Afternoon in Margo

Aunt Shirley is ready for Halloween.

We picked Shirley up in Margo — she lives in what used to be Grandma and Grandpa's house — and went to Missy's restaurant for lunch, but Shirley had bread rising in pans so couldn't be enticed to accompany us to the seniors' centre afterward.

Where I got a refresher in the game of canasta:

Olga and Reta count up the points and Betty gathers the cards for shuffling.

And thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Is there any better way to spend an afternoon than with a gang of gals?

Lately I hear a lot about bullying and ostracization among young girls, and even among adult women in the workplace who have apparently never grown up and out of it. But I have never experienced it with a group of older women, who seem invariably kind and pleasant.

I guess it takes all kinds. Maybe I've just been fortunate. I certainly wasn't all sweetness and light myself, as a young girl; my younger siblings and their friends have lived to tell tales of my adolescent cruelty, which I now regret (not letting them live, ha ha; I mean being mean).