My Favorite Things

I just watched Oprah's My Favorite Things Encore show. She gave away some extravagant and spectacular gift, though not many really got me excited. I wonder how many people in turn regifted or even sold their favorite things on eBay, and if she paid the gift tax as well. The way people were crying and screaming, I would have thought the Messiah had come once and for all. So, after the access to excess, I decided I would keep a random list of my favorite things.

1. Anything my mother made,knitted, sewed, recorded, bought for me, drew, or wrote. She was the most creative person I'd ever known, and with her mother, the kindest. Even when she died, she left things she had been crocheting for me.

2. Memories of things I did with my mother, summer drives around the neighborhood that involved stopping for a coke at Mcd's, or a Whopper Jr., shopping at McCabes, and lunch at the Mezzanine, buying goldfish from Woolworths, and a bowl and all that went with it, then setting it up at home, walking through Boston and gettin lost in The Tenderloin, touring Williamsburg, bargaining for treasures at doll shows, walking The Boardwalk at Santa Cruz, all these and more. Just sitting at night watching "As Time Goes By" and drinking coffee, wrapping presents at Christmas and making Baklava, her walking me to kindergarten roundup or to my grandmother's house, she and I making a tent in my backyard and having a picnic with sandwiches and oreos, or afternoons after school at Marie's Party shop.

3. Violets, especially when they first come out, and May baskets full of the white one's my Grandfather planted over fifty years ago.

4. Early spring, and planting bulbs and flowers with my nieghbor. The first good day I can take out my lawn spikes and lawn statues.

5. A string of good yard sales, where nothing is over $1.00.

6. When all my bills are paid/caught up, and I can go out and "junk" or see yardsales.

7. Coffee at my favorite coffee shops, a good cappucino.

8. Stores with signs showing what you can compost or recycle.

9. New yarn for scarves and knitting projects.

10.