Eggs again?

Today I brought Lucia some yummy fresh strawberries, chopped into bite-size bits and frosted with sugar, just the way she likes them. She ate them in front of the big-screen TV where she spends a lot of time — often napping — with her baby doll, Anna.

This time she was watching Casper, the movie. There’s a breakfast scene where Casper’s ghost-uncles flap around the kitchen like menacing helicopters. Apparently the scene — with Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” blasting in the background and one of the ghosts announcing, “I love the smell of fleshies in the morning!” — was a nod to Apocalypse Now. It certainly was a flurry of phantasmic hyperactivity, to say the very least.

But all Lucia noticed on the screen was the food. Between bites of strawberries she observed:

“Those people sure eat a lot of eggs.”

Who ya gonna call? Egg busters!

Two-hour parking

Mom's 90th birthday party (2004) at Rancho Lucia. Back row, from left: Janelle, Duke, Carol. Front row: Marti, Lucia, Liz.

Ask any of Lucia’s kids and they’ll tell you she always has been an incorrigible back seat driver. These days, however, her ongoing instructions take a different twist.  She commonly interrupts her own admonitions about other drivers —

“That old fart thinks he’s gonna jump right in front of you and take your lane!”

— with a variety of rambling roadside non sequiturs.

There are reading lessons:

“That sign says H-O-L-I-D-A-Y. Holiday Bowl. We don’t need any holidays. Or bowls.”

Or sudden bursts of rapture about the surrounding landscape:

“Just look at those beautiful hills!”

Sometimes Lucia’s editorial side comments actually make uncanny sense. Like today, when we were cruising around a Decoto Avenue shopping center looking for a place to park near the dollar store. She saw a sign and said, “We can’t park here unless we’re going to stay at least two hours.”

I didn’t respond right away, so she repeated her warning, insisting:

“It says Two. Hour. Parking. If we’re not going to stay that long, we’re going to have to park somewhere else.”

I kind of chuckled to myself, but later I realized she was right.  Strictly speaking, of course. After all, the sign didn’t say a word about two hours being the maximum.

Good eye, Lucia.

Today’s Lucia-ism:

Today Lucia and I were heading over to Country Waffles for a senior special grilled cheese sandwich with fries and we reached the nearest intersection right as the signals all turned red. She looked up at the signals and in total earnestness said:

Looks like we’re back in the red light district again.

Gotta love it.

F U N E M ?

Lucia with some of her great-grandkids ~ Christmas 2006. From left: Sadie Mae Alan, Sarah Grace Gordis, Grandma Lucia, Piper Lane Alan, Benjamin Philip Gordis.

On some of those days when I faked sick and stayed home from school, Lucia would play word games with me. She would write stuff down and then say, “Can you read this?”

Today I wrote this one down and asked her if she could read it:

FUNEM?
SVFM.
FUNEX?
SVFX.
OKMNX!

She said:

Of course I can read it!

And then she did. She remembered all of it, even the accent. Good stuff.

Do you know how to read it? Click this link (or hover) to find out: FUNEM?