Not A Cook's Kitchen

That was a line I recently read in a book and it immediately brought to mind my little area of food paradise. Would one refer to it as "Not a cook's kitchen"? There is nothing so energizing about cleaning a kitchen as pointing a camera into its dark places. A critical eye will notice I do not have any gadgets. Except a microwave. My stove is old and on its last leg. This is so disappointing because six months prior to leaving FW I bought a new gas stove. I prefer to cook on/with gas. Even though there is always the chance of asphyxiation from loosely connected lines. (I knew I kept catching a whiff of gas every so often in the house, but Joe told me I was just imagining things!)

My stove is not so bad if it is put beside the winner of the Food Channel Chicken Cook-off. I knew she was going to win when they showed her stirring the pot in her tiny space on her lopsided stove in Bloomington, Indiana. Besides the Hoosier bit, anyone that can balance a skillet on a appliance that gives the impression that an earthquake in happening right outside her window is a real champ.

I am cooking a pot of sauce/gravy for a spaghetti lasagna. My Sis is having a bit of a


crisis in her husbands family and I thought it would be the least I could do to help her out. And, my daughter is staying with me, maybe only tonight, as she has her wisdom teeth extracted today and the Doc said she could have spaghetti.

I am very happy when in the kitchen. I hate to clean up, but that is why God gave us dishwashers. I use to resist a dishwasher thinking it was a flagrant waste of precious water. But, after spending a Spring break in a condo being the maid for three people, including two teenagers(!) I broke and feel in love. Not only does it wash the dishes, it is a good place to hide them, unlike the sink where the pile up smacks of slovenly and lazy behavior.



What do you think determines a Cooks Kitchen? Duel stoves, a warming oven, two refrigerators, expensive appliances? Or, a well stocked pantry? (I could not believe that I did not have spaghetti in my cupboard, two boxes of linguine, two boxes of lasagna noodles and a box of macaroni was it. Finally, about 50 stands of angel hair! Help!!)


Once I was requested to bring a casserole to a family dinner. I did not manager my time and found myself aghast as I frantically clawed through my freezer to discover I did not have the required boxes of spinach for my famous souffle!! With an act of genius inspired with no time to make a trip to the grocery store, I whipped together a now much praised and copied Spanish green bean casserole. I may post it here someday...someday I remember all the ingredients again!

My Mother tells me that is the way her Mother was. She would fling a handful of this and a pinch of that and could never tell you, never be able to give you the correct amounts that made that soda bread. That rhubarb pie.

I hate that pie and always thought my Mom was mistaken about my Grandmothers abilities in the kitchen.

After all that cooking, it's nice to look out the window as rinsing the dishes for the washer. Poor roses, only buds escape the Jap Beetles these days.

It was a Hot and Steamy Night

I never forgot, all those years living away from Louisville, about the summer Catholic Festivals. They are the absolute best and more fun than one would think. First of all, there is the cake booth. How can it get any better than winning a delicious confection made by a church lady covered in colored coconut. Yum yum. And what if it cost $10 to finally win? It goes for a good cause. And it's tax deducible...maybe, that is if you do creative tax reporting. Next there is the beer booth. Thank God Almighty, because it was 96 degrees during the day and not much relief at night. The beer went down easy.

And last of all, the gambling. This is not your Grandmothers gambling of yesteryear. No longer are there long lean tables of bingo cards and hard corn markers scattered about under the glow of dangling yellow lights. No, now it is "Beat the Dealer" (which I kind of still do not understand) and it is a form of craps played with over sized dice that somehow are fixed in favor of the house! I played with $10 and it was up and down for about 45 minutes and I left with one measly dollar still in my hot hand.

Or not so hot hand

Truly amazing was the wheel that had different colored horses, 1 through 10, that you could bet on up to $1.00 by choosing the winning number horse. If per chance your horse came in, the odds were paid by the number designated by the lip thingee. (can you tell I am not a gambler?) much like baseball cards we once attached to our bicycle wheels to get that sweet summer sound.


It was very hot and we sweated a lot. After dropping a lot of money, drinking several beers, and not winning a cake we dragged our sorry selves back to the car and headed to a pizza joint.

Because we were hungry.

Every week end there is a similar summer festival. But, lurking somewhere in the not too far away future, in the month of August is the grand daddy of them all The St. Joseph Orphan's Picnic.

I'm saving up my money right now, because you never know, $10 chance could win you a Mustang.

Really.

Happy Place #3

A Movie House! Any Movie House!

I remember the first movie I attended in my small home town. (Didn't everyone have a small movie theater in their home towns back in the 50's and 60's?) Our movie house, called The Bacon was located on the street that entered the heart of downtown. At the time we lived on Broadway which was only a quick walk away. It must have been the week-end, and the movie was Tom Sawyer (or some adaptation of the movie). One particular part of the movie scared me to death! I was only five years old and mortified that my four and three year old brothers were unaffected by the horror of scary life on a raft! My father walked me home. The walk of shame. That quick walk, a mere two block became the longest walk of my short life.

The Bacon is an icon for all of us who grew up in Smalltown, KY. Saturday afternoon all of us kids, and I mean all of us, would flock to the theater and plunk down our 25 cents for the matinee, a double feature with a cartoon. A bag of popcorn and a small coke, add another 15 cents. Being the era of segregation, the black kids sat in the balcony, which I though was so unfair! I wanted to sit up there with a driving passion!

At times we had to go into into the Big City for our Saturday afternoon fixes. There were three movie houses in the downtown area of Lexington! (only one remains today). It was our great joy that Dad loved going to the movies with us. Talking him into driving us the 12 miles into Lexington and then enduring a movie was easy.

It was, I think (researching in IMDb) The Magic Sword, (1962). There is this one scene where the guy comes our of the cave and the sun hits his skin and his skin begins to turn into ulcers and sores and I had.....to leave the theater....again. There was no walking home this time, and I waited outside the theater.....with Dad, while my blood thirsty brothers, which may have included my three year old bro too(!), finished watching the atrocity on the screen. (which is really funny when I read the only review and understand how hokey it really was).

Can you tell I have never been a fan of the horror genre?

During the 1980's when Bridget was little, every Saturday afternoon we went to the Dollar Theater in J-town. They carried on the tradition of having family friendly films showing weekly. I love the memory of Bridget climbing into my lap and watching the films.

Can you believe there is a Dollar Movie within a mile of our house right now? Such a lovely place to escape the heat, settle down in the well worn seats, the tiny thrill when the lights fade to dark and then....and then, a movie! Nothing compares to seeing a film on the big screen in the dark, with a bag of popcorn.

I find myself seeking the comfort of films to cure most everything, at least for a short time. Loneliness, sadness, frustration, boredom......

Good therapy for just one buck.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

As you may know, I have to get back into the working world. It is no longer possible for me to stay a Kept Woman. The jig is up! It is time. This morning I began in ernest picking up the telephone to campaign an interview with my Old Company in a new position. A position that has been posted since March. Why? Not certain but it seems no one wants it. It's too hard. Shoot, I'll give it a shot, just give me an interview!

So, I'm on the phone calling everyone I know zooming in on someone and giving him a chance to contact me before I have to go to the Big Guns, my first boss who is now some sort of major player this side of the Mississippi.

Gosh, I hate having to go back to work, but that is life. While reading the Career Search section of the newspaper today I gobbled up the article about being thrown into the job market "at at certain age" and competing with all those young whipper snappers just graduated from college, all dewy eyed and full of vim and vigor. All your experience and wisdom does not add up to a hill of beans sometimes if you appear "out of date".

So, I went and had all my hair cut off!! What I have wanted to do for years. And I do mean years! I went to my friend, the Internet, and asked it (Mirror mirror on the wall....) "Louisville Best Of...." and sure enough I found last years list which included hair salons. That is how I found him. He could fit me in at 230pm today. The place was on the hip Bardstown road and I was taken back when I entered and the place was empty. He made his entrance about five minutes later and I just loved him right away! He did not sing me Herman Hermits like my hairdresser in FW (the name that must be whispered) but he said something that convinced me I was in the right place. When I mentioned this fabulous hair dresser I had in the 1980's whose middle name is Magic I was pleased to hear that many of Mr. Magic's customers were now Mr. New Guy's customers. I closed my eyes and let him work.

When I opened my eyes, my hair was magnificent! Stunning! And I love it!

The visitation and funeral was totally overwhelming. I can not imagine the turn out if it had not been a Holiday Week-end.

Funny story. My SIL lives way out in the country in a gorgeous house, very secluded and vulnerable if anyone got ideas to "visit" while she was in town. So, her sister house sat that evening.

As SIL was preparing to leave she went back and pulled out a small 22 gun and tried to hand it to "Sissy". Sissy refused it and waved it away.

"Sis, you may need it. You never know." and she thrust it at her again and once again she shook her head no and pushed the gun away.

"I would feel so much better if you took it!" my SIL pleaded.

Sis reaches into her purse and pulls out a 38 and lays it on the table, close at hand.

Sis was packing.

Happy Place #2

We all know what our Happy Places reside. That refuge of solitude (maybe) when things are going astray and we need a moment to catch our breaths, calm down, breath deeply. Even just anticipating the trip to such a place brings about a peace. And a happy place can be more than just a physical place, it can be a state of mind with our imagination being the vehicle of transport. And it does not necessarily have to be a place but a tangible item to grasp in both hands. It can be as simple as just being with someone. Or day dreaming.

The best thing about happy places is that they are just that, places of escape that make us happy. Bring a smile and feeling of well being.

The second happy place that I have decided to commit to this blog is The Library. As long as I can remember, since my Mother is a librarian, I have felt an awe of libraries. The first one brings to memory the smell of musty books, dark tomes that were hidden in the upstairs dusty high ceilings ancient building of down town. This place would never do for my Mom, so she organized and championed a renovation (some people more than likely cursed my Mom due to a library tax increase) that resulted in a comfortable refuge, a learning center, a place of gatherings and children's hour, open later and I dare say revitalized a little bit of downtown.

I found myself standing in an aisle of the downtown branch of The Big City with eyes closed trying to remember the name of an author my brother mentioned as an excellent writer of Civil war fiction. Try as I may to empty my mind so that the elusive name would just POP in, I could not reel it in. I read a trick was to think of a place concentrate. I found myself laying on the front yard lawn of the first house my parents purchases. I had my hands behind my head and was stating at the blue sky and the white billowing clouds as they crossed over head. I could feel the soft grass under my arms and the smell, oh the smell of clover. I was astonished that I dragged this memory out of ....nowhere! So astonished that I could not complete the exercise which consists of then counting up 30 steps and then throwing open a door. What you are looking for (trying to remember) will be on the other side of the door.

It was too sweet a memory to let go of, so I began to browse the titles to the left of my head. I was in the "M" section and laid my hand on "At Play In the Fields of the Lord" by Peter Matthiessen. "I'll be damned" I though to myself, "He writes fiction too?". I added it to the small stack I was taking home.

I began to read the novel and halfway through it I realized this story, written in 1965, reminded me of the books that I would sneak (or so I thought) out of the library under the discriminating eye of my Mother. Actually, it was fairly easy, as she was confident that our Catholic upbringing and her unfaltering faith would lead us to the correct books for our young minds. This is how I was able to read Peyton Place, Joy in the Morning, Our Crowd etc. at a very tender age.

APITFOTL was much like those books. Well written, great story, characters that haunted your non-reading state, people you cared for and hoped that maybe you were a little bit like them. The prose was fabulous...."we were like butterflies pinned to the frames of our mortality...." (something like that) and there were missionaries and mercenaries, good and evil, nakedness and South American natives. How I would have loved this book at 12. Not quite understanding the human emotions, the driving hungers and searches for meaning and salvation, but I would look forward to the day when it would all make sense.

This is what I love about the library, always have and why I always carry a book around with me much to my husbands chagrin. I raise my eyes from the written page and respond to his criticisms of my inattentiveness of his channel surfacing!! I shake my head at him, for why would I ever compare re-runs of Combat and The Rifle Man with a masterpiece such as APITFOTL?

The library is my escape.

The library is a magic carpet.

If it's Tuesday, it's Hamburger Night

This afternoon I had to go to the Post Office (return Netflix) and I thought I would swing by Walmart and pick up some sulphur for the dreaded black spot's on my roses. I approached Walmart from the west, I usually swoop in from the east, I zoomed right past the entrance! So, off to Miejer I went because not only will they have the sulphur (could not find it) but they continue to carry the Yoplait Whipped Chocolate Mousse I am addicted to. I curse Walmart for dropping it because Miejer charges $.21 more for it. Damn you Walmart!

Then to ALDI for the $5.99 bag of 3lb frozen chicken and $1.99 gallon of milk vrs. the $6.79 and $2.50.

My shopping habits have begun to change due to the rapidly climbing grocery prices! I now read the newspaper and chase the sales when I'm able and or in the vicinity. I can hardly afford my Coconut Rum anymore! It too has gone up in price forcing me to purchase the economy size 1.75 liter which in some ways is very very bad.

I happened to catch a television program in Memphis addressing the growing problems of limited income families making ends meet in regard to grocery shopping. That was where I was hipped to ALDI. I was also informed about a program called ANGEL FOOD that operated in and around Memphis. On a lark, I looked it up and found they have many locations in Kentucky and Indiana close to my home. Alas, I have not been able to take advantage of the great program, where you receive a truck load of food for $30.

It would be no problem for me to eat whatever is in the "box" for the month because of my Mother and our menu's while I was growing up and a captive in her house.

My Mom is a very educated person. Long story cut short, my Mom is the youngest of her siblings and very smart. She was the scholar of the family and her sister Maura did all the cooking cleaning etc. while Mom studied and did all sorts of astounding stuff like graduating from high school at 16, College at 19 and then received her Masters from Columbia after her mother whisked her off to Ireland for a year.

In other words, my Mom never learned to cook.

Our menu's never deviated from week to week, except when she was feeling anemic then we got the dreaded liver and onions.

Monday was Hot dog night. Hot dogs boiled in a ause pan on the stove and served with buns and mashed potatoes and green beans from a can. Chocolate milk with raw egg for the boys, milk for me and jello for dessert.

Tuesday, hamburgers and french fries. The hamburgers were the frozen kind that came in a box that you took a knife to and separate. French fries were also the frozen string variety served in a wooden bowl. Maybe a can of corn or celery and carrots boiled together.

Wednesday night was meat loaf night. Greasy and made with egg and crushed crackers. Green beans from a can and mashed potatoes.

Thursday was left over night.

Friday was spaghetti night! And maybe some fried shrimp, which she also made in a beat up sauce pan and sometimes turned black but was still a delicacy to me! If there was no smoking shrimp, there was tuna fish. No garlic bread, maybe some toast with butter. No mashed potatoes, though there was jello for desert.

Saturday she worked at the library and Nana made dinner when she lived across the street from maybe 1967 - 1972. Then we had chicken! Yea Nana! She made Waldorf salad with apple cut up in the lettuce. And mashed potatoes. She also made apple turnovers and sometimes cherry. The new fangled kind that you purchased in the dairy section and included was a small bag of icing. Oh I still remember how we looked forward to Nana!

Sunday was always special and we would have something different like a stew or a pot roast. Mashed potatoes and more veggies from a can. And maybe fruit cocktail from the can. And if it was Easter or someones birthday that week, a cake.

We were all skinny kids. We all had to eat what was on our plates because there were starving children in China. Sometimes my brother T. had to be restrained in his chair, as was his habit to slide down his chair and try to escape under the table. He was caught every time. Unfortunately I had to sit across the table from him and I will never forget the faces he made eating mashed potatoes. Like he was going to barf.

Every night except Friday.

We laugh about it now. It is still a good joke among us kids.

Back to my point, if I get liver in the Angel Food Box I can handle it. Just like the old days.

Fabricated Memoirs

Or...Daddy, Won't you take me back to Muhlenberg Co?

While reading a review of Augusten Burrough's latest book I was taken back by the intensity of the attack against the memoir. How can anyone remember the exact words in a conversation that had taken place so many years ago? His brother came to the defense stating that Augusten suffers from some type of illness that allows this type of recall.

Others still think it is fabricated, like his remaining family members.

Which made me think, aren't many of our memories from "long ago", at the least, slightly embellished?

Sometimes I will surprise myself with the intensity of a memory. For some odd reason I can recall with vivid clarity looking out a window on US 68 outside Hopkinsville while stopped for... (here comes the embellishment, because I can only surmise we were stopped for road work/traffic accident)...a delay. The day was bright, hot and the field was high yellow grass and the sound of bugs was like a symphony in the shimmering heat.

It is like a snap shot from 30 years ago.

This past week found me traveling down a thin ribbon of highway that transported me back those 30 years.

The scenery had changed drastically. Dramatically. I did not recognize much of anything. There were certain landmarks that I searched for that no longer exist. The worlds largest coal shovel sat on the Southside of the Western Kentucky Parkway. A looming beast, primitive, hauling away Paradise, down by the Green River.

30 years certainly does have an extraordinary effect on the landscape. Let alone my own personal landscape.

The drive took me whizzing past a town, on one of the several new parkways in the area, that I had spent many a Saturday afternoon drinking beer in the small Tennessee town where the legal drinking age at that time was 18. It made me wonder if that small hole in the wall was still there.

On the way home, I had to look.

My memory was like this: small downtown, railroad tracks, always raining, bathroom outside the building in the back, a rotisserie that slowly cooked the meat in the window, a old wizened African American shop keeper.

My memories include a simple suggestion, "Let's go to the Keg?"

An hour later, on the champagne flight, we would have arrived. Our presence would fill the bar and I'm certain, annoy the locals. But, we loved it. The pork sandwiches, the white bean soup and corn bread. The mirror behind the bar, the small tv in the top corner, near the ceiling. Frosty beer mugs....?

The the long ride home.

I did find the Keg, but it was not the same. The name and the location remain the same. All else is changed. Not a hole in the wall, but a restaurant with a dining room, the small cramped bar area thrown out of the 19th century into the 21st.

And, I'll be damned, indoor bathrooms.

On the wall are two newspaper articles. The first announcing the retirement of the old Black owner, in 1991 at the ripe old age of 91! And a second one in 1994, when he passed at age 94.

So, I had found a tiny piece of my past, my landscape, my memories. I can close my eyes and see Wild Bill tossing back the beer with all of us cheering him on. That man could down a brew in one gulp. I remember the glazed look in his eye after a couple of demonstrations.

And that silly grin. That silly happy early 70's goofy look.

And that's not a fabrication.

Leaves of three, leave them be

...or, It use to be easier to score drugs!


For over a week I have been battling a case of poison ivy. At first I thought it was a spider bite. That should have been my first clue. I actually blamed it on the apartment outside Memphis. I just know it has spiders! I should have known.

Two days later in horror I am watching it spread! I am naturally scratching it and complaining. My brother, N., takes one look at it and says those dreaded words, "That's poison ivy."

Oh hell no!! Please, hell no! The last time I had it I had spread it into my ear and had to call in to work because my face was so disfigured!

Immediately I began to be advised on what to do.

"Pour Clorex on it, that works. No, really, it works! I swear."

I can't imagine.

Next was Joe, "Once I had it on my back...." then I hear the whole story about how he and a friend rolled around in it while playing and ....." Baa, (his grandma, really, her name was Baa) told Mama to crush up some aspirin and mix it with alcohol and rub it on my back. It worked. Mama didn't grind up the aspirin very well and I had chunks of white stuck to my back, but it worked pretty well."

This sounded like a much better option. I bought BC powder (less grinding and chunk problems) and mixed it with rubbing alcohol. Oh sweet relief!! Joe took a basting brush and helped me get to those areas on my back.

Guess what? I spread it some more. Oh but that cold alcohol sure felt good on that burning rash.

So, off to the health store where I searched high and low for some Jewel-weed spray or dried herbs. They had not heard of it. Or course by that time I was close to pulling my skin off and was calling it Jewel-root. Finally I located a bar of Bert's Bees Poison Ivy Soap which contained (as the very last listed ingredient "garden balsam leaf" aka jewelweed. But first I had to endure every horror story they had to tell about poison ivy.

"I had it for three and one half months."

Sweet Lord!!

Yesterday found me in the doctors office showing off my revolting skin. I could wait no longer. At least he did not recoil like the nurse did the last time I had it.

Like I said, it use to be easier to score drugs!

I walked five miles to school in the snow!

Somethings just make you realize that you are turning into your parents. I find that I yammer on and on about things that as I hear the words ring in my ears, I know that I sound like an old fogey. For instance, I can not stand that all the trees in my hometown downtown have been chopped down! I realize that they are those Pear trees that have a relatively short life, but still the area looks so exposed and naked. Then, they decided to redo the sidewalks, the roads, tear down the old buildings that lined the once familiar streets to erect a modern style multi-retail building. Yuck and double yuck! I want back the old glass front "Mattress store" that old blind Bess L., who could barely see (and be seen) over the top of her steering wheel drove right into the show room after running the stop sign.

I miss having that memory rekindled every drive by.

I hate the Car dealership that now shines like a beacon on beautiful Lex. Rd. Did I say beautiful, the once beautiful Lex. road. It once boasted beautiful horse farms, gentle rolling hills with the tobacco bases, corn fields and stately mansions (at least they looked like mansions to me when I was a child) sitting behind white washed fences on expansive farms. In a rush to make a buck, the past is quickly being swallowed up as Dairy Queens and sub-divisions chop up the most coveted horse farm land in the world. The absolute worst is the farm that was sold by the heirs and leveled out for a Wal-Mart then went bankrupt. The ugly slash on our beautiful bluegrass sits undeveloped, as the preservationists slug it out with the visionaries, with a large weather beaten sign promising us a new shopping center "soon".

Ver/Lex Rd. will quickly become like the Lex/Nicholasville corridor. Nothing but ugly commercialism as the two towns attempt to merge into one.

I like stuff to stay the same so that I can count on it, look forward to it, and when it finally arrives know that it will be like it was before. Like strawberry season! And Keeneland Race Track being a 21 day event. And when Keeneland closes the spring meet, they move to Churchill Downs and its Derby Week!

This year Derby week began yesterday. Let's see, Derby week use to be the lead up to the Derby beginning with the Balloon Race on the Saturday morning before, the Chow Wagon on Main (which was as many people as possible squashed into a small fenced off area, drinking beer), $1.00 Derby pins, the parade, the Riverboat race, a couple of local events thrown in and then the Oaks, and suddenly its Derby Day!! One week.

Now, it begins three weeks before Derby,starting with the Thunder Over Louisville firework show. The biggest, baddest spectacle of shooting showering color you will ever see!

That reminds me of another story, the one where I attended the very first Thunder! It will have to wait.

I must go make strawberry pancakes.

I've been in and out of Happiness*

I was leaving the Kroger store yesterday, a 12 pack of Miller's Chill in one hand, a bottle of the hard to find Ken's Sun Dried Tomato salad dressing in the other and I became aware of this strange sensation as I walked out into the waning light of a sun drenched day. What is this thing on my face? It's a smile! By gosh, I'm happy!!

Have you had such moments? I remember them like four leaf clovers pressed in some lost book I use to have. Last year I was in a Walmart and suddenly knew I was soooooooooo happy moving to the Louisville area. I don't know why they take me by surprise, but they do.

My daughter is moving into a better apartment across town and I was helping out (just a little) in the clean up and I ran across an old hard plastic pencil box from her grammar school days. I held it up and began to laugh. I had been looking all over for that damn box and had given it up as lost. And there it was, with her.

Rightfully, it/they are hers. She collected them when she was a wee thing. She collected, I bought. I loved those things!

I never did see the "Mary" version of the Garbage Pail Kids, but Bridget hated hers...I'll post it later.

This was my favorite.




* "Is your love in vain?" Bob Dylan, Street Legal, 1978

What I'm reading at the Beach.

Oh woe is me, nothing to write about that is interesting. I did go to the beach in Alabama and it was a very chilly experience. Did manage to catch a little sunshine. I think I was in charge of two teenagers, I say think because my husband could be considered to have just a smige more maturity than those two. Just kidding, but one of them did manage to get a severe sunburn under my care and I am ashamed to say that I trusted that kid to put on sun block! When I say, "Are you using sun block?" and they say, "Yes I am." I should know, I should have known to ask, "Okay, what SPF is that so called sun block?" It was pretty bad, poor baby.

Anyway, that is as exciting as my life gets.

I brought along several books to read supposedly while I laid around with my SPF 30 in the spring sun shine of the Gulf Coast.

Man, what was I thinking bringing along "The Snow Leopard" by Peter Matthiessen! Not exactly a beach book. It reminded me of the time I read "Love in the Time of Cholera" while on another beach last year (a much warmer beach in Mexico).

Seeking.....

Have not written here in some time so thought I would throw something together and maybe get back into the groove.

Since my Fathers passing I thought I would take it pretty well since everyday for the past five years I have thought he could leave us at any moment. Each birthday might be his last, east Christmas the final one we would spend together.

Just like when he was born in 1919 weighing in at 4 pounds, premature, predicted to die. My grandmother carried him around on a pillow so tiny he was.

He always was surprising everyone and when he passed it certainly surprised me. My daughter said to me, "I thought this was just going to be like all the rest, he would come home from the hospital and get better." Me too, I thought that he would resume, rebound, once again sit out his days in the "electric chair" (a mechanical chair that lifts a person and then gently pushes them forward so they can be standing on their feet in a matter of moments) watching John Wayne movies and holding court with all his many visitors. Though he could barely hear us, sometimes not know who we were, he enjoyed company.

Anyway, I though I was prepared for him passing. I have learned that no matter how certain you can handle it, it's heartbreaking and you miss them terribly.

Last Sunday I sat in the electric chair and just ....... just sat there and let my mind drain.

Is there an after life? Does the spirit of those we love hang around and embrace us, engulf us for a while? When I look at that chair I see him there, I feel him there.

Under the surface I have an emotional struggle raging.

I attended another funeral yesterday for one of my parents friends. I dread the next one I attend, knowing its going to be "A" of "B".....and I dread it.

I am becoming philosophical regarding the afterlife. Being Catholic I am suppose to have faith that those who live by God's rules find eternal life......

Eternal Life? What does this mean exactly?

The Gift

Favorite Picture of Me and Dad -

During the morning hours of Feb 4, I woke up around 2am and tossed and turned, tried to read then turned off the light only to turn it back on and try again. Finally at 430 I was able to fall back into sleep.

At 730 am my brother called to let me know that Dad had passed away during the night at home with Mom. Mom thinks it happened sometime between 2-230am. She realized his breathing, which had been labored all day, had become quiet. She made calls and my brother arrived around 3am. They did what you do when someone passes in the middle of the night, then he suggested they say the rosary and finally at 430am she was able to lay back down.

I have written many times about my Dad. As I look back at my very first entry it was about my Dad going into the hospital with CHF and subsequently had a stroke. It has been a long journey, bittersweet at times, and so full of love and the celebration of a life to arrive at this moment when I and everyone who loves him, has to let him go.

"I want to go home!" he told us at the hospital Saturday and by gosh, they let him go home.

Now he has truly gone home. I am happy that his pain and suffering is behind him. That I so firmly believe in an afterlife I know he is now residing in that place I think of as heaven, able to walk without a walker, able to sing Danny Boy at the top of his lungs, hear without hearing aides that really don't work all that well anyway, remembering all the grandchildren names, eating whatever he damn well pleases, driving any car he wants, eating a banana split and swimming in the Atlantic ocean, dancing the jig with my Aunt Pat and Nana, laughing about him being a street urchin running numbers in Hells Kitchen in the 20's and 30's with his brother, and in a safe place without hospital beds, IV's and pills everyday to get you through the day. His heart will beat with the strength of all those who loved him and will remember him.

Round Robin Challenge

While going through my Bloglines I visited this fellow blogger friend, Carly and found that today was the last day to enter the round robin. The theme? Railroads! (Trains)! And I just happen to have one...

Taken several years ago at the Rail Road Museum in my hometown. The old train graces the tracks as you enter the area, very close to the road. Once, about a million years ago, when my daughter was young we would ride this train on various excursions. Like, Morgan's Raiders robbing the train and the Halloween Train. It was always a lot of fun.

This may be a coal driven train.

Find the other round robin participants here.

REDUNDANT

(originally called BEEN THERE, DONE THAT until I realized I had used that title before!)

My entries become farther and farther apart. I have less and less to write about. I have already written about how my family gathers together each Christmas. I have for several years running reviewed the year going over each month with a photo. I have published my New Years resolutions for all to see and for me to know the failure.

It is not that I have run out of things to say, its just that I have learned what an exceptionally small place the Internet actually is, and how one must either go private or write with discretion.

I suppose I have chosen the discretion route which makes for boring boring boring at times.

I am going to rant about Bookmooch.

For about a year I have signed on as a participant and began with a list of approximately 25 books to "swap". I have found that people wanted most my books, but those I am looking for are either "declined", not mailed, (i.e. request ignored) or simply not there. Factor in the move, I have no idea where the books are and when I am "mooched" I really have to dig.

Recently I was asked for "Tuscany for Beginners" and I found the book and mailed it off. I obviously messed up because the person "canceled" the transaction. I e-mailed her back and explained that I had mailed the book the day before.

I received back a snotty e-mail saying that I did not "follow the rules" and acknowledge her mooch therefore she considered it a non-transaction and canceled. Three days after the request.

Then, she slammed the book when she received it, saying it was not the edition she expected. Granted, it was an advanced reader copy that I had not read because I had inadvertently checked out the same book from the library and read it! (that is why it ended up in the Bookmooch web site).

My question is, what is BookMooch all about? Sharing books to read or book collectors in sheep's clothing?

I don't get it. The book had not been read. The spine not broken and the book itself in pristine, excellent, un-snotty condition.

And the very worst, this is a Kentucky girl.

She must have moved here from up North. (joke from Terms of Endearment).

On to a Rave. I saw the most fantastic movie via NetFlix that made me cry tears of satisfaction at the ending (and I was not drinking!!) and had me rushing out the next day to purchase the soundtrack. The later has been played at least 15 times in two weeks and I have burned copies for both my sisters and two of my closest friends. Not only was the movie terrific, the music is unforgettable.

Naturally an Irish movie called "ONCE".

If you have not seen it yet, quick! Rush out and rent it! If you are a romantic and a music lover this film is for you.

Per Per Post anyone? (just joking).

HOPE is a four letter word

First off, thank you everyone who left a kind message regarding my last post. It does a gals heart good to be told how well she can write. I humbly thank y'all.

I try to avoid writing about family members and those close to me. I feel this is akin to stepping over a line called friendship and perhaps even ethics. It sucks at times when I have such a juicy story I am dying to tell! The only family person I will write about (besides Joe and I tell him every) is Bridget. She is the type of person that when I mention Blog she says, "What???"....so

Last week a light bulb not only went off above my head, fireworks, dancing the polka, tossing back chocolate-tinis and throwing knives also accompanied the sudden parting of the fog!

I had decided to give her for Christmas jewelry-beading lessons.

The girl is good with her hands. Her Dad made his living making dental crowns and the such so she has inherited the gift. One of her first jobs was making one of original fast food "wraps" (a good ten years ago) and she was always put on the Wrap line because she was excellent at this particular composition. It has manifested itself in various ways years before, and after. I just was not paying particular attention.

She is in a series struggle to find her way in life. Going to school is not an options as she is just not.....let's say she is class room averse.

I never felt so brilliant in my life. And so late in being brilliant.

I have been canvassing all the Bead shops, craft shops and any small shop on Bardstown Road that may offer lessons. Today I hit the jackpot, and she was even with me! I had taken her out to lunch to give her a pep talk and good meal. She begged to hang out with me (how could I say no) so I told her what I was up to.

As we drove past the shop she turned to me and said, "Dad's friend owns this shop, I think. One time he was going to ask Sandy to hire me."

And yes it was Sandy! And yes they do have private lessons that are very reasonable and progressive. Bridget was in love as we entered the store and began to study all the beads, baubles, stones, strings and rocks....

I talked to Sandy. "How did you get into this business?'

10 minutes later.................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bridget said later she felt so bad for me, she should have warned me ahead of time how ponderous he could be at times.

I was just glad he started in the middle and did not start out telling me where he was born, how much he weighed, and where he went to grammar school, high school, took music lessons......blah blah blah.

What a story!

I could have told it in two paragraphs. It took him a lot longer.

But, I have hope and it feels so good. It feels like a warm wonderfulness in the mid section. She and I had an exquisite talk on the way to drop her off. Already we have a web site and so many art shows lines up in our heads.

If enthusiasm begets success that kid has a road opening up for her.

Just, never ask Sandy anything personal. Unless you have an afternoon to kill.

Sunday Scribblings # 88

Another interesting thought provoking entry brought to you by Sunday Scribblings.

The subject....Competition.

On the surface, the prompt did not seem that relevant to me and my thoughts, life, my being. Yet, when I am scrounging around for something to write about I returned the site and thought, what was I thinking!! I have a long history with being competitive and have the scars to prove it!

It all began in grammar school in a small two room school house where I realized I would never receive the best grades in the class no matter what I did, no matter how smart I thought I was, no matter what the subject, no matter how hard I tried. Her name was BKA and I loved her as much as I despised her. I competed for the Nuns attentions, grades, who got to the swing set first, who ate lunch with who under the sliding board, boyfriends from the meager selection we had out of our class of seven, (of which five were girls)(meaning Tom & Mac were in great demand) with this pretty demure girl from the country, a farmers daughter. We even fought (because isn't that what competition will turn into when you are eight and nine) over who was our best friend. We traded Missy back and forth like we traded school supplies, (trading supplies was one of our great passions and a coveted tiny red pen that had three ascending bubbles on it, much like three marbles, was the highest prize of all changing hands every several days)(I am remembering this stuff from over 40 years ago, the attached emotion is still so raw). She left our school before eight grade and nothing seemed right in the school, like the earth had deviated from its axis.

After that it was competitive swimming where I excelled, which surprised no one more than me, in the back stroke. I was good, very good, but now I was thrown into a bigger pool (no pun intended) of competitors, much larger than my grammar school universe, and the best I could do was to place seventh in the state competition when I was a Sophomore in HS. Lost interest after that.....I remember my Dad marveling at how when we would all approach the start how I was the smallest, slightest, least muscular and intimidating of all...yet I would kick ass (my words, not his)!

Then I didn't care about anything for awhile because it was the 1970's and I was in college.

Then it was the 1980's and I had to return to college and get a degree while attending night school because I had messed up so bad during my first attempt at majoring in FUN rather than a degree. And man oh man, did I ever want to prove myself as a scholar. I could not believe how I coveted having the highest grades in the class.....and I mean the curve setting grades.....and how I studied and studies and studied.

I did okay and at times, I did kick ass in the class room too.

Everyday I spent working for the Beverage Company involved some type of competition. I grew very weary.

It is at this point that I should be able to reflect and have some profound ending summary about how winning is not all it is cracked up to be. How we all compete yet we all can't be Top Dog. How it makes you stronger to stretch and try. How it builds character.

Yet all I can think of is Dirty Harry's famous line....

"A man's got to know his limitations."

And learn to live with them.

Almost Famous

Sunday morning I was looking through the travel section and read for the umpteenth time that you too can share your travel photo's with the Courier Journal! I looked at the photo's and thought to myself (for the umpteenth time)that my photo's are as good, if not better, than the three being featured that morning.

So I did it, I sat down and registered and uploaded four photo's from our trip to Ireland in 2004. My favorite photo from the entire 2004 was the one of Paddy Gleeson waving good-bye to Joe and myself as we left his cottage in O'Callahan's Mills, the home of one set of my Grandparents.

Paddy had just turned 100 and had his cards strung around the room from a string he had attached to all four walls. They hung like Christmas ornaments around the small dark area. We sat in front of his peat fire and drank a thimble of some grape wine he had on hand. He was partially deaf and very cute for 100.

Yesterday evening I open the paper and turn to A-2 and almost fall off the couch.

There is Paddy!!

I was not named as the photographer who supplied the picture, but the thrill of seeing one of my shots published was just pure joy. I immediately ran out of the house and began to hunt down all the newspaper stands to grab as many as I could.

After calling my mother.

And my brother.

And my sister.

I was so shocked and speechless!

Really.

Speechless.

The Workshop

I realize I spend a lot of time away from J-land. Actually, I am not blogging/journaling all that much anywhere anymore!

But...I was thinking about Christmas cards. I recently read about making a collage out of all your "saved" Christmas Cards. (come on, I know you save your cards too). So, I took it one better and thought I would make some cards from the stash I have accumulated over the years.

One thing led to another and I thought what if I asked if anyone wanted to be part of a Christmas Card exchange?

It is one of my favorite things....receiving cards, especially at Christmas. (don't worry Gayle, you are getting one...!!)(Jane, I need your address...)(Trish, I need your new address).

So, e-mail me, or leave a comment and let's see what happens.



(Yes, I sit on the floor...)

Culture Shock

I had spent the past ten years working in a predominately male environment. At the first plant I worked in Lex., not counting the Admin staff, I was one of four females in a work force of 250+. I was surrounded by testosterone and it was good. Truck drivers, merchandisers, the service department, warehouse staff, key account staff, regional staff, divisional staff, and the Mother of all Mothers Big Wigs from Atlanta, sales staff and area management and plant management....all men. A very masculine manly business this beverage business.

I attended my first sales meeting the first day on the job. Imagine my surprise, my shock, my jaw dropping disbelief that the entire sales staff, save the Advertising Director are women!

And as I met them one by one only one of them made me start praying, "Please dear God, don't let her be the one whose territory I am taking over." And, as much as I love irony, I was throwing a fit inside my little old head that yes yes yes, she has been covering the territory since is was abandoned several weeks ago and she has no intentions of helping one one iota.

The Advertising Director gets me in his office. "She is loved in that territory."

Yea. Yes, I can see that, by every man who has a breath of life left in him. The woman is a ex-beautician with mile high hair and perfect make up and boobs that are screaming to tumble out of her skin tight clothes.

"She is very anxious to help you as much as she can."

Oh yea, I noticed that when I requested to ride with her immediately that day she slipped out the back door and resurfaced seconds before a 1pm appointment in my territory.

I notice that she is more concerned with what the customers are saying about her. I tell her nothing, I tell the Ad Dir nothing, after all he is under some delusion about her being a team player. She is "its all about me" player.

This morning I felt my face beginning to flush and keeping my cool under wraps was taking enormous control. She ordered me to follow up with a customer she had taken care of and I asked, "what's up? Where is the ticket, what is the deal? Why are they receiving a free ad tomorrow?"

Today was day five I have spent in this brand new business. I can barely make out the rate cards, special inserts, Christmas Holiday specials, first time ad rates, full page, half page, quarter page...little 2 inches in classified (that sound sexy in a very perverse way). I know nothing and I am not so full of myself that I can't admit it. I know that it is like anything else, you have to learn and it is like training for a marathon, step by step.

She is a bitch and I know I am not the only one in the office to realize this. I am just the new girl, the lowest one on the totem pole.

Man oh man. Please never let me ever treat someone with such a cavalier attitude that says, "I don't care about you."

And I hear a lot of trash about this vixen out there and I know she knows.

I'm certain she is wondering what I am going to do.

Hell woman, I've been working with men for 10 years and I have learned a lot from them.....

Back in the Saddle

("Not only will you be hiring a hard working, loyal, creative employee, you will also be getting a pretty fair amateur photographer". Note card sent to persuade him to hire me!)

I start a new job tomorrow and I am excited. After six months of farting around I am ready to get back to it! I was unable to resume my career with the Beverage company, as there are just no available positions I was willing to apply for. My husband kept asking me, "When are you going to get a J-O-B!??" And I would answer, "When I am good and ready!"

About two weeks ago my good Gal-Pal and I went out to an Antique Mall housed in a three story old High School in the Buechel area. It was as if I walked into store heaven where I wanted everything! I found the funkiest coffee table and two end tables with marble bottoms and golden cherubs holding the glass tops! I found a wooden table, the hand painted top protected by heavy glass, which was created at the St. James Court Art Fair. It was to die for! The best part of the Derby City Antique Mall is that their things are moderately priced!

It was a moment for me. I, who could care less about her surroundings as long as there is a garden out back, and a nice kitchen with a working stove, suddenly has been bitten by the bug.

I had to get a job to support my new habit.

I picked up the local newspaper, here-by renamed by me the Evening Star, flipped to the want ads and there it was.

I knew it was going to be there. "Advertising Executive needed for sales". I ripped off a resume, had to put it into a hand writen envelope because I can not figure out how to work my printer with addresses, mailed it immediately and then waited. He called, we set an appointment for Tuesday, I was offered the job on Wednesday and I start tomorrow.

At 8:30 am. I am doing the dance of joy. I believe I have died and gone to heaven!!! I am giddy with my luck. Since I have been forced to be at work by 7am(and sometimes earlier, like 6am!) for almost 10 years!! The next thing I will find out is that I am paid every other week. I might faint! I, who for almost 10 years was paid once a month!!

Anyway, I'm excited and looking forward to this new beginning and meeting a bunch of new people and face new challenges.

Oh yea, have a pay check again.

That beveled glass with delicate wood work china cabinet is calling to me.

No Flash in the Pan

It should come as no surprise that my husband loves the Movies. He can toss off the names of most B-Movie actors and the plots of obscure movies. He is amazing with his ability to quote dialog from movies, along with nuance and accent. He will sit in his seat in the dark movie theater and read all the credits, looking for the name of that actor that appeared in one brief scene just because....

So, it was no surprise to me when he calls me late Tuesday afternoon and asks me to meet him downtown to listen to a "talk" by the screen writer Robert Moresco (co-authored Crash) being hosted by Spalding University as part of their "Festival of Contemporary Writing".

I am so glad I went and I am so glad that I always carry around my Moleskine in my purse! I ended up taking three pages of notes.

Some of my scribblings.......

" Set up an idea.....like "I need to protect my family"...need to test an idea with the character.

We are all driven by the things that own us....

Attempt to understand what demons the characters have propelling them..

Four ingredients for a story 1) story structure 2)plot 3)characters 4)theme

Writing is ability to ask the questions and come up with the answer...

Emotional price paid...."

Fascinating stuff.

More fascinating was the battery of questions "Bobby" took (please call me Bobby, he requested after being addressed as Mr. Moresco) related to the movie "Crash". People really and truly wanted to know about the Matt Dillon character, his take on racism, dialog questions and "how do I get my script read??"! I must admit, after seeing the movie I understood why it won the Oscar that year (this year? how time flies)because it touched me and made me ask questions of myself. And this crowd of people, around 200 of us, had lots of questions for him.

I've been up since 3am because of a bad dream! The story line was this....I got caught with illegal drugs and had to flush them down a sink. I was not taken to jail, but I was so worried about being hunted down on the "grid" because my heart was racing and beating so fast.

Pancakes anyone?

I got the Netflix Blues

Netflix is the only way to go when it comes to renting DVD's. The idea of a genius! I joined several years ago and have not set foot in a Blockbuster since.

At first, I had Netflix all to myself! Oh the joy of having all those chick flicks arrive and watched at my leisure. I even found some of my favorites from years gone by that rarely appeared on television and were never to be found at the local rental store!

Then Joe began to criticize my selections! And if I did not watch them in some preconceived respectable amount of time, he shipped them back and replace them with , what he refers to, as Real Man Movies.

In other words, I have lost control!

My BEFORE SUNRISE has been replaced by SLOW BURN.

My AURORA BOREALIS was replaced with WHY WE FIGHT.

My BOYNTON BEACH CLUB was tossed aside and TENACIOUS D arrived in its place.

I have to admit, some of his He-Man movies have been quite good. LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA is one of the boldest anti-war films I have ever seen. THE GOOD GERMAN was surprisingly good. BLOOD DIAMOND......one word, wow. Djimon Hounsou deserved the Oscar and was robbed.

And, some of my movies have sucked. I was bitterly disappointed with EVENING. I did not find any of the characters engaging with the exception of Toni Collette's role as the daughter. And it was excoriating watching Vanessa Redgrave wane away. And one of the principals, the pivotal character, I found so unsympathetic I was actually disappointed when he was not killed (on his first attempt!).

And then there was THE TIGER AND THE SNOW.

Sometimes I am not aware that the movie is going to be in sub-titles. I am typically annoyed that I am going to have to concentrate on "reading" the movie rather than developing opinions about plot and character. And when The Tiger and the snow began with Tom Waits playing piano at a wedding I had no idea what was in store for me.

I have not been so wowed over by a movie since LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA...which incidentally was in subtitles also.

For anyone who has not watched this movie yet (I think I must be one of the last since it was released in 2005), I will not ruin it for y'all...but I am so grateful to European directors who refuse to dumb down to their audiences. In other words, I never saw it coming!

I never saw it coming!!

Me, (who loves that American movies are dumbed down), who lives to lean over and whisper to Joe, "The Butler did it......."

I never saw it coming!

Wonderful film and once again the fight is on for control of the Netflix Queue.

Hodge Podge

It would appear the only posts I can get out these days are long rambles...so here is another.

I made a trip to The Friends of the Library Book Cellar yesterday and spent a whopping $13.74. This is what I purchased after browsing for about an hour and a half and knew people were going to wonder if I had disappeared off the face of the earth.

My first find - The Foxfire Book - Anchor Books edition 1972.

I think this might be a first edition if a 1st edition is possible because most of the articles were published in the Foxfire Magazines. I do not think I owned this book back in the day, but I know many people who did and I think this is why I picked it out of the offerings in the US Travel section. Hmmmmmmm.....I think it may have been misfiled, but heck, this is the book Cellar! I sat in a large easy chair and began to thumb through the pages and was immediately absorbed reading about the people who contributed to this effort.

How can you pass over a book that walks you through treating a "rattlesnack" bite.

2) Daisy Bates in the Desert - A woman's life among the Aborigines by Julia Blackburn. I think I may already have this book in paperback. Sometimes I do that, going through my collection (which are housed in boxes for several years) I'll find multiple copies of stuff I did not realize I had purchased before! Continuing with my fascination with strong odd women who take a different path in life that is filled with challenge and adventure.

3) A Hilltop in Tuscany by Stephanie Grace Whitson. A novel about one of my favorite subjects, Italy. Prefer non-fiction, but what's a girl to do?

4) The memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards. Have wanted to read this for a long time and for $3.00, now is the time.

5) Best Friends by Martha Moody. I'm a sucker for anything written about the 1970's. Redbook calls it a "terrific read'. I am on page 21 and about ready to move on to another book. I mean, who in 1974 brings a microwave to a dorm room? We have already breezed through their freshman year in college and nothing of any interest happened. I wonder if it is the same 1970's I went to college? I'll give it some more time, as it was a national best seller. I always want the sex, drugs and rock and roll, anti-war sentiment. I ain't feeling it.

6) Onward and Upward in the Garden by Katherine S. White - 1979. A book that encompasses the essays by E.B. White's wife published in the New York Times during the 1950's and 60's. I love garden books. And essays are the best!

7) Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden. My SIL was reading this book several summers ago and was suppose to pass it on to me. I loved the movie and am a firm believer that the book is always better than the movie.

8) Younger than that Now - by Jeff Durstewitz and Ruth Williams. This is a torn up large paper back that is actually an uncorrected page proof. "He was a rabble-rousing NY high school senior. She was the fiercely proud daughter of the Deep South. In 1969 these two strangers exchanged angry letters, igniting a lifetime friendship and an extraordinary personal chronicle of our time." Any book that has a Bob Dylan lyric as a title gets my $1.00. I'm certain I will find the dawn of the 1970's as I remember it in this book.

The minutiae of the day

I'm feeling agitated for several reasons. The lawn mower will not start and I have a small blister on my finger from the obsessive compulsive yanking I did on the starter line. What is wrong with an electric starter? Why are lawn mowers so macho? I think it must be the spark plug and I have no idea how to check it out. Pull it out. Throw it out.

I went to Walmart to purchase Halloween candy and all that is left is concentrated at the entry doors. I purchased about $30 worth of the tooth rotting junk and I doubt I have enough! The smaller bags, generally 11.5 ounces were $1.92. The larger bags, 21 ounces, were $3.97. I think Walmart believes us to be idiots.

I think I have an animal taking up residence in the attic. Do you call it an attic even if only an animal can fit up there? I hesitate to tell J. because he will think I want him to crawl up there and investigate. Or at least stick his head up there and take a look with the flash light and report back to me. This reminds me of when my Mom had some animal in her "attic" and J and my daughter crawled up there. We naturally had to get an exterminator. It was all so long ago all I remember is calling the guy and him saying, "A coon up there?!" The proof was in the "droppings".

We did have a bunny and a ground hog in the back yard this summer. The ground hog was very fast. I would only catch him out of the corner of my eye as he made a mad dash for his "house" under the garden shed. We use to have squirrels when we lived in the older house several years ago. They would laugh at us and J. swears one of them threw him the "bird" one day. I've had squirrels throw nuts at me to get me to move....true story.

My daughter called mid-morning to ask me out to lunch and to spend quality time with me. This means she is broke and hungry. But, we did have a nice time which included a trip to The Fresh Market. She was sampling the jelly beans when a clerk makes a mad dash for us and presents her with a set of thongs and recommends the pomegranate as his favorite. 10% juice. I thought for certain we were to be chastised for having our hands in the jelly jar...but they are very cool there.

J. wants me to rearrange the garage because he says there is no reason to have a two car garage and not be able to get a car in there! That is a big chore and that is why I was trying to mow the lawn. Guess I'd rather do yard work that heavy lifting.

I slept later than usual this morning and missed the re-cycling pick up. For some crazy reason, they only pick up every other week and I have a load every week. They give you two bins for the recycling. I need five.

I'm beginning to be reluctant to post these days and have to rack my brain to come up with something. I once was over flowing with ideas, but that was before I realized the Internet is actually a small place.

Happy Halloween!

A Bad Day for Grandma's

Another inspiration from Sunday Scribblings

I was blogging in March of 2004, but did not share this because it was just too emotionally overwhelming. I have my hand written journal in front of me and it outlines the events of that day, yet it does not capture the sheer terror I felt that evening.

When we called our brother to tell him Mom had had a heart attack we found out that my SIL's mother passed away,(after a long struggle with lung cancer), that same day. MY SIL said, "It was a bad day for Grandma's".

"N., L. and I sat all day in the waiting room while they operated on Mom. They took her for prep around 1030am and she refused to take off her rings. She said they had been on her hands for over 50 years and would not come off easily. The prep personnel told her that they had to be removed in case of swelling. Wouldn't she rather cut them off than loose a finger?

We waited and waited and waited some more. They were to bring her rings to us.

Around 230pm we had had enough and asked. We were told that Mom was in a sterile environment and we could not see her nor wait with her. Finally, they rolled her out and we we received the rings as they whisked her to the operating room.

We were then ushered to the heart surgery waiting room.

I think they began operating around 315pm.

We were kept informed throughout the afternoon. They surgical team called the waiting room with updates. "They have hooked her up to the by-pass machine". "They have begun working on her valve". "They are finished repairing the valve and are now beginning the by-pass".

All afternoon Doctors came into the waiting room and sat down with the each of the families and delivered the results of the operations. The room that was filled to overflowing earlier in the day, slowing began to dwindle down to a handful of concerned and strained faces.

Around 8pm a nurse came into the area and asked at the desk where the "SURNAME" family was sitting. We were asked to leave and enter an adjacent conference room and wait for the Doctor.

A feeling of cold dread flooded me. I felt as if I had taken a punch to the solar plexus. My brother asked if Mom was out of surgery and was told only, "The doctor will talk to you".

I knew my Mom had died on the operating table. That is why we were being shown into another room so that we would not upset the other families.

I sat down next to L. and began to pray. The dread was threatening to overpower me. I could not speak. I could not share my anxiety with L & N. But L. knew, my face said it all.

Sitting in total silence for the longest most excruciating five minutes, the Doctor finally burst through the door and announced that Mom was in recovery and had sailed through the operation.

I broke down into sobs of relief."

I have spent many hours, days and nights in hospitals over the past five or so years and I can only conclude that Hospitals are an evil necessity. The staff are at times kind and supportive, and at other times cruel and inaccessible. I have learned to ask a lot of questions and even challenge them if I think the situation warrants such an action. They are only human, not super humans or God's. They make mistakes, get tired, become cranky.

It's my Mom and Dad lying there.

A necessary evil.

MY FIRST JOB

Brought to you by Sunday Scribblings

The very first job I ever had was assigned to me by my Drill Sargent Mother. And it was washing the dishes after the evening meal. Not only did I have to wash the dishes, I had to set the table and peel the potatoes. Being Irish, we had mashed potatoes with every meal, except Fridays which back in the day was still meatless. But I still had to wash the dishes.

As our family grew, the ordeal of washing the dishes grew!!

I was a feminist by situation and had many a futile argument with my mother over the division of "jobs" in our family. I was the oldest girl, and the next sister was 11 years younger than me. So I was saddled with all the girl stuff.

On the other hand, there were the boys, three of them. Their jobs were "shared" and included clearing the table, taking our the garbage, drying and putting away the dishes.

Taking out the garbage!! A 30 second chore that consisted of just walking down to the trash cans and tossing in a bag or two of gross stuff! What I would give to have that job rather than scrapping all the plates, washing all the utensils and plates and pots for eight people!! It took at the least a half hour.

I argued and argued about how unfair it all was. The boys just ignored me and went about their easy chores and more than likely watched more TV than me too.

I thought it was much easier to be a boy rather than a girl, something that remains pretty much true in most of the division of jobs and roles for the sexes.

Having children....need I say more.

God certainly has a good sense of humor.

To Make A Long Story Short

There have been a lot of ups and downs recently with my Dad. Literally, ups and downs. He has had several episodes where his legs have given out and down he goes. The week before last, he was on the ground three separate times. One found him collapsing on the way into a Wednesday night Mass. My Mother rushed in, waited until a break in the action then proclaimed, "Tom has fallen!" and half the congregation in the back jumped up and ran out to help.

The last straw was when he fell at home and blood was involved.

My Dad is a fighter. He was born premature and not expected to live. 88 years later, here he is continuing to beat the odds.

Considering the "quality of life" not only for my Dad, but for my Mom, it was decided to put in a pace maker. The doctor explained it would not necessarily prolong his life, but it would regulate the heart beat which was falling too low and causing the drop in blood pressure.

When my Dad's health took a turn for the worst four years ago a pace maker was not an option. Considering the improvements of recent medical procedures "they" decided that "out patient' surgery was all that was required to get my Dad up and running again.

It was almost the truth.

I realize that I am not the only one who has to watch their parent fade away. My Dad is a shell of the person he was. He is encased in a body that does not work any longer. He has had strokes that have robbed him of who he is. Who he was.

I sit with him as he watches television in between naps. Anything that is cowboy related, John Wayne especially, he is thoroughly absorbed. I sometimes can catch a glimpse of the person he was, sometimes he makes an observation, or an attempt at a joke. There is a tiny part of him in there.

It was reported that as he lay on the sidewalk in front of the church with his eyes closed, the EMS people finally arrived and standing over him asked if he had passed out or was unconscious.

His startling blue eyes flew open and he commanded them, "Get me the hell up!"

Not that my Dad ever swore before, actually he never did, he always said that a man who had to resort to profanity was a man who lacked a vocabulary.

I would give anything, anything to have one day, one afternoon, one hour with my Dad the way he was. To have him rebuke me for muttering a profanity. To have him shake his finger in my face and tell me that I was a "FAMILY SURNAME"!! To have those moments when he would be telling a story and begin to wind it up by saying, "To make a long story short...."

To hear one more time his white washed WWII stories. To hear the endless supply of, "When I was young...." narratives. What I would give to hear about his light weight fighting career in the army, or to be told about him swimming across the river in New Hampshire, or his days as a number runner in NYC.

When ever his time does come, even though I am beginning to believe he will live to be 100, his long story will indeed be cut too short.

Powerful

...brought to you by Sunday Scribbligs


Over 5,000 runners crammed in a single block of Vine Street under the Central Baptist Banner proclaiming the "START" line for the Midsummer Night Run. The evening was still aglow in the last washes of daylight as the start gun went off with a resounding BANG!!.

People began to surge forward slowly, bunched together heading towards the starting line which tweeted as you crossed indicating your chip had been activated. The slow paced walk quickened to a slow jog and then you were able to burst forward as the crowd began to run...run...run.

Three miles and one tenth till the FINISH LINE.

The sun set, the moon rose, the crowd of runners thinned as we made our way through the downtown streets of Lexington. The lead runners were headed home before I even reached the half way point.

Joe had run off long before, as his feet are bigger and can cover more ground than mine (that is my story and I am sticking to it).

It was hot, it was humid, it was sticky, and it felt as if I were running through syrupy air. Sweat dripped down my forehead and crept into my eyes. I tired to wipe it off with my sweaty hands. My lungs burned. I was passing people.

I rounded the fountain and headed down Main street.

The crowd was very thin now. The fast walkers, the parents running with baby buggies, the kids who ran like the wind then walked for a while then ran like the wind again....this was the pack I was with.

I rounded the corner and headed back down Vine knowing I was nearing the finish line. The sky above was pitch black now and the stars were out as I headed home.

The FINISH LINE loomed ahead, my heart surged and I was able to speed up. I was KICKING!!! Then I saw Joe, on the other side of the finish line, waiting for me, cheering me on!

I FINISHED!

The feeling can only be described as euphoric. A buzz that no drug in the world can match.

I was flying HIGH!!

That was one POWERFUL feeling. I have run dozens of races since, but nothing ever compared, not one of them ever came close to crossing that first finish line.

That was some POWERFUL stuff.

Progresssing...

I like this one, only I wish I had not put the peel and press letters on the bottom. I might un-peel and reapply with the ransom note style.

I tossed the postcard idea and have grabbed my blank note cards. The extra area makes all the difference.

I received my first one today! A fab water color....note card!

A Rocky Start

The first collage postcard I attempted with a Back to School theme.



The second attempt.



The final one! This one made the cut. This is very hard to do when you have no idea what you are doing. I think it need a little something more. I'll look at it in the morning....maybe some glitter (lol). (I suck at this!!lol)

A Macabre Sight

To feed the beast that lives within me, I have been hanging out at the local Flea Markets, Peddler Malls, Antique & Collectible stores, Goodwill, DAV Thrift Stores, and in general, any store full of junk where $5 goes a long way.

I was astonished when I ran across this box of doll hands. They were sitting on the overflowing shelves of Craft things. I tried to sneak out my small digital camera but of course another shopper would choose that moment to enter the aisle and walk behind me several times obviously waiting for me to vacate the spot in front of all the cool and interesting stuff spilling from the shelves onto the floor.

I could not leave these doll hands behind!

My mind is spinning with the possibilities.

Woe is Me

I found via Sunday Scribblings this really cool web site called Dreamergirl. Absolutely stunning. Well, I was so inspired by the beauty that I thought I would join in on a postcard exchange.

I should have known better.

Now I am trying to teach myself how to make a creative and pretty postcard that will convey what Autumn means to me.

As I approached my glue sprayed canvas with my carefully cut out carnivorous looking flower that i was going to attach to replace the girls head, (I am working with Halloween theme on this card) I dropped it and it landed on a spot I definitely did not want! About a quarter off the card!!

Dang it.

So I just slapped on a deranged looking Tin Man and then sat back in horror at the image I had created. I slapped on another head....and now she looked like she had been beheaded!!

So I added some pretty words and took some aspirin.


This is hard work!


I will not be sending out this card!! But, it is my favorite so far!

A Rose By Any Other Name

Thanks to Sunday Scribblings I have realized that in four years of pounding out posts, "Entries", essays, confessions, reports, travel experiences, memories shaded by time, and the occassional rant...there just isn't much I have not written about before.

From October 9, 2003.....

My name is Mary Theresa. My Mom named me in advance because it was her dream for me to become a Nun. Mary was never really truly mine. At the Catholic High School I attended there was Mary Anne, Mary Ellen, Mary Alice, Mary Beth, Mary Jane, Mary, Mary, Mary and Mary. You could yell "MARY" in the hallway and half the girls would turn to answer.

Why couldn't I have had my own personalized name? Exclusive to me, giving me a different sense and significance of self. And to others!

In my day dreams, I named myself dramatic, romantic monikers.

I named my daughter, Bridget...Theresa. Bridget conjures up images of sexy French girls even though its actually the female patron saint of Ireland. Not to mention the name of my Great Grandmother.

I was stumped when Bridget was born, so certain she was going to be a male. 23 years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, you were not given the opportunity of knowing in advance the sex of your child. It was "PUSH, PUSH, PUSH.....its a GIRL!" I was so surprised. The entire last six months of carrying her, she had squirmed, kicked, and wiggled around so much I knew she was a boy.

My Mom named Bridget. I was clueless and half heartedly came up with Nicole. My mother balked and said "That's not an Irish name." And so, she became Bridget after a woman born in the 1800's.

No mistake was made, for she is most certainly a Bridget. Even the name rolls off the tongue and tickles the lips. It can be drawn out as in, "Brrrrrriiiidggggettttt..." or short and harsh "Bidgt". I like the way there are numerous ways to spell Bridget, therefore giving her the latitude to change her mood and/or her sense of self with the spelling.

I was one of six children. My moniker has always been "The oldest", and when my sisters were born, "The oldest girl". Now as my parents age, I still am the oldest and introduced as, "My oldest daughter". I never had a nick name like some other Mary's I knew. No Mollie or Missy or Sissy for me...just plain, Nun-like Mary.

I love the Internet for the wonderful pleasure of naming myself and giving myself great nicknames like HighwayStar, Drama Queen and AlphaWoman.

Yet, a rose by any other name.......

First the eyes, then the knees, then....the mind!

Several years ago I was sprawled out on the floor of my living room reading a street map of Cincinnati and cursing. Muttering, "When did they start making these maps so small???!!" as I struggled to read the streets and make sense of a city, that quite frankly, didn't. It was with great reluctance and total denial that I began to suspect that my eyes were going!!

I had always been so vain about my good eyesight!

That was then. I did eventually go to an eye doctor and receive a pair of bona fide reading glasses. A couple of years later, my sister neglected to toss my suitcase in her car as she was taking me to the airport and ran over it! My first pair was greatly impaired.

It took me YEARS to return to the eye doctor and get another prescription. I had become hooked on the $1 glasses you could obtain from the Dollar Store. When you run them over with the car you think, "what the hell."

I actually got two pairs, one for reading and one for long distance. Because, now I needed bifocals.

Say it ain't so!!

The long distance pair I lost when we moved from Central KY to NE Indiana. They just never showed up at the new house. The reading glasses were always a thorn in my side as the lenses kept popping out of the frame! They were the smudgiest pair of glasses in the entire history of eye glass wear. Last year one of the arms broke. On occasion I will pop the lens back in, hook it over one ear, balance it on the bridge of my nose and see the way the Doc thought I should see.

Otherwise, it was those $1 glasses by the gross which I always got mixed up with Joe's who when ever he put a pair of mine on would say, "You really are blind, aren't you?"

This is how I found myself standing in the middle of a huge assembly line eye glass sweat shop looking around with my blurred vision for a sign that would lead me in the right direction.

I am turning into such a bitch.

My glasses would not be ready until hours later and I opted to pick them up the next morning.

When I get there, my glasses are not ready, they have to be sent out and will take two weeks.

"So much for the "same day" guarantee!" I quipped, with just enough edge that the poor customer service lady finally really looked me in the eye.

"Why the delay?"

"We have to send them out to get the gobbly gook stuff put on them so that you don't get the glare from the sun..." or something like that.

"I don't need it then, because I need those glasses to read." At this point, I needed those glasses immediately!!

OK, it will take 1/2 hour.

I came back three hours later and they could not find my glasses. Finally, the poor over worked Customer Service Lady came to grips with the situation and told me that in the process of making my glasses they had cracked one of the lenses and now would have to re-do them, take a seat and we will have them ready in a few minutes.

A good half hour later she called me over, away from the rest of the people in the large show- room/waiting room and told me my glasses could not be finished because the machine that puts a protective coating on the glass so I couldn't scratch them (do they have a coating for running them over?) has broken down.

I guess she thought I might blow.

All I could think about was when things went terribly wrong for me when I was working at The Beverage Company. And I took pity on her and told her I understood she was doing her job the best she could, and that it was the other people who were messing things up. I knew it took a lot of courage to give me the bad news and I had to give her a break.

For my acceptance of the situation and not causing a scene I got over 50 bucks knocked off the cost of the glasses and a free cleaning kit (14.99 retail).

And, the glasses are finally sitting on the bridge of my nose.

Not that much different from the $1 glasses, just cost 150 times more and I don't resemble a bug anymore.

1,000,000 to 1 odds

...Or I collect National Geographics and have an essay for Sunday Scribblings


I am a woman on a mission. I have been scoping out all the used bookstores in the area. There are not that many of them which is surprising, or not surprising depending on how you view things.

Since mentioning the National Geographic obsession a few entries ago, I googled the teenager who sailed around the world in the 1960's and found his name, Robin Lee Graham. It was exactly as I remembered, he was 16 years old in 1965 and took off in a very small sail boat from Hawaii with the intent of a solo voyage around the world. I decided to try and track down the NG that told the story, which I found was April 1969.

I went to a local Goodwill store that has hundreds of the NG's on hand, but not the April 1969. On a hunch, I started to scan the titles of the contents which are displayed on the magazine spine, each one having four stories. On October 1969 I saw "Voyage" and pulled it.

My hunch payed off! It was the last of a series of three written by Robin about his incredible feat which incidentally took approximately five years!! The other two NG's were the April 1969 and October 1968.

So, I have been on a mission to find them locally. I have hit practically every used bookstore in the area. Sadly, I have found out that no one carries National Geographic any longer! It's hit or miss.


Today found me at a small used book store in Lyndon. A bookstore that I use to visit and purchase books when I lived here in the 1980's. Which I lost no time telling the woman who owned the store! Obviously, this meant more to me than her. I wonder how people can stay in business, to run a sole proprietor store and be so unfriendly! I asked about NG's and she directed me to a paltry few stacked in a hidden cob webbed corner. "I'm looking for October 1968!" I said, with too much enthusiasm because her sarcastic "good luck" made me think I was perceived as a nutcase.

She did have two 1968's out of 10, neither of them October.

I ended up at a Goodwill Store off Shelbyville Road going through three large drop off canvas containers. What fun!! For 50 cents each, I found some really great books!

I knew there was another Goodwill pretty close and the day was still early and beautiful so I drove over and to my pleasant surprise there were four of these large three feet by three feet containers outside!

Going through them is like digging for gold. My feet practically left the ground to get to the bottom of the "barrel". I had developed a system of stacking them on the edge between two, and then as I got closer to the bottom to begin tossing them in the other bin.

I found more treasures at the second Goodwill. I had six more books stacked up! I had only worked through two of the four when I lazily began to toss books right and left in the third one.

About in the middle of the books, toys, encyclopedias, coloring books, notebooks, magazines, and stuffed animals I spotted the familiar yellow spine of a National Geographic.

I said to myself, "It's October 1968", and then laughed hysterically at myself as we all do at these insane thoughts.

I lifted it out.

October 1968.

I gasped and looked around for someone jump up and down with and dance in celebration!

There was no one.

I did a little jig anyway and high fived the air and laughed at that damn woman in Lyndon! "Good luck" she had sneered at me and look at me now!!

Naturally, my next stop was to buy a lottery ticket.

I'll let you know tomorrow.