I had a Great Aunt  named Pearl.  I have always loved her name…Pearl.  She was my Mom’s aunt and she died many years ago.  Before she died, my mom and her cousin Rokki were in charge of her and at some point as she became old and incapable of caring for herself, she had to be admitted into a nursing home.  From time to time we would make the drive to Cameron…a lovely Texas town with, as I remember, large and glorious oak trees everywhere and beautiful old country homes.  I wanted my Aunt Pearl’s house soooooooo bad as it was just wonderful.  It had a porch almost all around the house, the floors creaked as you walked through it, and the ceilings were very high with a lot of glass all around.  I recall this one room, my favorite, and I called it the glass room, because two of the walls were glass of some sort.  In her kitchen, she had these great cabinets that had some glass doors so that you could see all of her dishes and some pretty ceramics.  I LOVED looking at her dishes (especially her three antique red bowls…ahem…).  It remains one of my favorite things to do today to look at dishes and other prettys in my cabinets as well.  I didn’t get the house …I was only 16 at the time, but I did manage to end up with her old Dodge Dart.  I was so embarrassed to drive it to school.  I used to park it at the end of the lot and sneak away from the parking area so that no one would see me in it.  Fortunately that car didn’t last too long as it was real old.  I also ended up with  many of her antique Fiesta cups and saucers…perhaps that is what began the spark that is now my obsession.  In fact, now almost every day I have my cuppa, all the way over here in Western Australia, I have it in one of Aunt Pearl’s antique cups and saucers and I take great pleasure in it and her name pops into my head.  But recently there was something else about Aunt Pearl that came to mind.  While Aunt Pearl was living in the nursing home, my mom and dad made the drive to see her one weekend.  I can still even remember the room she was in and where it was in the hallway.  Mom and Dad had all been sitting with her in her room, visiting, and then another resident walked by and if I recall correctly, she popped her head in the doorway and spoke to everyone in the room.  Of course, my parents were gracious to her and so was Aunt Pearl…she acknowledged her and greeted her with a smile.  The friendly neighbor then exited the room and made the very short walk down the hallway to the doors which lead outside.  Right as she was headed outside, Aunt Pearl quickly changed her tone and indignantly spoke, “I hope you freeze” to the lady.  How quickly she turned on a dime and cursed the lady who just moments before she had so sweetly greeted.  We have laughed about this since it has happened and it remains part of her legacy…it was just so funny.  One might wonder why I thought about this story,  here and now and it was NOT while drinking my cuppa from her cuppas.  Recently I was visiting my Australian friend Judy, who is in the aged care center.  Right as I arrived, I could tell some big time fun was underway as there were party hats and the tables were crowded with residents.  Judy quickly explained that they had been celebrating a lady’s 92nd birthday with cake and everyone was all smiles.  Well I surely LOVE fun but my problem was that there was no chair to sit in…there is always a chair right beside Judy for me to join her however this time there was not.  I saw an empty one all the way across the large lounge room and decided to make my way over there to retrieve it.  I passed the little 80 pound hungry hunter who you might remember calls attention to her gaseous episodes,  and we exchanged very pleasant smiles as we always do.  I got the chair and walked back to join Judy and after I passed my pint-sized zealot, who again smiled from ear to ear at me, I heard her say, “I hope she slides right out of that chair”.