Special Aunt Quotes

When I was driving home, I just thought about the word 'special'. And I thought the last person who said that about me was my Aunt Helen. I was very grateful to have heard it again. Because I guess we all forget sometimes. And I think everyone is special in their own way. I really do.

So Uncle Stuart is marrying that lady? Mom says she's going to be our aunt Amy. She's okay except she would't try any peanut butter M&M chocolate chip fudge cookies. They were good- you ate five, remember? But she said she was on a special diet, and couldn't eat something called carbs. We told her we didn't put any carbs in our cookies, just M&Ms, but she said M&Ms were carbs. Uncle Mitch, what's carbs? email to Uncle Mitch from Haily and Brittany

They were staggered to learn that a real tangible person, living in Minnesota, and married to their own flesh-and-blood relation, could apparently believe that divorce may not always be immoral; that illegitimate children do not bear any special and guaranteed form of curse; that there are ethical authorities outside of the Hebrew Bible; that men have drunk wine yet not died in the gutter; that the capitalistic system of distribution and the Baptist wedding-ceremony were not known in the Garden of Eden; that mushrooms are as edible as corn-beef hash; that the word "dude" is no longer frequently used; that there are Ministers of the Gospel who accept evolution; that some persons of apparent intelligence and business ability do not always vote the Republican ticket straight; that it is not a universal custom to wear scratchy flannels next the skin in winter; that a violin is not inherently more immoral than a chapel organ; that some poets do not have long hair; and that Jews are not always peddlers or pants-makers. "Where does she get all them theories?" marveled Uncle Whittier Smail; while Aunt Bessie inquired, "Do you suppose there's many folks got notions like hers? My! If there are," and her tone settled the fact that there were not, "I just don't know what the world's coming to!

There was a time when I experienced architecture without thinking about it. Sometimes I can almost feel a particular door handle in my hand, a piece of metal shaped like the back of a spoon. I used to take hold of it when I went into my aunt's garden. That door handle still seems to me like a special sign of entry into a world of different moods and smells. I remember the sound of the gravel under my feet, the soft gleam of the waxed oak staircase, I can hear the heavy front door closing behind me as I walk along the dark corridor and enter the kitchen, the only really brightly lit room in the house.

Aunt Zelda had written her note on special paper that she had made from pressed cabbage leaves.

We're all on our own, aren't we? That's what it boils down to. We come into this world on our own- in Hawaii, as I did, or New York, or China, or Africa or Montana- and we leave it in the same way, on our own, wherever we happen to be at the time- in a plane, in our beds, in a car, in a space shuttle, or in a field of flowers. And between those times, we try to connect along the way with others who are also on their own. If we're lucky, we have a mother who reads to us. We have a teacher or two along the way who make us feel special. We have dogs who do the stupid dog tricks we teach them and who lie on our bed when we're not looking, because it smells like us, and so we pretend not to notice the paw prints on the bedspread. We have friends who lend us their favorite books. Maybe we have children, and grandchildren, and funny mailmen and eccentric great-aunts, and uncles who can pull pennies out of their ears. All of them teach us stuff. They teach us about combustion engines and the major products of Bolivia, and what poems are not boring, and how to be kind to each other, and how to laugh, and when the vigil is in our hands, and when we have to make the best of things even though it's hard sometimes. Looking back together, telling our stories to one another, we learn how to be on our own.

Grayson thinks you’re some master manipulator. My aunt is convinced you must have Hawthorne blood. But I think you’re the old man’s final riddle—one last puzzle to be solved.” He took another step, bringing the two of us that much closer. “He chose you for a reason, Avery. You’re special, and I think he wanted us—wanted me—to figure out why.

My aunt grows special rhubarb in dark sheds. They keep it dark and warm all winter and harvest it by candlelight and it’s the best stuff. She sells it for a fortune, btw.

A very special case. A few years more, and that pretty creature who you love too much, I think, will, without ever loving them, have known as many men as there are beads on her aunt's rosary. No happy medium! Either a nun or a monster! God's bosom or sensual passions! It would, perhaps, be better to put her in a convent, since we put hysterical women in the Saltpetriere! She does not know vice, she invents it!" That was ten years ago before the day our story begins and... Raoule was not a nun.

My color schemes were limited to what would go with the pewter-gray gown...except for the bridesmaids' gowns. I'd already decided that they were going to be a distinctly nonmatchy lemon yellow that Jolene's aunt Vonnie would have to special-order. The kind of yellow one would find on takeout menus or particularly urgent Post-it notes. In fact, if the outdoor lighting failed, we could use the color of their dresses to illuminate the ceremony. And yes, i had to use a vendor who hated me, because Vonnie held the only pattern left in the continental United States for the "Ruffle and Dreams," the very dress I'd had to wear in Jolene's wedding. Revenge would would be mine, for a few months, until i revealed the dove-gray bridesmaids' dresses i actually planned for them to wear.

It won't be forever. You'll be in the dark for as long as it takes and then you'll come out...My aunt grows special rhubarb in dark sheds. They keep it dark and warm all winter and harvest it by candlelight and it's the best stuff...If rhubarb needs time in the dark maybe you do too.

gang of virtue. The same people who sent him specially also recommended you. Oh, don't say no. I've my own eyes to trust.' Light dawned upon me. My dear aunt's influential acquaintances were producing an unexpected effect upon that

The term given to the way babies are brought up in elephant herds is allomothering, a fancy word for “It takes a village.” Like everything else, there is a biological reason to allow your sisters and aunts to help you parent: When you have to feed on 150 kilograms of food a day and you have a baby that loves to explore, you can’t run after him and get all the nutrition you need to make milk for him. Allomothering also allows young cows to learn how to take care of a baby, how to protect a baby, how to give a baby the time and space it needs to explore without putting it in danger. So theoretically you could say an elephant has many mothers. And yet there is a special and inviolable bond between the calf and its birth mother. In the wild, a calf under the age of two will not survive without its mother. In the wild, a mother’s job is to teach her daughter everything she will need to know to become a mother herself. In the wild, a mother and daughter stay together until one of them dies.

You want sins, Aunt? I’ll show you sinning. I’ll make the devil weep, I’ll sin so bad.

Summer hugged her knees to her chest. "Every year they pull the same pranks, they either egg or t.p. Armstrong's house. She's expecting it. This year we need to do something special, something that's going to make history." "W-what's that?" Geraldine stammered. Hannah pulled a heavy plastic bag from her duffle. "You're going to spray paint her lawn silver." "That's going to make her really mad and she already doesn't like me," Geraldine said.

He'd seen how uncomfortable she'd looked being the center of attention. His aunt had told him how, when she'd asked Cinderella what she wished to wear for the ball, she'd replied, "Something blue. It was my mother's favorite color, and I wish with all my heart she could have met Charles and seen us together." Other young women in the kingdom would have asked for a gown fit for a princess, for satin gloves rimmed with crystals, a tiara studded with rubies. Cinderella had asked for none of these things. That was why he loved her. For the earnest way she thought of her words before she spoke, or how her eyebrows danced when she smiled, or how her voice became singsong when she teased him. That was why he missed her.

After listening in, Franny had decided that magic was not so very far from science. Both endeavors searched for meaning where there was none, light in the darkness, answers to questions too difficult for mortals to comprehend. Aunt Isabelle knew her niece was there on the stairs taking notes, but said nothing. She had a special fondness for Franny. They were alike in more ways than Franny would care to know.

Ever since then 'Buela is convinced I have magical hands when it comes to cooking. And I don't know if I really have something special, or if her telling me I got something special has brainwashed me into believing it, but I do know I'm happier in the kitchen than anywhere else in the world. It's the one place I let go and only need to focus on the basics: taste, smell, texture, fusion, beauty. And something special does happen when I'm cooking. It's like I can imagine a dish in my head and I just know that if I tweak this or mess with that, if I give it my special brand of sazón, I'll have made a dish that never existed before. Angelica thinks it's because we live in the hood, so we never have exactly the right ingredients- we gotta innovate, baby. My aunt Sarah says it's in our blood, an innate need to tell a story through food. 'Buela says it's definitely a blessing, magic. That my food doesn't just taste good, it is good- straight up bottled goodness that warms you and makes you feel better about your life. I think I just know that this herb with that veggie with that meat plus a dash of eso ahí will work. And that if everything else goes wrong, a little squeeze of lime and a bottle of hot sauce ain't never hurt nobody.

Has he invited you to dinner, dear? Gifts, flowers, the usual?” I had to put my cup down, because my hand was shaking too much. When I stopped laughing, I said, “Curran? He isn’t exactly Mr. Smooth. He handed me a bowl of soup, that’s as far as we got.” “He fed you?” Raphael stopped rubbing Andrea. “How did this happen?” Aunt B stared at me. “Be very specific, this is important.” “He didn’t actually feed me. I was injured and he handed me a bowl of chicken soup. Actually I think he handed me two or three. And he called me an idiot.” “Did you accept?” Aunt B asked. “Yes, I was starving. Why are the three of you looking at me like that?” “For crying out loud.” Andrea set her cup down, spilling some tea. “The Beast Lord’s feeding you soup. Think about that for a second.” Raphael coughed. Aunt B leaned forward. “Was there anybody else in the room?” “No. He chased everyone out.” Raphael nodded. “At least he hasn’t gone public yet.” “He might never,” Andrea said. “It would jeopardize her position with the Order.” Aunt B’s face was grave. “It doesn’t go past this room. You hear me, Raphael? No gossip, no pillow talk, not a word. We don’t want any trouble with Curran.” “If you don’t explain it all to me, I will strangle somebody.” Of course, Raphael might like that . . . “Food has a special significance,” Aunt D said. I nodded. “Food indicates hierarchy. Nobody eats before the alpha, unless permission is given, and no alpha eats in Curran’s presence until Curran takes a bite.” “There is more,” Aunt B said. “Animals express love through food. When a cat loves you, he’ll leave dead mice on your porch, because you’re a lousy hunter and he wants to take care of you. When a shapeshifter boy likes a girl, he’ll bring her food and if she likes him back, she might make him lunch. When Curran wants to show interest in a woman, he buys her dinner.” “In public,” Raphael added, “the shapeshifter fathers always put the first bite on the plates of their wives and children. It signals that if someone wants to challenge the wife or the child, they would have to challenge the male first.” “If you put all of Curran’s girls together, you could have a parade,” Aunt B said. “But I’ve never seen him physically put food into a woman’s hands. He’s a very private man, so he might have done it in an intimate moment, but I would’ve found out eventually. Something like that doesn’t stay hidden in the Keep. Do you understand now? That’s a sign of a very serious interest, dear.” “But I didn’t know what it meant!” Aunt B frowned. “Doesn’t matter. You need to be very careful right now. When Curran wants something, he doesn’t become distracted. He goes after it and he doesn’t stop until he obtains his goal no matter what it takes. That tenacity is what makes him an alpha.” “You’re scaring me.” “Scared might be too strong a word, but in your place, I would definitely be concerned.” I wished I were back home, where I could get to my bottle of sangria. This clearly counted as a dire emergency. As if reading my thoughts, Aunt B rose, took a small bottle from a cabinet, and poured me a shot. I took it, and drained it in one gulp, letting tequila slide down my throat like liquid fire. “Feel better?” “It helped.” Curran had driven me to drinking. At least I wasn’t contemplating suicide.

This was a far different conversation than the one I'd had earlier with Papa. He clearly believed that colonel Hamilton would in fact be mine for the taking, like an apple that dropped from the tree into my hand of its own accord. Aunt Gertrude, however, expected me to climb to the highest branches of the apple tree, reach for the fruit, and tug it free if I wanted it. And yet I found that I preferred Aunt Gertrude's perspective. Fed only by memory and an impression, I had come this far through snow and ice. I needed to learn if colonel was not only special for for this country, but special for me. If he proved he was, if love grew between us, then I would do whatever I must for the sake of that love. In a land full of soldiers, this would be my battle. And I would win. I. Eliza Hamilton.

Achild acquires stuffed animals throughout their life, but the core team is usually in place by the time they’re five. Louise got Red Rabbit, a hard, heavy bunny made of maroon burlap, for her first Easter as a gift from Aunt Honey. Buffalo Jones, an enormous white bison with a collar of soft wispy fur, came back with her dad from a monetary policy conference in Oklahoma. Dumbo, a pale blue hard rubber piggy bank with a detachable head shaped like the star of the Disney movie, had been spotted at Goodwill and Louise claimed him as “mine” when she was three. Hedgie Hoggie, a plush hedgehog Christmas ornament, had been a special present from the checkout girl after Louise fell in love with him in the supermarket checkout line and would strike up a conversation with him every time they visited. But Pupkin was their leader.

Chef Ayden says you have something special. An 'affinity with the things that come from the dirt,' he says. A master of spices. And coming from Ayden that means a lot. He doesn't usually believe in natural inclinations. Only in working hard enough to make the hard work seem effortless. Is it true about you?" I know my eyebrows look about ready to parachute off my face. "You mean the bay-leaf thing?" "No more oil, that's good." She takes the bowl of marinated octopus from my hand, covers it with a red cloth, and puts it in the fridge. "The 'bay-leaf thing' is exactly what I mean. You're new to Spain. From what your teacher tells me, not many of you have had exposure to world cuisines. Yet, you know a variety of herb that looks and smells slightly different when found outside of this region. I'm sure you've probably seen it in other ways. You've probably mixed spices together no one told you would go together. Cut a vegetable in a certain way that you believe will render it more flavorful. You know things that no one has taught you, sí?" I shake my head no at her. 'Buela always said I had magic hands but I've never said it out loud about myself. And I don't know if I believed it was magic as much as I believed I'm a really good cook. But she is right; most of my experimenting is with spices. "My aunt Sarah sends me recipes that I practice with. And I watch a lot on Food Network. Do you have that channel here? It's really good. They have this show called Chopped-" Chef Amadí puts down the rag she was wiping down the counter with and takes my hands in hers. Studies my palms. "Chef Ayden tells me you have a gift. If you don't want to call it magic, fine. You have a gift and it's probably changed the lives of people around you. When you cook, you are giving people a gift. Remember that.

I shared my love of books with Benny, but Aunt Yolanda opened my eyes to the world of food as art, cooking without cans. She introduced me to the magic of spices, the exotic perfume of fresh herbs crushed between fingers. Younger than my mother, she was rounded in just the right spots, from her love of good food, and when we talked she looked right at me and listened, nodding and laughing loudly when I'd tell jokes, holding my hand when we'd walk, as if we were best friends or sisters. She liked Anne and Christine, too, but I could tell I was her favorite. She took me with her on shopping trips, to the fish market near the waterfront and the farm stands out west. Sometimes she'd journey to the Asian grocers in Northeast Portland or the hippie vegetarian markets on Hawthorne to find something special. We'd come home laden with ingredients that I knew my mother had never heard of, and the resulting feasts would fill me with a yearning to go to different places, to try new things.

The family is not of man's making; it is a gift of God and full of life. Upbringing in the family bears a quite special character. No school or educational institution can replace or compensate for the family. "Everything educates in the family, the handshake of the father, the voice of the mother, the older brother, the younger sister, the baby in the cradle, the sick loved one, the grandparents and the grandchildren, the uncles and the aunts, the guests and friends, prosperity and adversity, the feast day and the day of mourning, Sundays and workdays, the prayer and the thanksgiving at the table and the reading of God's Word, the morning and evening prayer. Everything is engaged to educate one another, from day to day, from hour to hour, unintentionally, without previously devised plan, method or system. From everything proceeds an educative influence though it can neither be analyzed nor calculated. A thousand insignificant things, a thousand trifles, a thousand details, all have their effect. It is life itself that here educates, life in its greatness, the rich, inexhaustible, universal life. The family is the school of life, because there is its spring and its hearth.' In A.B.W.M. Kok, Herman Bavinck, Amsterdam, 1945, pp. 1819.]

When we are sold perfume, we are accustomed to also being sold the idea of a life we will never have. Coty's Chypre enabled Guerlain to create Mitsouko; Coty's Emeraude of 1921 was the bedrock on which Shalimar was built and Coty's L'Origan become the godmother of L'heure bleue, also by Guerlain. Some people dedicate themselves to making life beautiful. With instinctual good taste, magpie tendencies and a flair for color, they weave painfully exquisite tableaux, defining the look of an era. Paul Poiret was one such person. After his success, he went bust in 1929 and had to sell his leftover clothing stock as rags. Swept out of the picture by a new generation of designers, his style too ornate and Aladdinesque, Poiret ended his days as a street painter and died in poverty. It was Poiret who saw that symbolic nomenclature could turn us into frenzied followers, transforming our desire to own a perfume into desperation. The beauty industry has always been brilliant at turning insecurities into commercial opportunities. Readers could buy the cologne to relax during times of anxiety or revive themselves from strain. Particularly in the 1930s, releases came thick and fast, intended to give the impression of bounty, the provision of beauty to all women in the nation. Giving perfumes as a gift even came under the Soviet definition of kulturnost or "cultured behavior", including to aunts and teachers on International Women's Day. Mitsouko is a heartening scent to war when alone or rather, when not wanting to feel lonely. Using fragrance as part of a considered daily ritual, the territorial marking of our possessions and because it offers us a retrospective sense of naughtiness. You can never tell who is going to be a Nr. 5 wearer. No. 5 has the precision of well-cut clothes and that special appeal which comes from a clean, bare room free of the knick-knacks that would otherwise give away its age. Its versatility may well be connected to its abstraction. Gardenia perfumes are not usually the more esoteric or intellectual on the shelves but exist for those times when we demand simply to smell gorgeous. You can depend on the perfume industry to make light of the world's woes. No matter how bad things get, few obstacles can block the shimmer and glitz of a new fragrance. Perfume became so fashionable as a means of reinvention and recovery that the neurology department at Columbia University experimented with the administration of jasmine and tuberose perfumes, in conjunction with symphony music, to treat anxiety, hysteria and nightmares. Scent enthusiasts cared less for the nuances of a composition and more for the impact a scent would have in society. In Ancient Rome, the Stoics were concerned about the use of fragrance by women as a mask for seducing men or as a vehicle of deception. The Roman satirist Juvenal talked of women buying scent with adultery in mind and such fears were still around in the 1940s and they are here with us today. Similarly, in crime fiction, fragrance is often the thing that gives the perpetrator away. Specifically in film noir, scent gets associated with misdemeanors. With Opium, the drugs tag was simply the bait. What YSL was really marketing, with some genius, was perfume as me time: a daily opportunity to get languid and to care sod-all about anything or anyone else.

HEART OF TEA DEVOTION rc t c//'VI/~ L tLP /'V to/ a My dear, ifyou couldgive me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs. CHARLES DICKENS If teacups could talk, my house would be full of conversation ... because my house is full of teacups. My collection of china cups-begun many years ago, when I set up housekeeping as a child bride-has long since outgrown its home in the glass-front armoire and spread out to occupy side tables and shelves and hooks in the kitchen or find safe harbor in the dining-room hutch. Some of these cups I inherited from women I love-my mother and my aunties. Some are gifts from my husband, Bob, or from my children or from special friends. A few are delightful finds from elegant boutiques or dusty antique shops. One cup bears telltale cracks and scars; it was the only one I could salvage when a shelf slipped and 14 cups fell and shattered. Three other cups stand out for their intense color-my aunt was always attracted to that kind of dramatic decoration. Yet another cup, a gift, is of a style I've never much cared for, but now it makes me smile as I remember the houseguest who "rescued" it from a dark corner of the armoire because it looked "lonely." Each one of my teacups has a history, and each one is precious to me. I have gladly shared them with guests and told their stories to many people. Recently, however, I have been more inclined to listen. I've been wondering what all those cups, with their history and long experience, are trying to say to me. What I hear from them, over and over, is an invitation-one I want to extend to you: When did you last have a tea party? When was the last time you enjoyed a cup of tea with someone you care about? Isn't it time you did it again?

I no longer require your services." With her head held high, she strode for the door. Hell and blazes, he wouldn't let her do this! Now when he knew what was at stake. "You don't want to hear my report?" he called out after her. She paused near the door. "I don't believe you even have a report." "I certainly do, a very thorough one. I've only been waiting for my aunt to transcribe my scrawl into something decipherable. Give me a day, and I can offer you names and addresses and dates, whatever you require." "A day? Just another excuse to put me off so you can wreak more havoc." She stepped into the doorway, and he hurried to catch her by the arm and drag her around to face him. He ignored the withering glance she cast him. "The viscount is twenty-two years your senior," he said baldly. Her eyes went wide. "You're making that up." "He's aged very well, I'll grant you, but he's still almost twice your age. Like many vain Continental gentlemen, he dyes his hair and beard-which is why he appears younger than you think." That seemed to shake her momentarily. Then she stiffened. "All right, so he's an older man. That doesn't mean he wouldn't make a good husband." "He's an aging roué, with an invalid sister. The advantages in a match are all his. You'd surely end up taking care of them both. That's probably why he wants to marry you." "You can't be sure of that." "No? He's already choosing not to stay here for the house party at night because of his sister. That tells me that he needs help he can't get from servants." Her eyes met his, hot with resentment. "Because it's hard to find ones who speak Portuguese." He snorted. "I found out this information from his Portuguese servants. They also told me that his lavish spending is a façade. He's running low on funds. Why do you think his servants gossip about him? They haven't been paid recently. So he’s definitely got his eye on your fortune.” “Perhaps he does,” she conceded sullenly. “But not the others. Don’t try to claim that of them.” “I wouldn’t. They’re in good financial shape. But Devonmont is estranged from his mother, and no one knows why. I need more time to determine it, though perhaps your sister-in-law could tell you, if you bothered to ask.” “Plenty of people don’t get along with their families,” she said stoutly. “He has a long-established mistress, too.” A troubled expression crossed her face. “Unmarried men often have mistresses. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t give her up when he marries.” He cast her a hard stare. “Are you saying you have no problem with a man paying court to you while he keeps a mistress?” The sigh that escaped her was all the answer he needed. “I don’t think he’s interested in marriage, anyway.” She tipped up her chin. “That still leaves the duke.” “With his mad family.” “He’s already told me about his father, whom I knew about anyway.” “Ah, but did you know about his great-uncle? He ended his life in an asylum in Belgium, while there to receive some special treatment for his delirium.” Her lower lip trembled. “The duke didn’t mention that, no. But then our conversation was brief. I’m sure he’ll tell me if I ask. He was very forthright on the subject of his family’s madness when he offered-“ As she stopped short, Jackson’s heart dropped into his stomach. “Offered what?” She hesitated, then squared her shoulders. “Marriage, if you must know.” Damn it all. Jackson had no right to resent it, but the thought of her in Lyons’s arms made him want to smash something. “And of course, you accepted his offer,” he said bitterly. “You couldn’t resist the appeal of being a great duchess.” Her eyes glittered at him. “You’re the only person who doesn’t see the advantage in such a match.

The boy is special, Aunt Annie told his mother, and his mother in turn told him. But what kind of special? No one ever says.

So how do you like my handyman?” Aunt Teeta greeted her, pulling Miranda close. “Isn’t he a genius?” Miranda managed a nod. “I wasn’t sure your mama told you he was coming,” Aunt Teeta went on. “But I see you two have already met.” Repair Guy answered smoothly. “We sort of…ran into each other.” “Well, I’m so glad. Etienne, this is my niece, Miranda. I wasn’t exaggerating now, was I? About how beautiful she is?” “No, ma’am, you weren’t exaggerating at all.” With a silent groan, Miranda glanced longingly at the door while her aunt bustled back across the room. “And Miranda, this is Etienne Boucher. I’m surprised y’all don’t know each other from school.” “I’ve been working the last few days,” Etienne said. “It’s one of those special programs, Miranda.” Aunt Teeta’s voice lowered, as though sharing some great secret. “He goes to school part-time, and the rest of the time he works. And he still manages to charm all the ladies in town.” For the first time, Etienne seemed almost embarrassed. “And my, but he cleans up good--I’ve seen him.” Winking at Miranda, Aunt Teta was perfectly deadpan. “It just goes to show you--you can’t judge a greasy ole book by its cover.

Weddings do women no good at all. They’re a viper’s pit of waste and despair. And nearly every aspect of them reverberates badly against the very people who love them the most: us. Our love for a wedding is a bad love. It does us no good..... It’s the best day of your life.’ Well. The snags here are obvious. Of course it’s not the best day of your life. A day that was really the best day of your life wouldn’t involve Uncle Wrong, Aunt Drip, and someone from your office you had to invite,... Surely, women, we would happily exchange one ‘special’ day for a life filled with more modest pleasures? Or perhaps we should just junk the whole idea of getting married in the first place. I’m generally against anything where you’re supposed to change your name. When else do you get named something else? On joining a nunnery, or becoming a porn star. As an ostensibly joyful celebration of love, that’s bad company. to be in.

Paddington took a deep breath and gave the assistant a hard stare. It was one of the extra special hard ones which his Aunt Lucy had taught him and which he kept for emergencies.

We all begin with the question “What am I, really? What is my work here?” The Yaga teaches us that we are Life/Death/Life, that this is our cycle, this is our special insight into the deep feminine. When I was a child one of my aunts told me our family’s legend of “The Watery Women.” She said that at the edge of every lake there lived a young woman with old hands. Her first job was to put tüz—what I can only describe to you as souls or “soul-fire”—into dozens of beautiful porcelain ducks. Her second job was to wind the wooden keys in the ducks’ backs. When the winding-keys ran out, and the ducks fell over, their bodies shattered, she was to flap her apron at the souls as they were released and shoo them up into the sky. Her fourth job was to put tüz into more beautiful porcelain ducks, wind their keys, and release them to their lives.... The tüz story is one of the clearest about exactly what it is the Life/Death/Life Mother does with her time. Psychically, Mother Nyx, Baba Yaga, the Watery Women, La Que Sabe, and Wild Woman represent different pictures, different ages, moods, and aspects of the Wild Mother God. The infusion of tüz into our own ideas, our own lives, the lives of those we touch, that is our work. The shooing of the soul to its home, that is our work. The releasing of a shower of sparks to fill the day, and creating a light so we can find our way through the night, that is our work.

If you’re going to cry wolf, you’d better hope there’s really a wolf there. Oh, and if there’s a wolf, kick it really hard in its special place before you run. Wolves are faster than little girls. – Aunt Tillie’s Wonderful World of Stories to Make Little Girls Shut Up

Sometimes when Rose was reading, she would catch a whiff of the musty smell of her book. She put her nose down in the fold and inhaled deeply so that wonderful smell, the smell of adventure in faraway lands, would fill her up. She rubbed her hand across the pages to feel the velvety surface of the paper. When she closed her eyes, her fingertips could even feel the words that were printed there, each letter raised just a little, almost like the special language that her blind aunt Mary could read. To Rose, a book was as real and alive as if it breathed and walked and spoke.

Ma and Aunt Rose are in the kitchen. Johnny and Papa are watching TV.” “Hockey?” She hung her coat on the hall tree. “No, synchronized swimming. Of course, hockey. They’re watching the pregame stuff; you know, the male version of Oprah.” They walked through the empty living room and into the dining room. Rosalie gave herself a mental head slap. She should have asked Nick to tape the game for her. “Yeah, I like the part where Dr. Phil discusses their feelings about the fight in last night’s game. Stay tuned for a very special Sports Talk—The Cause of Unnecessary Roughness.

He Spread his hands flat on the marble, as if examining a manicure. 'When I was a child in the seventies, Syrian army special forces entered my country. They supported Sunni militias. Unleashed them. My entire family was tortured and killed. My mother and sister, raped and murdered. My father, dishonored and shot. Two brothers. Seven cousins. Three aunts, an uncle.... I've done a lot of things for a long time now,' Leo said in his same clipped, even voice. 'But I will never for the life of me understand what you rich, safe people fight about.

I need a special-shiny-greeny-stone. I have pressed that button many times, but nothing happens. Button? Don't you mean 'big-red-flat-pressy-thing? I most certainly do not. It is a button. I named it after my Aunt Button.

If she has her way ... Willa Davis is wrangling puppies when Keane Winters stalks into her pet shop with frustration in his chocolate-brown eyes and a pink bedazzled cat carrier in his hand. He needs a kitty sitter, stat. But the last thing Willa needs is to rescue a guy who doesn’t even remember her ... He’ll get nothing but coal in his stocking. Saddled with his great-aunt’s Feline from Hell, Keane is desperate to leave her in someone else’s capable hands. But in spite of the fact that he’s sure he’s never seen the drop-dead-gorgeous pet shop owner before, she seems to be mad at him ... Unless he tempers “naughty” with a special kind of nice ... Willa can’t deny that Keane’s changed since high school: he’s less arrogant, for one thing—but can she trust him not to break her heart again? It’s time to throw a coin in the fountain, make a Christmas wish—and let the mistletoe do its work ...

Just a few days before, Jason had been part of the noisy street- scape, trying to talk to his aunt Joyce back in Shakopee, Minnesota. To avoid the blaring traffic and techno music, he’d ducked into a quiet construction site, phone pressed against his ear, eyes on his shoes. That was when a hard punch connected with his cheekbone. The phone went flying. Probably the worst text I’ve ever gotten was the one line, Jason’s been mugged. Accounting it later, he would say his military training must have kicked in. “Before I could think about it, I’d kicked the legs out from under one of the guys.” And that was when he said it. Jason uttered a phrase so outrageous, so utterly shameless, it can be used only once per life- time, and until then stored in a special box sternly labeled, In case of emergency, break glass. “It’s terrible; it’s right out of a Steven Seagal direct-to-VHS movie,” he admitted, as I coaxed the story out of him again. “Well, I mustered up my army drill sergeant voice and I barked, ‘Motherf*cker! You want a piece of me?’” Jason claims the second it came out of his mouth, he was already embarrassed. Embarrassed in front of what turned out to be teen boys, kids really, who clearly didn’t speak English. They ran off with his phone and Jason found his way back to Brian’s hospital room with a headache, a purple contusion, and a strong will to get his brother well—and the hell out of Asia.

Dear Reader, In Claudia and Crazy Peaches, we get to know Aunt Peaches better, and to see the special relationship Claudia has with her aunt. I have three aunts — Aunt Adele, Aunt Martha, and Aunt Merlena — and I have special memories of all of them. Aunt Martha is my father’s sister-in-law. She and Uncle Lyman used to give my sister and me the best presents. One Christmas, when we were very little, they gave us stockings with garters. They were meant for grown women, and we thought they were hysterical! Another year they gave my sister a red cuckoo clock, and they gave me a music box with two dancing figures under a glass dome. I still have the music box. Aunt Merlena, my mother’s sister-in-law, was my only aunt who lived nearby. And she loved arts and crafts as much as I did. We made puppets together once, she showed me how to make doll clothes, and one summer day she invited me over especially so that we could make my birthday party invitations together. Aunt Adele is my father’s sister, and we are extremely close. We talk on the phone a lot, and we share a love of sewing and needlework. We exchange patterns in the mail, we give each other sewing tips, but mostly we just enjoy talking. I’m very lucky to have three such wonderful aunts — maybe that’s where the idea for Claudia and her wonderful aunt came from. Happy reading,

Gabs, can we talk a second?” He clears his throat. Nothing good ever follows that statement. I brace myself for what’s sure to be an awkward conversation. “I just want to apologize for our… misunderstanding freshman year.” I’m silent for a moment, but the rush of anger that spikes my pulse has me responding before I think better of it. “You’d call it a misunderstanding, huh?” I roll my eyes. “Funny, I didn’t think I misunderstood anything, but if you want to mansplain it to me now, go for it.” Why make this easy for him? It’s always been difficult for me to make friends, but for some reason, Rider slipped through my defenses. I was assigned to tutor him in English. I remember meeting him in the library, and the shy smile he gave me. He was embarrassed to need help. It was the most endearing thing I’d ever seen, and I swear when he leveled me with those big gray eyes, the ground fell out beneath me. I’m a practical girl, but foster care made me cynical, and ending up with my aunt did nothing to help my outlook on life. But Rider was funny and sweet, not to mention ridiculously good-looking, and I went over faster than a felled log in a forest. This was before he was the golden boy of the football team. When he was just this guy Rider from some speck-of-dust small Texas town like me. Even though he rode the bench, I went to all of his games, and we’d grab pizza afterward and talk until late in the night. Although he didn’t outright say it, I knew he had a rough home life. He mentioned that his father was an ass. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and make it better. And I thought I meant something to him. That what we had was special. Until he became the starting quarterback.

That’s right! My aunt gave me a twenty-five-dollar

In my hand sat three dime-store lemon drops---the bright yellow candy shaped like lemons and sanded on the outside with sugar. The kind of candy grandmas kept in jars for years because no one ever eats them. "Oh...thank you." I glanced up at her, trying to hide my surprise. What a strange gift. "They're not what you think." Aunt Gert sat down in the opposite chair. She met my eyes, her own gaze intent. "These are special. They can show you the life you could have had. They can show you your true path.

You have a gift for flavors. I---" She chuckled, her gaze suddenly soft. "My momma used to make chocolate-covered caramels when I was a tiny thing. She made them every Easter and the whole house would smell like this. Like happiness." As Aunt Jo smiled, Ella's heart eased even more. Somehow, she knew the gentle memory was because of the cardamom. "I declare, but I haven't thought of that in years." Aunt Jo gave a final chuckle and dropped the spoon onto the counter. "I remember those days so well now. The memories are so vivid, so real. It almost feels like I'm really there, like I'm hearing her voice and smelling that---" Her gaze fell on Ella, and she stopped, her eyes widening. "Ella! We may have found your special ability." Ella blinked, her mind jangling with a thousand thoughts. Maybe, just maybe, she was special after all.

Aunt Terannia stuck her head up through the hole. “Only me,” she said briskly. Then blinked. “What is that on your arm?” “E-beam pulsor,” Essie said matter-of-factly. “Far Away’s favored Saturday-night special.

Loftus learned for herself how realistic false memories can seem when she had an upsetting experience several years ago. She was shocked when, at a family gathering, an uncle informed her that thirty years earlier, when her mother drowned in a pool, she had been the one who discovered the body. Loftus, who was fourteen when the drowning occurred, always believed that she had never seen her mother's dead body. Indeed, she remembered little about the death itself. She recounts what happened the next in her book 'The Myth of Repressed Memory'. Almost immediately after her uncle's revelation, 'the memories began to drift back, like the crisp, piney smoke from evening camp fires. My mother, dressed in her nightgown, was floating face down. . . . I started screaming. I remembered the police cars, their lights flashing'. A few days later, she writes, 'my brother called to tell me that my uncle had made a mistake. Now he remembered (and other relatives confirmed) that Aunt Pearl had found my mother's body.' This shocked Loftus even more than her uncle's false revelation. If someone so specially trained as she is to recognize fallible memories could suddenly believe her own false memory, just think how readily the average person can be fooled.

Aunty Whimsy: I've visited forests under the sea, savored cotton candy pink tea, and met the pope of a very small country! And these are only some of the many special things our world has to offer--if you're willing to seek them out! Safia: Have you experienced them all yet? Aunty Whimsy: Oh! If only! The trouble with being a lover of this world is that you'll never have enough of it. No matter how old you get...You'll always find one more reason to stay in love. And that's why--the adventure never ends.

A Clean Egg She is washing eggs at the kitchen sink when she feels it. It feels like a little pulse between her palms. She looks down at the egg she is holding, which has a large green smear across it. Eggs must be washed carefully. Eggs come out of their chickens covered in slime, and then they roll around in their nests and always wind up covered in chicken shit before she can come out to collect them, so the washing is important. She has a special brush for washing eggs. She’s using it now, against this smear, when she feels the pulse again. She sets down the brush. There is something moving inside the egg. It is not, of course, a baby chicken. She has no rooster, and so all of the eggs her chickens lay are merely eggs, unfertilized. They were never going to be baby chickens. It is not even a tragedy. Besides, the thing moving inside the egg does not feel to her like a chick. Don’t ask her how she knows that. She cups the egg in two hands. It is warm, and whatever is inside is tapping at the curved walls rhythmically, steadily, like the egg is not an egg but a heart, or a room. Could it be a little naked fairy, like the ones in the pictures her aging aunts send her, the ones they seem to think she’d like to hang on her clean walls? Could it be something more extravagant, like a little giraffe, its neck all curled up inside the egg like a fiddlehead, or a miniature tiger with wet fur and sharp, tiny claws? Could it be the other thing, the thing she has been waiting for, alone in this white house, with her chickens and her one goat and her resistance to the society of others? A crack appears in the smooth white wall of the egg. The thing inside is trying to get out. She will, in a moment or two, finally find out what it is, how many legs, what it looks like, if it looks like her, if it looks like him. The crack becomes a dark slice. The slice becomes a dark hole. She closes her eyes. She tips her hands apart. She stomps the egg into the carpet.

My family, the Alderidge family, is one of the major four syndicates that specializes professionally in what some might call “criminal activity.” We never leave enough evidence to get caught, and we never fail a mission. If you are born in the family, you work for the family, and you never go against the family. With members all over the world, we have our hand in everything from elections and assassinations to bank robberies and jewelry heists. That is how it has been for hundreds of years. I, however, am praying I get stationed in Paris with my Aunt Magdalena who makes personnel files on everyone from presidents in Polynesia to your average pancake flipper in Memphis. You never know who you might need to blackmail, bribe, or break to complete a mission. You may fear Big Brother spying on you, but the person you should truly fear getting your personal information is my Aunt Magdalena.

My aunt's life was now practically confined to two adjoining rooms, in one of which she would rest in the afternoon while they, aired the other. They were rooms of that country order which (just as in certain climes whole tracts of air or ocean are illuminated or scented by myriads of protozoa which we cannot see) fascinate our sense of smell with the countless odours springing from their own special virtues, wisdom, habits, a whole secret system of life, invisible, superabundant and profoundly moral, which their atmosphere holds in solution; smells natural enough indeed, and coloured by circumstances as are those of the neighbouring countryside, but already humanised, domesticated, confined, an exquisite, skilful, limpid jelly, blending all the fruits of the season which have left the orchard for the store-room, smells changing with the year, but plenishing, domestic smells, which compensate for the sharpness of hoar frost with the sweet savour of warm bread, smells lazy and punctual as a village clock, roving smells, pious smells; rejoicing in a peace which brings only an increase of anxiety, and in a prosiness which serves as a deep source of poetry to the stranger who passes through their midst without having lived amongst them. The air of those rooms was saturated with the fine bouquet of a silence so nourishing, so succulent that I could not enter them without a sort of greedy enjoyment, particularly on those first mornings, chilly still, of the Easter holidays, when I could taste it more fully, because I had just arrived then at Combray: before I went in to wish my aunt good day I would be kept waiting a little time in the outer room, where the sun, a wintry sun still, had crept in to warm itself before the fire, lighted already between its two brick sides and plastering all the room and everything in it with a smell of soot, making the room like one of those great open hearths which one finds in the country, or one of the canopied mantelpieces in old castles under which one sits hoping that in the world outside it is raining or snowing, hoping almost for a catastrophic deluge to add the romance of shelter and security to the comfort of a snug retreat; I would turn to and fro between the prayer-desk and the stamped velvet armchairs, each one always draped in its crocheted antimacassar, while the fire, baking like a pie the appetising smells with which the air of the room, was thickly clotted, which the dewy and sunny freshness of the morning had already 'raised' and started to 'set,' puffed them and glazed them and fluted them and swelled them into an invisible though not impalpable country cake, an immense puff-pastry, in which, barely waiting to savour the crustier, more delicate, more respectable, but also drier smells of the cupboard, the chest-of-drawers, and the patterned wall-paper I always returned with an unconfessed gluttony to bury myself in the nondescript, resinous, dull, indigestible, and fruity smell of the flowered quilt.

What are you doing?" I ask. She straightens with a surprised shriek. "Oh, Jessamin! It's just you. Well. This is embarrassing." She smiles guiltily. "I was eavesdropping on the parlor, actually." "With ... a flower." "My own spell. Don't tell anyone. It's crass to invent new ways to use magic, and everyone would look down on me. But you'll appreciate this! I gave my aunt a lovely potted plant that I recommended she place in the parlor. A very special potted plant, that allows me to pick a flower and use it as a conduit through which I can hear conversations. I did not gain my reputation as Avebury's most skilled gossip by chance." "You have certainly elevated eavesdropping to new and complicated heights. Wouldn't it be simpler to just listen outside the door?" She leans forward. "Here, on my forehead, feel." Puzzled, I run my fingers over the spot she indicated. There's a small indentation. "What is that?" "When I was eleven, I was listening to an argument between my father and uncle. My father stormed out, and the door hit me so hard it knocked me unconscious and left a permanent dent! So I became more creative in the interest of self-preservation." "You are a wonder.

Mrs Greenow,” said he, “look at that,” and he pointed to heaps of manure raised like the streets of a little city. “Look at that!” “There’s a great deal,” said my aunt. “I believe you,” said he. “I’ve more muck upon this place here than any farmer in Norfolk, gentle or simple; I don’t care who the other is.” Only fancy, Alice; it may all be mine; the blankets, the wine, the muck, and the rest of it. So my aunt assured me when we got home that evening. When I remarked that the wealth had been exhibited to her and not to me, she did not affect to deny it, but treated that as a matter of no moment. “He wants a wife, my dear,” she said, “and you may pick him up to-morrow by putting out your hand.” When I remarked that his mind seemed to be intent on low things, and specially named the muck, she only laughed at me. “Money’s never dirty,” she said, “nor yet what makes money.

where Aunt Gillian kept her Waterford crystal, so special that it wasn’t used even for special occasions.

not allow anyone else to enter. The kitchen was off limits to everyone in the household except for the three women. “Mine is ready to be put in the oven,” said Grandmother. “You are so quick,” said Aunt Andrea. “Are you sure you put all the proper ingredients in yours?” “Oh,” said Grandmother. “I am positive. I have been making gingerbread houses for many, many years.” Mom and Aunt Andrea could not argue with Grandmother on that point and they both knew they were going to have to step it up a bit to win against her. “What are you doing with the honey?” Aunt Andrea asked Mom. “Don’t you worry about that,” said Mom. “It is my special ingredient.” “I see,” said Aunt Andrea, taking the honey away from Mom when she was finished with it. “Well it is no longer a secret ingredient.

What was the difference between Anne Frank and any other 15 year old girl living the same nightmare? Nothing! Aside from the fact that Anne spoke through her writings while others kept silent. Someone very special to me recently asked how can I write such personal things as child abuse, relationship problems, sexual addiction, and not fear how the family will feel about these revealings. I have the audacity to write such things because it's MY story. Not my parents, not my brothers, not my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents... MINE. Note to those contemplating writing nonfiction. Write the story. It's yours to tell. Nevermind how your family will feel. Those that love you will not judge you. I promise. Do not let your testimony be in vain.

I don’t hear things like that,” Blue said, a little surprised Neeve wasn’t already aware. In Blue’s intensely clairvoyant family, she was a fluke, an outsider to the vibrant conversation her mother and aunts and cousins held with a world hidden to most people. The only thing that was special about her was something that she herself couldn’t experience. “I hear as much of the conversation as the telephone. I just make things louder for everyone else.

I make landscapes out of what I feel. I make holidays of my sensations. I can easily understand women who embroider out of sorrow or who crochet because life exists. My elderly aunt would play solitaire throughout the endless evening. These confessions of what I feel are my solitaire. I don't interpret them like those who read cards to tell the future. I don't probe them, because in solitaire the cards don't have any special significance. I unwind myself like a multicoloured skein, or I make string figures of myself, like those woven on spread fingers and passed from child to child. I only take care that my thumb not miss its loop. Then I turn over my hand and the figure changes. And I start over.

we have the same thirst for life, even if that means you tend to find joy in taking care of a ficus rather than a Christmas tree.” I press my hand to my chest. “Alexander and I have a special bond.” “Precisely.” Aunt Cindy’s smile grows wide. “Your sister would never bond with a tree.” “She refuses to claim Alexander as a nephew, and I know it hurts him.