Her name was Alice but everyone knew her as Baby. She reminded you of a baby bird: she was so tiny as to have been considered scrawny. My father-in-law, an old friend of hers from childhood, called her Runty.

But for all her five-foot-nothing, 95 pound size, she was anything but runty. She was married to a cantankerous former star athlete and her three sons were total hellions but no one ever questioned who was the boss of that outfit.

And if it weren’t for her I wouldn’t be married to the love of my life. But if she’d had her way, even that might not have happened.

I was at the beach club one weekend with my best friend Linda and her baby. Baby was there, and we stopped to chat for awhile. Little did I know B was lurking nearby, checking me out. Baby and I were standing near the drinking fountain and he wandered over on the pretense of getting a drink, so Baby called him over for introductions. I vaguely remembered him from high school, thought he was kind of cute, but other than that didn’t give the whole thing much more thought.

A week or two later I ran into Baby again; she worked with my mom at the school B and I had both attended and I was there for a visit with my mom. She mentioned that B had said he’d sort of liked what he’d seen of me at the beach and wondered if I was available. Even though I wasn’t looking for anything serious at the time, I was certainly available, so I told her, “Sure, give him my number and have him call me!”

Only she didn’t.

You see, Baby knew that at that point I was already three years out of grad school, living on my own with a somewhat established job and social life. B, on the other hand, had fairly recently moved home from the Mainland after college and a brief post-graduation job — in Baby’s mind, still a bit too young/inexperienced/innocent for the likes of me. So giving him my number was something she just couldn’t bring herself to do.

But she kept that opinion to herself; or at least, from me. So I was left to wonder why a couple weeks went by and I never heard from the guy. It wasn’t just that he hadn’t gotten my number from her; he also, back in those days, had a bit of a shyness issue. Bad combination. And as it happened, as time went on I felt myself growing more interested in him.

So in the end I took matters into my own hands and went and found him one afternoon when he was coaching soccer practice. We set a date to go to the beach a couple days later, and the rest, as they say, is history. Eventually he let on that Baby had said I was “too old” for him; eventually (well, pretty quickly, actually) I forgave her for that. How could I not? Even though she’d been reluctant about it, she set me up with the man of my dreams. But I don’t think I ever stopped giving her a hard time about it.

with Baby at our wedding

She came from American aristocracy: her maiden name was Adams, and her family had been in this country for who knows how many generations. And she came from money; her father was a banker in San Francisco who had hobnobbed with the robber barons.

So she was accustomed to a certain way, not to mention quality, of life. I got my first glimpse of this when I, recently engaged to her grandson, was invited to Thanksgiving in her home. At just the right time, after a time of cocktails and polite chitchat on the lanai, we were asked to make our way to the dining room for dinner. That the table was lavishly set you can imagine; each place setting had multiple pieces of china, crystal, and silver to contend with. And a finger bowl.

Now, I was no country bumpkin. My mother had schooled me well enough in etiquette in my growing-up years (and believe it or not, I got further instruction in college) that I knew which fork was which and that my bread plate was on the left and so forth. I also knew not to pick up my spoon and start on the soup course before the hostess did. But it was my very first encounter with finger bowls.

For people to whom appearances matter, how one conducts oneself in these types of social situations makes all the difference. It was clear to me that this was a whole new ball game, and while I definitely did not have the home field advantage, for my fiance’s sake, I had to step up. So I did.

Nonchalance was my middle name, but you better believe I was carefully watching the rest of the group, taking my cues from them. The staff, two elderly Japanese ladies in starched white dresses and aprons, came in with each course and served us individually, always from the left (recently I saw this played out briefly in “The Help” — did you catch it? when a maid tries to serve one of the white ladies from her right side, and the lady, with a frown, makes her shift over to the left).

I might have been just a split-second behind the rest of the group that night, but I think I gave a pretty seamless performance. I got thrown off slightly during the dessert course when Misayo was attempting to serve me hard sauce and I thought it was ice cream. I’d never seen hard sauce before. And frankly, I can’t recommend it.

And when it came time to use the finger bowl, I peeked under my lashes and watched Baba, then daintily dipped my own fingertips in the warm, flower-scented water. No one would ever have guessed it was my first time.

I was there again many times over the years, of course, and always behaved utterly appropriately; I knew what was expected of me in that situation. She never said anything — that wouldn’t have been her way — but I knew I had her approval. And for my part, I knew, though would never have told her: I wasn’t about to be intimidated by a little finger bowl.

He threw me a lifeline by asking me to the senior prom after my erstwhile boyfriend kinda, sorta dumped me about a month before the event. Actually he didn’t so much ask me as we made an agreement to go together, as his longtime girlfriend had also recently decided they needed to spend some time apart. So, being more or less friends, since 7th grade, and more or less in the same boat, it seemed like the convenient thing to do.

Even though it was a Plan B sort of thing, I appreciated having a date at all and took care picking out a dress and all the rest of it. The obligatory picture my parents took of us in our finery and flowers shows with remarkable clarity the awkwardness of the utter lack of any prom night romance. It was like a business deal. Still, we both had decided to make the best of it, and for the most part, we did.

Unfortunately, 18 is a very selfish, thoughtless age. Or maybe I’m just talking about myself. In the month between him asking me and the event itself, I had started to kinda, sorta speak again with the erstwhile boyfriend. This led to us kinda, sorta getting back together at an after-party we all went to that night. It was egregiously unfair to Roy, and I knew that, but I went ahead and behaved badly anyway.

Back in those days our school had the senior prom on the night before graduation. This meant that it was literally the penultimate time many of us would ever see one another again. So I grieved my bad choices later, and ever since. Not just because I had hurt a friend that night, but within nine months I learned he had died of a drug overdose in his dorm room, away at college. I never got the chance to really apologize to him, or to tell him what a stand-up guy he was.

When my husband and I started dating, I soon found that his family belonged to a large, warm, fun social circle. There were four or five couples who had all married and had kids around the same time, and over the years birthdays and holidays were celebrated together, vacations were taken together, and milestones in various lives were observed together in this crowd.

Kip was one of the moms. At first glance she might have seemed out of place in the context of our island customs, because she was from the Deep South; she had the most corn-poney South Carolina accent I’ve ever heard and a good many southern belle mannerisms to go along with it. But oh, the charm, and the style, and the warmth. She was anything but out of place.

The first time I met Kip was at some holiday party or other, and my mother-in-law pulled me over to her and asked, “Kip, have you met B’s fiancee?” And she grinned at me and trilled, “No, but I want to!” Only it sounded like: “Ah won’t tew!” — and “won’t” had two syllables. And I’ll tell you, no other perfect stranger has ever made me feel so special, before or since.

And the way it made me feel is why, whenever someone asks me if I’ve ever met some other new person, I try to remember to say, “No, but I want to!” Only without the accent, because I could never pull that off.

She wore white linen to my wedding, and that’s how I remember her: she had a cool elegance, but also a tender compassion; she was never aloof or distant.

She confided in me about her illness in a way that surprised me at the time. I couldn’t imagine how someone 20 years my senior would take me into her confidence that way, but it didn’t make me uncomfortable. Well, maybe a little. But she told me how the cancer had first shown up in her colon, and later spread — “metastasized,” she said, always accurate in her vocabulary — to her liver. And somehow it made me feel she loved me, that she would be willing to share such details with me. I loved her back.

In the spring when the Legislature was in session we walked to the state capitol to present testimony in support of the the Judiciary’s annual budget, which we had worked together to prepare. We sat on a wooden bench outside the hearing room, and she said to me, softly, “I’m not ready to die. I don’t want to leave my kids.”

Her children were in high school then, both were graceful, soft-spoken, athletic. She was 50 when she died, five years younger than I am now. Her daughter was 15, her son was 17. Her son became a dentist and lives in Arizona. Her husband was an attorney, a southern gentleman, a tall Virginian with a slow drawl. He remarried some years later.

At Christmastime she invited all of us in the office to her home for a holiday party. She served us osso buco for lunch. She described how it’s made, and I remember how as a young newlywed I was in awe of the complexity and time involved in such a mouth-watering preparation. To her it was nothing; she changed the subject and told us a story about how every year on Christmas Eve her family would go night fishing. Then they would eat fish for breakfast on Christmas morning.

She was a life-line for me, in a way: she gave me a job two weeks after I was abruptly fired from the TV station where I sold advertising air time. I worked for her on contract so that I could continue to look for something in my so-called career path. Looking back, it seems like such a mistake: the thing I was pursuing was so inferior to what I had right there. There in that old historic courthouse, in our second floor office, churning out pamphlets and speeches on a ridiculously primitive word processor. It was a mistake because I loved what I was doing then: writing. Writing for Carol, who was my mentor.

It’s Saturday, which means I’m watching college football on TV. Which means I’m thinking about my dad, remembering the times we did that together. Most of what I know and love about football started there, on the living room couch with my dad. And that’s just one of the things I remember — and miss — about him.

I have this, shall we say, thing, about getting older. It’s uncharted waters I find myself sailing into, and sometimes that’s a bit scary. One of the things that frightens me more than anything about getting older is forgetting. I even admit to this on my About page. There’s just so much I want to remember, so I’ve decided to be deliberate about it.

I’m taking a deep virtual breath here and jumping on the 31 Days bandwagon. I’m making the commitment to spend the next 31 days remembering. And today is Day 1, both for this new-ish blog (my old blog kind of ran out of gas and inelegantly expired beside the road), and for my little contribution to the series. Mostly I’ll be remembering people who are gone now, because I want to relish some of what made each one of them special to me. And maybe my sharing them with you just might nudge some of your own remembrances (of other people, of course, your people) up to the surface.

From Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Them, by Francine Prose:

Among the questions that writers need to ask themselves in the process of revision — Is this the best word I can find? Is my meaning clear? Can a word or phrase be cut from this without sacrificing anything essential? — perhaps the most important question is: Is this grammatical? What’s strange is how many beginning writers seem to think that grammar is irrelevant, or that they are somehow above or beyond this subject more fit for a schoolchild than the future author of great literature. Or possibly they worry that they will be distracted from their focus on art if they permit themselves to be sidetracked by the dull requirements of English usage. But the truth is that grammar is always interesting, always useful. Mastering the logic of grammar contributes, in a mysterious way that again evokes some process of osmosis, to the logic of thought.

Amen.

Aloha from paradise, and thanks again to Jennifer at Conversion Diary for hosting. Pōmaika`i (blessings) to you, Jen, and your new kamali`i “Joy!”

1.

It’s been three months since I’ve posted anything, and while part of the reason has to do with working on my Big Project in January and February, mostly it’s just because I’ve had the blahs. I’ve even starting thinking of this as my “blahg.” It comes down to this: my life is really not that interesting, and blogging about it isn’t going to make it any more so. But it’s been bothering me not to have posted anything for 3 months, so this felt like an itch I had to scratch.

2.

I do read an awful lot of blogs, though – I can’t begin to tell you how impressed I am by (and let’s face it: envious of) the bloggers who can post something – sometimes more than one post! – every day. The ones I especially am drawn to, for some odd reason, are the mommy bloggers. There are half a dozen or so I read regularly (including our gracious hostess) who are much younger than I and have 3 or more children who are babies, toddlers, preschoolers – I’m just in awe. And utterly baffled; how on earth do they find/make the time? Granted, my memories of those years are hazy, but looking back, I don’t think I could have sat down at a computer (well, that was back in the dark ages before we had one, so I guess it would have had to have been a journal) and written like this – the amount of time it would have taken would have been more than enough for the kid to call 911 (which Number One Son did, once, when he was in elementary school) or toss his $600 hearing aids in the toilet. Which he also did.

3.

And now that that kid is 21 and 6000 miles away, I’ve got a whole other list of things to be on my knees about. Such as Spring Break. So if you happen to remember and/or feel so inclined, please keep NOS in your prayers this week. He left this morning (our time; noon, his) on a 10-hour drive from Washington DC to Mont Tremblant, Quebec, and, if his Facebook page is to be believed, the week to come will be one long extravaganza of partying, punctuated by occasional snowboarding. Sigh.

4.

It’s really cold here. Not cold like where you are (I’m assuming that whoever is reading this is on the mainland), but for the tropics … frigid. You know when you check weather.com and they tell you what the actual temperature is, and then say it “feels like” some other temperature? I guess to account for wind chill or whatever. Well, weather.com just told me that here in my zip code it’s 67 degrees, but if you’re island-born, I’m telling you, it feels like 32. Inside the house. Like you, I’m ready for spring.

5.

I like mainland winter weather, though. Well, let me qualify that: I like to go to Colorado for a week during the winter — not really; we’re talking March — to ski. (Okay, stop scoffing) And I’m sad because this year I’m not going. The Coach has to coach, and Baby Girl has umpteen commitments of her own, and the financial situation, well, you know – so we decided this year there could be no spring break trip to our Rocky Mountain home-away-from-home. So I’m bummin’. I’m an island girl through and through, but I do love to get away to those majestic mountains and carve it up. If you do get a chance to ski this spring, do a run for me, would you?

6.

I just love to read, but haven’t done much so far in 2009. I’ve only read 4 books this year, compared to 13 by this time a year ago. A few days back I finally picked up and started “Twilight,” which Baby Girl had lent me back around New Year’s. Just wanted to see what the fuss was all about. About the same time as I was starting the book, I read an interview with Stephen King, in which he said something like, “Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn.” And you know what, he’s right: the Twilight story is kind of fun, in its way, but the writing is truly terrible. I’m constantly fighting the urge to toss it across the room. But I’m so weird in that way: I’ll torture myself and keep reading to the end, because I want to know how it comes out. Masochist.

7.

My 7 quick takes are not that quick. I need to work on that. I’m going to start by stopping. But first I have to say I’m nuha with Blogger for not letting me add photos to this post. Grrr.

1. People don’t think there are any real differences between summer and winter in the tropics, but there are, albeit subtle ones. If you live here long enough, you become attuned to the little differences in things like the air quality (still balmy, but with a slight sharpness to it), or how the sun sets over the ocean in a slightly different place (which I don’t totally get, because isn’t the west, the west?).

2. I admit it, I’m spoiled about the whole shorter days business. I know our winter days are pretty darn long compared to the Mainland, but they’re still not long enough for me. I’m looking at the tide calendar and see that the sun rose this morning at 7:00 and will set tonight at 5:51. I find myself counting down to the winter solstice and getting excited about how the days will get longer after that. So maybe that’s something I have in common with my Mainland friends.

3. We continue to wear the same shorts and t-shirts we wore all summer. It is a rare winter day when we are forced to don long sleeved tops and/or jeans. We do not like to shop for clothes during the winter. Imagine our frustration with the racks and stacks of cashmere and wool items with which every store in every mall is fully stocked. The display of wool scarves at The Gap makes me laugh out loud.

4. Still, I do like to sing along with “White Christmas” and “Walking in a Winter Wonderland,” even though there’s no relating to them whatsoever. I draw the line, however, at “Let It Snow,” but maybe that’s just because it’s such an annoying song. Once I get “Oh, the weather outside is frightful” stuck in my head, I have to fight the urge to shriek in agony and tear my hair out at the roots.

5. One of our family’s Christmas traditions is to go, on the morning of Christmas Eve, to an eastern facing beach and watch the sunrise (the photo on my home page was taken at Sandy Beach one such Christmas Eve a few years ago).

6. Our extended family all gathers at our home on Christmas morning for breakfast. We eat outside on the lanai. Until it gets too hot from the morning sun, then we come back inside and cool off.

7. As I gaze out my kitchen window at bougainvillea, ginger and plumeria, I’m thankful for flowers that bloom all year round. Now, as part of the clean-up we’re doing after yesterday’s storm, I’ve got to go fish their leaves and blossoms out of the pool. Because I’m going for a swim this afternoon.

[HT: Jennifer @ Conversion Diary, a favorite blogger who does this every Friday — I’m entertained and inspired by her QTs every week, and by those of other bloggers who are also inspired by her. Mahalo, Jennifer!]

The Coach and I have always celebrated two anniversaries: our wedding anniversary, of course, and the anniversary of our first date. This is probably because our first date was quite memorable — very unconventional, but more fun than you can imagine — but maybe that’s a post for another time.

Anyway, yesterday was our 25th first-date anniversary. And unfortunately, TC is out of town on a business trip. But on the bright side, he remembered it, and before he left arranged to have flowers delivered. See above.

By the way, I counted. There are 25 of those long-stemmed beauties. All together now: awwww…