Daughter Barb, at "A Chelsea Morning" said something I can learn from. She's been sewing endless hours, turning her little Santa stars inside out. It's intricate work you need tweezers for, for crying out loud, until she said she couldn't look another Santa star in the face, or words to that effect. Being her mom, I understand her Southern expressions, and I also recognize overload. as she sews like she's a one woman factory.

Barb dealt with it by setting her Santa stars aside, and enjoying a few nanoseconds of the Olympics, and then declaring war aganst killer crickets. I dealt with my own kind of stress by getting together with a friend and her six year old daughter. We were to have supper and then go to church. Because they are Korean, choice of where to eat is almost always oriental, which is fine with me, as long as there's some shrimp. I'm quite a bit like Forrest Gump's army buddy, I don't need a menu, just name the different ways to cook those oceanic crawfish.

As soon as we got to this marvelous place, the little girl, who can fix her own plate now, headed straight for the seafood. She piled several clams cooked in their shells, and steamed mussels, and a shis- ke-bab of to die for chicken, and topped it all off with, that's right, shrimp. She eats like her mother, adores foods loaded with protein. Doesn't waste empty stomach space on fattening carbs.

I've come to believe she also thinks like her mother. A few years ago her mom and I worked in the same nursing home. I'd heard there was some heavy drinking going on, but didn't know how serious it was, until it got so bad she ended up in a rehab program. That was about four years ago, and she has, as they say down South, done herself proud.

It was a no nonsense live in rehab. Their rules were designed to help alcoholics reclaim their lives, and while a big number of them fell by the wayside, she did it well. As a nurse, she was governed by the state nursing board. Numerous required therapy meetings, and expensive lab tests went on for a few years.

No one would hire her in nursing. There's much abuse in the medical field of narcotics and alcohol. What I remember most about her ultimate fall in it, is that never, not ever once did she put the blame, the responsibility for what she had done on anyone else. Words like haughty and being too proud are not in her vocabulary. She is thankful and humbled by all of it. Last year a nursing home hired her. No more paychecks of only seven or eight dollars an hour.

We sat in the heavily seafood laced buffet, my own plate piled as high as the six year olds, and there's still different kinds of shrimp we haven't checked. I may never get to the dessert bar. I asked my old nursing partner what's going on in her life now. and wasn't at all surprised when she said she's paying off some bills, and soon will begin her R.N. training, and after that plans to become a physician's assistant. It wouldn't be socially right to not include my friend's bursting with energy daughter in our conversation. I love asking little people questions because they are so honest, and still hold on to hope and wonder. I said, as if it were frivolous, tell me again what you plan to be when you grow up. Last year this child was so taken with how my stethoscope worked, and perhaps saw one hanging on a nurse's shoulders, she decided to become a nurse. But knowing it's much more than that, and today there may be more options, I gently suggested, "you don't have to stop at being a nurse. If you want to, you can be a doctor." That's how our talk went then. Today, when I asked the growing up question again, my young friend gleamed at me, and said, as calmly as her mom had about her future, "I want to be a scientist." I couldn't let something that important just lay, so I asked her what scientists do. She said they wear pretty white lab coats with big pockets, and do things that help people cure diseases. Contrary to what you'll hear in the morning news, I think our country is in pretty good hands with this generation.