As i took my morning walk, I saw a man pointing his camera toward the branches of an oak beside the path. He pointed this beauty out to me, only about five feet above us. It flew to the next tree, higher, but I was still able to capture it. It had lovely black-and-white barred tail and wings, which we saw as it flew, but I don’t know what kind it is. It looked all fluffed up, but since the air was about 75 degrees, it wasn’t trying to stay warm. It was still in the same place when I passed, returning home.
My grandmother was Head Operating Room Nurse at Brooklyn Hospital. Here, at far right, she assists at a surgery. This was the best restoration I could make. Her real name was Matilda, but we called her Towa, and she’s a major character in my new book, The Girl Who Talked Too Much.
I still marvel at Kippy’s ability to sketch such a complex shape as this rocking chair at our aunt’s house. The perspective and foreshortening are accurate. She always drew in permanent marker, very quickly, and made no changes, so she had to get it right the first time. This drawing is in my just-released book, The Girl Who Talked Too Much, though it’s not in the original color.
I’ve been posting about myself, but I wanted to show what my quirky and talented husband gets up to….so here I am, modelling one of the plague masks he makes out of leather and brass fittings. The eye holes have brass screening. My academic robes plus a head-drape, and voila! the perfect costume! Of course, in olden times, they stuffed the ‘beak’ with scented herbs, to combat the “mal aria” (bad air), which they thought spread the plague. He also makes these in copper, but they’re not very comfortable to wear!
A few years ago I published this book, about a year I spent as a governess in a Bavarian castle. Here’s the current Count, Carl, holding my book, American Governess, standing in front of the castle shown on the cover. We stay in touch. He’s the son of one of the kids I took care of. I took my husband over there for a visit in 2014. Carl said he was welcome to take photos in every single room of the castle, and off he went, while I stayed chattering in German with his little girls.
Who’d a thunk it? Here’s the story: Two nights ago, I got the impulse to post to the Dull Men’s Club on Facebook, which I belong to (as I told the admins) because dull men are the only ones who still find me fascinating. I decided to illustrate my superpower:
Notice the numbers. Someone reposted this with “You’re Famous!” in bold. So then I reposted that I could do it with the other hand too.
Numbers are going up on these all the time. People report they’ve seen it reposted on Instagram, Twitter, & Reddit. I’ve been informed that I’m a ‘meme on the internet,’, and that I’m now an ‘All-star contributor to that site. I tried to post a third one:
…which mentions that they may look wonky, but they still managed to type my latest book, The Girl Who Talked Too Much, which came live on Amazon on 10/15/25, and to check out my website. It hasn’t been put up yet, so maybe it’s too shamelessly self-promoting to be posted. I don’t care. I’m enjoying my new meme-ic status!
You can see it in the Memoir section of this website, and clicking on the book cover will take you to the Amazon sales page, if you’d like to order. Or click on this title: The Girl Who Talked Too Much.
Meanwhile, here are five little girls in 1945, enjoying watermelon in the backyard; from left, Kippy, Linda, our cousin Mary, me, and Lee. Afterward, Mother could just line us up and hose us off, if we got too sticky.
The Girl Who Talked Too Much is now live on Amazon and can be ordered on the memoir page in paperback or ebook. Somewhere up there, Kippy is as excited as I am!
Below, she’s wearing a favorite shirt that Mother painted the state of Florida on. You can see most of the word “Florida” if you try really hard.
Kippy holds a drawing she made of the fireplace she sits in front of in our mother’s house in Central Florida. It was made during Christmas time; witness the decorated tree to the right and the stockings.
My book telling her story, The Girl Who Talked Too Much, should be released on Amazon by the start of next week.
A few days ago, I posted a photo of a coach full of merrymakers going to a football game in 1898. My grandfather was aboard. But I saw the flag with its RMC (Rush Medical College) was backwards, and I thought I’d neglected to flip it horizontally in PhotoShop.
I could do nothing about it for a few days; I couldn’t access that program because its scratch discs were full, and I had to get Bill, my superhero, to help me. He finally had time to get to it yesterday, and this morning I went to the photo and flipped it.
Lo and behold, when I did, the flag was corrected, but I could see a panel on the lower right side of the coach, ornately lettered with the name of the manufacturer….(It says “Blakeslee’s Columbian Coach Co., Western Avenue and Madison Street”)….and the flip had put THAT inside out. So I was right all along, and it’s not my fault that
a) the guy was holding the flag the wrong way, and
b) the letters on the flag were readable from both sides.
Odd that it doesn’t state the city where it was made! Rush Medical College is still in existence as part of Rush University, and it’s in Chicago, which apparently went without saying….I mean, what other city was there, right?
Ann Dickinson Sargent 