Every phone call from my mother began the same way: “Hi love! It’s only me!” (Those were dinosaur days, pre-caller ID.) I’d respond with truthful but exaggerated exasperation: “Yeah, Ma. Just the person I owe my life to, without whom I’d not exist!” We’d laugh, confirm that this call – as usual – came at a ridiculously inopportune time, then we’d slip into talk about everything and nothing. Toward her end, we’d circle back, two or three times.

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Every phone call from my mother began the same way: “Hi love! It’s only me!”

Gertie in her then-cutting-edge kitchen.

Maybe this blog is a stand-in for those no-longer-possible phone calls, or just a long-overdue avenue for expression. I never wrote the autobiography my friends said should be titled “I Wake Up Talking,” but I do scribble a lot. I’m also a gatherer/keeper with a constant need to sort through things: My relationships with loved ones and the wider world, my emotions and memories, my stuff. I love to share, and if I don’t extend this to my thoughts, I might self-combust, end up a pile of salty ashes smoldering on one of the many pillows strewn across my well-loved bed. Three cats bereft, perplexed and pondering.

Now we wouldn’t want that, would we? So please indulge me as I expound on everything from society to sandwiches. I humbly hope you’ll stay with me through cyberspace. I don’t presume these musings are monumental; why should they be? After all, it’s only me.