JBV

📍 United States

Member since December 2007

glad to join this wonderful community of logophiles, anagrammists and babblemaniacs. Crosswords, cryptics, crostics, and evil Sudoku, is the way I relax and de-stress.
May 2013 update: The Italian connection is as strong as ever. Last year I traveled there for the emotional reunion - spent an amazing week with enough soul-enriching hugs, kisses and love to keep me going for a long time. We are still emailing and SKYPING on a regular basis. And in the process, my Italian has improved to near-native level.
Feb. 8, 2011 - remembering our dear sweet lovable Nancy Boy (Jesse) - rest in everlasting peace. (2013: well it was nice while it lasted! We did enjoy his company for a while.)
Dec. 4, 2010 - thank you to all of you who have expressed your condolences in the chat, with your candle icons and with your wonderful messages of support as I deal with the loss of my dear and wonderful husband of 33 years. I take comfort knowing my Babble friends are so understanding. My husband was very well loved and respected by many people - more than 250 came to the services - and that gives me a lot to draw strength from, also. Thank you all.

Aug. 21, 2010 Update on the family reunion
I am communicating on a regular and frequent basis with my lost and found family in Italy.
Handwritten letters from my 92 year old aunt, emails and Skype with my cousins. I am spending time
every day working on improving my Italian and enjoying every minute. We are filling in the gaps in the family tree, since most of the information was on the other side and my sister, brother and I had a very sketchy understanding of the extended family.
July 3, 2010 Update on the amazing news which I have shared in bits and pieces over the last few days. I have to go back a ways so it makes sense:
In the early 70s when I was not more than a girl, I traveled alone to visit my father's hometown in Sicily and spent a fantastic month staying with his sister and her family (4 sons and a daughter, all around my age). Kept up a written correspondence for a few years afterwards, but then with life's changes, death of my father, many other reasons, we just lost contact.
A month ago, my brother, his wife and his 3 grown children decide they want to visit the same town and made the trip to this tiny village where they find our Zia Maria who is now 92 years old living with her daughter's family!! The emotions stirred up by his narration of this event (accompanied by pictures and video) are so powerful I almost feel as if I were there myself.
Now her son, my closest cousin in age, just called me from Torino where he lives and we are now exchanging emails and reestablishing the family ties, including children and grandchildren (his, not mine). It is wonderful and strange, I cannot even begin to put into words all the feelings of joy, regret, excitement, etc. Now I am busy brushing up on my very rusty Italian so I can try to express it all in another language!

Mother's Day 2010: good day to honor my mom who started me on a lifetime of word study and word play - she taught me my letters by having me trace over newspaper headlines with shoe polish applicators when I was 2, we did scrambled word puzzles, anagrams, crosswords, and every kind of word game possible - in the days before Babble! She knew babblets before there was such a thing. Here's one of my favorite stories (which many have heard before in the chat): First grade homework assignment - make a scrapbook of things beginning with the letter "A." Everyone brought in apples, angels, aprons, etc. Mine had a picture of a shoelace and a washing machine. Teacher looks sternly and says, "Miss B... what is this?" and I look up brightly and say, "aglet," and "agitator." ! THANKS, MOM!
Feb. 21, 2009 - Comfort Food - pasta with peas, Sicilian style. I grew up with pasta as a staple food, with different vegetables - broccoli, escarole, zucchini, but my all-time favorite is this dish which my father cooked with love.
Nov. 23, 2008 - Babble Blessings - we are giving thanks early this week. Husband is recovering very well from the most dreadful surgery. Hope to be able to chat with all my Babble friends soon.

Nov. 11, 2008 - favorite babblet: ETUI - this is one of my all-time favorite words for two big reasons: 1. My Mom who was a professional seamstress loved to do crossword puzzles and she taught me this word. For a long time, I felt we were the only two people in the world who knew it. and 2. I once worked with a teacher who was well past the retirement age and he and I used to do the NY Times crossword puzzle every morning as a competition to see who'd get it done first. He then became the third person in the world who shared this word. Both of these lovely people are now gone, but the word brings them back to me.
Nov. 11 - Remembrance Day - a day to honor all veterans. I remember my father, a WWII veteran, and how proud he was of this country. He knew he had been part of history although as most of that generation never spoke much about the war. Reading his letters written in 1944-45 has changed my understanding of the sacrifice each soldier makes.
Nov. 6, 2008 - counting blessings: my husband of 33 years, and our wonderful son. Also glad to know my vote counted in the most meaningful election in my long lifetime.