Seriously, your mother's jewelry can finance your cabana boys! Or a therapist.

My grandmother's will said that, if she died before her husband, then her husband would inherit almost everything, but her jewelry and china would go directly to her daughters. She was convinced that her husband was going to marry a 19-year-old shiksa who would take the jewelry and china. Since then, most of the other women in the family have put the 19-year-old-shiksa-clause into their wills. My mom was working on her will and asked my sister if she wanted the china, and my sister said no, it's not really her style. Then she asked me, and I said the same thing. So she sighed and said, "I guess the 19-year-old shiksa can have the china after all."

I think I've found what might be the world's stupidest bike path. It runs parallel to a street, but that street has almost no cars anyway, so it's not like they needed to put in a bike path for safety. At one end, it connects to a major road that doesn't have anywhere to bike safely, so there's no good way to get on or off the path at that end. At the other end, there's a park and a pool. The path itself is about a quarter of a mile long. I can't figure out the logic here.

One thing I do have is Grandma E's wedding china. I think she was saving it as a wedding present but after I hit 35 and wasn't married she just gave it to me.

I haven't been able to use it or properly display it and right now it's very carefully wrapped and boxed at Mom's house. But at some point I'm going to have a house with room for a nice china cabinet/hutch and put it on display.

Mom has a few jewelry pieces but we were robbed at one point after my parents separated and they took her charm bracelet, wedding ring, engagement ring, and cameos that Dad had given her.

Mom had been really specific in her will about who would get what, but it all boiled down to my sister and me splitting the jewelry and china sets, and Dad getting everything else until he died.

My sister and I looked at the lists from Mom's will, looked at each other, and did this kind of shuffle with accompanying, "You know, actually . . . " Then we sat down at the kitchen table with Mom's jewelry boxes and took turns. Sis chose one thing she really liked, then I did the same. It worked out really well and was quite civil. There were some things that neither of us wanted, but that my sister's daughter liked, and I said I was fine with her taking them. Which I was.

I suppose that, strictly speaking, my sister's "side" got 2/3s when Mom had divvied things up very equitably between Sis and I. But I didn't have an emotional attachment to the things my niece liked, and I figured I got more out of making her happy than I would have out of shoving a bunch of unwanted jewelry into a drawer at home.

Dad was really surprised at how well it went, because in the larger family things went rather less civilly. (The saga of gramma's diamond ring! The hand-made cedar chest with gouges that mysteriously showed up in its top just before it came to me! The money from the real estate that Grandpa sold, which never got passed on to his son!)

(Laughing at Tep and the banana.) Yes, my brother is a good guy, but it's totally Too Much Togetherness. Also, what hec said. He needs to make a decision on the job front. or something...

All I know is that one of my proxy nieces had better turn into a Goth, because my heirlooms won't make sense to anyone outside of the subculture.

Oh, I'm sure you won't have to worry about THAT.

You train them well, Jilli-Wan.

It's kind of unbalanced in our house. I have a couple of mirrors, a washstand, a nightstand, a small library table and a console table, batter bowls, Depression Glass serving pieces, a salt piggin, a brass and milk glass nightlight, table lamps, stuff from my grandmother, and great-aunt, my aunt, and my mom. I have my mom's diamonds--I don't wear diamonds--and a bar pin and lavaliere from my grandmother, and a heart locket from H's mom and his dad's onyx and gold signet ring. H doesn't wear jewelry, and I don't wear gold. The XDiL had the locket, but it's a family piece, it stays in the family, even if she doesn't.

We have just a few things from H's family--a thick white china mixing bowl with a blue band, and a set of stainless flatware monogrammed "USNavy". They, and the twin bowl his mom kept and still uses, were given to them in Immigration, when they were waiting for transport to the home of their sponsors. Treasures. We use them all, frequently.

There's more stuff: a gorgeous bonnet-top chifforobe with a stack of drawers and mirrored doors, a pressback Victorian rocking chair, a beautiful mahogany drum table, grandfather clock, and small occasional tables, that I wish we could have brought. But we don't have room, so those are the things I left back in the NC house with StY. Miss them, though. Him too.

I had the aunt's daughters over before we left to ask them to go through the photos and take what they wanted, and asked if there were any small pieces of Mom's they wanted. They each got some things, though not the pitcher and basin--Mom had already given them the steeple clock and the portrait H and I had done of our grandmother, from an old photograph.

And I left them with the 24x20 inch mahogany frame with bubble glass containing the badly foxed picture of our grandmother. What they do with it is up to them.

And still? Too much stuff right now.

a bar pin

I read this so quickly it made me wonder, "What's a BRA pin?"