I always thought my cousin Joy was exquisite anyway but the day she rolled up to Gams in her little sporty whatever that car was with the eyelid headlights – I knew she was a SUPERSTAR! The kind of headlights that pop up with a button and if off they are completely invisible. She had parked right next to the sidewalk that came out from the door to the den- the one that had that lamp post light that Gam frequently kept on. If she turned the headlights off and on a few times eventually one would appear to wink. I don’t remember how old we were, but that moment right there was my opportunity to later become a millionaire and I missed it! Someone else invented little plastic fake eyelashes for your headlights!

Joy is my cousin, and her mom Eleanor is one of my dad’s sisters, one of those special aunts I have written about before, and I lovvvvved when she came to town for a visit. Eleanor sometimes brought fancy things that we might want to sort through and once there was a little leather suitcase, smooth brown leather and with a mirror in the whole top of it. It had little pleated satin, pink puckery pockets all along the inside for my secret things. Just a little square toiletry case but I’d never seen one and no one I knew had one, let alone a real leather one! She let me have that and I thought I was F -A -N -C -Y when I went to sleepovers and had that suitcase. I remember having it well into my 20’s, it sure made me happy for a long time.

Whenever Eleanor was in town that was also haircut time for a bunch of us. She’d have a chair in Gam’s utility room, and we’d be lined up on that back sidewalk just waiting for our turn.

The fact that this was all more than 40 years ago and still is so vividly clear in my mind’s snapshots; the polaroid instant ones, is amazing to me.