A Visit with Aunt Anna

I was looking for some inspiration for something to write on my blog tonight. I was looking for a particular photo of myself all decked out with legwarmers, a rediculous hat, puffy jacket and lunch pail but :sigh: I must not possess that picture. I'm going to have to steal borrow it next time I go to my mom's house.

Aunt Anna & Grandma Susie at my Bridal Shower 1993

While I was looking for that picture I came across these pictures of "Aunt Anna". Like a lot of "aunts" out there, Aunt Anna didn't really belong to me. She was my step father's dad's brother's wife.  (got that?) My step dad's mom,  Susie,  and Aunt Anna lived on the same street. Susie was on one side and Aunt Anna on the other. While not directly across from eachother they were only a few houses apart.

My mom started dating my step dad when I was four. They got married when I was five and had my little brother when I was 7. That's about the time when I started spending some time with Aunt Anna and Grandma Susie. I don't think Grandma Susie really liked me all that much and she definitly didn't really try to entertain me much so I'd head off over to Aunt Anna's house.

I didn't realize that "Aunt Anna's name wasn't ANTENNA until I was probably about 12.  They are Italian and they run it all together. I called her Antenna for all those years and I was never corrected. Probably because it was so close she never noticed I was saying it wrong!

Me and Aunt Anna at my baby shower March 1994

She had the thickest glasses ever. True "coke bottle" lenses. They made her eyes look HUGE.

When you went to Aunt Anna's house you never used the front door. It was the side door, which of course entered right into the kitchen. She was always making something that smelled heavenly. I remember going over there and she had oregeno hanging upside down to dry in her dining room.

She had a big victorian couch and chair. In the early years when I would go over there her husband Uncle Jimmy was there. He was really nice and I remember sitting and talking to him. I can't remember his face, just the image of him sitting in his chair by the window. He died when I was still pretty little.

Aunt Anna was a hospital volunteer at a local hospital and she worked there for a really really long time. She would make all kinds of little things to give to the children and to sell in the gift shop. I remember her teaching me how to make pom poms with a fork (although I tried to make one recently and it didn't work!). She also tried to teach me to knit. That didn't work out too well either!

I have some yo-yo quilt tops that she had started making that maybe some day I'll finish fixing and putting together. They are made with a lot of polyester fabric so they are heavy!

I used to hate when I had to go to Grandma Susie's house when I was a kid but I'm glad I had Aunt Anna to hang out with. She lived to be in her 90's. She used to tell me she wouldn't be alive long enough to see me graduate from high school and yet she was still around when I had my last child!