I tend to wait longer than I should before replacing clothes -- usually wait until cuffs are fraying, elbows are wearing through, etc. So a few weeks ago, I finally bought a few new shirts. After wearing one of them only a time or two, a button fell off. Today (at least a couple of weeks later) I took the shirt and would-be-escapist button that I'd had next to the nightstand and decided to sew the rebel button back on.
It's interesting how the littlest things can awaken memories long-forgotten. While threading the needle - and having to grab for reading glasses for a better view - I flashed back to my grandma asking me on numerous occasions to help her get a thread through the needle. She lived with us after my grandpa died when I was in the very early years of school, and until I was part of the way through college.
And one memory threading through the nooks and crannies of the mind, as memories are wont to do, led to more memories of my grandma.
She was a rather short and quite round little German woman. She stood about 4 feet, 10 inches 'tall' ...and weighed quite a bit more than I do now. Of course, I would tower over her now, since I stretch all the way to 5 feet, 4 inches. Well, I have 2 sisters and 3 brothers. My brothers and I would fight pretty much every day. My grandma, of course, did not care for that, and used to grab our fireplace broom - which consisted of about a 2 foot length of straw, bound together where it joined the handle. The handle was a 2 foot length of round hardwood; the straw was a 3 inch diameter round bundle. So grandma would grab the broom at the bottom end of the straw and start to swinging, whacking whomever the hardwood of the handle could locate. Crude, but effective.
And that memory makes me smile.
February 3, 2007 
Shirley told me I had to listen to the music of Rodrigo Y Gabriela. She'd heard a clip of their music on WMNF, our local listener-supported radio station. We've now bought their album. The music is incredible ...pulsating rhythms pounded out on the wood of the guitars; Gabriela's strumming hand, defying you to catch it when not in a blur; Rodrigo's notes sailing across the fingerboard. The treatment of Stairway to Heaven is wonderfully original. Diablo Rojo, inspired by a Danish rollercoaster - and perhaps their best-known song to date - is a joy. Take a moment and check out the YouTube videos of them performing on Jay Leno's show, and on Letterman.
