all laughed.
On this day, the 6th of January, when it’s customary to commemorate the visit of the Magi, to have all Christmas taken care of, we delivered our last gifts to a loved one, cousin and friend, Donna Kay.
TODAY'S TRIBUTE: My dear cousin passed away a few days ago, June 11, 2025, just 15 days shy of her 70th birthday. It's bittersweet. She was sweet, though her body was weak. I will miss purposely composing blogs for her to read, visits on her birthday and at Christmas, and, the reliving of precious memories.