My secret bond with Jamie Leigh Curtis

I've been reading a wonderful book today, The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. The plot revolves around a doctor whose wife gives birth to twins, a healthy boy and a girl with Down Syndrome. In a split-second decision, the doctor sends the baby girl away to an institution and tells his wife that their daughter died. The rest of the book is about the ramifications of that one act.

Part of the story is about how the girl grows up, happy and healthy, with a mother she believes is her own. And that's the part of the story that triggered a memory of my own.

I don't know how old I was when I first heard about adoption, but there was a period of time when I was nine years old that I gave the subject some serious consideration. For reasons I don't remember, I wasn't a particularly happy kid that year. I thought my family didn't understand or appreciate me, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought I knew why: I was not theirs.

My mother had talked numerous times about the day I was born, as had my grandparents, but I began to think they'd made it all up. Yes, I looked quite a bit like my mother, and I could also see some of my facial features in photos of my father, but wouldn't it be natural that they'd try to pick out a child who resembled them? Of course, they would.

I began to fantasize about my real parents, the ones who'd been looking for me ever since I'd disappeared in my infancy. Not that I thought the people I lived with were baby-stealers, nosiree bob, they were decent folks. It's just that they lived such boring lives: cleaning house, going to work, cooking meals, working in the garden. I knew, deep down, I was different. I was meant for better things.

From time to time I pondered the situation, trying to figure out who I was, where I belonged, and what I could do to make things right once I knew the answers to those questions. I studied faces in magazines and movies (we didn't get TV until the following year), looking for people who might be my real parents.

Finally, I thought I found them: Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Janet Leigh and the woman in my house who claimed to be my mother had a lot of similar features, so it was conceivable Janet Leigh's baby could pass as my mother's. And Tony Curtis was so handsome; who wouldn't want him for a dad?

I loved this idea. I could see myself riding between them in a convertible, waving to fans as we drove down the streets of Hollywood. We would live in a big white mansion, and I'd probably have a pony. I'd have lots of dolls, more beautiful dresses than any other child I knew, and I'd never--not once--be asked to sweep off the sidewalk when I'd rather be reading comic books. These would be my people. They'd know I was born for greatness.

There was one little problem. I was in fourth grade, I was good at math, and the numbers just didn't add up. I had no idea how long it took to have a baby, but I knew a woman couldn't have one unless she was married. I'd read that Tony and Janet had gotten married only the year before, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't think of any way they could have a daughter who was now nine years old.

I thought about it a lot. I tried to make it so. I tried until the hard, cold arithmetic interfered too many times with my fantasies and wishes...or until whatever had been bothering me at home resolved itself. All I know is that my adopted-child phase fizzled out.

There were other times after that when I felt sad and other times when I wished certain things in my family were different, but I never again wished for a different family. In fact, the older I got, the more I learned to appreciate the people who loved me in spite of my fanciful ways, and the more I wanted to be like them.

I've grown up to clean house, go to work, cook meals...all those things that are necessary parts of raising a family and making a house a home. I've done all those things with a sense of honor and gratitude for the people who supported me physically, financially and emotionally until I was able to do those things on my own. I know who I am and where I belong, and I wouldn't change it if I could.

My adoption fantasy is so over. When I think about it these days, there's only one part of it that still makes me a little wistful: Jamie Leigh, if you read this, would you let me know if you ever had a pony?

This is my 300th post...

...according to Blogger. Had I paid attention to the number of my last post, I'd have tried to make this one worthy of the occasion. I would have selected a subject of universal interest, and I would have given special care to every single syllable and punctuation mark. Unfortunately for you, this one will run more along the lines of a holy-crap-it's-been-two-days-since-I-posted entry. So, without further ado, for my 300th post I'll show you a couple of photos and talk about the weather.

Last weekend I was running around in short-sleeved shirts and enjoying it immensely. My neighbor's roses enjoyed the warmer weather, too. They behaved as if it were entirely normal to bloom so boldly in the middle of January.

At the beginning of the new week, though, someone threw the weather switch and the temperature dropped forty degrees. I've been cold all the way to the bone since Tuesday, and today the dreaded rain is back.

There. All done. (I'll work a little harder on the next 300 posts.)

Where did the time go?

Cleaning (yuck!)

Back in November, I wrote about my tendency to procrastinate and listed all the things on my desk. I took this photo that same day:


I was embarrassed to show you the "before" picture until I could follow it up with an "after" one, which I couldn't do until now. Here, thank goodness, is how it looks today:


The front rooms of my house got a thorough cleaning while I was off work during the holidays. They've pretty much stayed clean and needed only dusting and vacuuming this weekend. The kitchen and bathroom, of course, get dirty on a daily basis, so they were due to be cleaned again over the weekend. All of that I could have managed if I'd put my mind to it, but the den where my office is? Just looking at the mess in there overwhelmed me.

My office area is at one end of the den. At the other end is a table that used to be a perfect place to do crafts or work jigsaw puzzles. For the past two years that table has been piled high with the tools of an ongoing redecorating project: paint cans, brushes, rollers, drop cloths, etc., all of which had become covered with a layer of dust. Add several stacks of books and a heaping pile of cardboard boxes (for transporting items to Goodwill), and I couldn't even imagine where to begin.

This past weekend, motivated by an impending first-time visit by a new online friend, push finally came to shove. Even working at the fastest pace I could manage, I underestimated the amount of time it would take me to finish. Fortunately, on the second day, my daughter pitched in. She can be something of a Discard Nazi, and, thankfully, she worked her tail off as she talked me into tossing out a trunkload of stuff I just might need someday.

My house is more orderly right now than it's been in the past two years. In fact, it's so clean that I had no fun at all yesterday, because I couldn't bear to do anything that might mess it up.

Company (yea!)

Our Sunday visitor was even more delightful in person than she is online. She comments here as FrontHallGlass, and she came bearing homemade macaroni and cheese in one hand and a precious eight-week-old puppy in the other. We had a delightful evening full of good conversation, good food, and one fairly pathetic game of Trivial Pursuit. I look forward to doing it all again.

Convalescing (yikes!)

That would be Butch, who, ironically, managed to injure his right front leg while he was home and I was at the veterinarian's office. He was fine when I left home to go get a new supply of heartworm meds for him and Kadi, but by the time I got back he was limping. Nothing appeared to be broken, and there were no visible wounds, so we think he probably hurt himself jumping off the futon.

I waited out the weekend, hoping he'd improve, before I finally broke down yesterday and took him to the vet. They kept him for a couple of hours, checked him out, and came to the same conclusion I did: he probably didn't need to go to the vet. Still, they gave him some anti-inflammatory meds. So far, the drugs have done a lot more for my guilt complex than they've done for Butch's limp.

Catching up (yippee!)

I've buzzed quickly by a few of my favorite blogs in the last few days, and I hope to catch up with everybody soon. Right this minute, though, I have a major

Conflict (yup!)

The new season of American Idol starts tonight. See y'all later!

Smaaaack!

The road that runs in front of my house is a two-lane, winding road that shouldn't be as busy as it is, but a lot of chemical plant workers use it as a route to avoid an even busier four-lane highway east of us. The four-lane highway runs in roughly the same direction, only in a straight line.

There are only two places on the map where those two long roads are connected by shorter ones. The shortest linking road is extremely busy, too, as long lines of plant workers use it to make their way from the winding road to the main road and access to I-10. One end of the shortest linking road is near my house. The other end, a half-mile away, is the scene of a future fatality. Unless a traffic light is installed there soon, it's just a matter of time until someone is killed.

It's nearly impossible to turn left at that T-intersection, because a couple hundred yards to the left is an Interstate 10 exit, spilling a steady flow of cars and trucks down the off-ramp to merge with heavy traffic on the main highway. Traffic has always been a problem at that spot, but the Hurricane-Katrina-induced migration to this area has increased it to a volume our existing roads aren't capable of processing. I almost never attempt to turn left there.

Straight across the main road from the linking road which tees into it is a new McDonald's restaurant. I'd like to go there more than I do (especially during McRib season), but getting across the main road is almost as difficult as turning left onto it. In fact, having the McDonald's at that spot has made the traffic problems worse. Some people will risk their lives for a Big Mac or a Happy Meal.

The safest way to get from the linking road to the main road is a right turn, and even that requires good luck and excellent timing. Yesterday, one of those elements must have been missing.

I waited in the right-turn lane for several minutes for a break in traffic so I could make a quick turn and go back to work after lunch. Just when I thought I could make it, just when I moved forward about five feet, a truck next to me in the left-turn lane pulled out a few feet and came to a screeching halt. I couldn't see around him to see why he was stopping, so I stopped, too, to be safe. Unfortunately, the driver of the pickup truck behind me must have been looking at the screeching truck, too, because he plowed right into my rear end.

We were traveling at such slow speeds that there wasn't any damage except for some of his white paint ending up on my smoke-colored bumper. That and a couple of very tiny scratches. No dents, thank goodness. I think most of the "skidmarks" on my bumper can be polished out. (Tip: A well-maintained coating of dirt and road film apparently provides protection for a vehicle's paint job in the event of a collision.)


The young man who hit me turned out to be a neighbor whose younger brother is a friend and teammate of my grandson. He came out of his truck with his driver's license and insurance documents in his hand (he knew the drill so well I suspect this wasn't his first accident), and the first words out of his mouth were, "Are you okay?" He couldn't have been nicer or more respectful, and I was so happy not to have to deal with a jerk at a time when my nerves were rattled.

We surveyed the damage (none to his truck, just what I've described above to mine) and the injuries (none to either of us) and exchanged identification and insurance company information. We discussed whether we should report the accident to the police. I decided it wasn't worth it, and that seemed more than okey-dokey with him. As a matter of fact, there were sheriff's deputies almost within shouting distance, directing traffic because an existing traffic light had malfunctioned. They appeared to have all they could handle right at that moment, and I was already late to work.

Having worked for an attorney for years, I've often wondered if some people exaggerate their injuries in a rear-end collision. I felt fine at the scene of the accident, but later, near bedtime, I was shocked at how stiff and sore my neck and shoulders were from that tiny jolt. I'm fine today, but it helped me to appreciate that a more severe whiplash injury could do some lasting damage.

Interestingly, my older daughter had an almost identical accident last year, rear-ended as she turned right from the I-10 off ramp just beyond the corner where I had my accident yesterday. She and I talk frequently about the need for a light at that intersection, but I don't know how many collisions will have to happen before we get one.

We were both lucky. Someday someone won't be.

On being a stick in the mud

You'd think, on a day when most of the clouds in the sky are manmade, that you wouldn't hear any complaints about the weather. This week has been mild and sunny. The fact is, though, that my personal outlook is partly cloudy because of last week's downpours.







If you've ever seen photos of Louisiana graveyards (by golly, there's one right here), you may have noticed that many of the dearly departed seem to be resting aboveground. The reason for that is that the water table lies much closer to the surface here than it does in most areas of the country. We can't dig too deep a hole without getting our shovels wet, and we don't want our dead to float away.


For that same water-table reason, when we have a few straight days of rain, as we did last week, the ground can't absorb all of it. In my front yard the excess rainwater simply rolls down the hill. In the back, though, it stands, invisible beneath the thick mat of dead, yellow grass and thriving winter weeds, waiting for an unsuspecting creature who'll attempt to bypass the cement and take a shortcut across the yard. One false step, and an errant foot is sucked below the grass and into mud deep enough to cover a shoe top.

If it's humanly possible, we humans stay off the grass when the ground is like this. The dogs, unfortunately, have business to tend to in the yard, business I'm glad they choose not to conduct on the stepping stones. They return from their forays into the yard with feet that look like these--or even worse.





Butch doesn't like the mud on his paws and tends to stay on the stepping stones except for urgent business. Kadi, on the other hand, is in her element. She races through the yard, her feet making slurping noises as she runs, splashing mud up onto her belly as she bares her teeth in her best canine grin. When I insist that it's time to come back inside, she barrels toward the door along a path of her own making, a muddy trail that lies about two feet to the right of and parallel to the perfectly good stepping stones.

I've calculated that I've been averaging an hour a day, broken up into multiple 5-10 minute segments, wiping mud off of dogs' legs with a series of wet towels. It's become so routine that when Kadi comes through the door, she immediately hits the floor, rolls over on her back, and sticks all four feet up into the air to be cleaned. She doesn't appear to enjoy it, but she knows it's gotta be done before she gets a treat. That's eight legs to be cleaned, twice in the morning before I can even go to work, once at lunchtime, twice again in the evening, and last night (I wanted to shoot them) in the middle of the night.

I clean their feet, then I mop up the floor with the damp towel. At the end of each day I have to wash a load of muddy towels. All this muddy water is taking a toll on my hands. Just look at the semi-permanently puckered prunes that try to pass themselves off as my fingers.





There's one more problem that's directly related to the wet ground, one you might not have considered: spiders. Every year, when the yard reverts to the swampland it must have been in a previous lifetime, these spiders move out of the yard and into the house. They're little (I zoomed in for the closeup), but they creep me out. They like to lurk in shadowed corners, and they seem to have a special fondness for hiding under piles of damp, muddy towels. Many of the spiders (most of them, I hope) aren't particularly adept at lurking, so (with apologies to Charlotte and Wilbur) I stomp two or three of them every day.

I don't know about you, but I'm hoping for another dry season soon.

Is that a new wrinkle, Sis?

No, of couse not. My eyes are just not as good as they used to be, which, of course, is one of the many problems of aging.

My sister turns 60 years old today. I wish her the happiest birthday ever, and I couldn’t be happier about this special day. I realize she'll always be four years younger than I am, but it makes me feel better to know she's at least rolled over into the same decade.

Actually, "rolled over" is probably a poor choice of words. More than likely, she has glided gracefully across the line between 59 and 60. I used to think she'd go kicking and screaming across that line, but I didn’t give her enough credit. The years have been kind to her. She's young enough in heart, mind and body that she needn't worry about numbers.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you've met my sister before, and you know how much she means to me. She's commented here, too, occasionally, first under our uncle's nickname for her:

Fatty Grubbs


and then under a screen name I suggested because I thought it suited her so much better:

Splendorella


Any resemblance to the “Fatty Grubbs” picture is long gone, but if I were to show you a photo of my sister today, you could still see plenty of “Splendorella” in her face.

Happy birthday, Sis, and welcome to a decade I think you'll find enjoyable. The calendar might declare you officially old, but everyone who knows you knows it isn’t true. You’re youthful and beautiful, inside and out, and I love you more than ever.

To have and to hold...

In the year 2000, our family grew by four members when my younger daughter married a fine man who came equipped with three children. It grew again yesterday when his 19-year-old daughter married a fine young man of her own.

The bride was beautiful. Her braces came off earlier in the week and her smile was radiant. The groom, an Ethan Hawke lookalike, looked great in his white tuxedo. The bride’s younger sister was one of the bridesmaids, and she looked prettier and more grown-up than I’ve ever seen her. The bride's brother, home on military leave for the occasion, was as handsome in a tux as he is in his uniform. The parents of the bride and groom were also dressed formally. They were suitably elegant to attend a gala event at the White House instead of a wedding in a small southern town.

The wedding was held in a large church, one large enough to have a really good audio-visual system. A hidden camera focused on the the bride and groom during the proceedings, projecting their faces onto large screens and letting us see close-up the subtle nuances of their expressions as they exchanged vows. Their love and their joy were evident.

The bride and groom both make church a huge part of their lives, way more than I ever have. As part of their commitment to their religion and to each other, they opted for a covenant marriage, which requires counseling before marriage and makes divorce more difficult to obtain. The church’s online wedding policies state: “No changes to the vows will be allowed.”

I must admit that one tiny part of the vows rankled my inner feminist. The words for the bride and groom were mostly the same, except that where he promised “to be faithful to her,” she promised “to serve him.” “Serving him” wasn’t in the wedding vows I took in 1961 (or again in 1968), but it was the societal mindset then, so it might as well have been. Unfortunately, it was also a concept that slowly eroded my self-esteem. I’m hoping that a 21st century bride can serve her husband without losing sight of her own worth.

Weddings always make me cry, no matter how much I tell myself ahead of time it won’t happen again. This time it was the faces of the bride’s parents-–two sets of them--that brought on happy tears. Their eyes showed so much love for their daughter on this day she’d always dreamed of...so much hope for her future.

Their faces reflected feelings I remember well, feelings of my own during a special wedding ceremony in the year 2000.

Photo Night: Louisiana Rain

The rain arrived sometime during the night, just as weather forecasters predicted. I don't know how much rain we've had so far, but I can tell you this: I've already had enough.







Update: Here's what our part of Louisiana sounded like all day today:

Better late than never

One weekend in February 1987, I attended a Progoff Intensive Journal Workshop®. The workshop was focused on writing exercises designed to develop self-awareness. We were supposed to continue the exercises on our own after the workshop ended, but I went home and never cracked the book again until yesterday. (I’ve always been better at starting things than at finishing them.)

Even though the workshop was a great experience, I haven't thought about it in years. Yesterday, continuing my recent de-cluttering spree, I came across the Intensive Journal Workbook®. It doesn't take much to derail my half-hearted cleaning efforts, so I stopped immediately and began to read what I’d written nearly 20 years ago.

One of the exercises involved writing dialogues, and the workbook included dividers with these labels:

Dialogue with Persons

Dialogue with Works

Dialogue with Society

Dialogue with Events

Dialogue with the Body

We completed the first two dialogue exercises during the course of the workshop. All of them were done privately, unless the writer decided to read something aloud to the group.

What interested me most yesterday was the “Dialogue with Works” section, which I’d totally forgotten. The “work” could be an actual paying job or it could be other work, including creative work, that was important to us. We were asked to give a written voice to whatever work we chose and write a dialogue with it, letting the “conversation” flow without censoring or editing it. The work I chose, even way back then, was writing.

We began by allowing our chosen work to make a few statements to us, and this is what my dialogue partner, Writing, had to say:

"I was born in the first stories that were read to you. When you learned to read, it wasn’t enough; I made you want to write. I was in the song you wrote about Miss Engleking in sixth grade--clever, but it got you in trouble. I was with you in Short Story class in ninth grade, encouraging you all the way. I felt very proud when your story was published in the high school paper. I was with you on your Senior English term paper, when you got a perfect score. That was my perfect score--you didn’t help much--or work very hard. I’ve been with you in letters to your family. Now you put me away and use the phone. I’ve been with you in poetry, expressing your deepest emotions. I want to live and grow. Please let me out.”

On the same page, after skipping a few blank lines, the dialogue between Writing (W) and me began:

Me: “Hi, Writing, I’ve been thinking about you lately.”

W: ”Hi. You’ve been thinking about me for years.”

Me: “What do you mean, exactly?”

W: “It’s like thinking is all you do. You plan and daydream and talk to others about what you’d like to do with me, but you just don’t do it. You always put other things first.”

Me: “Maybe that’s because I haven’t really felt worthy of writing before. Until now I didn’t feel I had anything to say worth listening to.”

W: “So what’s changed that will make things different? Your life hasn’t exactly gotten terribly exciting all of a sudden.”

Me: “No, but I’ve changed. My perspective has changed. Until now, when I looked at a flower, I saw just a beautiful, red flower. Now I can see all the parts of it: the stem, the leaves, the petals, the pistil, the stamen-–and I can smell it, too. Before now, I was locked up in some way, and all I could have written was, “There was a beautiful, red flower on the riverbank.” Now, though, working with you, I can make others see it: ‘On the edge of the riverbank, growing among the ragged green grasses, was a beautiful flower, its tall stem lifting it out of the green proudly. Slender petals, red with the sheen of satin, cupped the downy yellow center as if protecting it from the wind, and long, tapered leaves reached upward in praise of the sun.’ There! See the difference?”

W: I see what you’re talking about, but I’m not sure I trust you. You try to do too many things-–and you’re lazy!”

Me: “I haven’t had a lot of trust in you, either. Because I’ve felt you might not be perfect, sometimes I haven’t let you be at all. And I’m not lazy as much as I’m afraid of failing.”

W: “I’m here for you if you’ll let me help, but you have to open the door for me. It hurts when you shut me out.”

Me: “It hurts me, too. I feel like I’ve abandoned a friend. A demanding friend, maybe, but one who cares about me.”

W: “I know you’ve started the writing course.* Will it help us?”

Me: “I think it will. I think it will work like counseling. You and I have a problem, and an impartial third party may help us negotiate a better understanding.”

W: “Well, it’s a start, but I’m still skeptical.”

Me: “I guess I don’t blame you. I’m sorry if you think I wasted time. I prefer to think of it as a gestation period.”

W: “Unborn things need nourishment, too.”

Me: “I think I understand that now."

*****

It was enlightening to read this dialogue yesterday, and even more enlightening to realize it took me another nineteen years to begin writing on a regular basis. I guess what I need to say now is, “Thank you, Writing, for your patience. I’m having a great time working with you on this blog.”


* Just for the record, I didn’t finish the writing course, either.

The holiday that almost wasn't

After a lovely day off yesterday to celebrate New Year's Day, and after the second straight night of fireworks-disrupted sleep, I dragged myself out of bed early this morning to go back to work. It was difficult to do, but I accepted the necessity of it and knew I'd feel more awake and alert as the day went on.

I pulled up in front of our building right at eight-thirty, our usual starting time, and mine was the only car in the parking lot. That made me feel worse. All of the other offices were apparently enjoying a two-day holiday, just as most of the government offices were.

I turned on the lights, cranked up the heat, turned on my computer, checked for voice mail messages, and wondered where my boss was. He's usually there before I am.

As I sat there at my desk, I began to wonder. "Hmmm," I thought. "We discussed what days we'd take off for Christmas, but we never actually talked about the New Year's holidays." Since there are only two of us in the office, the boss and I, and we've worked together for eight years, sometimes we assume we know what each other is thinking. Sometimes we're wrong.

I decided I'd wait until nine o'clock to call his house. At eight-fifty, the phone rang. It was one of his buddies. "Is he there?" he asked. "He's supposed to meet me at my house at nine to go hunting, and I couldn't reach him on his cell phone. I'll call him at home."

My day was starting to get better. "I haven't heard from him this morning," I replied, "but if you catch him at home, would you please ask him to give me a call? If today is a holiday, I'd sure like to know about it."

In less than five minutes the phone rang again. "I'm so sorry," the boss said, "I thought we talked about this last week."

"Oh, no," I said, "please don't be sorry; I'm thrilled to death."

It took less than two minutes to shut things down, then my holiday resumed. Of all the days I've had off in the past couple of weeks, this one is the most delicious.

...and in with the new

Beautiful weather greeted us this morning, making the first day of the new year bright and shiny, just as it should be.

New Year's Day is my favorite holiday. Remember how it felt to open a new tablet when you were in first grade? One that didn't have any writing in it, let alone any mistakes or erasures? That's what New Year's Day feels like to me. It's clean, it's fresh, and it's largely up to me to mark up the year like I want it.

Granted, sometimes I make mistakes in spite of my best intentions. Sometimes other people or circumstances beyond my control scribble on my pristine new year. Sometimes it seems as if whole pages get ripped out, wadded up and tossed away. But the next year? I get to start all over again.

I'm still trying to sort out which things I want to do better this year. It's a good thing I didn't make a resolution not to overeat, because I'd have already broken that one. We went to my younger daughter's house again, where we had ham, brisket, black-eyed peas, broccoli and cheese casserole, and a cabbage dish that I'd give up dessert for any day--except that I didn't have to. I ate dessert, too.

That was at lunchtime. When I left there late this afternoon, after one game of Battle of the Sexes (the women won again) and two games of Scrabble, I brought home a big plate of leftovers and did the whole lunch thing all over again for supper. If someone were to offer me an after-dinner mint right now, I'd have to just put it in my purse.

One thing I want to do this year is get more sleep, which means I need to stop reading half an hour earlier at bedtime. That'll be tough, but I can really see an improvement in my energy level when I get enough sleep. And if I could improve the quality of my sleep time, in addition to the quantity, I'd probably feel like a brand-new person.

It seems some of us are just naturally better sleepers than others:


I think I'll go to bed early tonight and give Butch a run for his money. Good night, all.

Out with the old...

For the past two days, I’ve been busy tossing things out, shredding old receipts, boxing up books I’ll never want to read again, learning to let go. I am a packrat, no question about it. Maybe it comes from having moved so often while my children were growing up, leaving behind all the things that would take up too much space in the moving van.

Or maybe it goes deeper than that. I remember collecting comic books, paper dolls, and trading cards in my childhood. I remember sitting on the daybed in the basement, where my teenaged uncle slept during the hot summer months, looking one by one, with much admiration, at each specimen in his matchbook collection. (One of those matchbooks contained what I now recognize as a condom.) There's just something about groups of similar objects that appeals to me.

Most of my books will still be on their shelves when this bout of de-cluttering is completed. My elephant collection will be intact, as will my more recent collection of tiny replicas of beautiful shoes. I’m not yet ready to give up the old vinyl record albums, either, but I’ve begun to think about it.

As much as I enjoy reflecting on the past -– and a single piece of paper can transport me back thirty years –- I want to live more in the moment. I want to rid myself of some of the clutter that steals my time and diminishes my enjoyment of the here and now.

Part of my "packrat-edness" has been my desire to leave a trail for my children and grandchildren, a path of documents and mementos to show them where they came from and to tell them what happened along the way. And so I’ve stuffed things into drawers and onto shelves, waiting for the right moment to dump all that “stuff” into their laps. My goal for the new year is to break that habit. Coincidentally, the accomplishment of last year's goal will help me do it.

I don't make resolutions, but my "goal" for 2006 was to set up my own blog. I thought it would be a difficult process, and I postponed it for a few weeks into the year. Then, one night in late-January, I sat down to explore what I’d need to do to get started. Before that evening was out, I was up and running. What a thrill!

And here I am nearly a year later, realizing that the stories I want my children to know, the photos I want them to see, don’t have to languish in a drawer or on a dusty shelf. With a few keystrokes, I can send them out into the universe via the Internet, where they can be retrieved with a few more keystrokes if and when somebody’s interested. How about that for a neat space-saving device!

Blogging has brought something else into my life, too. For introverts like me, those of us who thrive on calm, quiet places, it’s painful to put ourselves out into real-world gatherings long enough to scout out others like ourselves. In fact, the others like us are not usually found at large gatherings; they’re home in their own calm, quiet places. Many of them, I’ve learned this year, are at their computers, opening their hearts, baring their souls, making friends the way we like to do it: one at a time, slowly, quietly.

You, dear readers and writers, have made my year! I wish each of you, as well as my delightful and widespread family, a happy, healthy 2007. May your candle burn even brighter in the new year.

Meat and greet

I almost forgot to tell you! I got "hit on" the other day by a man who made a rather bold move. That might not be an unusual event for you younger women out there, but it's been a while since it's happened to me.

He...uh...he was the...uh...Wal-Mart greeter. He pulled out a shopping cart for me and then wouldn't let go of it. For more than ten minutes.

He said he was just about to grab a hamburger and invited me to join him, but I explained that I was expecting company and just needed to pick up a couple of things and hurry home. He still wouldn't turn loose of the cart.

He began to tell me about his war experiences and all the places he'd traveled when he was in the service. We're talking World War II, people. I was surprised when he told me he'll be 85 in January (he didn't look a day over 75), but that would explain why a plus-sized, 64-year-old woman might appeal to him.

He'd tell me something about himself ("my wife passed 13 years ago") and I'd make a polite response and try to pull the cart a little closer. He'd tighten his grip on it and tell me something else ("my son and his family live in Baton Rouge, but I like it better out here"). We seesawed that shopping cart back and forth a dozen times before I wrested it away from him.

I'm not gonna kid myself that I was the only woman he tried to pick up that day. In fact, based on what he told me in the first five minutes, I don't think he's working for the money. He said he has a "brand-new car" ("I don't know why I bought it; I sure don't need it") and a "real nice RV." Nope, I think he signed up for the job as a way to meet chicks.

I've gotta admire his resourcefulness, and I wish him well. I think his plan has merit. No doubt lonely women pass through those automatic doors numerous times daily, women who'd be happy to cook a few meals and take care of an old man in exchange for the use of a new car and a nice RV. If he makes enough moves, he's bound to find one of those women.

It ain't me, babe.

A test of wills

Until I walked into my bedroom tonight, my arms full of freshly laundered sheets, I didn't realize that Kadi had already gone to bed. I told her to get down, but all she did was crawl from my side of the bed to the center. I told her again to get down, and she turned away from me and laid her head between her paws. I told her several times. I pushed on her butt and she dug in tighter.

Okay, I thought, we'll do things the hard way. I started putting the fitted bottom sheet on the bed. I tucked in the first corner. "Kadi," I said, in my best leader-of-the-pack voice, "you have to move." Nuh-uh. Two more corners and we were here:


I told her again, "Kadi. Get. Down. Now!" She looked at me, smiled, and held her ground.


Hmmph! I can be stubborn, too. I tucked in the fourth corner:


We were closing in on 25 seconds when I got nervous. Except for the barely perceptible motion of her breathing, Kadi hadn't moved a muscle in all that time. I pulled the sheet back, and she just looked at me. Then she s-l-o-w-l-y stretched, crawled to the edge of the bed, and lowered herself to the floor.

I'm calling it my point.

Christmas 2006 Recap

Christmas has come and gone, and I'm still basking in all the joy that Santa brought.

I didn’t plan to put up a tree this year, but I found this tiny thing while doing some last-minute shopping and couldn’t resist it. It was fun to see Butch discover it a couple of hours after I set it out in the living room. He may be blind, but he doesn’t miss much.









My older daughter spent the night with me Christmas Eve. We ate good snack stuff, played with the pups and watched them frolic with their Christmas toys, and had one very long game of Trivial Pursuit before we called it a night.



Christmas morning was quiet, mostly spent preparing a couple of dishes to take to my younger daughter’s house later in the day. And that’s where the Christmas spirit really came together for me.

We had so much fun! The grandkids arrived at different times throughout the afternoon. We exchanged gifts as each new group arrived, which worked out nicely. We used to wait until everybody was there, but as the kids get older and their schedules get busier, doing it this way takes some of the pressure off and gives us extra time for the highlight of our Christmas celebration: the annual "Battle of the Sexes" game.

This is our third year to play this board game on Christmas night while we have the whole family together, and I don’t think a single one of us would want to miss it. It’s the guys against the gals, across generations, and it’s hysterical to listen to the logic and the negotiations that go on as each team tries to agree on an answer.

My favorite game moment to date came last year, when the seven or eight manly members of the opposition sang “The Brady Bunch Theme” in unison, under their breath, as they tried to figure out the first names of Mr. and Mrs. Brady (Mike and Carol). What I wouldn’t give to have that on videotape.

Last night’s game began with the same kind of competitive enthusiasm:

Grandson: “Grammy, you’re goin’ down.”

Granddaughter’s Fiancé: “Dude, you’re trash-talking your grandmother?”

Grandson: “Yeah, I’m just warnin' her.”

Granddaughter’s Fiancé: “High five, man; I like your style.”

The female team won for the third year in a row, but, in all fairness, the guys’ team was short a couple of players. They’re planning to bring in reinforcements for a New Year’s Day rematch.

After all that fun –- not to mention all that food -– we were very tired and very happy at the end of the day.


So, the long holiday weekend winds down on a positive note. My heart is full, my head's in a good place, my home is fairly neat, and today I scanned an entire decade's worth of photographs, getting a head start on my goals for the new year.

It's a shame to interrupt this glow by going back to work tomorrow, but you know what? I can handle it.

Merry Christmas, Y'all!

Once again, I've waited until the last minute to do everything I need to do for Christmas. The gifts have been purchased but not yet wrapped, because I didn't have all the Christmas giftwrap paper I thought I did. (I vaguely remember throwing out several rolls of it when I cleaned and reorganized my hall closet last Spring. It seemed like a good idea at the time.)

Today was serious-house-cleaning day. My feet and knees won't hold out for housework and shopping on the same day, so I'll go early tomorrow to scrounge up some giftwrap paper and enough ingredients to make the dip I'll take to my daughter's house on Christmas Day.

To those of you who are way more organized than I am, my fur-trimmed, red hat's off to you. I wish you a wonderful Christmas!

And to those of you who are still scrambling, like me, I assume you won't be reading this until at least two or three days from now. I hope your Christmas was really great, too.

Raggedy man

One day when my granddaughter was eight or nine, we went Christmas shopping together. As we waited in a long line of cars to turn left under an overpass, we saw a homeless man holding up a cardboard sign at the end of the block. He was tall and big-boned with a Raggedy-Andy-length mop of tangled red hair. His dirty black trench coat had no buttons, and there were no strings to tie his weathered work boots.

As we sat in traffic, I tried to decide whether to give the man some money. I've developed a set of vague guidelines about that kind of thing over the years. The first question is always whether or not I can afford it. If I'm on my way to spend money for something other than basic necessities, I figure I can spare a little extra for someone else. The second issue is whether I can hand money to a stranger without putting myself in danger from him or from the surrounding traffic. The third factor, the argument I have with my cynical side every time the issue arises, is whether I'll be helping someone in need or encouraging a con artist. That argument usually ends the same way: I'd rather err on the side of kindness and let God sort out the other person's intentions.

On this particular occasion, all three criteria having been met, I decided I'd give the man enough money for a fast-food meal as soon as I got close enough to him. I pulled a five-dollar bill out of my purse (which was enough back then), tucked the purse between my hip and the car door, and waited for the light to change so we could move closer to the corner. We moved, but not far. I watched for the man to look in our direction, and when he did, I held the money up to the windshield and waved it to signal him. He quickly started walking toward us.

Just as the man stopped beside the car, I remembered that my car window mechanism had broken earlier in the week. The window wouldn't roll down. I had a fleeting moment of panic at the idea of opening the car door to a stranger when my granddaughter was with me, then I realized there was no possible way he could carjack us in traffic that was barely moving.

I opened the door and handed the money to the man. He smiled, gave his shaggy head a nod, said, "Thank you and God bless you," then turned away and walked back to the corner. The traffic light turned green, and we moved up only two or three places before it changed to red and brought us to a stop again.

After a moment, the man glanced back in our direction. He suddenly began waving his arms--big, frantic motions--and pointing behind us. His mouth was moving, but with the window up, I couldn't understand him. He started moving toward us again, first walking fast, taking big steps, then breaking into a run. Once again he stopped beside my car. His urgent demeanor made me nervous, but I opened the door enough to hear him. "Your bag," he said, breathing hard from the exertion. "Your bag fell out of your car."

I looked behind me and saw my purse lying at the edge of the road, back where I'd been when I gave him the money. There was Christmas-shopping cash in the purse, money I'm sure he could have used. Credit cards, too. A dishonest man would have recognized the opportunity, kept his mouth shut, and thanked his lucky stars. Not this man, though. I retrieved my purse and it was my turn to thank him. This time, his smile was even broader.

Every year since then, when I'm Christmas shopping, I think about that man. Thousands of people must have been shopping that day, but I can't imagine that anyone else got a better bargain than I did. Who knew it was possible to have one's faith in human nature restored for a mere five bucks?

Somebody's Son

Somebody’s son
sits alone beside the highway,
waits for another fearless stranger
to drive him farther
down the road.

Somebody’s son
carries everything on his back,
runs away from one thing,
toward another,
keeps moving, always moving.

Somebody’s mother
looks out the window,
watches the mail,
waits for the phone to ring,
wishes things had been different.

Coming out of the fog

A thick fog has greeted me when I've opened the door the past few mornings, the kind of fog that softens the hard edges of the world. I've been in a bit of a mental fog, too, recently, but I think it's finally lifting. The past few days have been productive ones.


Work was beginning to get the best of me. Too much paper, too many clients spitting out anger and hostility about the other guy (or gal). The edges of my work world needed to be softened. Fortunately, things were quieter this week. I was able to tie up some loose ends that appeared to be growing and threatening to strangle me.

At home I decluttered a couple of "hot spots" and managed to maintain the clean spaces for a few days. There's a distinct possibility I'll tackle a few more of them before the weekend's over.

There are still Christmas presents to buy, but I've finally decided what I want to do. That'll make the actual shopping much less painful.

I've switched from old-style blogger to the beta version, and the obsessive part of me sat down last night and added labels to all 282 previous posts. It wasn't that it needed to be done; it was that if I were ever to want do it, it would be easier to tackle it right then, before I added one more post.

For months I've wanted PhotoShop Elements, which seems to combine the best features of the other three photo-editing software programs on my computer. I bought it earlier this week and installed it this morning. I had planned to use it to edit these three photos but reverted to an old, familiar program after I realized it would take me longer to learn the new software than it would to crop these the old way.

Apparently, a few vestiges of mental fog remain.

Photo Night: Through the looking glass

I posted this photo earlier in the week, so please pardon the repeat. This time I'll ask you to look beyond the two little girls (my sister and me) and notice the mirror on the wall behind the lamp, right next to the front door. That mirror was my grandmother's and was in her house for as long as I can remember until she died in December of 1988.

After that, for the next 11 years, my mother had the mirror. Mother loved Christmas and all its trimmings. I'm pretty sure that the timing of her own death--the day after Christmas in 1999--is one reason why I struggle so much with all the Christmas hoopla these days. I think about her all year long, but this time of year she's on my mind all the time.

The mirror is probably older than I am. I have it now, and it hangs next to my own front door. Sometimes I think about how the mirror moved with my grandparents from Missouri to Texas, then from my grandmother's home to my mother's, and then from Texas to Louisiana with me. So many familiar faces and furnishings have been reflected in that mirror. I wish it could talk and tell me stories about what it's seen.









This is another old Christmas photo I scanned the other day. I'd planned to include it when I posted the others but changed my mind. I didn't think it would add anything to the story.

I've changed my mind again. One of the good things about viewing old photos on the computer is the ability to zoom in and get a better look at smaller items in the pictures. That's what happened today, the first time I've ever looked at magnified versions of these particular photos, and I'm so glad I did. The mirror's in this one, too, barely visible, but look at the close-up version below. There, just above my little sister's head, like a ghost from Christmas past, is the reflection of our mother's slender hand on the camera.



And who says there's no Santa Claus?