the Yiyo

When I lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn I used to stop on the way home from the subway at a little grocery store, called the Yiyo. You could pick up just about anything you might need, from the basics of milk, bread, and toilet paper, to other essentials such as roach motels, birthday candles and shoe polish. Ahhh, city life.


It seems no matter where I've lived since there has been a little store like this. Overpriced, for sure, compared to the bigger grocery store four or five more blocks away. But you are paying a premium for the convenience and also helping support a small business, as most of these stores are family-owned.

I think that in my head subconsciously they've all been Yiyos. The little store downstairs on Ludlow Street, N.Y., the "Manhattan Market" on Connecticut Avenue in D.C. Even the Cumberland Farms on Route 9 in Waretown, N.J., which we walked to when we were kids to pick up snacks like Hostess fruit pies, Dannon yogurts, Bravos or Slim Jims. I think that store is in its latest incarnation as a Wawa.

As I look around and see so many storefronts shuttered or empty I can't help but hope that the Yiyos won't be affected. It's tough times all over for sure, and I could probably pick up that can of Progresso soup cheaper somewhere else. But I wouldn't get to exchange pleasantries with the store owner. And my daughter wouldn't get the occasional free Twizzler slipped in the bag. It wouldn't be the Yiyo.

primogeniture

...was established in the 11th century, to assure succession and inheritance by the eldest son. It is a major component of the rivalry between the sons of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II of England.

I am almost finished with Devil's Brood, and even as the book details all the broken promises and political machinations of England and Aquitaine's first family, I can't help but relate to the inheritance predicament. As a first-born child and the daughter of the family, to boot, I will be shouldering most responsibilities when called to step in and help my aging or ailing mother. It isn't the 11th century, so I am the go-to gal, rather than my younger brother. I'm unsure how much of this is a first-born thing, a mother-daughter thing, or just a personality thing (I'm a problem-solver type.)

When Eleanor and Henry's son Geoffrey, the Duke of Brittany, died unexpectedly as the result of a tournament injury, his young widow was immediately assessed for marriageability, while still pregnant with Geoffrey's unborn son. The kings of France and England (her father-in-law), wrangled for control of her children, and most importantly, their inheritance. She was not consulted about whether she could even consider another marriage (in which she would immediately be supposed to produce another heir), or how she would want her children to be brought up and where. As a single mom who gets to call all the shots (and also do all the work - "Mommy, why are you always working?" she asked me last night), this is unfathomable.

Death in families is always hard, fraught with emotional and financial issues. I hope that there will be no wrangling when the time comes and I will be called on to administer an estate, albeit one not nearly as vast as what was at stake for the heirs of Devil's Brood.