It's That Time of Year Again...

It's that time of year again.



No, not Tax Day. It's Marti's Birthday...



Which this year also coincides with The Prom.

Once again I found myself struggling to make a corsage for The Beloved as The Eldest Unnamed One had to have one that went with her gown...(Which someone said was blue-green...Not!)



I think after a few years of practice I may be getting the hang of it.



They are so happy, so full of the world and its possibilities.



I'm exhausted. It's been a day of baking, housecleaning, celebrating and trying hard not to remember that in a few short months my boy and his friends will be flying the nest and leaving the world we have shared for 18 short years.

I suppose that means Bailey will be getting more haircuts and having to put up with a neurotic owner who shaves his hair off and dresses him up funny costumes...

All the Responsibility- Half the Time...Flying Solo

Ah, I see my friend, Christina, over at solomother.com shares the Insomnia Bug. She's not counting zebras but she is staring up at the ceiling some nights- with good reason. Christina writes about her experience as a single mom "starting over" with great poignancy and without a trace of self-pity. You really should check her out!

I think so many of us single moms are really a lot like trapeze artists- we fly through the air on a wing and a prayer, hoping against hope that when we reach out for that bar,or the proffered hand, it will be there and we will make it to safety because we are working without a net.

Sure, Christina looks down once in awhile, but she doesn't stay focused on that all too possible fall. Instead, she stays in the present, enjoying the small victories and celebrating the moments she and her boy have together. She values the valuable-the now- all the while keeping one eye on the future...and sometimes, just like all of us, she has a bit of trouble sleeping.

One Week Without the Unnamed Ones- Day 5

The truth is, I get as much done when the Unnamed Ones are home as I do when they're away...The only difference is, I just plain miss my boys...and now, it's worse because I even miss the Witch!

But...I did finish cleaning out and putting back the office closet and its contents.

And I wrote about 11 pages. I'm trying a new way of writing for awhile. It's called the "Don't plot it- just put the people on the page and see what happens next."

Darlene, my Flea Sister, was with me up in D.C when the approach came to me. Of course, as you may remember, I was sick and stuck in amongst 3500 therapists at a psychotherapy conference. I think the therapists helped. For one thing, if one of the presenters hadn't bored the living poop out of me, I wouldn't have started writing- inventing 2 characters to entertain me as I went along.

Secondly, I think the influence of 3500 therapists shows very clearly in this new writing technique. I put the characters on the page and try to figure them out as I type along after them.

I know...get to the good stuff, Nance, you're boring us....




All right. I went to pick up my massive quantity of jelly beans, all tucked snug in their little beribboned jelly jars. Bessie was nowhere in sight but the rest of the crew was gathered in the activity room, waiting for the afternoon's storytelling session.

As near as I could tell, they all appeared to be sleeping, or at best in a post lunch stupor.

Milly, a white-haired lady with blood-thinner bruises all over her arms and a lap rug covering her legs rolled up and squinted up at me through her glasses.

Most days she smiles and says "There you are, honey! I've been looking everywhere for you!" But not today. Today Milly rolls up, raises one eyebrow and says acerbically, "Well, it's about time! I haven't seen you in forever!"

"Well, Milly," I said, "It was only yesterday, remember?"

Milly ignores this in order to get right down to what's on her mind.

"Are you gonna clip my toenails, or what?" she demands.

Now, usually I'll go along with whatever they throw at me but I have this thing about feet- I don't let people play with mine and in return, I won't play with theirs! So before I could stop myself, I'd said, "Heck no, I won't clip your toenails. I love you, Milly, but you'd better save that for the podiatrist."

"Humph!" Milly snorts, like "what good are you then, girl?!"

The activity assistant is sitting in her office, reading the paper, probably stalling story hour until she feels inspired.

"She knows you aren't the podiatrist," she says, never looking up from her paper.

But Milly's had enough of our foolishness. She starts rolling out of the room, headed down the hallway.

"Milly!" the assistant calls. "Milly, where you goin'?"

"I'll be back!" Milly calls over her shoulder...but the assistant knows better.

"Aw, she's goin' back to her room and gonna climb up in that easy chair of hers," she grouses. "She loves her some chair!"

But I know the real truth. I've let Milly down. Not only was I not the podiatrist, I didn't even have the sense to help her save face by pretending to be the podiatrist.

I walk back out to the car, put down the top and drive away with my jelly beans. I know Milly will have forgotten all about my betrayal by the next time she sees me, but I won't.

Getting old, losing bits and pieces of your memory and your life, is terribly hard. It's full of pain and misery and the grief of losing your future and your past.

Compared to that, becoming a podiatrist is the very least I can do.

One Week Without the Unnamed Ones- Day 4

Okay, I've made so much progress left to my own devices, I decided to send myself to work- in hopes maybe they could do some thing with me.


Nope. I got as much accomplished there as I did here at home!

However, I learned a lot more about my old guys than I usually do...just by resolving to sit absolutely still and see what happened...

I learned:

Mild, sweet-mannered Mary was bad to fight in high school. She didn't like it when folks got "snobbish."

"I know how they do! Black folk do it too," she cried. "Just like this other Mary I knew. She weren't nobody! I knew her from second grade right on up through high school. Then she started goin' with this man and acting like she all better than us! She used to pick on Blondell. We called her T.B on account of she was so little!"

"Why T.B?" I asked.

Mary looked at me like I was stupid. "I don't know! On account of she was small, that's all I know! Anyway, that bad Mary, she was pickin' on Blondedell,I mean, T.B, one day and I said 'Leave her alone!' And don't you know that witch turned and started to slap on me?!"

Mary snorts, balls up an arthritic fist and shows it to me. "I punched her right in the mouth! Knocked her front teeth out!"

"You did that? Mary! Not you!" I said.

Mary smiled. "Yeah, honey! I was a good fighter!"

"You know, that girl's dead now. That married man, he died, then his wife died and ole Blondell, she gone too, now."

At this point Bessie comes into the room. She's a frail little old lady, walking with a cane and holding onto a jelly jar filled with...jelly beans. She spots me from the hallway, sitting with Mary, and she knows I'm a sucker.

"Hey, lookit here," she says, wandering into the room. "Look what we made in activities!"

She gives me this smile that has been unnerving me every time she does it- at least for the past month or so- since Bessie got her new dentures. They're about 2 sizes too large and they slip when she talks or smiles, so when she's talking, you can't help but watch her teeth slide one way as her lips go the other way and well, just forget trying to be a good listener who makes eye-contact! It's all mouth with Bessie.

She waits until I've about drooled all over the jar and praised the beauty of her work before she sets the hook in me real good.

"We're sellin' 'um for our activity trips," she says. "You want one?"

I ask how much. She says $2, which seems like a stone cold deal to me, so I say, "I'd like 5."

"Five? Five!" Bessie clutches at her chest, starts hyperventilating (I kid you not- I couldn't make this up...) She backs up, out into the hallway where she stares anxiously at the activity room door, like she needs rescuing. "Oh, Lord! Oh, dear! They're gone. They went home! We can't make no more til tomorrow! Five! Oh Lord!"

I assure Bessie it's no big deal. I'll be glad to come back tomorrow and let the Activity director handle this monster order and, once she's calmed down, Bessie wanders off to get the nurse to give her another "breathing treatment."

Mary waits until she's wandered a few feet away before she says, "I'm so glad me and her made up."

I nod, remembering that for a short time Mary and Bessie were roommates but Bessie's a mite bossy and Mary doesn't want any old white ladies mistaking her for their maid or worse, their child, so the two parted ways...peacefully, I thought.

"Yeah," Mary says. "I was out in the hallway in my wheelchair and I just leaned over and took her hand and told her I was real sorry for the harsh things I said. And she said, Oh now Mary,we all say harsh things we don't mean when we're angry. I'm sorry too.'"

Mary smiles. "You know, she's in with a lady now, smells real bad."

Mary nods her head, like what goes around comes around, and adds, "I even let Bessie borrow my room spray to clear out the smell in her room. And to think I was going to get her. I really was."

Now, I must admit, I wasn't paying close attention when Mary said this. All I did was nod, until Mary said something about being in her room while the aides and her nurse were dressing her one morning and she kept telling them to hurry up. "I told them, I got to be ready before Bessie comes out her new room cause I'm gonna run her over! I'd heard enough of her mess, you know?"

I nod, thinking Mary wouldn't hurt a gnat.

"Them aides was all laughin'. But when Bessie came out her room, there I was! I dug in on the wheels and took off after her and if Katrina hadn't come flyin' down the hallway and grabbed my chair, I woulda nailed her! I surely would! I was this close!" She shows me a small 6" gap between her two hands.

Mary smiles, the same sweet little old lady smile she always smiles, only now I see the rotweiler in her.

"I think back on it now and I sure am glad that Katrina stopped me. I just think what they might've done to me if I'd hit Bessie. They might've kicked me out of here. Then what would I do?"

Note Mary doesn't say she might've hurt her dear friend, uh-huh, she's worried about her own ass!

"Yeah, that Bessie's a sweet thing," Mary says smiling softly to herself. She stares down at her hands and I know she's reliving the feel of her wheelchair's thin rubber tires as she pushed off, determined to murder Bessie. I wonder to myself what might've happened had Mary been left to her own devices!

I make a mental note never to turn my back on dear, sweet Mary, especially when she's up and out of bed, roaming the halls in her lightning fast wheelchair.

One Week Without the Unnamed Ones- Day 3

Good news!

No other dogs have shed hair to save their own hides.

I went Easter candy shopping yesterday and with my coupons, was able to purchase jelly beans for virtually nothing!

Good news, right?

Better news...I don't like green, yellow or,particularly, black jelly beans...and those are the only ones left! Looks like I'm back on my no sugar diet!

And remember one of my goals for the week was to clean out a closet?

Well, I cleaned out the closet in my office- see?!




I don't recall any promises about putting it back together though...maybe next vacation.

I also wrote at least a page on one of my novels.

See how well things progress when I'm left to my own devices!

Oh, and I remembered I'd promised to make Mertis a pie to take to work for this morning, so in the middle of the night I baked a scrumptious apple-walnut-crumb pie. This meant I had to stay up while it baked, so I worked on the Sunday crossword. Surely that counts as a literary endeavor?

Transitions

It was six months yesterday. Six months since Dad died.

I can't begin to tell you how I miss him. I'm sure there's someone in your life whom you miss every bit as much as I miss Dad, so I'm sure you know what it is to face that kind of hole in your life.

But...

Dad wouldn't want me to sit around feeling sorry for myself. He would want me to reach deep inside my heart and pull out my "reality" of him. He would want me to find comfort in his memory, strength from the adventures and lessons we shared and joy in the length and depth of time we shared- 51 years of my life spent in the sheltering love of the greatest man I ever knew. Pretty neat, huh?

There isn't a day that passes that I don't think of him, or go to the well and draw strength from something he taught me.

Today I am hoping I do his memory justice by remembering to choose my battles wisely.

This is quite helpful when face with teenagers, especially the Eldest Unnamed One. He's growing up. Soon he'll be gone, making the transition to adulthood and his own life. It is a wonder to watch this almost-man take his own life into his hands and run with it. But it is also painful.

I knew this day would come. I knew it would feel like it was all happening too soon, too suddenly. I knew I would grieve. And I am.

But just as I let Dad go, I must also let the Eldest Unnamed One go forth into the world. And I must not cling onto him because if I do this, would I not be saying "I don't think you can handle the world on your own"? Wouldn't that send the message that I expect him to fail?

He's not going to fail. He's going to soar. In fact, sometimes I worry he'll leave home and forget all about me!

It's like that first day of kindergarten, when he got on the bus and didn't look back and it broke my heart. I stood there at the bus stop, tears leaking down my cheeks, feeling quite sorry for myself. That's when the brash redhead from the Bronx who lived across from the bus stop and also had a kindergartner, took matters into her own hands. "Hey, what're you cryin' for? If he didn't look back, it's because you did your job. You raised him to go out there and not be afraid. He knows you'll be there when he comes back because you always are there for him- but he doesn't need you to hold his hand because you also taught him he can do it."

Well, hell. If you put it that way...

"You did your job," she said.

I have never forgotten that and I'm glad because I think I'm going to need to remember those words come August when he leaves for UNC.

I will stand in the driveway, tears rolling down my cheeks and I will feel Dad's hand on my shoulder.

I know the ones we love are never truly lost to us.

In my heart I know this but aren't transitions a bitch?

The Flea Sisters- In Tune...

I miss Darlene.

We had such a good time in D.C.

There's just something special about hangin' with your sister. Oh, sure, we're very different in lots of ways, but Darlene gets parts of me no one else understands.

We laughed, we cried. We talked about Dad and where he is or isn't. We talked about how our lives made us into such different people and some of the distorted beliefs we held onto as children.

Darlene told me she thought she wasn't creative. I said, "That's nuts! Remember when you made up Mr. Lightbulb stories to tell me every night?" I didn't think to tell her that when Dad was dying, in that last day or two, she'd been unbelievably creative...How else would we have fallen so easily into Dad's make-believe world, pretending to be parts of the sailboat for him?

She said she didn't think she was very thoughtful. "It's all about me!" she said.

"No way," I told her. "Who brought her office mate soup when she was sick? And who, just that very day, thought to buy a lunch for me when she bought her own so I wouldn't have to stop writing and go stand in line?"

Who, I thought, dropped everything to be by Dad's side? And who still made time to console her buddies through their own hard times?

She thinks I'm the brave one...but who was there, sitting with Dad, holding on to him and saying, "It's okay, Dad. We'll be fine. You can go now, honey."

If that's not frank heroism, letting go of your very best friend with such grace, even in the face of your own terror, I don't know what bravery is.

Darlene heals places in me that I don't even know ache. I hope I do some of that for her too.

We're like the two tines of a tuning fork- knock us up hard against life and we still somehow manage to resonate in perfect tune.

I do miss Darlene, I surely do...But I do the same thing with her that Dad did with us...I soak these special times up like a sponge and keep them in my heart. That way, whenever I'm lonely for her, I can bring her out and "live" my Darlene.

Selfishly, I enjoyed her morning, grumpy mania this week. I got to go home feeling better about myself.

I didn't think anyone woke up crankier than me!

We decided we really needed to continue our quest for therapeutic excellence, right back at the OMNI, same time every year...for as long as the OMNI remembers to call Darlene and say "But...we love you!"

So...I'm learning a lot here at the psychotherapy conference...

Darlene is a bear if she doesn't have coffee immediately upon awakening. I mean, RIGHT AWAY, without question or hesitation.

Yesterday room service didn't deliver our morning coffee on time and I thought Darlene was going to chew through the wall!

"Humph!" she snorts. "Is this how they love me? Is it starting already? The OMNI thinks words are enough?"

She presses the OMNI Prompt Response button while I'm in the shower. I don't know what she said. Darlene is not normally given to saying mean things but the coffee arrived within moments after I emerged from my hidey hole in the bathroom.

"Humph!" she snorts. "It took them long enough!"

I look at my watch. It hasn't even been 10 minutes and there are thousands of guests here. Thousands of touchy-feely new age-ers (I can say this, I am one!)

Across from me, Darlene sputters. "Where's my bagel?! They forgot the bagels!! There isn't time! I'll be late to hear the Gottmans!"

She hops on the phone again. The upbraiding she is intent on delivering sounds like a polite, but strident, request. 10 minutes later we have hot, fresh bagels- no charge.

Darlene is mollified. I am totally pleased but Darlene has very tough standards. I can only think this has something to do with Tanisha telling her the OMNI loves her after they deny her an extra blanket. Once they swore their love, Darlene's minimum standards shot up through the roof.

But then, isn't that they way it always is when we fall in love?

The Gottmans think so. They said 69% of our marital issues are unresolvable. They said all marriages come with a set of perpetual problems- issues we will struggle with for the life of our relationship. They tell us this is inescapable and that our goal is to find people who have perpetual problems we can live with and then work on compromise. Our job as therapists is to help people learn to work on strategies for doing this.

I look over at Darlene and find her nodding understandingly. "You need to get their book," she says.

"What about you?" I demand.

Darlene smiles. Smug. "I already have it."

"Is it good?"

Darlene shrugs. "I don't know. I don't read books. I'm waiting for the CD."

At lunchtime Darlene takes me to a video lunch and learn lecture with Martin Seligman. He thinks we should focus more on helping people learn to be happier. He says we can do this by learning what our "signature strengths" are and then searching out jobs and situations that utilize those strengths.

Darlene has his book too.

When lunch is over, she turns to me, beaming. "I'm so happy!" she exclaims. "I think it was the coffee!"

I am reading this over to Darlene, searching out her approval when the phone rings...It's the freakin' OMNI calling Darlene to see how her breakfast was this morning! This call arrives on the heels of her discovery that last night the housekeepers redid her bed, including a freaking down comforter to make up for not giving her a blanket the night before.

"Do you have a down comforter?" she asks, giggling gleefully. "Ha-ha! You do not!" She is wearing a black slip, bouncing up and down on her bed, slinging her pantihose around like a feather boa as she leaps to her feet and begins to dance the hoochie coochie around our room. "That's right!" she crows. "They love me! Ha-Ha!"

John Brown's Birthday Bash

Tonight, me and Marti, Mertis, Carolyn, Miss Patsy and maybe more assorted and sundry clogger “girls” will be back out to Brown’s Ole Opry, commemorating a very important birthday with a very special fella. John Brown, the owner of The Barn and host of our weekend dances, is turning 85.

I wish you knew him.


Every Friday and Saturday night you'll find him out in the barn, waiting expectantly in his crisp denim overalls and his peaked bill John Deere cap. A fine edge of white stubble frosts cheeks that have been worn with wind and weather and his clear blue eyes sparkle with the pure pleasure he finds in making our toe-tapping happiness blossom.

He’s worked hard all his life, this man has, and weekend nights are his reward as well as his gift to his Mcleansville family.

He sits close to the door on the same, hard, wooden school auditorium seat he's occupied every Friday and Saturday night for who knows how many Friday and Saturday nights, greeting his neighbors one by one as they come to join him in a celebration of all that’s good and right with the world- and in particular, country and bluegrass music.

He doesn’t ask much…Just that we, his special "clogger girls" come and dance for him up there on the small, wooden square fronting the stage.

If he catches me sitting one too many dances out alongside the wall, he slowly leans forward, his eyes sparkling mischeviously, and points one arthritic finger toward the floor- my signal to quit dilly-dallying and get to steppin’.

A little dancing from us is all he’s asked for in the way of a birthday present and the very least we can do to honor someone who has brought so much simple pleasure to so many.

The last time I went out to dance, as I was leaving, he clasped my hand in both of his thick, work-roughened ones, looked up into my eyes with almost childlike wishfulness and said, “You won’t forget my birthday dance, March 2nd, will you?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for all the world, John,” I said.

And I wouldn’t.

Marti and I will step out onto the floor with Little Elvis and the house band, all the while thinking life can’t get no better than this…And let me tell you something...In light of the past week’s, well, hell, the past year’s events, it’s true. Life can’t get no better than whatever current morsel of time we have…So grab a hunk of it and hold on for all you’re worth!

It sure doesn’t seem to have done John Brown any harm.

Finding Your Life's Passion- or Passion? What Passion?

The Truth Is...Continued

Here I am with my old "The truth is" writing prompt again. You start with "the truth is" and go on from there...

The truth is, if y'all have any good ideas for other writing prompts you'd like to hear from this writer, feel free to let me know...Except for you, Billy! You are a dear, dear sweetie, but you'd probably have me writing about goats invading alien spaceships or some such as that!

The truth is I have no idea what my passion is. You know when I was talking about visualizing your dream into reality? Well, every time I think on it lately, I come up with dead air.

Marti and I tried thinking together in the same room and we both had the same result- nada.

We've asked ourselves if we're just chicken shit. We've wondered if we're afraid of failure, so we're blocking our wish from popping up into our heads so we can go visualize it. We've analyzed, proselytized, finalized and idealized all sorts of notions, but it doesn't help.

This is as far as I've gotten...My dream reality is so far a plot of land on Kerr Lake where I will put 4 tobacco barns- two joined together to make a roomy and nice cottage, then the other two will each be transformed into little guest cottages for the boys and their families when they come home to visit.

When the boys aren't there, I can rent them out to folks like a bed and breakfast, thus supporting me in my old age. When the boys are there, we'll jump off the end of the dock, water ski, catch fish and raise a good amount of hell...Then, when we're done with the racket and the fussing, we'll send them off to their cottages with their families and lock the door behind them until morning.

I'll have a study overlooking the water, so I can write and look out the window at the red-headed woodpecker who's made a home in the tree ten yards away. I'll have a little, manageable vegetable and flower garden and perhaps a few rose bushes, but not the well-behaved kind, the old "found" rose type bush, the kind that still grows around the foundations of home places long ago reduced to their stone foundations.

There will be music and the smell of muffins and cinnamon rolls wafting out my kitchen window in the morning. The window will be the kind that you turn a crank at the bottom to open it and it opens out from the cabin, like tiny glass barn doors.

There should be a screened in porch overlooking the lake, too. The beds will have feather mattresses, pillows and comforters. Old quilts will be piled in a trunk in front of the overstuffed sofa. And my friends won't have to call before they come over, just pop in the back door...Unless I've stuck my little yellow "Not right now" flag into its holder off the back porch railing.

Bird houses. Bird feeders. Fresh zinnias on the old wooden kitchen table in the summer. Fresh tomatoes, shaved Parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and basil for summer lunch. Thick vegetable soup in the winter time. The quiet stillness of a gray winter morning that heralds snow by mid-afternoon. Snow that clings to the cedars and looks like a Christmas card from my front gate.

A red kettle on the stove. Mismatched mugs hanging from hooks beneath the open-faced cabinets. A yellow hooked rug in the middle of the kitchen floor. Warm dogs snuggled beside me on the sofa for their afternoon naps. Someone who loves me, who loves to laugh, puttering around the place, sometimes taking the '48 Chevy truck into town to pick up one Bubba thing or another.

Bright, faded colors against old barn wood, soft, worn quilt fabric against ancient barn wood...and time, always more time. No one pushing me to do things I don't want to do. No paperwork or time clocks. Just the serenity of the sunlight hitting lake ripples, the quiet lapping of water against the dock, the scent of approaching rain on a hot summer day.

This is all I know of what I want and perhaps for now, it is enough.

Mouth of Marti...

When I grow up, I want to have Marti's mouth!

This morning, the guy from the Toyota place, Tony, calls and Marti answers the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hello, is Gary there?"

Marti: "No, I'm sorry, he's not."

Tony: "Oh, well this is Tony from the Toyota Place and we're having a big event Saturday afternoon to showcase the new Toyota Tundra and we want to invite him since he's a Tundra owner."

Marti: "Oh? So you aren't inviting me?"

There's a pause while Tony tries to think up an answer but Marti's too quick for him-

"Is this a men-only event or don't you think women would be interested in trucks? Because if that's what you're thinking, you're wrong. I'm the one who drives the Tundra. It's mine." She sighs. "Well, I guess it's still a man's world, isn't it?!"

"Well, ma'am, I'm sorry. I guess the list they gave me just had Gary's name on it and so I was just..."

"I know, you were just doing what you were told to do. You didn't even think to question the list. That's because you're a man and that's how men think. Tell me something, are there only men's names on that list?"

"Well, yes, ma'am, there sure are. I'm going to look into this..."

"Won't do you a bit of good," Marti snaps. "Because it was a man who gave you that list, wasn't it?"

Tony is floored. "Why, you're right, it was a man."

"That's what I thought!" Marti says, and starts to hang up.

"Uh, Ma'am? Wait! Could I please just ask you just one favor?"

"What's that?"

"Would you please, please, please come down to the Toyota place this Saturday afternoon between 3 and 5 and ask for me, Tony?"

"And why would I do that?"

"I just gotta meet the woman that goes with that mouth!"

The Big Take-Away

Nope, no pennies from Heaven this morning!

I called my brother yesterday to tell him the "Penny Tales."

"What're you doing?" I ask. He's an electrician, so I ask because it wouldn't do to freak him out while he's wiring something. Call me overly cautious but I just don't think you should fool around when you're working with live wires.

"I'm wiring in a new panel box," he says.

I give him the headline, so he's forewarned. "I think I heard from Dad."

"What?! What did you say? Did I hear you right? You heard from Dad?"

I think he put the screwdriver down. I tell him about the pennies and what Ellen's said about signs. I'm kind of holding my breath in case he thinks I'm nuts.

"Wow! I'm gettin' shivers! You know, when Vicki's dad died she got the sign from lady bugs."

I breathe a sigh of relief. I may be nuts anyway, but at least my brother doesn't seem to think so, at least, not about this.

When I get off the line with John, I go on into my next nursing home of the day. I want to say something, tell somebody, but there's just nobody here I'd trust with that kind of story.

Clarence, a thin little man who resembles a plucked, beakless chicken wearing a tweed fedora is sitting in a wheelchair in the hallway. "Hey," he says. "There's my sweetheart," he croaks. He smiles and I stop to hold his hand and reassure him that I am his sweetheart.

I walk away and behind me I hear him saying "She's my sweetheart! She loves me. She said she loves me. Hey, you hear that? She loves me!"

I enter the social work office and sit there doing paperwork, listening to Clarence out in the hallway. "Do you know my mama? Do you? Do you know her name? Tell me her name?"

Throughout the afternoon I pass Clarence, each time stopping to take his hand and tell him all over again that I am his sweetheart. When I am leaving I give him a hug and hear all the way down the hallway and out the door "She hugged me! She hugged me! I told you, she loves me!"

And really, I do.

I walk to my car feeling better than I have in a good while. I feel maybe like Clarence, comforted by the knowledge that I am loved- by lots of people; and blessed and not as alone as I've felt, not as lost.

I feel like I haven't really lost Dad- which I knew but didn't feel. No one can take the Dad out of me.

I guess my take-away from this entire penny deal is this- It doesn't matter what the pennies signify to anyone else. It only matters what it means to me- how it makes me feel. For me it is a huge cosmic hug.

This morning I found this article. I think I agree.

Oh, to be 16 Again!!!

How's that for a picture of true happiness? A Rage Against the Machine T-Shirt, A pink feather tiara and an army jacket blowing out the 16 candles (Hanukkah candles on sale from Tar-jet make great birthday torches!) on his Snickers Ice Cream cake.

That's us...always original and quite often tacky!


I left the cake ordering up to the Eldest Unnamed One and the Double Witch...and they tried to do the right thing...The people at Cold Stone asked how many people would be eating cake, they said 5 and so when I arrived to pick it up- it was tiny...but goooood!

I know, it was the second day of Lose the Halloween Poundage...but I look at it like this: If it's a special occasion or you might never get to eat it again, it's calorie free.

The 2 pieces of Dove dark chocolate I later ate right before bed were just an oh-what-the-hell afterthought.

It was a great cake, a very special occasion and totally worth it.

I just can't believe I only have 2 years left with this precious one before he too abandons ship...er, I mean leaves for college.

Every day he is wiser and funnier and totally one of the great joys of my life. I'm pretty lucky to have such amazing kids.

And I've totally adopted the Double Witch, even if she has stolen the Eldest Unnamed's heart...

Now...onward to defrock the Christmas tree and remove the birthday balloons from the lighting-up reindeer in the front yard!

Dancing Like Barney...Right Into My New Reality

"Be the change you wish to see in the Universe."

Okay, I'm working with this, trying it on for size and having some interesting results.

Things around here had fallen into a bit of a negativity slump. You know- the glass is half-empty versus half-full. I caught myself thinking of my life as a shit sandwich. When you think your life is going down the tubes you tend to look for supporting evidence.

So I was looking at everything that wasn't working and using it as proof that my life indeed sucked.

That's what I looked for, that's what I got.

If I was searching for a bad time, I was certainly successful in cultivating one.

And I am totally over it!

I figure, what can it hurt to reorganize my reality? So for the past few days I've been walking around trying to see the positives-turning the lemons into lemonade.

I must tell you- I'm starting to feel like Barney the Terminally Happy Dinosaur.

Dogs crapped on the rug? Well, at least I didn't step on it!

Stepped on the dog crap? Well, it could be worse...I could've done it in my bare feet.

Stepped on dog crap in my bare feet? Well, I'm totally lucky it didn't have anything sharp in it and was at least still warm! Imagine how icky it would be to step in cold dog dookie with sharp twigs in it!

Oh, you did?! Well, aren't you glad your dog didn't die from ingesting those sharp twigs! And wasn't that a wonderful way of the Universe letting you know that your dog has been consuming potentially dangerous twigs! Boy are you lucky!

While I haven't stepped in any doo-doo, I have seen a wonderful change around here.

Apparently a good attitude is catching...or maybe I just choose to see it that way.

It's been amazingly good for my love life...but that's another story...

And when I have momentarily forgotten my new approach to reality- the people around me are beginning to help out by saying things like "What happened to that positive attitude?" This jars me into perspective and I get back on track.

Now, is it corny beyond belief? Absolutely. Do I feel like a fool? Sometimes. But would I rather die feeling I'd had a happy life or a shit sandwich?

I'm voting for goofy, woo-wah happy.

And if my love life continues to improve...well, I suppose that's just the cross I'll have to bear...

sigh.

Good Intentions Vs Cruel Resolutions

Ah, the new year...Time for resolutions and turning over new leaves.

This implies looking back over the past year, or perhaps your entire life and resolving to do things differently- as if you've been doing it all wrong and must now fix yourself.

Hoo-ey!

If we must review our lives, why not be more positive- say start with counting a few blessings then move forward to the next steps or goals? Maybe we do like the car companies do- review the 2006 model and tweak it for 2007. At the extreme- a complete model makeover...but then, isn't it really something else and no longer really an Accord or a Corolla? Never mind, I'm digressing!

Anyway- if I'm reviewing my past year my first reaction is to tell you it sucked big time! But really, I suppose it didn't. I suppose there are many blessings to be found in it- like the time I had with Dad, or the way his illness drew me closer to my sister Flea. There was a lot of good in that pain.

Then Cookie died...but before she did, didn't she also give me much more than I hoped to give her? Didn't I learn from both my Dad and Cookie that the important things in life aren't concrete objectives or material possessions? What is important are our relationships and the only thing that travels with us are our memories and feelings. Even when Cookie was losing her hold on her memories, she still recognized and clung to her memories of and love for her children.

Dad said not to listen to a person's answers- instead, listen to their questions. Their passion, their area of interest is revealed in their questions and those questions signify what they feel most passionate about. He said compassion and kindness are everything. He took my hand and placed it on top of my sister's, then added in the rest of the family and my best friends. He patted the stack of hands and his message was crystal clear- stick together-it's important.

I remember the Eldest Unnamed One only a month ago telling me "There are Innies and there are Outies. The Innies don't look to the outside world for validation- they look inside, to what makes them happy, and they follow this. They will never be lost."

So, now I've got to figure out how to take these gifts and apply them to my own life. Given what I've learned over the past year, what am I going to add to the 2007 model of me? What will take me in a direction that brings me closer to those things I feel most passionate about?

My boys are growing. The eldest will leave next fall and his brother will follow him in 2 short years. When I started writing, I thought I'd become wealthy enough to have a beach house for family vacations. Well, we take vacations but we don't own a beach house. Maybe I need to look at creating a home where my boys will want to bring their own kids- the way my father created a haven for us and we always flocked to him at every occasion.

He created this home in his heart and that's what truly drew us to him...but his surroundings didn't hurt- first the lake house and then the condo in a vacation resort. It's time to plan this for my own future.

The second area of my life that could use a little tweaking is my writing. For someone who feels so passionately about writing, I sure don't do a lot of it! Oh sure, I write here but I'm not creating new fiction. Blogging has been a way for me to explore a new way of writing. It's time to translate that onto paper. How do I translate my journal honesty into fiction?

Beats the hell out of me!

But if Mama don't write no fiction, Mama can't buy no beach or lake house! Mama will have to continue working long hours at jobs that worship the almighty paperwork and not the creative juices...Time for a change...or as the Eldest Unnamed One is often overheard to say- "Work smarter, not harder!"

Sure, I intend to lose the extra pounds I put on celebrating the holidays- but I'm not going to treat myself like I've been bad and need to starve my poor body back to "health." Nope, I'm going to do the things that make me happy and trust the Universe to keep me too happy and busy to sit around shoveling in sugar!

So, thanks Universe! I can't wait to finish the best book I've ever written and move to the sweetest little cottage this side of Utopia!

In the meantime...I've got to find out what happened to my staff. They were supposed to report early this morning to take down the 500 million Christmas decorations!

Sigh. They must be out following their own best intentions!