Aunt Polly

It's such fun to appear to travel in the fast lane -- writing about living the woo-hoo single-again femme-fatale life in Paris. So glamorous, so wow-wish-I-could-do-that. I do try to keep up appearances.

Then. I've been "outed," in a way, as being an "Aunt Polly." AUNT Polly! Sounds like I should be flipping griddlecakes in my gingham apron. Serving up steaming wedges of flaky-fresh blueberry pie à la mode. Yikes. So un-Parisienne! But nepotism being what it is, I proudly salute Molly-Vous Français and her charming consort Monsieur Beiderbecke Affair, and have added them to my links. Molly-Vous isn't a mere niece; she was my first shot at substitute parenting before I married and became a mother myself.

I craved motherhood in my twenties, and so offered to babysit and take her for wacky jaunts into town. Of course, I would have done so under any circumstances, such a charming toddler was she. At age three Molly-Vous scooted around Boston with me, proudly mugging for photo-booth photos with her new deely-boppers, much to her delight and to her grandmother's dismay. She bravely took field trips at an early age in my extremely rusted and unsafe, but much beloved and way-cool antique 1961 Mercedes (the first car I ever owned) when she was a wee lass in the 1980s. She didn't snitch and tell her mom that the seat belts didn't function.

Molly is now about the same age I was when I took her on those first field trips. But that's as far as the auntly influence goes. She is far a better writer than I. Check out her blog, All School Chorus, and I'm sure you'll agree. It offers much literary promise, as does the well-established Beiderbecke Affair.

I, the Unemployed Ancient One, have more free time to ramble on, unedited, in my posts. They, the Writing-Degree-Bearing/Worker-Bee Bloggers, put me to shame.

But fambly is fambly.