You don't say

My friend Glenda told me recently that her quasi-eccentric parrot, name of Me Too, knows how to laugh just like Me.

Apparently Me Too once heard Me laugh on speakerphone while Glenda and I were chatting long distance.

We cannot figure out whether Me Too merely laughs like Me or if we laugh at the same things. Further study is needed.

Rambo, my son Andrew's pet Labrador, has been visiting with us for a few days. Two nights ago he lolled at the foot of my bed while I was propped at the other end, reading Hush Little Babies.

Without warning or discernible reason Rambo's hackles went vertical and he began to growl insistently, then bark. He was looking toward my double closet doors, on one of which is affixed a full-length mirror.

After several minutes of agonized grrr-ing and rrruff-ing, Ramby leapt from the bed and planted his bad self before said mirror.

He stood regarding himself so long, I began to wonder if he was contemplating a doggie makeover.

I don't know whether he was barking and growling at himself when he was on the bed. I do know that the barking and growling stopped once he got a close-up gander of his reflection.

We report! You decide.

What we have here is a parrot, name of Poncho, who cries like a baby and apparrotly has issues with a stuffed toy that bears his likeness.

By the way, when I play this video, Rambo growls, cries, gets up from his nap, and sits beside me whining with a worried look on his face.

It's the same thing he does when I play a video Andrew sent me of him and Rambo howling in unison. Except when I play that one, Rambo eventually points his nose at the ceiling and howls.

What's making you laugh, cry, growl, howl, and do a double-take lately?

Happy Monday!

Rambovision

Mommy says I'll see better with these on ...

... but I see just fine without them.

I think.

Happy Thursday!

Day so soon has glided by

To one who has been long in city pent,

'Tis very sweet to look into the fair,

And open face of heaven, -- to breathe a prayer

Full in the smile of the blue firmament.

Who is more happy, when, with heart content,

Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair

Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair

And gentle tale of love and languishment?

Returning home at evening, with an ear

Catching the notes of Philomel, -- an eye

Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career,

He mourns that day so soon has glided by:

E'en like the passage of an angel's tear

That falls through the clear ether silently.

~John Keats~

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Dedicated to those Americans who perished on September 11, 2001, at the hands of evil Muslim terrorists.

Those who never again had the privilege of "returning home at evening."

May we never forget what the world witnessed on that day.

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Photos taken at First Responders Memorial in Columbia, South Carolina, which includes twisted metal salvaged from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

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Love is all you need. Oh ... and cake.

Thirty-two years ago today I held in my arms the first of only four people who would ever have the dubious privilege of addressing me as "Mom."

I didn't think that day about the implications of what I'd started.

How could I? It had been a busy morning and I had long ago permanently misplaced my crystal ball.

All I remember thinking was that my new baby girl was so cute, I could not stop looking at her tiny face, her shock of black hair, marveling at her existence in the world.

Anyone reading this who has ever been a mother knows the overwhelming love you feel for those children on the magical days when you first make their acquaintance.

Three decades plus two years later, my sentiments are identical, only now there are four children.

I love cake at least four times as much too.

My first baby girl was joined in due course by sisters Audrey and Erica and brother Andrew. She is also the mother of our three grandchildren.

On Labor Day we were all together, which because of our schedules is increasingly rare. Naturally we had a six-day-early birthday party, complete with cake and presents.

But on the official anniversary of your arrival: Happy Birthday, Stephanie! Thank you for being a sweet and loving daughter and a most excellent big sister.

To the younger three: Looking good! Thanks for participating in the lineup.

Mama loves you.

That is all.

Gishing it

She lived to be ninety-nine and died in her sleep.

She never married but worked at her craft from the first time she appeared before an audience at age six, until she played her last film role at the age of ninety-four.

In her heyday she was more famous than Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock put together.

Her ethereal beauty was the stuff of legend. She was the waif after which all subsequent waifs have been modeled.

Her name was Lillian Diana Gish and I totally admire her work.

Several weeks ago I watched the 1926 silent version of The Scarlet Letter in which Lillian masterfully portrayed Hawthorne's exquisite heroine, the poor, deserted, passionate, flawed, beleaguered, loyal, misunderstood Hester Prynne.

Afterwards, while doing some online research about Lillian, I learned that she and her sister Dorothy have been memorialized at a theater on the campus of Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.

The Gishes were originally from Springfield, near Dayton and not far at all from Bowling Green.

Since we were anticipating a trip to that part of the world and planned to stop at BGSU anyway -- it's the university where my in-laws met and fell in love right after World War II -- to take pictures, I told TG I wanted to make a point to visit the theater put there to honor the Gish sisters.

It was easy to find. It's in Hanna Hall, right across the parking lot from Kohl Hall, which figures into my in-laws' love story but I can't quite remember how. I think maybe my mother-in-law lived in Kohl Hall while she was a coed.

At any rate, Hanna Hall houses The Gish Film Theater and although we were there on the weekend, the building was open and we walked right in.

Charming early '20s-era architecture greeted us. Lots of marble. A foyer floor of honeycomb tile in white, with an authentic iron radiator on one wall. A few steps down to the Gish Film Theater.

Extra-large photographs of Lillian and Dorothy adorn the walls on either side of the theater, which has a small marquee over the entrance.

I especially liked this picture of Lillian and Eva Marie Saint (a BGSU alumnus who attended at the same time as TG's parents), portraying Carrie Watts and Thelma in a '50s-era Goodyear Television Playhouse production of Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful.

The 1985 film version is one of my favorite movies, with another of my top ten most-admired actresses, the late Geraldine Page.

The doors to the Gish Film Theater were locked but I peered in. Just what you'd expect: red velvet seats, a red velvet curtain over the stage.

Audrey loved it and so did TG and I just felt so privileged to be there. I'd love to go back and see a Lillian Gish silent film in that theater!

Maybe someday. The Birth of a Nation, anyone? I hope they pop extra popcorn.

That is all! Happy day to you!