"Bruce Almighty and Cruella de Vil"

I'm back. The fact that I can't locate that 7th grade class picture really holds me back. Actually, to be honest, it is also called procrastination.

This post is going to move way ahead in the life of my family. It's an amusing story about my husband, Bruce, my sister, Yvonne and my two granddaughters when they were small. I did not write this. I asked my daughter for permission to use her blog post because there is no way I could put this into better words. So, here it is:

"my mother says i must explain why my aunt is called cruella by my pops. lovely yvly is about as cruel as your little finger is fierce.

"when the girls were little, my dad would walk up to my aunt and say, "well, girls, there's cruella de vil. be careful of her. she's mean and heartless." well, of course, my children were absolutely horrified that their grandfather could be calling their "aunt bonnie" mean. krispy was outraged, smellery just sort of followed k's lead, but she was indignant too.

"as my mother tells me, and as near as we can recall, this probably went on one summer around the time when the movie was re-released....1996 or so? the girls would spend time with my parents in the summer, so this all started when "the olds" took them to church.

"my dad really likes to shock people. it's one of his favorite pastimes........shock and insult. it's called "teasing" but sometimes, people aren't so sure. he would say these horrible things to yv in front of everyone and they would all pass uneasy glances - "did he really just call her what i think he called her?" immediately, a blonde head and a brown head would fly over to their poor defenseless great-aunt and shower her with hugs and kisses and look ashamedly back at their gpa. then, after they were sure that their aunt bonnie was ok, they would run back over to the grandfather and try to talk some sense into him. "did he not have any idea who he was talking about? this is AUNT BONNIE!!! she's the nicest person in the world! we go to her house for holidays! she smiles at us and pats us on our heads and gets down on the floor to talk to us when we want to show her something so she's just as tall as we are. he must have lost his mind! we have to convince him that he is so wrong about her!"

"i believe they even tried to involve my mother. "gramma, he's MEAN to AUNT BONNIE!!!!" and the like. my mom would say, "oh honey, i know. but i think he's just teasing her." they would have none of that. what was happening here was a serious problem. people were going to have hurt feelings! they might not be friends anymore!

"this went on for just about forever in their little minds and my dad and yv would pass grins of delight over the top of the sweet baby heads who were fighting mightily for justice. the end of the game, i think, came just about the time my dad gave my aunt a cruella de vil ornament for christmas and she hung it right in the middle of her tree and the two of them laughed and laughed over it. i think krispy finally caught on and once she quit trying to defend yv's honor, smells let it go too. she was only 4 or 5ish?

"my dad still greets yv with, "well, if it isn't cruella!" or "how's cruella today!?!" now, krisp says, "oh aunt bonnie!!!" and runs to hug her. smells giggles and smiles over at yv...and my aunt? she still grins at him with a devilish little gleam in her eye every time."

I love my family.