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Growing up, Barbara Handelsman often felt out of step with her family.

"When I was really little, I thought my sister always had all the power because she was pudgy and cute, where I had all elbows and knees," Barbara says. "I was so shy. I had no idea how to be the popular kid, and so I felt incompetent when it came to trying to be an A+ anything."

When she was 80, Barbara visited StoryCorps in Ann Arbor, Mich., with her 20-year-old grandson Aaron, who says her feelings of isolation came as news to him. "I didn't realize that you felt that way so often. I can identify, but I've always had you," he says.

"You know, I have lots of people in my family who think I am OK," Barbara tells him. "But, there's something about me that they would rather fix. But my experience with you is that I'm always perfectly free to be me."

Aaron and Barbara often went on adventures together, he says, and she introduced him to "the freedom to not worry about saying or doing something others would consider to be foolish."

"I remember we were climbing through the forest, and there's this yellow tape that said Do Not Enter. You know, the mischievous side of me really wanted to do that, and you came right along with me," he says. "That was the first time I'd ever been encouraged by an adult to cross a border. I think we bring out the best in each other in a lot of ways."

Barbara's advice to her grandson: Be yourself. "Don't let any adult ever convince you that you should be somebody else. Don't let them try to give you a cheerful personality if that's not who you are. Be who you are," she says.

Barbara passed away two years after this interview was recorded.

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Katie Simon.

Click on the audio link above to hear Barbara's story.

Iran's justice minister says a convicted drug smuggler who survived an attempted execution by hanging earlier this month shouldn't go back to the gallows.

As we reported last week, the 37-year-old man, identified as Alireza M, was found alive in the morgue by his family following a 12-minute hanging. After the incident, an Iranian judge reportedly said Alireza would hang again once he had recovered from the botched execution.

Now, Iran's ISNA news agency quotes Justice Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi as saying that going ahead with a second execution attempt would have "[negative] repercussions for Iran's image," according to the BBC.

However, as the BBC notes, "The government has no direct control over the judiciary which has to decide whether a second execution takes place."

Amnesty International has condemned the "horrific prospect" of a second execution attempt for the man.

"[After] having gone through the whole ordeal already once, merely underlines the cruelty and inhumanity of the death penalty," Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa Program director Philip Luther said last week.

Iran has one of the highest rates of execution in the world.

Every now and then, my random wanderings through file photos from the previous 24 hours bring me to something that makes me pause.

This is apparently the menu from an event referred to in the photo captions as Christina Hendricks Toasts Johnnie Walker Platinum. (It is at least a list of food posted there.) The event was held at the Santa Monica Museum Of Art on Tuesday night.

Here's where a simple photo makes me realize my utter lack of sophistication. I have no idea how to interpret this menu. Is each line a course? Is this just a list of stuff? Are they alternatives? I'm intrigued.

In case you're having trouble reading it, let's go over it.

Venison

Hey, I know what that is!

Pine gelee

Like ... "pine," the tree? Pine ... Jell-O, basically?

Blackberry beet-blueberry meringue

It's either this or "blackberry beet" followed by "blueberry meringue." Either one sounds like a waste of perfectly good blackberries, blueberries and meringue.

Cocoa coffee soil

I recently read it wasn't a real cool foodie menu if there wasn't something fashioned as dirt, so there you go.

Hen of the woods butternut squash (or possibly hen of the woods and butternut squash)

At first, I was like, "Hey, I'm no dummy. Chickens don't live in the woods, food people!" But then I learned that hen of the woods is a mushroom. So do NOT order the chicken that lives in the woods. They will laugh at you.

Crab yuzu kosho

Yuzo kosho is Japanese hot sauce; I am assuming it goes with the crab.

Brussel sprout

Check! I mean, it's brussel sprouts, but at least it's not brussel sprout dirt.

Apple

ANOTHER THING I RECOGNIZE.

Masago

I had no idea what this is. I figured it was something inoffensive, sitting there at the end of the line after the apple. It's fish eggs. Burn on me.

Halibut mascarpone onion jam profiterole candied lemon gelee romaine aioli snap pea blue lake (maybe blue lake rabbit?)

I know most of these words; I have no idea how they go together, except that the menu suggests there's such a thing as "romaine aioli," which would imply that romaine lettuce is some sort of flavoring, which, if true, might mean I'm eating the wrong romaine lettuce.

Rabbit, potato...

Yes, yes...

Poblano hooks puree

What is "poblano hooks puree"? Seriously. Does a poblano pepper have a hook? Is it the very tip of the pepper? Is it the stem? Is there something else called "hooks" that you can eat?

Apple

Hello, old friend.

Sopiapillas

To my knowledge, this is a misspelling and shouldn't have the first "i," in which case I know what this is, too. It belongs to the great tradition of fried dough, which I'd much rather have than lettuce aioli, but whatever. Shout-out to state fairs everywhere, even if in this case it's the state of extreme privilege.

Romano bean-dried cherry ... quail?

Do these go all together? Is the bean alone? Is the cherry alone? Are beans mixed with cherries and then combined with a bird?

Deviled egg puree

Wait, a deviled egg already is mostly a puree. Are you just adding the whites? Isn't it just ground up hard boiled eggs, then?

Pinquinto bean

Kyoho grape

Corn nuts

[record scratch]

Candied peanut-beet crepe ... maybe?

Again with the beets with these people.

Pear

Pear skin sorbet

Okay, what? Not pear sorbet, just the skin? Ground up skins, where all the bitterness is?

cajeta

A sweet thing made from goat's milk.

buttermilk vanilla panna cotta

Hey, anybody who's seen Top Chef is not surprised by this at all, except that it always seems to be a dish people get eliminated for. This one was probably better.

Black sesame steamed cake

Having recently had some black sesame ice cream, this mostly just makes me hungry.

Olive oil parfait

You know, I made it almost all the way to the end without letting my tiny mind simply say, "Ew," but ... olive oil parfait? Of what? Please don't say "ice cream."

Lime curd

Yum!

Blackberry

Such a good word, floating so randomly.

Green tea (twice)

I'm guessing the last thing is actually blackberry-green tea, and then there's regular green tea? Or else they give you two cups of green tea.

Pop rocks

And there it is. This menu just dropped the mic.

Cuba will end the two-currency system it has used for nearly 20 years. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba has used either American currency or a peso that's pegged to the dollar alongside its national peso.

The monetary unification will phase out a system that has become a symbol of exclusivity and foreign wealth. Many products that are imported into the country can only be bought with the dollar-based convertible peso. But most Cubans are paid in the standard peso, which is worth only a fraction of the other currency.

"The policy exacerbated the creation of a two-tier class system in Cuba which divided privileged Cubans with access to the lucrative tourist and foreign-trade sectors from those working in the local economy," the BBC reports, "all-too-visibly contradicting Cuba's supposedly egalitarian society."

Cuba's Central Bank says it will continue to back both the convertible peso, or CUC, and the Cuban peso, or CUP, when it begins the process of unifying the two currencies. The bank says the change will make it easier to calculate labor costs and other statistics, along with making Cuba's economic system more efficient.

No dates have been released for the plan, which has the backing of President Ral Castro. The change was announced in an official guideline published in the Communist state's Granma newspaper.