Grandma's Spoons

Sitting around waiting for a call for an interview can consume your entire day. It can even make you go a little nutzoid if you don't find an outlet for your body and soul. Since I was leaning more toward "you are going crazy" side of the wait-for-job-o-meter, I decided that I needed some adjustments to my daily grind.

I have finally (hopefully) gotten back on the weight loss track after a 3 month detour. This has actually allowed me to do something that I haven't been able to do in several years: swim laps in the pool. Okay, maybe not laps since my pool is pretty small and somewhat shallow, but back and forth all the same. However, it has been so hot and humid down here in South Texas that I have had to wait until later in the evening to get out in the 90+ degrees water. So what to do during the rest of the day became my quest.

I tried my Tae Bo Power Rounds but that darn Billy Blanks is hard to keep up with. Being a southern lady I could say that I gracefully perspired during the workout. But I'm not. I sweated. Profusely. And then decided that was enough of that for the day.

I then remembered that I had wanted to tackle something for quite a while. It took a little digging, but I finally found Grandma's spoons. I pulled out the big box and carefully began to sort through them all.

What is unusual about that? I bet you're thinking of those cute little spoons with a state name on top that goes in a nice little wall case. Nope. Not my Grandma. She was more creative. As I went through them all, I began to pray that she wasn't a kleptomaniac!

You see, Grandma and Grandpa (and the childhood version of my dad) were fortunate to travel quite a bit from the 1930s to the 1950s. Daddy used to boast that he had visited every state except the original Thirteen Colonies. And everywhere that Grandma stopped at a restaurant, she appropriated a spoon. She would then carefully tag each spoon with blue yarn and a note of who was with them, where they stopped, the date, and sometimes a little commentary about the reason for the trip.

Most of the yarn had rotted, so many of the tags were off their respective spoons. But a few remained. After reading the stories on the tags, I decided to see if those restaurants were still around someplace. I started off with the local chambers of commerce, and many of them were very helpful and all of them were amused at the story behind them. So far one spoon is en route to the Santa Monica Pier and the museum they are putting together there. Another spoon saw the Marfa lights, but we are still looking for Ramona's Cafe. By now the Nimitz Historical Museum in Fredericksburg, TX should have received a special spoon noting the time my grandparents took my soon-to-be dad and his girlfriend up to Enchanted Rock in order to propose to her. Another spoon from the just-across-the-border Mexican town of Piedras Negras marked the time they went to the bull fights. Tags from Colorado and Montana are still waiting. I have one from England that must have come from my Aunt Mugs, and I even found the one Daddy must have pilfered from his navy ship, the U.S.S. Jason, to send to his mother.

My memories of times past are somewhat more mundane, but to me very exciting. I have them all hanging in my closet or folded to give away. Memories of what I used to look like and what I hope to look like again. Memories of why I bought that special dress, and nightmares of whatever was I thinking when I bought that?! They represent almost 15 years of my weight struggles, and while there were many good times, there were also an awful lot of tears of frustration hanging in there.

I think I like Grandma's idea better.

Grandma is long gone, travelling the heavens, but my journey is still continuing. I wonder where I will end up?

As I continue to wait for a job offer and think about the new "me," I will keep on trying to find a home for all of Grandma's spoons.

Maybe I can bring a memory back to someone who needed a warm fuzzy that day. Ought to be fun!