NIGHT LIGHT


You can't go home again.

This past Saturday afternoon I drove home to Kentucky. I left Ft. Wayne at 4pm and Sunday afternoon around the same time I was headed back.

Twenty-four hours was all I needed. Twenty-four hours was all it took. I feel so much better. The cloud has lifted, at least for the time being.

As I was nearing the bridge on I-65 that spans the Ohio River, I could see Louisville begin to spread before me. My heart began to swell, my chest became tight and yes I began to cry. I was home.

I wandered up and down Bardstown Rd. in the Highland area trying to capture "night pictures" with my camera while waiting on my daughter. They are a disaster! The manual suggested a tripod! HA! Now that I know it can be done, I just need to know how to do it. The Highland area is so alive with people, entertainment, pubs, book stores, skate shops, restaurants, esoteric shops every where you look. Thriving and colorful, bursting with excitement! I just wish I could have captured its essence with the camera. Next time, when I am more practiced.

After visiting with family for all to brief a time, I was headed home. The route this time was through Cincinnati!

Hello Trader Joe's!!!! I spent a small fortune in there. Do I really need Trader Joe's Toaster Sesame Oil? Or Thai Red Curry? Trader Giotto's Artichoke Antipasto? Yes..yes...YES!!! It is so much fun to shop there.

This is how I do it. Cafe Twists Chocolate Chip $2.49, "That's 3/4 of a pack of cigarettes that I do not smoke any longer" as I toss it into the cart.

James Keller & Son Dundee Orange Marmalade $3.49, "That's a pack of cigarettes I don't smoke anymore." Toss it into the cart with the honey peanut butter (2/3 pack) and the chocolate covered cherries (two packs).

It is said, "You can't go home again." I say, "The hell you can't".

Green Thumb


Sometimes the light's all shining on me,
Other times I can barely see..."


When we were searching for a home in the Ft. Wayne area there were only a few things I wanted. First, a family room with a fire place. Secondly, two full baths. And last but not the least by any stretch of the imagination....lot's and lot's of closets!

What I got was a beautiful landscaped yard with dozens of perennials.

I have managed in the course of two months is to almost ruin the yard with neglect. The only thing I have managed to do is to plant six tomato plants the second week of June. I have just recently seen the first fruits of my labor. Other than that, I cringe if the previous owner (who is a total sweetheart, and I'm certain I will write more about her in the weeks to come)comes calling to pay a visit to her beloved flowers and plants.

I planted the tomatoes very late in the season. By Kentucky standards, they are to be planted after Derby Day, the first Saturday in May. There is little chance of a killer frost after this date. And it stands to reason, I would be very late in planting the annuals!

The tomatoes are growing and need to be staked. Since I neglected to bring the cages with me from KY, I was in a bad way last week end.

Off to the local garden shop I go last Sunday praying they had something I could use. Once I arrive, I realize they are closing for the season. On the fence they have this notice:

WAGONS $15.

I am actually thrilled because the wagons are so great! They have those bright red plank sides! The drill is like this, you grab a wagon and pull it around the nursery and plunk your plants in the bed. Great idea and when I first discovered the place in June I loved it! I was excited to get a wagon for $15!! It was going to look so great filled up with flowers on the front yard.

Guess what? The wagon was not for sale!!!! What was for sale, was every plant, every hanging basket I could cram in that wagon......$15.

I was like a crazy woman. Once of the attending workers pointed at it and stated, "You can get some more in that corner". I'm not certain if she was being sarcastic, but you better believe I crammed some more stuff in.

All in all, I ended up with seven hanging planters and about twenty annuals.

I just got finished with all the planting. My beautiful back yard will be more beautiful in a couple of weeks.

A DEMANDING MISTRESS

Be forewarned, this is going to ramble. I am at a cross roads in my life and I know what I am going to do, I'm not certain it is the right thing, because it seems the easy way out. Doing the right thing usually hurts and requires a lot more integrity, stamina and character than I have right now.

I raised my voice to my boss today. Wrong thing to do. What was I thinking. Do I have a death wish? Did I crack? It was as if I slapped him! I won't go into all the horrid details, but I have had enough. I told him I felt I was in a hostile envioronment. He repeated the same questions over and over I thought I was going to pass out, I finally asked if we needed an arbrator.

I candidly told him ( because I felt bad making him think he was the total cause for my feelings of being an outsider, never to be admitted to the club) that when I interviewed for the job, I realized I did not want it. That it was a total shock to me when it was offered to me. I accepted because of the money.

I'm working at a job I hate because it pays me exceptionaly well. And I have a car. And terrific benefits etc. etc. etc. Yet, I am totally unhappy.

I was going to make a list of the Pro's and Con's as to stay with the job or quit. Quit. I am so ashamned of the word applied to me. As I drove home my biggest thought was, "I hope the Con list is longer." That told me right there that I was going to give my resignation.

This job and me are not a good fit. I loved what I did before, albeit I was bored to tears, I still loved it. I hate this job. H A T E.

The only good thing (besides the money) is Deep Throat. I hate to let him down.

Bridget Christening


The Stories of our Lives

I have just spent another week in the company of Deep Throat AKA the Renegade. When you spend nine plus hours a day with someone you find out quickly if you enjoy the company. The rewards of interesting people are vast and invigorating.

Inside all of us we have that handful of stories that we keep close and dear. How many reveling anecdotes we share depends on the person and the strength of the bond we are developing.

I listened to story after story this past week about D.T.'s childhood, his brothers, High School history, his marriage, his children, his job experiences, the formation of his views, and his philosophies about life, love and work. I was fascinated. And thoroughly entertained all week.

Driving home last evening I realized how much I was going to miss having a companion with me. I was especially going to miss those stories. Even if I did hear one or two of them twice.

The stories I have inside of me I have poured out and into this journal. I find that I am shy about articulating too much about myself, but I am brash with a keyboard!

When did I stop being cool?


The point in being cool is that it is effortless. If you try to be cool, then you're not. It is something you either have or you don't. Being cool is evident in various ways. It is an attitude. Sometimes it is all attitude. You don't care what other people think, you think for yourself. You don't follow trends, you follow what you want. Fashion is only what you want to wear and you wear it with style. It transcends generations. You never revert to using the current slang. A simple raised eyebrow, a gesture, silence. A cigarette held a certain way. You are at ease in a crowd. Yet, you are usually a loner.

The most famous of the cool come to my mind. James Dean. Marlon Brando in his prime. Peter Fonda in Easy Rider. Keith Richards. Joe Perry. Angelina Jolie. Sharon Stone. Katherine Hepburn. Lauren Bacall.

If I ever once felt cool, if ever in my life I thought that just maybe I meet the criteria, it has totally been destroyed by the pair of masculine Rockport I am forced to wear daily! My feet hate those shoes and look up at me asking..."Why?" I hate those shoes and the moment my time is done, in the parking lot before I roar towards home, I pull those ugly monstrosities off and slip on my pink flip flops.

If I were truly cool I would be able to wear them and not care a fig about it.

But alas, I am not.

Out with the old, in with the new

For someone who is so adamant about hanging on to things, I wish I were more committed to holding on to the people I have known in all the various places and stages of my life.

I have been kept so busy and occupied with my new job, that I hit the ground running every morning and fall into bed exhausted in the evenings. I have little spare time to miss things back home. Yet, when I do, I miss it in a big way. In a heartaching, tears pushing to gush out of my eyes way.

Over the years, my friends seem to revolve around those I work with. I suppose this is natural, because I am with them day in and day out. I begin to know everything about them, their wonderfulness, their weaknesses, their trials, their families, their dreams, their disappointments, their faults. I look forward to seeing them, and sharing my life with them as they do with me. I miss them so much, that it is hard to put into words. I guess I love them.

I have moved so often, that I have many enclaves of people I have left behind.

Beginning with my grammar school class, twelve of us beginning in first grade and finishing eight years together. When I went to a Catholic school on Lexington, most of them went to the local public high school. Naturally, our worlds no longer the same, they over lapped a little, but for the most part, we went our different ways.

My High School friends! Once it ended, I attended a college not one single person from my class applied to! Lost again.

College. What an experience I had in Western Kentucky. I have kept in contact with only one person (sometimes two) over the years. Every so often I run into someone, but it is few and far between.

Then my excessive and over the top job experiences! Oh my God! The wonderful, interesting, and lovable people I have encounter, befriended, loved, then lost.

Now I am starting all over again. A whole new set of people. The Turtle, (who incidentally is going to get his tater smoked once he returns from vacation, but that is another story)was my first friend in this new land. But, come to find out he was no friend at all! A wolf in sheeps clothing.

"Deep Throat" my new real friend, is as interesting as they get. I have been spending enormous amounts of time with D.T. since the Turtle is one vacation, and having a blast.

He is more like me, we have to work. It is not our lives! It does not obsess us nor overpower us. We know how the system works. We know how to play the game. And the game is CYA and cover for your buddies.

It is so sad to leave people behind. Finding new friends is the cure for that type of melancholy.+

SUMMER

Headwaters Park, Ft. Wayne Indiana

Summer means water. Pools, lakes, the ocean. And on this bright sunny hot summer day, it was the water fountain the gushed its ten foot plumes of water towards the brilliant blue sky as the group of children, and one dog, danced and ran through the its rainbow of rain and fun.

I took a lot of photo's of the children playing, but I found this one the most engaging.

It's Junk, but it's my Junk

It's very disconcerting that I have searched for a hour for a software program that I know I put in a safe place. It is part of my Operation Summer Projects. I have searched high and low. I am in fear I have transported it to the storage area I had to rent last week. I'll never find it in that dungeon.

I had to rent it. I have way too much stuff. I have a much smaller house to cram in all my precious things. The 300 square feet of "attic" space I had in my Kentucky home is a sweet memory.

I had a yard sale before moving here. I went through all my clothes....twice...and donated bags and bags to the big Christian church that gives it away to the needy. I still have way too many things.

I look at all the clothes that made the cut. I still have my beautiful red velvet sleeveless cocktail legnth dress, with white lace that I wore to the Sophomore Valentine dance. My first date. I remember my mother and I buying that dress from an exclusive dress shop in Lexington called Lowenthal's. I remember the day vividly because as we were crossing the street my mother went to take my hand and I jerked it away as if she had touched me with a blow torch. I'll never forget the look of hurt on her face. So I keep the dress to remind me of how much I love her, owe her, and what a Saint she is.

So, I can't get rid of that dress.

The clothes that I decide to keep all have similiar stories attached to them. It is insignificant that I will never be able to wear again. Maybe someday Bridget can open a museum with all the things I have accumulated. A vintage clothes store.

For the past thirty years I have been hauling around a large green garbage bag full of unframed prints. In the late 1970's I began seeing a guy who worked at a Frame Shop. He got me involved in purchasing prints and over the years I have built up a nice collection. I have several Coleach's, Charles Harper, Ray Harm, Paul Sawyer.

I should say "had". They got tossed by accident. (By you know who...Poo-Poo). I never should have stored them in an unseemly garbage bag! I was stunned and felt like my heart was breaking. I cried for an hour on the way to work.

In time I'll get over it. Two good things occurred from this tradegy. First, I am having all the artwork that survived framed! The survivors are mainly the photographs that I have collected. My Unauthorized Rolling Stone Concert 1981 shots are next.

Secondly, I found out I can survive the loss of things that I thought I could not live without.

Just barely.

A Man's got to know his limitations.

A glory, glory day! I don't have to go into work! Nine days in a row is over load for me. I was ready to snap. I was sarcastic to my boss last night when he asked the question, "I've always wondered what it would be like if I worked in a large sales center?" "You'd spend a lot more time with your wife." I fired back without thinking. Without thinking, mouth and brain not connected. I thought I had conquered that flaw in my personality...apartently not.

He wanted to see me in his office a little later. I quickly ducked into the bathroom and calculated the number of hours I had worked since Monday (54) and was prepared to add in the 10 hour driving time to and from work. Thank God, he over looked my irritability and just stated that I was going to be on my own pretty soon and wanted to make sure I was feeling comfortable.

Some of you may know I work for a major beverage company, THE major beverage company. My world has been rocked joining a sales center that delivers a little over a million cases. The Lexington Sales Center delivers over five and a half. It is like going from the Marriott to the Super 8.

To say I am in shock is an understatement.

To add insult to injury, the man who is training me is one of the ones who did not get the job! In effect, they are making him train his replacement. He has been moody and silent all week. Which makes me talk and jabber all the more. I know why he did not get the job. He is too slow! I call him the Turtle.

I will suffer fools, I will suffer bratty kids, but I can not suffer a Turtle out in the field. I WANT TO BE HOME AT 5:30! Is that asking too much!!! I spent about a week shadowing him and then I was master of the computer to take the orders! I think this is the source of his sorrow. I think he did not realize that I did this, for the Cold Drink side, for over seven years! It is nothing new to me! Ordering huge truckloads of product is new, but the concept is not! I think he thought maybe I would roll over and die when I had to do the ordering. Fact is, I can do it in a fraction of the time it took him!

This might be my first rant entry! Yea!!!! It sure feels good!

In Lexington, when I would leave the plant, I would take off my shoes and stockings and slip on flip flops. Those are my shoes of choice during the summer months.

Now I must wear men shoes! Woe is me!! And I have to wear my cell phone on my belt! Belt!!! I don't own a belt! The first time the phone rang, I could not get it off the stupid plastic holder and it flopped open and I was yelling, "I can't get it off my belt loop."....it was my boss, and Thank God it was on mute! I don't recognize myself in the mirror. My hair is pulled back in a pony tail, because when you are throwing cases and operating a pallet jack, flowing hair does not cut it.

This is my plan. Transfer to a Key Account position in six months!

If I survive.

MY DAD

As my Dad grows older it becomes hard to be away from him on Father's Day. I will be missing the family dinner today as the rest of the family (minus my brother who lives in NYC) gathers in honor of the day.

I wish I had paid closer attention to the stories my Dad told about him growing up in NYC. I wish I had written down all the stories he told about WWII. They are all locked in his mind now, the key lost forever.

What I have are my memories of my Dad. First of all, my Dad's father was from the old country and an immigrant. He was one of the unlucky ones who could not handle it, was an alcoholic and abandoned the family when my Dad was six. It is amazing that he did not have a typical role model to show him how to be a Dad yet he did the best he could and to all his six children, he was the greatest.

I realize that now.

We sat at the table and had dinner together every evening. He would ask questions about school and then have his nighly quiz. "What is the capital of California?". "How do you spell prediditatior?"

When I began High School in another city, my Dad would take me to school in the mornings on his way to work at IBM. He was late for work for four years! I remember dreading those drives in the morning before they happened! What would we talk about for the 25 minute drive. I don't think it ever really was a problem.

Years and years later when I moved to Florida and did not like it and wanted to return home, my parents allowed me to stay with them until I got back on my feet. He was retired by that time and most afternoons we would sit and have lunch together. Those are the best memories for me being with my Dad. He talked and talked about his youth, the war, his mother, his family, his wonderful life.

Sometimes now, my Dad will sit forward in his chair and point a finger at me and announce to all others in the room, "Mary was the best swimmer out of all my kids! She was a champion!"

I love those moments.

I love my Dad, and I miss my Dad. He was the greatest and it is because of him and his unyielding faith in each of his off spring that has inspired each of us to pursue our own dreams and reach them.

Happy Fathers Day to Tom, my Dad.

Windshield Time

I was rambling down US 27 in Northern Indiana, my new main drag. It is a good thing that driving is a pleasure rather than a chore for me. I have my best thoughts, revelations, and conversations with myself while rolling down the lonesome highways.

I happened upon a jazz station out of Dayton. Not the wonderful old school style jazz of discombobulate melodies but the new smoothjazz. Not paying much attention to the music, it was a background score to the passing countryside.

As soon as the melody began, I recognized the song, "When a Man loves a Woman". I was catapolted back in time many years ago to a memory so sweet and and so strong that I realize now it was the most romantic moment in my life.

I was totally crazy and nuts about this guy. I met him.......well, there is a reason I left the story out of the Addicted to Love series. I was just so smitten with him for about eight months. He was much younger than I, by about 10 years. It was hard to see each other because we lived very far apart. Those are the type of relationships that remain fresh and unrealistic. Untouched by the pressures of the every day life. Towards the end, maybe even the last time I saw him, I was sad and depressed with the realization.

LAND OF RAINBOWS

Yesterday was a good day after a stressed out week. The highlight of the day that altered my mood drastically was the computer hook-up. I could have unpacked a thousand more boxes and still been happy.

I have seen not less than three rainbows in the week I have been here! Very unusual for me. I see maybe that many in as many years! I can't get over how incredibly nice the people are here. Gueinely friendly and helpful. It seems they look you in the eye when they talk to you, they smile! I am not certain what I have been use to, but not this. Maybe I am just attune to niceness so far from home.

The new job is a booger and I may have to break my pseudo silence and write about it. I knew it was going to be challenging and difficult and physical. I'm not sure if I like it or not. The good thing is it keeps my mind off of my sorrow of leaving my family and the state I love to photograph.

I am in awe of the Amish everywhere! We share the road with them. I have been waving at them on the main corridors, but they ignore me. Probably think I'm a tourist. The other day I was taking a mandatory detour through the countryside and slowed down when I came to a bridge ahead. Two buggies were crossing. The first with two men. I was so surprised when both smiled at me and waved! The second buggy carried one very young man who gave me the cool "motorcycle wave" while holding the reigns ....and a smile.

Now I know, waving allowed only on less intense by-ways!

Welcome to Indiana!

How to say good bye

The past weeks have been some of the toughest in my life. To leave the work place I had been a member of for over seven years was harder than I imagined. Unlike leaving family, I know I have to keep in touch. It is up to me. As I gathered everyone's emails and home addressed I realized not one of them asked for my new address. Like every other place I have left, it is up to me to keep in touch, to keep it going. If I let go, its gone.

Sad but true.

During a very gloomy week, I had one ray of sunshine. I sashayed into the office on Thursday morning and my boss called to me from his office. "Guess who was in here yesterday?" Immediately I thought of the enraged Arab who threatened to kill me several years ago. Before I could come up with an incriminating answer he filled in the blank for me, "Brian!"

I couldn't have smiled wider. Then I became indignant, "What!! Why didn't he call me?"

Brian had left the clan in 2001. We kept in touch for several months but like a ding bat, I misplaced his cell phone number! Brian was on to bigger and better things in beautiful paradise-like areas only to be seen on very rare occasions. After that...nothing.

Brian is only several years older than my daughter and like a son to me. He was also my partner in crime for a long time until they (powers that be) decided to separate us.

For him to just drop in to the plant several days before I leave for good was a gift from God.

I called him on his cell and he was still in town and just getting ready to leave.

"Why didn't you call me last night!"

"Oh Mary, you know how I am when I start drinking beer!"

He had to go meet another friend at a donut shop and then he would call me.

He did. "I'm at that place." he said.

"Meadowthorpe Cafe?"

"Mary, that's scary"

"Being able to read your mind was always easy." I replied.

I love this kid and it was just wonderful to see him four years older and oh so much more mature. He has, as always, 100 things going on at once. Best of all, he has found a profession he loves and is very very good at.

It is so good to see "your children" find their path in life.

PAST JOB EXPERIENCE

Girl for Hire Second Job: Life guard Three summers

Ever since that summer I participated in the Water Ballet, age nine, I wanted to be just like JoAnn. She was the instructor for all us gangly little girls, teaching use to sincerest swim to the tune of "I love Paris". She was also one of the lifeguards at the pool that summer. I adored her and wanted to be just like her.

When I turned 16 I immediately received my life guard certification and began campaigning for the job. It was all I wanted to do. I would die if I did not get it! I hung up my water ballet slippers and became a very good competitive swimmer from age 12 on. Exceptionally good. When I was away at Girl Scout camp one year, the swimming coach reached towards the heavens during a heat and pleaded with God, "Where is Mary????" My Dad was one of the first "Board of Directors" and then remained on for many years.

I got the job! $1.50 an hour. I probably would have paid them!

I was the lowest on the pecking order. The swimming coach was the Manager, Mike was head life guard, Ann and Lacy were the blond twins who went to boarding school but lifeguarded during summer break, me and then Dottie was the sub.

That summer was the best summer of my life. It was the height of baby boomers advancing into the teenage years. The pool and surrounding area was a sea of bodies every day. I had a red and white hip hugger two piece and I was tan! As tan as a dark haired fair skinned Irish lass can be.

My favorite thing to do was to sit in the chair, high above the pool, one leg hung over the arm and twirl the wiggled on its long cord around and around my fingers. To the left...Untruly to the right.

I loved to blow the whistle. There were many different types of sounds you could make with that piece of metal. Everyone knows the long drawn out whistle at the top of the hour, signaling the break.

A sharp whistle made everyone hesitate and look, to make sure they weren't the one making one of the many infractions. The list was long, and included such things as over aggressive dunking, running on the concrete, big kids in the little kids pool, too rough, too much tugging on each other bathing suits and so on and so on. When someone was really bad they would be forced out of the pool and have to sit right below you, on display for their transgressions. The younger kids were pitiful, looking up at you with mournful and apologetic eyes. Even though the legal age to be dropped off without adult supervision was 12, many parents disobeyed this. We became more than lifeguards to many kids.

Writing this has brought back one very pleasant memory. Sitting on the chair by the diving area and having all the kids trying their best to have the most outlandish and highest cannon ball splash to drench me.

One of the job interviewers asked me, "What has been your most rewarding job experience"? I babbled off some standard answer that I knew they wanted and expected. Yet, now I realize I wish I could have remained 16 forever, twirling my whistle in my red suit with my pick of any of the young 12 year old boys.

WILL WONDERS EVER CEASE

Just when you think you have it all figured out. Just when you have accepted your fate and circumstance it all changes! Just when I had begun to look forward to just being lazy all summer and not worry about a job I GET A JOB!

Astounding. I am blown away and totally caught off guard! Last month I tried to blow the interview when I realized how different this position was going to be from what I was use to doing. I even showed my hand, telling them the truth about myself! Mind blowing and gutsy move! Aimed at not being offered the job! I told Joe that since I did not want it, for sure it would be offered to me! And I was right.

I accepted for many reasons. First and foremost, having a job is so much easier than looking for one. Looking for a job is very stressful, much like a job. So, I may as well get paid for hard work, right?

They want me the 1st of June. I said yes, but I found out that is going to be a major problem! I will be working for the same company, just a different division in another department. My boss flat said, "No, not enough time."

So, I deviously went to the Head Muckity Muck of our center to thank him for his hand in getting me this offer and offhandedly told him about the time frame problem...he said, "Go!"

So I went back to my boss and said, "P. say's Let My People GO!"

Who knows, I hope a compromise is made quickly. Maybe I will start the following Monday. I'm ready to go. It is going to be extremely difficult for me to leave here. They are like my extended family.

When I was offered the job officially by HR she told me they were looking forward to having me, the experience I bring, the evident enthusiasm, and my terrific sense of humor!

I am so looking forward to this. They expect big things out of me and I find that I usually will live up to great expectations. They think I'm a star! By golly, I'll be a star.

The house will be boxed up on the 6th and the movers arrive on the 7th. Our stuff should arrive in Indiana on the 9th. I'm having a yard sale on the 4th, the annual Taste of the Bluegrass is on the 3rd, we take possession of the new home on Saturday! It is a good thing I work well under pressure.

And somewhere in that time frame, I will be starting a new job!

GIRL FOR HIRE

It has been quite a while since I have been on the hunt for a job. Seven years if the truth be known. It is something I am looking forward to, new challenges, new landscape, rewards, learning something, in a sense reinventing myself. I am happy to be leaving this job, I am bored, uninspired, and operating on auto pilot and have been for some time. A change is welcome. I have to put the job search on hold for the time being. I have found that it is near impossible to achieve the objective, secure a job, when you are 300 miles away. It is too stressful. I made the decision to wait. Until mid-August! I feel like a huge burden was lifted from my shoulders. I am free for the summer! I have some major plans on how to spend my time. It is going to be wonderful.

I think I have been depressed as of late. I do not feel like writing which is a major indication that something is very wrong. I have been sleeping a lot, a second indication that something is not right. I feel like I am losing my chops here!

And so here goes....my summer series "GIRL FOR HIRE"

First Job Job description: will babysit for room and board. Age requirement: none.

I was the oldest of six children. My two youngest sisters were born in the mid to late 1960's, so they were almost like another generation to my three brothers and myself.

Since I was the oldest, I was responsible to keep an eye on my younger siblings when necessary. My mother was the head Librarian at the County Library. She did most everything from home, but on Saturdays she workded the entire day at the downtown building. This was the late 1950's early '60's. We were a one car family.

My father would leave the house to make the five minute journey to downtown to retrieve my mother and return her home. My Nana usually would spend the day with us and prepare the evening meal. It was always the same, year after year. Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, some green vegetable from a can and then the cherry or apple turnovers!

When we were very young, I was in second grand, N. in 1st, T. was in line waiting to go into school and P. was a toddler...we all had chicken pox. Dad left me in charge while he went to bring my Mother home. In the spirit of a child's world, minutes seem like an eternity. My little spots were bothering the heck out of me, and since I was in charge I requested my bro N. climb up on top of the stove and open the cabinet above and grab the bottle of calamine lotion.

Naturally, he fell. He was crying, but that was nothing new, N. was a cry baby back then. When Dad arrived home N. was taken into the bedroom and his arm examined. I will never forget, one of those moments burned into your memory, my father holding his arm and trying to straighten it out and N.'s blood curdling screams.

He had a broken arm. But not just any old type of broken arm, his required surgery. And he had a case of chicken pox. Could it get any worse? Yes, we all got measles right in the middle of N's recuperation.

Did this stop my Mother from putting me in charge of the kids? No! Never!

I then went on to actually baby sit for money at the age of 12. 50 cents an hour! Actually it was not that bad, a 16 magazine was 25 cents, a 45 record was around 79 cents to 99 cents. A pack of cigarettes was 25 cents out of the machine at Wilson's Drugs. (How did I know that?)

Babysitting was the first a very long string of occupations, jobs, hard labor and professions.

LEXINGTON CEMETERY PHOT FRIDAY _ GREEN

SHE DIED IN 1870

Green...I first went through my archives and found a picture of Ireland that was epitome of green. Then I found myself taking pictures at the Switzer covered bridge in Franklin Co. yesterday that challenged the green of Ireland.

Today, I had one of those unencumbered, no demands on me kind of day. A lazy and delicious sort of day. I went to once of my favorite places to take photos, the Lexington cemetery. I could kick myself for missing the beauty that this botanical wonderland offers in spring. Everything is 1,000 times 1,000 shades of green now.

I found my Photo Friday entry in my picture wonderland.

Bridget's Toys


I like to think that there are very people who have moved as often as I have. If I am not at the top of the list, I am very close. Since leaving home at age 18, I have never lived longer than five years in any one spot. Since 1980 I have moved 19 times. Fort Wayne makes 20!

There are certain things that I have dragged around with me over the years. Such as Bridget's stuffed animals, Cabbage Patch Dolls, and her expansive Barbie doll collection. I do this for several reasons. (None of them make much sense now that I am going to list them). The first, because I'm certain if she ever has a child, this baby Alphawoman will delight in Bridget's toy world. Secondly, because when I was a kid, all my toys and beloved dolls were passed down to my younger sisters when I left for college. Not so much passed down, as a frenzied dismantling of my room occurred the moment I left! When I returned home the first time, those little rats had scribbled all over the faces of the ones I cherished! That will never happen to Bridget's dolls! Not while they are in my care!

I wandered upstairs into the attic this afternoon. I am beginning to organize for the inevitable. Going through the dolls was therapeutic. I am always transported to a place and time when Bridget was small and fast asleep with an "animal" held tightly in each arm. She never named them, just called them "My Animals", or Doggie.

My brother T. gave her the Cabbage patch doll when she was three. She called it "Baby" and carried it every where for years. We were in Target one afternoon, she was in the buggy holding tight to Baby when a woman behind us commented (what is the matter with people?) how dirty Baby was. Bridet just hugged her tighter.

I took at good look at how grimy Baby was. I probably was silently relieved she was not referring to Bridget! Baby was a mess. I tossed her in the washing machine and laid her on the window sill to dry.

When Bridget realized what I had done she freaked! I had killed Baby. Bridget howled and carried on for what seemed an eternity.

It took awhile but she was able to grime up poor Baby back to normal. I never attempted to wash that doll again! Heck, I may even take her to bed with me tonight.

TOWN WITHOUT PITY


Three weeks and counting till the move. Hard to believe. And I am beginning to melt down. Don't want to work. Don't want to find a job in Ft. Wayne, at least not right now. I find that I have to concentrate and focus on the here and now. I would love to wave a magic wand and have the move, the turning over of the car, the establishing myself in a new town finished.

Nothing is that easy and I must wait. Wait it out alone.

Been looking and exploring the area. Found a lovely running path in the down town area at the Three River Head park. It extends out the eight miles to New Haven!

I received a little inspiration. And I took the first steps. In no time at all I will be running eight miles!

Which Couple are we?


I really got into The Amazing Race this season. I guess because of Rob & Amber that I became interested and then hooked. Last night I was rooting for the couple that won! I was so excited that it took me till 1130pm to calm down enought to fall asleep.

I was so impressed with the respect and the patience they held for each other. The one episode where she submitted to having ALL HER HAIR cut off caused me to fall in love with them. He sat beside her and held her hand, kissed her cheek, wiped away her tears. He was awesome, she was so brave. I was so happy to see them win the million dollars.

Something very terrible today happened at work. Something that only I know about. My first instinct was to call my boss and pass on what had happened. On second thought I knew I would be in terrific trouble for no other reason than it happened on my watch. No matter why, not matter the surrounding circumstances...it is my account and I am responsible. The busk stops here.

Anyway, I shared what had happened with my better half. He bluntly stated that I have always had trouble, had courted trouble because I am reactionary. He went on and pointed out my faults, (i.e. procrastination, dirty dishes in the sink, not crazy about mowing the lawn....)

Instead of defending myself with excuses and expainations, I said, "You know if we were on the amazing race we would be one of the couples bickering at each other throughout the entire show!"

I really would like to have been the couple that bumbled their way to a million dollars, but I know we would be the couple who would be choking each other in the back seat of the cab. You know the one, The one with the flat tire.

After the choking scene, I'm certain he would say something like "I'm a winner as long as I have my Mary".

GHOSTS OF DERBY PAST

During my first attempt at college I was fortunate enough to attend the most famous Kentucky Derby in modern history. In 1973 I saw the unbeatable and undoubltly the greatest race horse of the last half of the 20th century Secretariart win the 99th Derby.

It is my favorite Derby not only because of Secreteriate, but because my best friend in the whord world went went me. Afterwards she bordered a plane and I did not see her again for 25 years! Every Derby since we wrote each other. Today it is email on the first Saturday of May. She has a Mint julep and remembers the school year she spent at Murray State University that culminated with a Derby and a flight out of Bluegrass field for a redevous with her destiny.

Me, I was left behind to attend many more Derby's. Not one of them could replace how special that 99th running ended up being.

Fast forward to Mothers Day 2003. My sister Omega and I were cleaning up the family room after a recent flood. We were removing the carpet, reaarraging the furniture, cleaning and disposing of the spoils of spring. We decided to move the twin bookcases, which are placed side by side so close they look like one bookcase, so we could clean under them.

We removed the books and then moved the first one.

"Look" my sister said as she peeled a tote ticket that had somehow fallen inbetween the two cases and had been hidden from sight.

"My goodness...1973!!!"

We raced upstairs to show Mom what we had found. Not to show her how awful her housekeeping skills are that we can find a lost article fromover 30 years ago, but because Omega and my Mom are both in the Horse Industry and a find like this, an actual tote ticket from the 99th running of the Derby was an interesting find!

The ticket was a WIN ticket for #1.

We got out one of Moms reference books and saw that the #1 horse was Angle Light.

I arrived home and immediately began looking for my old Derby program from that race.

Guess What? Go ahead, guess what?

Angle Light was coupled that day. To secretaries, who ran as 1-A.

We found a winning ticket for the 99th Kentucky Derby! 30 years later!

STUDY OF JOE



I am featured on the PEOPLE PAGE of AOL and also the JOURNAL PAGE! When they contacted me yesterday I was thrilled. I went back and checked the entry for the Blogfather and looked at all the submissions. I thought mine was the best! And I was right, they thought so too. I am thrilled.

NEW TALENTS

I went up North to interview for a new position in the company I now work for. It was an intense ninety minutes. The position is in a different department and a totally different customer and market conditions. They guys in the department here in Lexington prepared me for the questions that would more than likely be thrown at me. Many of them came up, but several were new and unanticipated and a bit unsettling.

You can prepare yourself all you want, but you can not cover every sererio. And the biggest one being I was not convinced I wanted this position. I may go into it later, but I decided that I better stop being so charming and give myself some wiggle room. It arrived with the question, "What three things would you change in yourself if given the opportunity?"

I took a deep breath and figured, "What you see is what you get", and I was honest! I could not believe what I was doing! I'm certain they were as shocked as I!! I had already anticipated this question and had my little stock pile of things that on the surface sound like they are faults, but really are not. Such as, "I am too competive, I wish I could relax on week ends rather than think about work." The ususal line of B.S. Everyone knows it, everyone is ready for it.

I was honest. I said, "As long as I am being candid, who stop now, I wish I were a better listener. I think everyone can find improvement in this area. Everyday I run across people who hear what they want to hear, not what is being said to them. I want to improve that in myself."

"I wish I had more of a sense of urgency. My procratination is a source of stress for myself."

"And last I wish I were less of a perfectionist. I hate to wake up in the mornings with my very first thought as I sit upright in bed, "I MUST CHECK ON THAT FIRST THING!!"

With my luck it will back fire and they will be totally amazed at my confidence and verve.

I am also having a telephone interview with one of the major radio stations in the area! Now that sounds like FUN! I am also sending a resume to the PBS station. They are looking for a commission only advertising executive, make your own hours. I keep thinking of the long snowy winters.

Us southerors make terrible winter drivers.

RED VELVET COAT


I know I have mentioned in this blog before that I feel I live a charmed life...sometimes. Things just happen to me. Good things. I do not count on it happening all the time, but they naturally occur with frequency. I attribute it to my Mom, who has the ear of God, who is as devout a Catholic as ever lived, probably is a saint (three miracle rule)and prays fervently for her family.

I had this red velvet jacket way back in the 1970's that I loved and lived in. I must have worn that thing from 1972 till it fell apart in 1977. Amazing how you remember dates, isn't it. The above picture is 1975. I can not recall the name of anyone in that photo but the party was at Piff's house and those were some top notch Murray parties.

The jacket was in some ways my signature piece of clothing. The elbows became ragged. My Mom lovingly applied patched for me. The lining, which was ripped up, trashed and a disgrace (no one saw it when I had the jacket on!)suffered an unrecoverable blow during the Christmas holidays. Mom thought she would replace the lining as a surprise. A surprise alright! The jacket was not the same. It did not hang the same way, it bunched up under my arms, the holes were covered up. In other words, it was ruined. I could not wear it ever again. I think it remained in the back of a closet in my Mothers home for many years. Last year I even looked for it after including a mention of the jacket in an entry last year. Gone. Lost forever.

I love Goodwill, Salvation Army, Thrift stores. I find such great stuff for a fraction of the price they are worth. I look there first when I need something, see if someone else's trash ends up my treasure.

I was stunned. I could not believe it. My hands were methodically moving the jackets to the left as I plowed through the long row when I happened upon a red velvet jacket. I let my hand caress the red velvet on the sleeve before I had the nerve to pull it out.

There, waiting for me, was my old friend!

It seems impossible, but it is the exact jacket. I wore it for five years, I'd recognize it anywhere. This jacket has no label, nothing to indicate anything about it. Not a worn mark on it anywhere. Does not smell old, forgotten nor abandoned. It was just waiting for me to reclaim.

I'm not sure what it means, if it means anything at all. It just has made me so incredibly happy on this wet, rainy, lonely day.

TEMPEST

TEMPEST AT CANAL STREET TAVERN

After waiting months for this day to arrive, I awoke Friday morning to the realization that I was very sick! I had been under the weather all week, but it escalate into a real illness that morning! I had a fever and my sinus cavities were pounding. Nothing was going to stop me from going to Dayton to see TEMPEST. Nothing! I loaded up every drug I could lay my hands on, Alka Seltzer cold remedy, liquid fever relief for children, ibropohen, and nasal spray (I could not breath through my nose). As we left I remembered the left over Hydocodein from the eye incident! Naturally I tossed it into my bag.

I have talked non stop about this band to Poo-Poo since seeing their appearance at the Dublin (Ohio) Irish Festival last summer. I had purchased one of their albums at the concert and Joe had listened to it once politely and that was it.

It is difficult to describe this band. Celtic Music. What is that? My head becomes flooded with Irish whistles, brodhrans, the concertina. The haunting music that sends chills down your spine. TEMPEST does not use any of those instruments, yet they are without a doubt the leading Folk Celtic Rock band in the history of the genre.

It was with apprehension that I entered Canal Street Tavern with Joe in tow. I had been extolling the intensity of this band live verses the album that I was extemely nervous he agree. Therefore he never consider my opipion regarding music as valid ever again. The venue was so tiny!!! Twenty tables with people milling around as if old friends chatting and becoming reaquainted. All the tables were taken, so we claimed two chairs at the bar directly in front of the stage.

We ordered a pitcher of beer. I had popped one of the hydocodiens before going. My head was killing me. I knew it would help me through the night. I was feeling much better, so I had a beer.

Around 10:30 they took the stage. I had another beer.

For the next two hours they rocked the house down. Traditional Music is the launch pad for this band. They add a little bit of many styles of music, taking from jazz, bluegrass, acid rock.....it is just indescribable....and mold it into the most forceful, dynamic, explosive, electrifying, animated, and highest intensity band I have ever seen. I thought they were great on a large stage with thousands of people. It was totally exhilariting in a small bar sharing with 150 other people.

The best part of it all, was Poo-Poo turning to me and yelling, "Allman Brothers at Filmore East" and nodding at the band, as they jammed on and on and on.

I should not have had that second beer. I definately should not have had that third. By the time they had finished the first set and were back onstage well into the second set, I was unable to take any more pictures and had to enlist Poo-Poo to take over for me.

After it was over, Poo-Poo was a fan. We went to the merchandise table to buy the 15th Anniversity set and talk to the band. I should not have been allowed to talk at this time. I was gushing over them by this time. And I just happened to set my beer down on the table that the guitar player was sitting and naturally knocked it over on them.

I hope they forgive me. I suppose I will find out if I am banned from their next performance I try to attend.

Flea Markets, Old Houses, Realtors

What do these three things have in common. Oh, nothing really. Just that the realtor told me another realtor was going to show the house between 6pm and 7pm. I left around 515pm and drove around town looking at comparable old houses. The Realtor wants me to think about lowering the listed price!!! Already! I know she is the Doctor here, but I think I could persuade someone to purchase my home at my asking price! It is just a matter of anticipating the objections and then offering solutions. She may be the Doctor, but I know this town and I know the true value of this home. It just is going to take someone who loves old homes...like I do.

An old home has so much personality and charm. I don't see something antiquated. I see a place where many lives were formed, lived and perhaps concluded. I sense the hope, love, and disappointment that has been drifting in and out of these rooms for 60 some odd years.

So, to kill time I drove around. I ended up at the Flea Market. Ironic. I am trying to get rid of stuff but I can not resist bring in more great old stuff into my old home! I found, what I think could be, a first edition of "A" is for Alibi, by Sue Grafton. A pristine 1967 copy of "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band", a cool post card of a miniature circus, circa 1950's...and the above picture with an inscription penciled on the back, "Isabella Johnson Crab Orchard, KY".

I had to have this picture for several reasons. First, I collect old obscure pictures that have been tossed away. I adopt these pictures in a way that is rapidly becoming eccentric. This picture really speaks volumes, doesn't it? Look how cocky some of the men are? Young and vibrant, cool and handsome. The way the cigarettes are held, the hand thrown over the womans sholder, the coke bottle empty on the table. The women are beautiful. So beautiful in its simplicity. Unposed. Natural. WWII? I think so.

Secondly, Crab Orchard. I continue to find little bits and pieces of discarded Crab Orchard sentimentality. I am a Crab Orchard Magnet.

FRUITS OF MY LABOR

I am almost embarrassed to post the before picture. I guess you just don't know until you are forced to see it through someone else's eyes. I knew I hated the outdoor carpet on the porch and that it needed a paint job. Now it looks spectacular! Only a few more finishing touches. I did not realize what a perfectionist I could be!!!

At two thirty yesterday the realtor called and asked if someone could show the house at 6pm. My SIL shook her head violently! The bathroom was ripped out, the lattice was not up, we had a plastic wall in the kitchen for her dry wall project, the house was a wreck. She was right, there was no way. So, maybe I missed a potential buyer, but another will be right around the corner.

I also mowed the lawn today and visited the grave of one of Bridget first boyfriend who overdosed five years ago today. It still makes me angry to remember that day. That we are denied the experience of seeing "Bird" grow into a man. That people stood around not knowing what to do, so they stole his shoes.

Anyway........he was special, even though he was going through a very screwed up period in his life. This street smart, sweetheart, charmer of a young boy had a son before he left this world. While I visiting the grave yard "Bird's" Mother was there. She told me about his young son, age six, who wants to go to Florida with her. "Let's fly, Granny"

"Dylan, you know I'm afraid to fly."

"I wanna fly."

"Why, honey? You know I'm afraid!!"

"There's clouds up there Granny!"

"Yea I know there are clouds up there! I can see them from here just fine!"

"No Granny, my Daddy is up in those clouds. Maybe I see him for just a minute."

That made me start crying.

The Task Master Cometh

It is a little after 7am. My Sister in Law will be arriving about 10am and the work will resume with a vengeance. She is teaching me a how to do things that I never thought I would be able to accomplish. And the truly remarkable result, other than the renovation, is how much I enjoy it. To start with something so beat up and in dire need of attention and to be able to turn it into something nice and pleasing is very satisfying. I'm looking forward to learning how to lay tile on a bathroom floor! That is a statement that I never dreamed I would mutter.

It has been about two months since I learned we had to relocate for Poo-Poo's job. I am finally ready to let go. I know two months is a long time to mull things over and prepare myself for the inevitable but my temperment demanded it. Yesterday I knew, I mentally had a roll over in my psyche that said, "It's time."

It would be a pleasure to just load up all the furniture, books, appliances, motorcycles, lamps, computer, dishes, pots and pan, all my photographs and artwork (other artists, natch) and leave. I am certain it would be much easier to sell the house without the distraction of all our personal stuff! The house we bought up North will be available in mid-May, so it is a domino effect waiting to happen. Three families moving in syncinzation. I am preparing myself to leave my job at that time.

I have been seven years with this company. I have developed a family relationship with most my co-workers and it is going to be difficult to leave them behind. It is so much easier to keep in touch in this day and age than it was, say 10 years ago. E-mail and cell phone (we all have Cingular as personal phones) will enable us to stay close. Yet, I know how it is. It will be up to me to keep in touch with them. That is just the way it is. I have been through this a time or two before.

With the departure comes a newly realized freedom. I do not have to worry about benefits and having a job immediately. I may even have the luxury of finding a job that I really want, rather than taking the job I need.

I have contacted the alternative newspaper in the city I am moving to and inquired about guest columnists. Guess what? They told me to send a sample of my writing! I'm so psyched and I pitched the concert I am going to this coming Friday, TEMPEST, in Dayton. I told him that it would not be a music critic, per see, but a piece from a music lovers perspective. Bring it on, he wrote, "It is not something we would publish, but it will give me an idea about your style." And to contact him when I arrive in town.

Being a Pisces, I have always had grandiose ideas and huge plans that I never follow through on. Isn't it funny how a little thing like redoing a front porch can unlock your dreams and present you with the unlimited possibilities life offers if you take it one little bit at a time?

The Three Stooges

Except, there is only me! I'm like Lucy without her Ethel.

I know I will survive the extravaganza of selling the house. It is turning into quite the ordeal. How do people get through this without having a nervous breakdown?

After surviving Saturdays trauma of the Eye Incident, I was able to almost finish the porch on Sunday. I laid down the paint roller around 730pm and called it a day. I will post pictures of Before and After as soon as it is completed. The lattice remains to be painted and reattached, and the steps finished to complete the project. I astonished myself in my ability to work through adverse conditions and do a pretty darn good job!

Monday my boss wanted a sit down between 3 and 330. Around 230 my realtor called to say that someone was coming over to look at the house around 600pm! Mother of God! I got home around 414 and began speed cleaning (which is slang for pushing things under the bed and in the drawers). I rushed around like a mad women until 545, then drove up the hill and spied on my house from the hospital parking lot!

Today, we had a showing at 7pm. All was going very okay. Poo-Poo was home and began laying the new bathroom floor and painted the bench for the front porch Chinese Red. I thought it needed some accent, and that chair does it!

I decided to bake some scones to make the house smell wonderful. I read the recipe which instructed to heat the oven to 425 and cook the scones very close to the top of the stove. I adjusted the racks and proceeded to prepare the dough, adding orange soaked cranberries (I've been wanting to make them for a long time!!!). When I was ready to put them in for baking I decided to move the rack down a notch. I had a hard time yanking that thing out and back in. In the struggle, I dropped the pot holder which immediately caught on fire! I was able to toss in the sink (thank God still filled with water). My brilliant plan for making the house smell like cinnamon and cranberry sconed was foiled. It smelled like burnt pot holder.

As the scones were baking, I attempted to dump a bucket of cleaning water in the sink, somehow missed my mark, or maybe it slipped out of my hand, it all happened so quickly....but two gallons of soapy dirty water crashed all over the kitchen floor. That was a mess to clean up.

Then the scones were ready. They smelled divine, so I decided to try one. Suddenly, the tooth I had worked in Feb. to remove an old filling and replace it with a beautiful expensive porcelain crown, shot pain through the tooth and erupted through the top of my head! I think the filling shifted and hit the nerve!

I'm afraid to eat on that side of my mouth!

I don't know if I can survive this! I am really hard on myself.

It use to be easy to score drugs

Well, back in the 1970's that is.

This is what happened. I dreamed last night that I had a stye in my eye. When I woke up my eye was killing me. There was something in there under the lid! I did all the self doctoring I could think of. Eye wash using a Bahmama shot glass and when that did not work I resorted to visine.

It hurt something terrible, but I felt it would wash itself out in the normal course of a day. It had to! I was scheduled to paint the porch!

It was okay as long as I looked down. I was on top of a ladder (if you know the problem with my depth perception and casual falling down esisodes, this is very scary) and looking down was relatively easy. Suddenly, I could not bear the pain. I had allowed my eye to shift around. The added misery of a bright sun shined filled day while using white paint suddenly was agony.

I thought I would drive myself to the Urgent Care Center in Lexington, a ten mile drive. I was only one mile into it when I realized I was not going to make it. I had to keep the affected eye shut and with my fingers hold the lid lifted and off the eye ball. My eye was watering non stip and as a bonus horror, my nose was running non stop too. I can not drive with one eye and one hand.

I caved and turned around and headed for the ER.

The ER! The last time I was in the ER for a self inflicted wound, I was 13. I stagged in wearing sun glasses. The sun was killing me. I was called to the counter.

"What's the problem." she asked. I lifed my sunglasses and let her have a ganger at my eyeball. She gasped and quickly looked down. Oh no, I thought, its worse than I thought!

They led me to a room and told me to take a chair. I crawled up in the gurney and assumed a "woe is me position" with my arm over my forhead. "You're on the bed?" the nurse asked me as she stuck her head in (to tell me they were backed up and the Doctor would be with me as soon as he could). "I'm traumatized" I answered. She administered some numbing eye drops to my immediate relief.

He got to me in about an hour and I almost passed out. The bed had to be tilted so my head was lower than my feet. But he flushed out my eye and we concurred that it was a piece of DRY WALL that had fallen in my face the day before and worked its way up during the night.

I have scratched my eyeball, not my cornea, Thank God!

I got home, resumed painting.......The numbing medication wore off. My eye began watering again, my nose too. I laid down and felt the pain begin to build and build.

I am not a martyr, I called the ER as soon as I could get it together and focus on the phone book and read the dang telephone number to the hospital.

They were so nice in their denial of allowing me the bottle of numbing medication, but they did give me a little "somthing something" for the pain.

It took two hours for my eye to stop feeling like I had a stick stuck in there and someone was pressing my eyeball back into my head.

Word to the wise: Safety glasses.

I must have been in the bathroom sneaking a smoke

Reality bites. I have to face it. Either I did not watch enough Martha Stewart when I had the chance, or I was hiding out in the bathroom smoking cigarettes during Home Ec class in high school. For what ever reasons, I just have misplaced my home making gene. It's hopelessly lost according to my realtor. She does not say it to my face, but I hear it loud and clear in what she is not saying.

Phrases such as this, "We can offer them a redecorating allowance" are a dead give away.

I had to look at my home, my cozy little cottage with a different perspective. What has been a wonderful comfortable refuge from the stresses and demands of the outside world is getting a once over and a make over is in the works.

My arms are so tired I can barely type this and lift the beer to my lips. I have been scraping paint off the front porch all day long. My han was cramped into a claw for a long time.ad to help patch the hole in the ceiling (a story I told awhile ago, though I might have left out all the really good parts, but the Monkey Brothers were involved) which involved me holding up a large portion of Dry Wall above my head and try to make it fit into a area that was not cooperating! We did it many many time. Half inch dry wall in four by five section isHEAVY.

We fixed the overhang, the broken window, fixed the concrete steps, scrapped paint, fixed wall paper, contemplated the bathroom floor, fixed the hole in the ceiling, chased out the squirrel....

Yes, the squirrel. I knew he was wintering in the back roof. The last straw came last week when I caught him red handed in the driveway with pink insulation in his mouth. He ran up the telephone pole and stopped. He thought he could fake me out with his squirrel statue routine. H runs up the tree into his summer home and laughs at me, all snug with his pink insulation nest.

Poo-Poo swears he shook his squirrel fist at him once.

He is history now.

When I finish the front porch tomorrow I will be so happy! Then the FOR SALE sign goes up.

VOICES FROM THE PAST

This has been one of those weeks where I am hearing from several of my gal pals from the past. Everyone knows how hard it is to stay in touch, even with the ease of email, some peole are just not computer junkies. So it is so great to receive an email telling me that Laura is going to be in Lexington for three weeks during the month of July!

I went to my last high school reunion four years ago (Jesus Mary and Joseph!!!) with the hope of seeing her. It has been twenty years ago that I had last seen her.

My parents forced me to go to Lexington Catholic. I tried every trick in the book other than running away from home to attend the local public school. My parents were unbending in their belief in a Catholic education. The wrost thing about going to Catholic, was that I did not know anyone in the freshman class. No one.

Laura was my first friend. We had Homeroom together, the very first co-ed homeroom in the history of Catholic! And ours was the only one. We were an experiment. Laura and I sat next to each other in the row, according to our names. We became fast friends immediately. We had every single class together for two years. We rode the bus together to downtown where she transferred on another to head home, and poor old Mary had to catch the GreyHound bus for her trip home. Oh the stories I could tell about my Greyhound bus adventures.

Laura became K.D.'s first girlfriend. K.D. was (and still is) older than us and had the same type of insane parents as I did who forced Catholic on him also. He rode the Greyhound too.

The three of us could laugh so hard together it hurt.

HEYI just had a brain storm!!! I still hear from K.D. every so often too! Maybe I could pursude him to return for a visit (he lives in Gothom City) just around that time too!

This summer is shaping up to be one of the best of all time!

HIGHWAY STAR

There are a few things I am pretty good at. Having a great sense of direction is one that I am especially proud of. I recently read that women use a different method than men when it comes to getting around, namely, we use landmarks. I have to agree with that, because that is exactly what I do! Get me there once and I usually can get there again.

That is why I thought it was going to be no big deal for me to go back up North this week end going through Indianapolis. After all, I had returned that way heading to Louisville several weeks ago, so no big deal. HA!

I got lost. I somehow got in the wrong land and ended up heading towards St. Louis! I got turned around and then got on another wrong road! Drats! It was dark now, and I was in the middle of Indianapolis heading towards Chicago or Toledo! Just then Poo-Poo calls me on the cell phone. His advise is for me to pull over and get a hotel room, I am hopelessly lost and am going to end back up in Kentucky.

I managed to get off the Interstate, go down numerous roads to find a McDonald's, (they have the best bathrooms) and then locate a Krogers (to open up a map and have a look to see exactly where I had to go!). I am very good at reading maps, and very good at back tracking down numerous roads (landmarks, even in the dark) to return to the Interstate and alter my course.

A trip that should have taken maybe four and half hours took six. Poo-Poo will never let me forget it.

The only town I had extreme difficulty driving around, map or no map, was Boston. My sister, the world traveler asked this question, "ARE YOU CRAZY?". Poo-Poo and I drove up and down Soldiers Field Road for two hours looking for the Days Inn. We asked six people how to get there and received six different sets of directions. The last one went something like this, "Take the next road to your right, go over the rail road tracks, to the flashing light, go right, go three miles, take a left, go to the four way stop, take a left, go three blocks, then take a left. It should be at the end of the street." "Thanks" Joe says to him then drives off and says to me, "Did you get that?" No, I did not. Added to the fact that the man was more than likely of Arab descent and I could barely understand his accent. Yet, together we managed to piece together enough of what he said to find the right street.

I returned home today coming through Cincinnati. (I had to make a quick stop at Trader Joe's!). When I got within thirty minutes of home, I decided to take the back roads, the country roads for the remainder of the trip. It is much prettier than Interstate and I do not mind it as long as I am doing it during day light.

Five minutes from home, on a narrow pike, the type where when two cars meet each has to slow down and ease past each other, I was run off the road! They speeding yellow car did not slow down nor yield any of the road! My reflexes are good too, thank God, so I was off the road before it even registered that I was going to have a head on collision. I went through the field and then back on the pavement!

I could not believe it. How lucky am I? This road has fences on both sides, horse farms and mature trees lining the pavement. Not to mention the telephone poles. My guardian angel was with me that I was able to avoid all the usual dangers and land back on the pavement.

The yellow car never slowed. I wonder if they even looked in the rear view?

It's going to be a long time before I take that road again.

I DON'T WORK FOR YOU

I am really angry and upset. Thank God I am going to hook up with my sister a little later today and borrow some mood enhancing drugs! Having Poo-Poo at home being a Butt Head is annoying and frustrating.

When you love each other, shouldn't you treat each other with kindness and understanding? What is up with all this tension and grief? And, gentle folks, it is not me. I am the very easy to get along with. I am trying to get through this move and relocation with as much class as possible.

I do have class, folks. I am giving him a break because I understand the pressure and stress he is under. When he is taken outside his element and comfort zone, he does not react well. A lot of drama, a lot of snide remarks, a lot of meanness actually.

I do not work for you, Mister Poo-Poo. We are partners! I have my own set of problems and things I need to accomplish. You are not helping me with them. Do you hear me complaining?

I wish I could wave a magic wand and turn him into a prince. He is already handsome, but the inside ugliness is hard to take.

Give me drugs!

A PUPPY TALE

Poo-Poo is up North looking at houses while I am down south getting this one in order, uncluttered and market ready. I realize that I have a certain criteria for the new house. Pretty simple, three bedrooms, two baths, family room, living room, lots of closets and a fireplace. This is Joe's criteria...fenced in yard so he can have a dog.

When he first told me his intent, I began to list every reason under the sun why I don't want a dog. Can not pick up and go on a whim. Must always think DOG then everything else. Dog's smell. They slobber on you.

The real reason came to me this afternoon while reading Ruth Store News - A Richards Bend Production. It made me recall a certain winter that I survived with a pot belly stove. The coldest winter that ever blew over Kentucky. Three feet of snow and ice so severe that the Ohio River froze. We had a dog, Terra. I would open the door to the frozen terrain and order her, "Terra, go find wood" and that smart dog would run out there and come back with sticks for me to poke into the fire.

I loved that dog. We spent a lot of long cold nights near the Warm Morning stove huddled together for warmth. That spring, after the thaw, a friend of ours came over and brought his chocolate Lab along. The Lab and Terra took off running....and we never found them again.

My heart was broken. I looked for that dog for weeks. I just hope she found a good home, she was such a smart dog.

Then there was Toby, my brothers dog. Now Toby was a Springer Spaniel, a Liver color I believe they called it. That dog was plain mean. Bridget was so small and just learning to crawl. She would happily lumber over towards Toby while he was sleeping....he would not even open his eyes, he would just raise his lip and go, "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr". She always stopped, they instinctively understood each other. Toby bit one of my brothers fiends one night. As a matter of fact, J.B. was a hottie, a strinkingly handsome hippie that turned heads where ever he went. He bent down to pet Toby and he went for his face! Golly it was awful! Bite anyone in the face, not J.B.!!!! Jesus Mary and Joseph! It was not too bad, but that was the end of Toby. My bro found a farm to take him.

You would have thought he had committed murder the way my sisters carried on. So Mom and Dad then got Thunder, named so because my sister loved Bruce Springsteen and Thunder was actually Thunder Row. Also a Liver Springer Spaniel but female and the most lovable puppy ever. She was bred to another Springer and Bridget above is holding one of the litter.

Thunder got sick with some form of blood disorder and was in and out of the Dog Hospital quite a lit around the seventh year of her life. On the day before that another of my brothers was getting married Thunder became gravely ill and was taken
to the vet. She hung on and passed away the day after the wedding.

She was a wonderful dog up to the very end.

And that is preisely why I do not want a dog. I am tearing up thinking about Thunder and Terra right now. And Jingel Bells too, but she deserves an entry entirely for herself. They do not stick around long enough. I become too attached and the pain is too intense.

I think I want a Springer again.

TOTALLY BUMMED

Life has been very unsettling as of late. It is a fact that I am very laid back and a procrastinator. I avoid things until it becomes a do or die situation. I have a leisurely attitude about everything. Sense of urgency is a limited part of my physical being and psychological profile. I do things slow and easy.

This move is killing me! Everything is happening very fast. I have had one realtor visit already and another on the way tomorrow. I cringe thinking what I am going to have to do to get this house whipped into shape to put on the market. This is torture for me. I am so very out of my comfort zone that my head is spinning.

Continuing with the company I am with now looks very uncertain. I was crying in the Human Resource office today. Not sobbing, just talking about how I feel about this company. And the tears arrived. Not to fear, Poo-Poo's company has major heavy hitter relocation services. I already have a career consultant "on staff". I have finally found my resume which has been in the vault for seven years! I am totally freaking out.

So what do I do? I spend hours watching info commercials this Sunday morning. I think they hypnotize you to walk zombie like to your computer and immediately order their life altering products!

The first arrived today and I have been playing like a little girl with my new make-up collection. Let me tell you all something! This stuff if FABULOUS! The amount of money I have spent on makeup in my life time is equal to the GNP of a small country. Honest. So I know my makeup. I don't wear much of it because once you reach a certain age, it looks like you have painted your face! This stuff is absolutely knock out!

My POWER-90 has not arrived yet. Guaranteed to take me from Chunky Monkey to Hot Babe in 90 days. I can't wait!!!

**** Note to self: Avoid life altering info commercials while in life altering mood.

ST> PATRICK DAY MEMORIES

You could most certainly say I live a charmed life!

A few moments ago I was sending a submission to FOUND MAGAZINE. I have had this particular found "note" for a year or so, always misplacing it, always finding it, then misplacing it again. Intending to put it in a safe place,I opened up a cigar box I keep "stuff" in (It will most cerainly be lost again) and laying on top was this old cutting from the local newpaper!

Oh how I remember this night! And all the nights that my mother dressed me up as an Irish Colleen and paraded me around commanding I do the Irish Jig like a trained monkey. I hated it! I hated practicing for the upcoming St.Patrick Day show that was inevitable!

That year was my last performance. I think I was 12 (the hairdo, pre-shag Beatle cut) and suffered the humiliation for the final time. This was the annual Fashion Show that the local stores would put on to show off all the latest Spring Fashions. We were the intermission entertainment.

My Dad sang all the time. He was a member of the Barbershop Quartet, the song leader in church, and sang at all occasions. He loved to sing, and had a sweet tenor voice. When I was a kid, it totally embarrassed me. I was different to begin with. Not a whole lot of northerners settled in the small rural towns back in the early sixties, let alone Irish jigging and singing Catholics from New York City!! All I wanted was to fit in and be like everyone else.

That never happened. My parents made sure of that.

As the years pass by I find that my strongest memories of embarrassment of my parents, are also the most precious gifts I have received from them. Pride of being Irish and Catholic.

The last time my Dad performed in public was at my sister wedding in 1992. She married a German named Daniel. My Dad stood and sang the sweetest version of Danny Boy he ever delivered. It was the final time.

Birthday Card

WITH LOVE

My lovely daughter sent this card to me for the auspicious occassion of my birthday. I still tear up reading it...

"I remember being a little girl putting on your high heel shoes and dancing around the kitchen to Tainted Love. Do you remember too? So, this card is the perfect card for you! I wanted to be just like you so badly as a little girl, and today, all grown up, I still admire you and wish everyday I could fill those shoes! I only hope that I can be as good a mother as you have been to me. I love you so very much, Mom and I hope you had the most Happy Birthday"

ANOTHER PUB TALE

How I spent my Vacation

Naturally, we found the best pub in Ft. Wayne. How could it not be with a name like this MAD ANTHONY BREWERY COMPANY and MUNCHIE HARBORING!

Absolute great atmosphere. Wonderful mix of people dining in the restaurant area and warming the seats at the bar. The bartenders were top shelf! We went three times while I was there. On the second trip we met one of the owners. Sometimes it is astonding how small the world really is. We mentioned we were from Kentucky and he responded that he had lived in West Kentucky for many years. In Paduach, of all places! (Very close to Murray where I first attended college).

Besides having truly great beer, the best being the Ruby Raspberry Wheat Ale
they also sell mugs that hold 22 ounces. The cost of the mug, #39.95!! The mugs are housed on a shelf behind the bar. When you come in, you are served in your personalized and specific mug. You receive that much more beer than your normal pint, and pay 50 cents less! We quickly figured that based on going three times a week, having x amount of beers each trip...the mug would pay for itself in less than two months!

How could I not love a pub that has a menu with an old VW bus on the front sporting the tag line, PEACE LOVE AND HOPPINESS? And a beer called Old Crippled Bastard!!!

While at the bar talking to the owner, one of the regular patrons over heard the conversation. As we were leaving, he yells goodbye to us, and welcome to Ft. Wayne and Mad Anthony's!! "You're a Hoosier now!" he happily shouted at us.

I never thought I'd see the day!

Its 4am and I can't sleep

I guess that says it all. Had another fight or sorts with Zorro. I try not to instigate them, but maybe I did this one. I get tired of his suble jabs, his insistance that I stay focused on every word he utters. I was watching the ball game for Christ's sake! I guess I did become snippy.

But, I have come to this conclusion. I am going to have to stop drinking. Totally and forever. Every problem we ever have, I'd say at least 90%, is caused directly or indirectly by alcohol.

I would never consider myself an alcoholic (isn't that a dead give away that you are one). I just think it is the prudent thing to do. I'll survive and be a better person for it.

Just wanted to get it on the record that another fight has occurred and that he said some very hurtful things...again. I am just whooped.

I FEEL FREE

Life is pressing in on me as of late. I have, I feel I have so many obligations to so many people. My parents, my daughter who is beginning her life as an adult but still needs me...., my in-laws, rather my husbands children who need him, my work, my customers, my friends, my co-workers, and oh-my-God can I believe I put them on the end!!!! My family! I feel I am thrust into responsibility head first and hands bound together.

This morning I was walking down the inner city streets of Louisville...alone..., heading towards Sluggar stadium for the first leg of the Triple Corwn of Running, the Antheum 5K I felt so overwhelmed. So many people depending on my to make them happy, make their lives easier. Every step I took I felt the heaviness of responsibilty slide from my sholders. I had a fantasy of cashing in all my chips and running away. For the briefiest moment I remembered what it was like to not have a worry in the world....

Sometimes to run is to be free. Even if you are running at the back of the pack.

FT PAYNE

I'm not sure what to think. I'm pretty sure that if I had landed in paradise, I still would compare and be home sick. Thank goodness I can go home in two days.

It is just so cold, and the spring flowers are nowhere.

There seems to be little beauty in the landscape in the midst of winter. No pride in the town, no interesting downtown...? The three rivers that come together in the middle of town are creeks. And the fort of Ft. (P)ayne is a run down, un kept heap of gravel and flood lights to either show off the monstaosity, or keep vandels at bay. I know a Fort when I see one, and this thing is a disgrace.

I hope that I get over the shock and embrace my inevitable new home.....

YOU'RE A HOOSIER NOW!

That is what a guy I met at the bar of Crazy Anthony's quiped at our retreating back as we left the restaurant/bar/ brewery. Holy hell.

Am now at the campus of IUPUFW and using the computer. My neck is getting tired, so I'll write more late.

Just thought I would pass on the news.

LIFE RETURNING TO NORMAL FOR 24 HOURS

Poo-Poo just left for Ft. Wayne. The house is an absolute wreck. I will clean it up, toss all the junk into B.'s room and then try to disinfect the lazy boy chair. I have never experienced such a stink before in my life! It smells like it was confined to a smoke filled room for years...hey, it was!

I have found out that D. is reading my journal on AOL. It has semi freaked me out. I suspected several months ago when B. mentioned my screen name and then said, "I don't know where that came from?" Why does a 10 year old girl think she is clever...or has any iota of being smarter than me? Huh?

I will have my revenge, even if it is only I who knows!

it is almost seven (four more moments) and I am in pj's, hair askew and teeth unbrushed. Wish it were over....in a strange surreal sense I feel a certain ability to not care anymore without suffering any consequenses!

LEAVEING NEWPORT

Yesterday Poo-Poo, his youngest daughter and myself made the journey to Newport to move him back home yesterday. The furniture and household things we have been accumulating over the past three months were packed up in the U-Haul. Some of the furniture we placed close to the dumpsters, letting those know it was up for grabs. Actually, that was a stroke of genius for the grateful receiptent helped us shuffle the remaining stuff into the U-Haul.

It took about two hours to clean it out. Poo-Poo and Poo-Poo Jr. took off for home and I headed to some of my favorite spots in Cincinnati and surrounding area...for the last time.

I surprised myself with the sadness I felt. We had arrived with Winter and were leaving with the beginnings of spring. I was growing very fond of my weekends there and was looking forward to the beauty and adventure that the warmer weather was surely to bring.

I went to Trader Joes' and stocked up on Two Buck Chuck, scones, pinapple slasa, pizza dough, chocholate covered bing cherries.

I went to Party Supply which is open at 11am Sunday morning. I loved to waslk down the aisle of beers. So tempting and mind boggling. The cave was the cold vault full of wonderful beer. The flavor rum selection was fabulous. I will most certainly miss the Party Supply.

I ended up my shopping spree with a trip to Superior Candy and Nuts. Candy sound by the pound. This was the first stop every week end for my step daughter and I to get our $2.99 bag of treats. Everything from jaw breakers to salt water taffy. I purchased the ceremonial last bags for each of us. I also purchased a pound of liquorish assorts! The very very hard to find delights that I love maybe a little too much. Last time I found them was in a shop in Galway.

I have become very attached to the area. I beleive it had a lot to do with it being a major metropolis. I am going to miss so much.

Driving into the valley of the Ohio river rounding the big hill on I-75, you come around and the city of Cincinnati is laid out in front of you like a crown jewel. At night time, this view will take you breat away with its beauty.

There are seven bridges that span the Ohio River into Kentucky. Each one has a demonstative name attached. The Suspension Bridge, the Mac Bridge, the Purple People Bridge. I loved to photograph them and will miss thier mystic and dreaminess that they always opened up in me.

I'll miss the walks I took and the great source for picture taking. Covington crossed the little bridge and became Newport, which merged into Bellview which became Dayton (KY). Everyone a small and interesting cluster of old establishments saved from the early frointiers day.

The Levee with the Newport Aquarium and the multitude of fancy restuaraunts and shops. The actual levee with the wonderful Riverfront area for walking, tossing rocks into the Ohio, the veterans park, the restaurants on the river, the runnig track. The barges, the abondoned boats on the ground wrapped in blue vinyl balnket for the winter.

I'll miss the bars that were everywhere and I did not have nearly enough time to visit all the ones I wanted. The SOuthgate House will be a source of fond memories.

ANd then the minor things that you always take for granted. The Biggs hyper mart! The produce selection was fabulous! The public radio stations, one out of Batavia Oh which played the most off the wall stuff! Polka music, old Big Band Sounds, Celtic music, and old Cowboy music! The DJ's were grandma's & grandpa's sharing their record collections! I will miss that very much.

I'll miss most off the the wonder of anticipation. It was an area that anything could happen. Of color and excitement and people coming and going.

It was a good three months.
,

PHOTO FRIDAY: GHOSTLY



All over the small two lane roads through out our rural areas you will encounter these ghostly reminders that when you least expect it something goes terribly wrong.

I do it for the comments

I seem to be loosing my audience in AOL Journals. Don't know why. Seems the alerts are on the blink and maybe that is some of the reason. I got bored with my Addicted to Love series, maybe they did too. I realize I will never know. I have been through this before, a flux in my readership. We all know we do it for the comments.

My hit meter seems to be off too. I posted to Photo Friday which usually gives me 100 or so hits and nothing. So very odd! I received two comments and the meter did not move! What is up with that. Very frustrating to an insecure neurotic like me.

I do not write often about work. Today we are having a market tour. Since I have this new territory, wouldn't you know it, the tour is in my area! Rats. I have not spent much time there leaving it to Daniel to clean, find the out of dates, report infractions to me. Daniel had been great. I would have died without him. I must tip my hat to Jeff for his inspiration to have Daniel help out. Of course, Jeff's arse is on the line too.

I wanted a new job, new challenges, new experiences...well I have them. Just not the way I expected. This new territory is making me work! I hate it! Ha! Seriously, it is a lot of work and I had hopelessly lost at times. Thank God I have seven years experience at this job! I am so totally unorganized that I am desperately re-inventing my lazy self.

Added to every thing that is going on at work, Joe drops the bomb that he is being transferred to Ft. Wayne. I am very excited about the prospect of moving. New surroundings and experiences. The exhilaration is offset by Mom and Dad, the reality of moving an entire household at one time....I have never been so under the gun before...and transferring. What if I can't? Then, the competition is there...and maybe I need to find the job of my dreams for the remainder of my working career....Writing, journalism.

Maybe people are not reading me anymore....but it certainly isn't because my life is boring!

MUST I ALWAYS BE ALONE
Addicted to Love (part XIX)

I attended my 20th High School reunion during the summer months. I discovered one amazing thing. All the women looked great, better, young still and I recognized every one. But the guys! Holy mackerel! Guess that is one of natures little jokes on us. The women age at a slower pace. This could be our excessive use of anti aging products. It seems the guys just don't care. But as we near our golden years, the guys look better. (Shelley Winters....Sean Connery....?)

I knew C.K. during those four years of hell known as high school. He was definitely one of the cool kid crowd. To be a gold member of that group, you came from Christ the King Grammar School. And he did. He was a college professor in a state far, far away. Taught economics of all things! He was recovering from a break up of a long term relationship and very vulnerable. It was not that I felt sorry for him, it was that I was so lonely! He is a terrific guy, funny, smart, stable, attentive and best of all his family owned a flower business in Lexington. I was awash in roses and beautiful exotic flowers for months.

All my platonic relationships come to the same conclusion. Give it up, or bust up. The good thing about most my romances of this sort, is that the guy usually is married within six months! C.K. found a stunningly beautiful woman from Brazil teaching Spanish at the college! I went to the wedding!

Loneliness is an subtle destroyer. It creeps up on you slowly and with little warning you are yearning for something that seems so unattainable. I went to the movies with Bridget, and a couple with two children were sitting several rows ahead of us. They settled down in their seats and he causally put his arm around her seat.

My heart was in my throat and I was fighting back the tears. Will I ever be touched by someone I love ever again? How long must I wait for a kiss that blows my mind. Will I ever have someone throw their arm around me and touch their head to mine? Is it my fate to never have passion in my life...to share my life?

I remember seeing a commercial on tv about a business called Match Makers. I made an appointment and signed up! She was so enthused to have me as a client! "They will eat you alive!" she told me.

This is how it went. Every month you were sent in the mail approximately 10 "matches" which included their name and address. That was it! No rhyme or reason to it. I think she just tossed the names up in the air and when ever they fell that was it...you were matched up.

I was contacted by a guy named Butch. I met him at a restaurant in Lexington. "Meet for lunch" she had advised me, "That way it is less awkward to get away."

So, how do you do it. I always told them I had short hair and I would wear a flower of some sort.....

Butch...what can I say about my first experience! He was drop dead gorgeous. I was thinking he was worth every penny of the exorbitant amount that car salesmen turned Match Maker coerced out of me.

He was fresh off a break up, on the rebound and very distracted. There was to be no second date. At least I got a nice lunch out of the deal. The only thing we had in common was that we both picked off the red onion rings from our salads and placed them on the side of the plate.

It was a good and bad start. I told myself to stop being so superficial and shallow. He was a jerk. Albeit a handsome jerk, but a jerk all the same. A drop dead gorgeous jerk, but a jerk.

I'd wait for the next batch of mail.