Best: Our daughter gave us a game called "Chit Chat". It's a box of cards that have questions as conversation starters.  We spent 90 minutes on the FIRST question we pulled from the stack, "What was the scariest event you ever experienced."  It's strange to live with one's spouse and children and then sit and hear things that happened to them they you'd never heard before, but that's what come out. My daughter told us the most Hair-Raising story that, thinking on it, I sort of wish she hadn't told me because it was about a time when she was 12 or 13, walked to the store, and some creepy guy in a pickup stopped and offered her a ride. THEN the story got creepier.

Okay, so the good thing is that it's really a very engaging game to play.

Worst:  Maybe the fourth of fifth time this has happened but I got another USB keychain drive, one of those hard drive about the size of a cigarette lighter that you can plug into the USB port on your computer and save stuff. Now I'm collecting a drawer full of them. I don't know what to use them for because I already have a Two-terebyte hard drive sitting on my desk (that's 2,000 gigabytes, or something like that).  If I had a USB port for my brain I could use the new keychain drive there. However, I wouldn't  need the entire 16 gigabyte capacity for that. LOL

Over the years I've been given gifts that were obviously  "I can't think of a thing to get you so here it is" types, you know the kind.  But overall, the gifts from family have been thoughtful and meaningful.  This year was no exception as I got a skillet I call a "chicken fryer"  as I had admired the one the grandkids had.  Daughter gave me an assortment of vintage slips to sell on ebay as we love to shop for them and she now calls me the "slip lady" since I have gravitated to specializing in them.  But  the gifts I've ever received are framed pictures of family, child or grandchild or now, great grandchild. 

This year I'll say that although all the gifts were thoughtful and loving, the one that brought tears to my eyes was one I mentioned on another blog and posted a picture of.  A 2x3 foot framed collage of the people who are, and have been, in my life from childhood to the present.  (ooops..getting misty eyed again.)

My worst gift was after my husband and I divorced he gave me a skimpy, sleezy, hooker looking little dress that I wouldn't wear to take the trash out.  I think the salt in the wound was that he had aways bought me clothes and had great taste so I remember looking at it as more of an insult.  LOL.

Ray,  I can relate to the scary story incident.  Mark (motopoet) posted his tale on here a long time ago and I only heard about it a few years ago on his cousins birthday.  Mark  wrote Kenny a sort of essay/letter about the time when they were young (20's or so) and Mark got caught in a canal weir turbulence and would have drowned if Kenny hadn't jumped in the the roiling turbulence and pushed Mark free.

I never knew a thing about it but he almost got grounded when I did hear the tale.  And he was over 40 at the time!

spam code... dad ir