OK, survey question: I'm going to my grandmother's birthday party this weekend. Her actual birthday isn't until later in the following week. Should I order her flowers to be delivered on the actual day, or give her something to open at the party, or both?

Um, does anyone know anything about Masonic symbols?

And the word Yessop, associated with a ring?

I have a ring that has what might be Masonic symbols on the inside of the band. We found it when we cleaned out Mom's jewelry cases, and none of us had any idea where it had come from. (I'd love to think there was some deep mystery there. Odds are Mom found it on the sidewalk one day while out walking, but I do like the idea of her sneaking off to super-secret female Mason meetings.)

Alas, I don't remember the word "Yessop" engraved anywhere on it, just a teeny, tiny compass.

Both. I say card & maybe small gift for party and flowers on the day. 'Cause it kinda sucks to feel like your birthday is over before it really is. You know?

Should I order her flowers to be delivered on the actual day, or give her something to open at the party, or both?

Is the party at her house? If so, I might have them delivered the day before. That way, they are not another thing to deal with on the day you have people coming over. And then you know in advance that you have pretty flowers for the party.

The party is not at her house, so the flowers would definitely be for her actual bday (next Thurs). This is stupid, but it feels hard to buy her a little something, because she's kind of snobby and also mostly blind, aside from having everything she needs, after 89 years! So a book doesn't work, costume jewelry doesn't work, etc. I'll see if I can come up with something.

I don't have a lot of clothes, but unfortunately I have even less closet space so I do need to clear out a few items every year. My clothes sorting method usually involves asking 1) do I still like it? 2) does it still fit? Sad to say, most of my clothes are not well made enough to justify keeping them if I don't fit them.

Jesse, I say go for the flowers.

My parents had me open all but 2 of my presents when they were here,so there'd be something left to open on my actual birthday but they could still celebrate it with me (read: my mom open presents vicariously. She LOVES giving and getting presents.*) Now, I'm not terribly sentimental, so it doesn't matter to me, but BY GOD it matters to my mom.

* She told me about once when she'd had a really horrid day just before Xmas back when they'd first moved to one of dad's postdocs. So she opened all the presents they'd both gotten (this was prekids.) And then wrapped them back up! I don't think she told my father for years. It cracks me up.

I remember visiting my brother several years ago, when my now-15-year-old niece was around 8 or so, and she had a closet about ready to burst with clothes. My SIL was complaining about it, and I volunteered to help her and said niece to do some purging. It didn't go too well. Niece was emphatic about needing to keep everything, even though at least half of the closet was clothes that she outgrew a year or more before. She was on the verge of a meltdown, so we gave up.

Now, the funny thing is that niece is content with her jeans and t-shirts, and the only things she collects are her earrings (she's gunning for a world record, and currently has a collection in the mid-hundreds; she aiming for a thousand by college).

Yikes, Kathy, that collecting bug your niece has? I'm not sure if it's a gift or a curse, but I hope she never turns her sights to something like cats.

I know a couple that has a collection of kitsch (ash trays, salt and pepper shakers, that sort of thing) big enough that they needed to rent a storage space for it. They also collect--I kid you not--those tiny plastic creamer containers, which they make into kitschy curtains.

They also collect--I kid you not--those tiny plastic creamer containers

Huh.

You know what'd be cool? If you had a suit of those creamer containers - with the cream still in them. Then you could run around crashing into things....