I bought a pair of pinkish color pants the other day in not such a fancy place. I tried them on; they looked really good and, made my butt look two sizes smaller. They were so great looking and such a moderate price I bought the bluish pair as well. One is good two is better.

When I got it home and really looked my new purchases over, I found that the pinkish pair of pants had no pockets. Okay I will grant you that is not such a big deal, many pants do not have pockets, but in the case of the pinkish pair, the pockets had been REMOVED. I didn’t notice their removal in the store. I guess I was just captured by the smaller looking butt. Who wouldn’t be?

On closer observation, and in the stillness of my own home, I noticed that the belt loops had been removed as well. It was such a good job of removal, it had to be the work of a surgeon. The stitch marks were still there giving the illusion of pockets and the smoothness of none. Even with such expertise, the pants were damaged.

I decided, tiny butt or not, I was going to return the pants. When I entered the store, I went to other side to see if they had another pair of pinkish, butt smoothing, butt reducing pants. The store only had a greenish one with pockets and belt looks in tact, so I put them over my arm and headed for the customer return window. When I presented the situation at the counter, the little girl/lady said, “Oh that is the style.” With styles the way they are these days, I wanted to believe her, but stated, “ I didn’t think so.” She got another person to corroborate her style idea. I said, “ No way because look here at this greenish pair, it has belt loops and pockets.” The two style conscious girl/ladies got the manager, who said,” Well, I don’t think it is the style and I don’t know how this happened. Certainly we will take this back since you have a receipt and you just bought them yesterday.”

When all was said and done, I could not part with the butt reducing no pockets; no belt loops pair of pinkish pants. What am I thinking? I didn’t know, but I bought the greenish pair and kept the pinkish ones. When I got home I made additional surgical cuts on the pinkish butt reducers and put the whole lot in the washer and dryer. When I came to retrieve the pinkish butt reducers, they had frayed in all the right places and finally a real true, cute, stylish pair of pants. They are a one of a kind pair of pants like no other, not to mention I have the bluish and the greenish ones, albeit, the pink ones reduce, reduce, reduce,

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THE COLORS OF MY MOTHER

Nearly two years after my mother passed, my father passed. Many of us were helping to clean out the condo and ready it for sale. My niece came upon a bag stuffed full with what appeared to be dozens of scarves. She gave them to me and said she thought I might like to have them. I tucked the bag of colors in my box of goodies and when I came home the first thing I did was to empty the scarves into the drier for a whirl. After 5 minutes I opened the drier door to a shock that went through my body faster than a bolt of lightning. The colors of my mother leapt out of the drier and into my hands. I carried them to the table and continued my astonishment. My mother appeared out of every single scarf and her expressions changed as each scarf was laid next the one that had already given a performance.

My mother liked a preponderance of light brown, the color of caramel and ground spices. She liked to back it with a light aqua softness. She splashed a green color to keep things up front, insuring she would not disappear in the background of softness. All of her colors are background colors to me, but when I look at this bunch I can see that her background colors were foreground colors to her.

She used a golden rod yellow to accent the soft browns, therefore gathering the strength and brightness of sunlight, yet allowed for the softness of sunbeams as they cascade down the scarves giving a prerequisite to the uplifting spirit of caramel and ground spices on overloaded.

As I look at the collection of my mothers colors, there is one slight, almost splash of red. Oh mother are you saying, ‘blood of my blood?” Our blood of each other has created such different entities. Our colors are so very dissimilar. I always knew that, but this experience with your scarves is so graphically explicit. I have hung the scarves on a beautiful hand carved hanger and they intermingle creating an interplay that is expressing to me all of you and all that I knew about you.

I would someday like to uncover a secret, a hole in your character, but that will never happen because you strove to be perfect; you always were and you always will be. I do thank you because I always knew you did the best you could, more because you wanted the best. I know now that we are who we have become through the ages, through the stages and it remains just this way today as well as for those who will continue after us. We have done our best with our soft and vibrant personalities, with our soft browns and our brilliant reds, through our yellows, our greens, your blues and my black. You never wore white, neither did I. If you could see the beautiful colors of you, I would see your precious smile again.

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A few days ago I bought an up to the minute personal navigational travel assistant for my car that heretofore has not had these navigational capabilities. I spent way too much money on this little sucker and have paid dearly not only in hard won cash, but time, energy and mental abuse.

I opened the lovely little package that said in big letters, THERE will be a 15% re-stocking fee if you open this box. Well, how am I to get the product out and begin to use it if I do not open the box. This should have alerted me or been my precursor to what has followed.

I turned on the personal navigational assistant and waited for nearly 10 minutes for it to find the satellite. Okay, I am on the road now and I want to test this little sucker out. Still searching for a satellite. I am now over 10 miles down the highway, thank goodness a familiar highway. Finally the devise kicks in and it spoke to me. It recalculated and told me to go south, I know I needed to go north. I tried 3 times to get it right. Wrong.

I registered this little sucker. The email I received told me to go to a particular website and download the upgrade to the 2009 maps. This little puppy is brand new out of the box needing an upgrade. I know I followed the download directions. First the download took 4.5 hours. Then the upload was to take another 2 hours, but the message read: Product Name: ( will hereafter be referred to as Product Name in consideration for this highly recommended company and their products) “MAC application cannot be opened because it is damaged.” Oh dear. I called Product Name and waited 35 minutes for them to tell me that I needed to be transferred to a Mac specialist. Okay, another 23 minutes and then, there was a real live person speaking to me. He had me check to see if my operating system can handle this download and sure enough it cannot. My computer is too ancient. Like me. So I asked to have a disc sent. He said the disc will not help in your present computer. I said I wanted to take the disc to a friend, but could not wait the 4.5 hours for the download. My friends would too soon tire of me. He asked me to hold on. He came back and verified my address. He asked me to hold on again, and my PHONE DIED. I nearly died. I am going to hope that he will follow through and send me the disc.

I am a bit disappointed I have had to work so hard and feel so frustrated. I am off to get new phones, off to get meds for my headache and I am going to take my new outdated navigational system with me to see if she works well enough to get me a to the corner drugstore.

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I am respectfully submitting the following recipe for DIVINITY because not only is it the most delicious, melt in your mouth candy, but it is also because divine providence brought the giver of this recipe into my life.

Lula McKissack hails originally from Hattisburg, Mississippi, where she grew up on a small backwoods farm. She was given to her aunt when she was 9 years old, by her mother, because she was strong and could do the work her childless aunt needed to be done. She continued to work hard the rest of her life.

Lula left her aunt’s home at 16, married Mr. McKissack, had two boys, Tommy and Bobby, left Mr. McKissack and moved to Louisiana where she built her own home with the help of her boys. Lula’s boys left home early to join the navy and Lula was alone with little means of supporting herself. One of her friends, Nola, found out about two jobs in Los Angeles, California. They both decided to come for the California jobs. Nola came first and since my Aunt Bessie and Uncle Harold owned a jewelry store, had to work long hours, Nola got the job with them caring for their hearth and home. When Lula came, she went to work for our family. I was 9, nearly 10 years old when Lula came to us and she stayed employed by my parents for 19 years.

I remember calling Lula after being married for only 2 weeks, crying that the house was dirty and everything was a mess. I had no idea where and how to begin. She told me to begin in one corner of the room and circle around until I was in the middle and the job would be done. She was right and now, I always know how to begin a cleaning job, actually any job.

Lula added unconditional love, forgiveness and a deep spirituality to our family. She worked miracles in our home and even though she has passed on, she continues to work miracles with our family. Her philosophies of life have been handed down to the next generation like nuggets of gold and her Divinity candy will satisfy your hunger for something sweet and inexplicable.
Divinity will calm your nerves and as you pause to enjoy it, you will feel empowered with all of Mama Lula’s sweet charity and goodness.

LULA’S DIVINITY

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup of hot water
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites, beaten stiff
1 teaspoon vanilla
(I add 1/2 cup of chopped pecans)

In a 2 quart saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, hot water and salt. Cook and stir until sugar dissolves. Bring mixture to a boil and cook to the hard ball stage. (a little of the mixture is dropped in a cup of cold water and forms a little hard ball) Beat egg whites stiff. Pour hot syrup slowly over beaten egg whites beating constantly at a high speed. Add vanilla and beat until mixture forms soft peaks. Drop from tablespoon onto waxed paper, lifting and twirling spoon to form peak on top of each mound.

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