It took me awhile ...

.. to figure out how to sign into blogspot without going all the way around the web and back. You see, they changed the sign-in somewhere along the way - while I was on one of my many hiatuses - when they apparently became part of google; but I don't even know if that is true. I only know that when I request to sign in I am automatically taken to a sign-in page for gmail. I tried to switch my sign-in procedure to my gmail account, but I was rebuffed. Yes, rebuffed. At every turn. In frustration I entered my original yahoo sign-in address into the gmail box and wah-la! I am in.

Yes, I know that is not the French way to spell that word, but I am not French. My name is a misnomer. A direct attempt to fool the observer. Trompe l'oiel! I seriously do not believe I have even one cell of French blood in my body. I am French in name only. A poseur, as a writer friend of mine would have said some years ago - when that was his favorite word. His 'word of the day' word. That hung around for more than a day. Ad nauseum, actually. And that, I think, is Latin.

So, this is the disclaimer. I am not French. I am many things, a collaboration of things, a veritable melting pot of things! But, mostly, I am Polish. Long o.

Mostly only because fifty percent of my genetic makeup came from a father who was 100% Polish. At least, as far as I know. Legend has it that my grandparents met on the boat coming over from the 'old country.' But that legend came from my mother who most likely heard it from my father. I met my paternal grandparents once, apparently. When I was about three months old. Part of the legend.

My mother was a lot kinder than I am. She was fond of creating legends that leant a gentleness to life that did not otherwise exist.

Are there any real legends out there? And do any of them really matter? I am not my grandparents. I am not my mother. And I am sure as hell not my father. Just as most everybody else, I am who I am. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But always, and forever, just that - who I am.

And a couple of glasses of wine make that somewhat better than it really is.