Where Do I Start?

DRIVING IS FUN.

Yes. That's a good place to start .

I got my permit two days before we left for the beach. And let me tell you, the beach was a good place to go out on the roads for the first time. I scared a few people, yes, but I know they forgave me. And those who didn't eventually will. I think.

SO THIS IS MY CAR.

Actually, it isn't my car, and that's not me in the picture. But it looks like my car (red, has wheels, same model, etc., etc.). That person doesn't look like me, no. KNOW WHY?

*suspense*

Because I have a black and white feather tucked safely behind one ear, yes sir, and I love it. It's going to be a bit long after I get my hair cut, but I don't mind :3

Did I say get my hair cut? Yes I did. You haven't even seen my hair, and so you shouldn't weep for it. I'll do enough weeping for all of us. But I've hit that stage where short hair = grown up and not old. And so I shall give in to my instincts and go for a bob. Or maybe shorter. We shall see. I'm going to be all steel and nails until the first lock falls onto my lap. Then you'll see weeping XD

This is the Lusitania. It was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sank off the coast of Ireland in May of 1915.

Did you know that my great-great grandmother had three names? I didn't either, until my grandmother started spinning yarns in her whimsical way after dinner one night. The story she told captivated me, and so I started taking notes (which is obviously what anyone does when something captivates them).

My great-great grandmother was named Anna Maria Yentz at birth, but was always called Mary Anna by her mother. She hated the name Mary Anna (which she thought was her REAL name until her mother told her otherwise) and so she called herself May. She was the third of eight sisters and fell in love with an English interpreter during the First World War when he was in the United States. This chap ran off with their two small children and life savings only a couple of years into the marriage, leaving May to find a note he'd left for her when she returned from work. Well, apparently May didn't accept that, because she saved up enough money for a boat ticket to England and was preparing to set sail after her missing children when her mother basically had a nervous breakdown and forbade her from sailing away. The boat she missed was the Lusitania.

May eventually got her kids back, sailed home for America, and married a man who guarded FDR and was even chief of police in Philadelphia, PA.

The story struck me as fascinating. And so I've undertaken the task of hunting down facts and trying to contain them all in a manuscript, or maybe even a book, about May. It might just be sort of a family history thing, or I might try my hand at historical fiction and use May's life as the basis for my plot. But I fell in love with this story, and I want to learn as much about it as I can.

Besides all the above mentioned, our last vacation of the summer was a real success. It's colder now--I'm wearing a sweater, and it makes me happy and a bit sad at the same time. It seems that fall  has REALLY arrived, and it's time to bid a fond farewell to shorts, T-Shirts, and flip-flops until next year (if my mom doesn't raid my closet before I can dig them out again).

My classes are starting for REAL this week, and I'm super excited.

Time to look up some German verbs.

~

Elisabeth