I’ll caller her Mrs. B and she made the mistake of revealing her secret talent. That she, not knowing I too, can eat a two layered cake, of any type, all by herself at one sitting. She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever met and she also enjoys being slim enough to move around without running into herself, sooo when a few years ago I gave her a gift, it was not appreciated.
I bought a big square burnt sugar cake because I liked the looks of it. Then I felt “obligated” to eat it, or at least some of it. I cut myself a small little piece and savored it; the FIRST piece is always ingested with respect. I decided the visual was better than the oral experience and I panicked, “This thing was going to attack me and force itself down my throat if I don’t get it out of here!”
I couldn’t throw it away because I’d been known to dig a half- eaten cake out of my back yard trash can, sit right down in the dirt with my fork, and finish the culprit off. I needed distance from the enemy or that thing was going to get me! So, I thought of my friend!
I drove over, Mrs. B answered the door, I held the cake out beaming as bright as the sun. She said, “WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO TO ME?!!!”
Immediately knew what I’d done. I was on the brink and I was going to lose a friend if I didn’t thinking fast. “Do what I did!” I said in extrication, “Cut yourself a TINY LITTLE PIECE and pass the rest on to your neighbors.
I’ve met her slender and friendly neighbors and I’m guessing that one cake sped through the entire south half of Portland before the kids, who would have been too late to help, could came home from school.  She still talks to me.  nancymauerman.com

“You don’t need that; you want it.” That’s my Mother. “Yes I do.” I still remember some of the things I couldn’t live without; a skinny hair brush with a long handle, a clutch purse and a watch on a neck chain. Not only did I never get those things but I didn’t die! And I’m still not dead.  nancymauerman.com

Depression, like a poisonous snake sliding through the rocks of my life, envenomates roads, across my face. Outside the words glow.  nancymauerman.com

It was a thank you for saying, “Hello.”  Just a peck on the cheek.
I viewed this as a small gift and I remember what Dean taught me: (The painting called Dean #1 was painted in his honor.)

1.  “There are Two kinds of gifts.” he said, “One is a present you think the receiver REALLY WANTS;
2.  The other is THE present YOU REALLY WANT TO GIVE.”  nancymauerman.com

The best party favors I ever gave were cardboard apple boxes. My idea was for all the little kids to sit in a line because the theme of Paul’s party was TRAINS. I shouldn’t have been surprised when they were scattered through four rooms immediately used as rockets, dinosaurs, cars, subs, and boats. But my favorite memory was to see the inside of a car, taking five kids home, and each little person hugging their party favor on their laps.  nancymauerman.com

Margaret complimented my on my good posture. I’m blessed with a BAD BACK.nancymauerman.com

Formica and Tesla, my cats, often gaze longingly at the ceiling so it’s not surprising their favorite cat toy is a five and a half foot ladder, but when they’re on it they sit looking UP as much as they do looking down.
Many of us wish for world peace, not as Miss America rhetoric, but a place where we all work together, a place we don’t have to worry about our destruction or plan another’s.
I paint pictures on my ceilings but I’m not sure my cats enjoy them. I can see a few of the qualities of heaven but all too often my longing to go Home seems somewhat flat\.
Then I remember the Kogi of South America who raise a child in a cave. A teacher comes daily to train the child about ethics and the world beyond. For years and years the youth never sees his teacher because the young person sits facing a wall, which I suspect is no more Heaven-like than my ceiling. The shadow of his teacher is thrown onto this wall by a fire and the child hears and sees evidence of someone he never really SEES.
I can’t see God either, but I see His evidence and get His messages. When the Kogi child grows up he’s brought out into the world. He sees, then, what he’s only heard about; a world longed for something beyond a flat as a ceiling.
Many of my wishes and desires are a longing for Home and I’m reminded of this as my cat stare up.nancymauerman.com

My friend was among the youngest of a large family, all the others being boys who tormented her as they were growing up. She felt the quality of being male verged on demonhood. I knew her when we were both SOMEWHAT adults. She was the Relief Society President (this a women’s organization devoted to IMPROVEMENT and SERVICE. I was assigned me as her Visiting Teacher because I as well as this friend made bread. All who desired a Visiting Teacher were given a one, as a special friend to love them and visit in their home at least once a month. My friend was a master baker and no one had ever brought her bread and she told me she expected ME to do so. I can’t imagine she’d heard my bread was good in fact anyone kind might have called it unique.
I did bring her bread; how much she ate I don’t know.

It was a joy to know her better.  I found the previous Christmas she’d purchased finger paints for her brothers’ many kids. The year before loud whistles.
“How was Christmas?” I asked in January because their ethnic and family tradition was to meet at the oldest female’s home for the celebration. She, being the eldest matriarch, was still titillating at the memory.
She’d bought drums! Can you imagine; a house full of excited kids WITH DRUMS? The next year she was even more excited about Christmas because she bought BABY ALLIGATORS! That couldn’t have been any more quiet than the drums the year before. This is when the wives came to her in the kitchen. They said, they’d heard their husbands brag about growing up with her, they understood the need for revenge. But when HER BROTHERS spend most of the day OUT of the home it was THEY who were left with the paint, whistles, drums and baby alligators! They were not happy.

Boomerang!

No matter which way John rolled his eye the spot always hovered to the left of middle as if a big spot was on his eyeglass lens. His glasses were clean, so, for four days John squinted his right eye closed and examined then eliminated every possible other cause, eliminated then all except a brain tumor.
His first step was to visit the eye doctor, expecting to get a referral for an MRI or CAT Scan and while he waited, brain tumors became an appendage to every conversation.
He explained the problem clearly and she, the eye doctor, was stumped. Sshe put drops in his eyes and looked in. What she found was an eye lash, growing down instead of up!
They both came out beaming, John saying, “She cured me!”
He was as excited as a six year old, who just found a PONY in his backyard! He’s still telling everyone he sees the story. So it occurs to me: the secret to life is that for every four day brain tumor we should all be at least eight days excited!  nancymauerman.com

A man from the Pricilla Bulb Company sent Grandmother a bad boxucopia and laughed for a week. The copia of boxes (or many, many boxes) COMPLETELY filled up her house and each box was full of a plethora of problems (which is a bunch more than too many problems).
This is the first page of Leafman Attacks #2 A Plethora of Monsters. I love to let my mind wander around the idea of 102 wonderful boxes stacked up high all over my house and all but one sent on the same day. I think inside my head, “Hummm, I wonder what’s in them. Maybe tiaras! I could hand them out to my young friends saying, ‘Here you are Grace. I know it’s a little bit heavy; it’s made out of real diamonds and gold! Here’s three more, one’s different for Mondays and Fridays, the other two are for your best friend Olive. I think it would be fine to wear one to the grocery store, no one would guess a seven year old is wearing a real tiara!’”
Unfortunately that’s not what Grandmother found when she opened her box! See my books at Amazon.com.  nancymauerman.com