PLACES TO GO FOR THINGS TO SEE: Creatures from El and Feeping Creatures
Well, I made some Tiny Critters that were cute! OK, I don’t care too much for cute but I thought they’d sell. Not too many of them were born before I got bored and changed to Lil’ Monsters. After putting them up at Christi’s yahoo chat site, someone directed me to Feeping Creatures. Yep, he done it ‘for me. It’s amazing how much alike our critters are. In addition, Dylan’s Creatures have such a great story to their name. Blah! I copied without knowing what I was doing!

Ellen, the creator of Creatures from El, designs and makes elegant, complex figures that I’d never be able to copy even if I tried. And talk about a great name!




FAMILY MATTERS: Meeting my Brother
“I know I have some brothers and sisters but my family is so mixed up I’m not sure who they are.” I said this to a new neighbor who was gathering information about the family who just moved into the neighborhood. I was seven at the time and didn’t realize how strange this statement might seem.

My mother married three times; my stepfather married twice. I have a half sister and half brother who share a mother with me. My stepsister is the blood daughter of my beloved stepfather. None of these other kids were raised in our home.

My stepsister, Kay, wore big hoop earrings and had pet rats. She married the year she graduated from high school. My half brother, Winfield, and half sister, Donna, were raised in a family that always served pancakes on Sunday morning and strawberry pancakes on holidays….always.

My first memory Win was a visit he made while attending the Coast Guard Academy. He seemed a uniformed giant who easily reached his white gloved finger to run it over the top door frame. It came away dusty. He gave a withering look to our five foot two mom.

All the stories I heard about him mentioned his intelligence. He got into the academy because admission was done by testing and not congressional recommendation. His daughter had scholarships to USC and an east coast ivy league university but he told her she shouldn’t be making more money than he did because he was brighter than she was.

When I volunteered my confusion to my new neighbor, I didn’t know just how confusing my family was to become. My stepsister married twice; my half sister twice; my half brother twice. Most of their children carried on this family tradition.

Maybe that’s why I’ve been married for almost forty years. Through good and bad times, I haven’t added to the confusion.

QUOTE QUIP:
Blood may be thicker than water but only when it leaves the body.