My nana lived with her partner, Pete. He was not my grandfather but he fit the shoes. He was very kind to me and I have only good memories of him.

I spent a majority of my childhood with my nana and Pete. I practically lived with them as I attended the nearby Davis Elementary School. Except when cousins visited, I felt lonely there with the two old folks but they did their best to keep me entertained.

My nana taught me to embroider, a skill I no longer remember. I used to work so hard on the different stitches and remember having a pillowcase or two that I decorated. Those are long gone except in my memory.

There was a rope and board swing in the huge tree in the enclosed back yard and I used to swing higher and higher to the great anxiety of Chubasca, my nana’s huge dog who would bite at my feet if I went too high.

They kept a tiny turtle in a fish bowl and I remember holding it by the shell’s edge while its tiny feet frantically scritched at my fingers.

My nana, using an umbrella for shade (much to my chagrin) used to walk me downtown to the secondhand stores and I sometimes got a tiny plate at the end of the shopping. I have no idea why I got the plates but I still have them:

Also, I’m pretty sure my nana lifted the damn plates and distinctly remember her indignant outrage when I accused her of stealing this one, my favorite:

After her thieving, we’d stop at Thrifty’s for a counter ice cream. They used a metal scoop that didn’t ball the ice cream spherically but left a cylindrical, flat-topped shaped serving atop a crunchy cone.

My nana used to dumpster dive and I didn’t know enough to be embarrassed or ashamed. If someone had their trash out by the curb, she’d just help herself and hand me things to hold until she was done. We did find a treasure or two. One was the tiniest pink porcelain pig that was no bigger than a fingertip. I vividly remember looking down and seeing it at the very bottom of the metal trash can. I pointed it out to my nana and she reached in and handed it to me. I loved that damn pig! To this day, even though my pig is lost, I still adore tiny things.

One time, she dressed me in a blue nightie that looked like something Shirley Temple would have worn and styled my hair into big fat curls. I remember feeling so special as we walked through downtown Tucson to get my photos done.

They had one of those old school washing machines with the automatic rollers that I was deathly afraid of, mainly because everyone had put the fear of god in me about putting my fingers (or ANYthing) anywhere near those two rubber rollers. Still, when nana was doing the wash, I’d sit there, fascinated, as she fed the wet clothes through them.

Pete had a little tool area set up in the back porch and I remember twirling the hell out of the mounted vise handle to open and close the grips over and over. He never yelled at me. Not once.

When I believed whole heartedly in fairies, Pete spent hours building tiny wooden furniture to set up under a bush. I circled the area with rocks, leaves, and flowers to entice the fairies. The next day, there were tiny dents in the dirt I had smoothed out the day before. It was amazing!

Looking back … it wasn’t just the fairies that were magical.