My Son

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday. Angie, my oldest brother, Jim, his friend, Angela and I were guest of  Paul and Ann Graham, our aunt and uncle. Aunt Ann is our mother, Sarah McCord Graham, sister, and Uncle Paul is our Daddy's first cousin, therefore, making them our aunt and uncle on our mother's side, and our 2nd cousins on our Daddy's side. This  makes their children, our cousins, our  1st cousins on our Mother's side, and our 3rd cousins on our Daddy's side. Confused yet?  We had tons of food, great fellowship and made  memories.  I am blessed to be a part of such a wonderful family.

My son, Eric, spent the night with me last night. I had Eric when I was 17. We've kinda grown up together, with Eric being the more mature of the duo for many years now. I like it that way. I'm fond of telling him I marred a Playboy quality body giving birth to him. (as we age, we can all remember ourselves any way we chose, right?)  Eric moved to Florida in 2001, when my brothers, Jim, Ted and Dan relocated because Daddy's business was expanding to the middle part of Florida.  I remember very well the day we brought Eric home from the hospital when he was born.  In those days,  they circumcised little boys about 30 minutes before they dismissed them from the hospital.  Dean, our Mother who raised us, told me to put alcohol on his navel and Vaseline around his freshly circumcised penis.  My little brothers, Ted, who was 8 and Dan who was 5, at the time, was watching, when I went to change his diaper.   I remember just like it was yesterday, asking Ted  what Dean had said. Ted replied 'she said to put that Vaseline on his navel and alcohol on his pecker', which was completely opposite from what Dean had said.  I carefully put the cotton ball on top of the alcohol bottle, got it good and soaked,  stuck it directly on Eric's penis. Eric started crying and lost his breath and was turning blue. Ted, Dan and I started screaming and hollering. Daddy came running down the hall, picked Eric up, blew in his face, Eric caught his breath and finally calmed down. Daddy told me not to touch the baby another damn time, or Eric  wouldn't live a week. As Eric became older, and we told the story about the alcohol, Eric would say not to worry about it, because it acted like fertilizer.  Eric called me 'Claudia' until I got married to my second husband. I didn't have a problem with being called Claudia. He and I got in a big discussion when he was about 4. He thought I was his sister. I kept telling him that I was Jim, Tim, Jeff, Ted and Dan's sister, but I was his mama. Eric said 'No, Mama is our mama, and you are our sister'. I finally got him straight on it.   When Eric was in college, he had to have many surgeries on his foot and ankle (due to a local doctor's incompetence and just sorry doctoring).  Two of my friends came up to visit Eric when he was having surgery, one of them said a man in the elevator had stopped her and asked if she was Demi Moore. Eric had back in the room about 1 hr, and was still groggy from surgery, he said 'undoubtedly the man had said Skinny Whore, and you didn't hear correctly'.
Karen J.  said that a Graham, fresh off the operating table, is funnier than most folks when they are fully awake.

Eric and Angie would never address me, without saying 'yes mam' or 'no mam'. They have wonderful manners and have turned out to be outstanding adults. I always thought the most important thing I would every do was raise those children, and I took it very seriously.  We always had fun, and laughed daily.
When Angie got 'wittiest' in her senior class, Eric said  Angie must be going to school repeating things she heard Eric and I say.

Angie got busy putting up Christmas decorations today. We always get a live tree. We like the way it makes the house smell, and Angie enjoys gripping and complaining about having to water the tree daily, and vacuum up the needles. The Christmas lights just about drive her to drink every year, so I try to have two good bottles of red Zinfandel ready to go. I can highly recommend the Rabbit Ridge Merlot, if you order it in a good restaurant, it's about $50 a bottle, I found a few bottles last week at the Kroger for $9, which is one helluva deal.  We prefer red wines over white wines. I have traveled extensively in the past 15 years, and have developed a fine appreciation for the grape.  While in South Africa in 2008, on a Safari that Greg Roche gave me as a birthday gift, I had the opportunity to zip line for over 2 miles, through the top of the jungle. Luckily, we visited a winery first, and I was able to 'wine up' prior to zip lining. It was a tremendous experience, and I think I might not have enjoyed it, had I not self medicated on grapes prior.
I learned in Spain, the hybrid of the grape has more to do with the taste, then the vintage of the wine. I also learned that price has nothing to do with wine, if your taste leans more to ripple than a fine Bordeaux, no problem, and a screw top is not necessarily better than a  corked wine. I found out on my own that wine in a box is crap.

See tuned tomorrow, same time, same station.

Claudia