The skeleton

I've been down to London again and am now back. Littlest Granddaughter enjoyed going to school in her Christmas jumper (on Christmas Jumper Day), with presents for her teachers in a sack. 

Here she is playing light sabres (I think) with her mum. 

Here is Snowdrop the guinea pig. 

And here's Daughter 2 wrapping some presents. 

I've been reading a book by Doris Grumbach, an American writer. I can't remember how I heard of this book - "Extra Innings" - but must have seen it recommended somewhere and asked for it for my birthday. It's a memoir of a year, written when she was 75 (I am also 75), but it talks quite a bit about her previous book, "Coming into the End Zone", which she wrote when she was 70. She clearly didn't like being 70 and said so extensively. I haven't read that book, but she mentions that a lot of people criticised it for being excessively gloomy. The book I did read was slightly less (I think) negative. I quite enjoyed it, and being the same age, am sometimes aware, as she was, of the physical discomforts of the ageing body. However, I was amused to read on the internet that she actually lived to 104. I can't think how grumpy she must have been by then! Who knows how long I (or anyone) will live? but it did remind me that one shouldn't try to think too much about when one will die. She wasted a lot of time, it appears, waiting for death, when it was actually quite far off. 

This bit amused me, though. She had a habit of seeing jobs advertised and thinking, oh, I could do that. I find myself doing the same sometimes, and then I come to my senses. As she says, "There is not time to become anything else. There is barely enough time to finish being what you are." Mind you... she had nearly another 30 years, as it turns out, so perhaps a career as an assistant librarian lies ahead of me after all ...

This is a plastic skeleton that I got in a cracker (do Americans know about crackers that aren't biscuits?) in, I think, 1962. We were having Christmas lunch out with my grandparents and for some reason were speculating as to what the cracker toys might be, and I said, "Maybe a skeleton." Which was a very odd guess, but turned out very surprisingly to be right.  For many years it lived (do skeletons live? possibly not) in a dish on my dressing table and then it passed on to Daughter 2, who still has it. After nearly every sentence in that paragraph, the question Why? would be quite appropriate. 

Anyway, now I'm home and missing her a lot. Still, mustn't be a grumbler, like Doris Grumbach.