Here I am, in sunny San Diego! Yes, the sun is actually shining, but it is a full 20 degrees cooler here than it is in Tennessee today. It is so nice to be here. I really miss the place when I am gone. And this trip is perfectly timed- smack in the middle of all my General Federation of Women's Clubs stresses.

Saturday was the Highland Rim District meeting, which required a great deal of thought and preparation and a trip to Sparta. (No, not to the 300, but to a little town north of McMinnville). We met in the newly renovated art deco Oldham Theater and what a terrific place for a meeting. The people of Sparta are rightly proud of their historical preservation. The theater now serves as a welcome center and meeting room.

Inside, they have preserved the lobby and ticket booth and the theater itself has been renovated to a very commodious meeting room. It is a wonderful facility and was great fun having our meeting there.

Since the District only meets twice a year, there is great pressure to not forget anything and to get all available information distributed efficiently. We also had a district fund-raiser to pull together, so I was stressed. The Old Lady Mafia drove to Sparta in the Beast- Dave's Ford Excursion- which was packed to the gills with entries for the craft contest, materials for the fund-raiser... and the youngest OLM who was attending her first District meeting and was a bit nervy about it. Her crocheted tablecloth, which she didn't even want to enter, took First Place and Best in Show. She was so pumped on the way home that at one point we were looking for a place to buy a tranquilizer gun to calm her down with.

After weeks of preparation, the end of a big meeting can be a big let-down, but since I was leaving for two weeks the very next day, I didn't have time for one. Turns out to how been a good thing. All the stresses on Saturday, and a smooth, uneventful trip on Sunday, and now I have roughly 12 days of relaxation before Easter and the GFWC Convention in Nashville.

I got home to two emails from friends I had lost track of over the years. There is something very touching and humbling about being remembered. And with revisiting the past. My high-school class is preparing for its (gulp) 40th anniversary reunion; of course, I am sure you all know that, being a prodigy, I graduated at age 12; and there seems to be real excitement about this one, which will be held at a state park in Georgia (even though my high school is in Michigan). The odd and wonderful thing about all this getting in touch with the past is that both of the dear ladies who wrote to me are now living in California, and one of them is right here in San Diego! Even if they miss the reunion, we should be able to have one of our own.


Easter is going to be fun. Jake, Becca, Kendall, Haley, Delaney, Emily, Dave, me, Mama, and the three Cayces are coming to my house for a feast of leg of lamb, Russian salmon loaf en croute, cucumber dip, eggs, ham, homemade bread.... I will be one busy woman preparing the feast, but feasts are my FAVORITE THINGS TO COOK! I love from-scratch cooking. It is going to be so much fun. Care to join us?

Could it be that hubby will sleep with the fishes?

I have not seen the light of day nor left the house since last Thursday, when me buds and me cleaned the garage. I was battling the first symptoms of a cold at the time but muscled through them. It was worth it on Thursday- the garage was (and is) gratifyingly and spectacularly improved and I was feeling great warmth and gratitude toward my good friends for their efforts. On Friday, it was a different story. I was as stiff as a board and aching from head to foot. Perhaps throwing myself away had something to do with that.

I was smart. I took it easy on Friday. The muscle pain increased, and by Friday night, the GI stuff started, and I am NOT discussing the military. (Though incendiaries did come to mind as I did long tours in the head. EVACUATE!! EVACUATE!! Literally.) Saturday, the cough began and it was all down hill from there. Muscle spasms. Murderous headache. Nausea. On Sunday, I spiked a temperature which by Tuesday rose to 102. Cold sores. Fever blisters. Chapped lips. Sore throat. I was exhausted, and spent most of Monday and Tuesday sleeping. The fever finally broke Wednesday and I began to feel better. I actually left the house twice today, once for groceries and once to buy Mama a hamburger.

It has been a rough week, but things are looking up. Now that the garage is clean, I'm thinking of having my talented son teach me how to use power tools. I would like to build things without sacrificing sundry limbs and wobbly bits. I have a table I want to sand and decoratively paint. I have a chair I want to design for the Literacy Council Chair-ity next month. And there are household repairs I would like to do myself.

Women don't usually get trained on power tools, at least not women of my generation. I can use appliances, but lawnmowers, trimmers, sanders, drills, table saws and routers are as outside my realm of experience as are trips to the moon. I am hoping that is about to change. I think Jake will be a fine teacher. He already knows I am a klutz, so I've got that going for me.

I could be a craftsman, I think. Hell, after a week where I have been discarded, recycled and sick as a dog, I think I could be just about anything except nursed by my husband, who was thrilled by the garage, by the way. He did his part by storing the Christmas stuff and cleaning off his bench, work that was necessary and appreciated, though I must admit that THIS little exchange gave me a bit of a turn:
Mama: (as Dave comes in for dinner) What did you do today, my son?
Dave: I cleaned the garage.

Excuse me... he cleaned the garage? You mean like someone who wipes off the counters has cleaned the kitchen?

I admit, I bristled a bit about that. I'm sure he didn't mean it the way it sounded... Man, I sure hope the Old Lady Mafia doesn't hear about this. I'd hate for them to kneecap my old man. I am too old and too fat to be a glamourous widow. I need a spa trip before they whack him.

The Old Lady Mafia cleans a garage, and I throw myself away

Just call me "The Godmother".

I made my hubby an offer he couldn't refuse... (mainly because I made the offer psychically, and he's apparently out of the range of my brain waves).

The offer was to clean the garage.

People, this was no small offer, psychic or otherwise. It has been almost a year since I last parked my car in the garage. Until this morning, it would have been impossible to park a teaspoon in the garage. It contained 10 years of accumulated crap, 300 pounds of empty cardboard boxes from Christmas and beyond, an unusable, irreparable queen size bed, a kaput washing machine, and enough Christmas decorations to do Rockefeller Center twice. An ironing board last used by Wilma Flintstone. Boxes of VHS tapes. Countless plastic plant pots. Paint cans. Gas cans. Multiples of dead batteries, dead TVs, dead computers, dead radios, dead stereos, dead lamps. It was the Garage of the Non-Living Dead. There were also gardening and power tools scattered everywhere. There were books and papers to such a degree that we would have been completely insulated against a nuclear attack.

No more. We are now as vulnerable as everyone else on the planet. At 9 AM, the OLM convened (along with two of the Junior OLMs, Becca and Melinda) to discuss the plan of attack over breakfast. We moved the kitty litter box into the house, blocked the cat door to the garage so that the Great Escape kitty could not escape, opened the garage door and began.

We started by pulling just about everything OUT of the garage and sorting it. HGTV and DiYwould have been proud of us. Slash, trash, and stash, that was our motto. Okay, so it's just a variation on "Mission Organization's" KEEP, DONATE and DISCARD, but our motto is more colorful and more in keeping with the Old Lady Mafia persona.

What amazed me during the whole process was the astonishing amount of traffic our activities seemed to stimulate. I live at the end of my street and usually the only vehicles I see are those of my neighbors and their kids. As we pulled stuff out of the garage onto the driveway and lawn, traffic increased exponentially. We noticed that several trucks driven by old farts kept circling the block, thinking, perhaps, that we were preparing for a yard sale. (I would LIKE to sell the yard, but that's another story). Where did these people come from? What is there about the mere suggestion of a yard sale that attracts these people? What do they do, troll the city, watching for unadvertised yard sales so they can have first pick of the crap? After awhile, we began to feel like vultures were circling us.

About mid-morning, I called the city to schedule a special pick-up for all the stuff we wanted carted out. I live in a GREAT city. At various times TODAY, three different trucks showed up at my house, one for the recycling (mostly cardboard), one for the trash (you don't want to know), and one for the dead washing machine. That truck got here just minutes too late; we went in for lunch, and while we were eating, we saw one of the vultures stop and throw it into his truck. Well, it was on the street so it was fair game, but I felt bad for the city guys who showed up to get it. They stayed to go through the stuff that was out on the lawn to see if there was anything they wanted that I was willing to part with. Nice fellas, all of them.

The garage got as organized as the OLM could make it and got thoroughly swept before we started moving stuff back in. We were putting the finishing touches on the driveway clean-up when, in a moment of mental abstraction, for which I can never forgive myself, I threw myself away. The plain facts of the case are these: as I was attempting, in my fatigue, to move an open trash can- one of the huge city cans that the automatic trash collection trucks grab, lift and empty- I leaned on it too heavily, tipped it over, and tipped myself into it. Seconds later, I hit the ground, half-in and half-out of the trash can. Slightly stunned, I did the only thing a person can do when she has just done something both painful and humiliating. I just stayed there.

Fortunately, my friends recycled me before the vultures could get me AND had the good grace not to laugh at me. Well, not to my face, anyway. We must have been a sight for the neighbors, though, because it took two people and a crane to get my plump self off the driveway.

My car is off the driveway, too. It is in the garage. Damn, we're good!

Quickies!

Get your minds out of the gutter, they're not that kind of quickies.

• Went to Temecula to visit friends last night and had one of the best meals of my life. Olivia and Mike were hosting Robert and Sandie so Dave and I made it a six-some and Olivia, who is more chef than cook, put together the most fantastic Italian meal I have ever had. Good friends, good wine, good food, good time.
• Today Olivia, Mike, Robert and Sandie stopped in en route to the Midway and a day in San Diego to see the apartment, and another good time was had by all.
• Kelly made us a good-bye supper tonight that was superb! My girl is becoming quite an adventurous and accomplished cook.
• I shipped two huge boxes out of here, one to my baby sister and one to myself. For what it cost, I should have just bought them plane tickets!
• My son has been installing a new shower stall in Mama's bath and has sent me a picture via cell-phone. That boy can do anything.
• Looking forward to seeing my daughter-in-law Becca. I really miss her when I am away. I don't just love her, she is one of my best buddies.
• Not looking forward to being snubbed by my eldest granddaughters, but think Pixie and Dixie will be happy to see me.
• As soon as I get home, I will have to get into high gear for the GFWC Highland Rim District meeting and the Spring Convention.
• Wish I could stay here.

Off to pack. Long day tomorrow. Flying sucks but it beats driving... or walking.