Mine are the only things my mom had from her father, who passed away in 1921 when she was 11. They are watch fobs and she treasured them. She lived with me the last two years of her life and when she passed, I had the fobs and a picture of my grandfather and grandmother (neither of whom I ever met), framed. He has one of the fobs hanging from his pocket. I gave this to my oldest brother when he was 75. He had the only boy that carries our name and I thought he might passed it down to one of them. He was so touched. He only had it about 7 or 8 months before he passed away from cancer. My sister-in-law has passed the piece to his son, who has two sons of his own.

For you tomato lovers: Slice them thickly, place them on a paper towel and salt lightly. After about 10 minutes the salt draws out some liquid leaving the tomatoes less soggy on a sandwich and more intensely flavored. Well, worth doing.

Here's a photo of a portrait of me wearing a lavender headband, drawn by a friend in San Francisco in 1980. The artist was originally from South Africa and had lived in France, where he had painted Tromp L'Oeil murals in chateaux, sometimes of cats chasing or stalking mice. I would not want that in my house, but he was a very talented and prolific artist. We were good friends, and he did several portraits of me.

jrb, sometimes it works if I take a screen shot of the photo. Or sometimes it works if I shrink the photo size down to something smaller...and then it'll load. Sometimes nothing works. This place is creakier than an un-oiled hinge.