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Maya Andrea Massar's avatar

I do not think I have ever laughed so hard OUT LOUD while reading anything. This is not an exaggeration. I'm going to have to reveal that the laughter (which also came with tears - of recognition and missing my own long line of Yankee relatives, who's stories and odd attic objects I keep piled mercilessly in the probably somewhat musty alcoves of my maybe too large heart and definitely too small home) - yes, so that laughter really was due to the fact that not just my ancestors but I myself am at least half your auntie violet... (Other half being of Jewish Pogrum-escaping and hyper expressive, overly creative Italian ancestry, among a heap of other mutt-making threads...) Hmmm.... And I just solved my own riddle here - maybe I laughed and cried at those lost bits of string because, well, I am made of them.

My daughter's have literally made fun of (and probably pulled their hair out over) the bits of string that I have named, made tiny houses for and continue to move from one of my gypsy homes to the next; daughters are, I'm sure, aware that they, like you and your ex, will be left to unearth their own unexpected relationships with this strange inheritance one day too.

Your vision is somehow totally irreverent, richly insightful, antagonistic, joy-making and overwhelmingly full of love, all at once. Thanks Marjie. You made my day. As usual.

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MELISSA MCWHINNEY's avatar

Wait -- you were "difficult" even before I met you? And because inquiring minds want to know, I will inform you that Macassar was a kind of men's hair oil (think shiny flat 1920s hair) that stained furniture if one did not employ an anti-Macassar. There, aren't you happy now? Wonderful piece.

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