Sometimes your dreams have wings

I have many, many things in my life that bring me joy. (Notice I said "things"- I'll post about people who bring me joy another time.)

I have my homey "cottage" that we call Parva Domus.

I have my wonderful pool. Closed now for winter, of course, but this last summer, it attracted dragonflies which from time to time would light on the tips of our fingers if we lifted our hands high enough and stood very still.

I thought this was magical. Dragonflies are the familiars of faeries. They travel and live together, and some faeries change into dragonflies to escape detection. You should NEVER ever harm a dragonfly, both for its own sake, and because it might be a transmogrified faerie. Just assume that anytime you see a dragonfly there is a faerie close at hand.

I collect faeries. (Not real ones, of course- I am NOT Lady Cottington, thank you). I collect figurines of faeries. I have almost 150 of the lovely things, and they bring me great joy.

Scrapbooking also brings me great joy. I have made scrapbooks for my father, mother-in-law, husband, daughter, son, daughter-in-law, niece, god-daughter, and all four granddaughters, and am working on three at once right now.

(Okay, Kate, either string these altogether, or get off my damn keyboard.)

Please excuse my computer. It's fallen into the habit of being rude to me on an almost daily basis. Here's the string:

My love of faeries led me to my love of dragonflies. The dragonfly became my personal symbol. It has also been the symbol of my paper crafts, both cards and scrapbooks, made with love for friends and family.

The dragonfly is the symbol of transformation and creativity. It occupies two realms, water and air, and is equally at home in each. The dragonfly is symbolic of the expression of hopes, dreams, needs and wishes.

NOW, it is the symbol of my new business, which is a scrapbooking service. Lots of people just do not have the time to put together a scrapbook. They may even have the book, paper, embellishments and photos sitting in a drawer or on a shelf somewhere, silently reproaching them as dust settles and no pages are made. I take away the reproaches and create works of art. Hence the name of my new business, Dragonfly Arts.

Scrapbooks are labor-intensive projects. Good scrapbooks require good paper, good layouts and imagination. My scrapbooks may be pricey, but they are better than good. They are art. I know this because my clients tell me so.

Need a scrapbook for some special occasion- or OF some special occasion? Let me help. For a fee. You provide the memories. I'll provide the art.

Scampers and Patches

Since May, my life has had to be severely modified due to the surgery to my neck. The surgery was a success, but I am no spring chicken. To ensure the complete ossification of the bone transplants, I must wear a bone growth stimulator (BGS) 4 hours each day. The device may be stimulating the growth of bone but wearing it is tedious and depressing. The one UP side to wearing this infernal device is that it seems to attract the cats. Even Tiger, who is generally aloof, has been sleeping beside me or on my lap. The device sets up a magnetic field that is conducive to bone growth. It is also conducive to cat cuddling.

I have been mostly homebound since May, so the cat bonding has been both gratifying and comforting. In October I went to see my dad for a week and to help him celebrate his 84th birthday. (The BGS went with me, of course. I am an obedient patient.) Even my dad noticed that the BGS seemed to affect my mood. Not in a good way.

When I returned home, my baby kitty Scampers was sick again. He had pneumonia in August, an abscess in September, and now he was ailing again. He'd been back and forth to the vet so many times he didn't even resist the trip on October 27. On October 28th, he died. The pneumonia had been pneumothorax from a punctured lung. The abscess had developed from the infection from the puncture. The infection destroyed his liver and kidneys. Scampers was only 15 months old when he died. There really isn't a word for how I still feel about losing my little fellow. Heartbroken doesn't even come close.

Today I learned that my calico cat Patches is dying of kidney failure. My once Fat Kitty has been losing weight, which I actually thought was a good thing and the result of changing her diet. Two days ago, she began crying through the house. I took her to the vet. He kept her overnight, and broke the bad news to me today. She will stay in at the vet's over this weekend being treated for renal failure. She can't be cured, but maybe we can buy her a little time. And watch her slowly die at home. She is only six.

Now I feel paranoid about the health of my boys, Hobbes and Tiger. To say I am depressed is to understate my mood by orders of magnitude. I have just finished my four hours with the bone growth stimulator and I spent those hours crying like a baby. I don't think it was the device that was depressing me.

Happy birthday, Bilbo and Frodo

September 22. Today is the shared birthday of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, hobbits extraordinaire and dear old friends. For years, I have celebrated this august occasion... no, wait, this September occasion... by nestling in and rereading the glorious "Lord of the Rings" trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. (I was six when "Fellowship of the Ring" was published, which, I guess, makes me older than Middle Earth).

I thought this year I would watch all three Peter Jackson films back to back rather than reread the books. The films are magnificent and I have seen each of them 17 times or more in the theater. On one occasion, I had the theater all to myself and drove home in the dark with my imagination still firmly in Middle Earth. I could live and be happy at Bag End. I would fit right in. I am almost as vertically challenged and nearly as round as the average hobbit.

But I have decided to honor my own tradition and crack out the well-worn books that I have re-read at least 30 times now. I always find something new or rediscover something dear every time I read them. Few works have ever so completely transported me out of myself as this one does.

The last couple of years I have been studying "The Silmarillion". You can't really read "The Silmarillion", you must ingest it. It is a rich, dense cheesecake of a work and must be taken in small bites. Tolkien was a scholar and this is his scholarly back story to the Ring trilogy. I particularly love his creation story "The Music of the Ainur". In it, Iluvatar directs his host, the Ainur, in song. The music they create is miraculous, comprised of not only the sound of voices but the sounds of all things that organize noise into music.

The song Iluvatar directs is full of beautiful transcendent harmonies- and one deliberate disharmony. The disharmony is the work of Melkor. Again and again he derails the song , sometimes leading some of the Ainur to lend their voices to his but more often confusing the other singers into silence.

Iluvatar redirects the song down melodic paths he envisions time and again. When the song is ended, he reveals to the Ainur what their music has created. It is the world. In the beginning was the word - but in this creation story the word is sung.

There is always a discordant entity in all creation stories, perhaps to explain the imperfections of the world and its inhabitants, perhaps to show the exercise of free will. There must be a villain or there is no need for heroes. And like most villains, Melkor does harm but does not triumph. Despite the efforts of Melkor, a place has come into being and this place will serve as home for the children of Iluvatar, Elves and Men, the Firstborn and the Followers.

We meet Galadriel for the first time in "The Silmarillion" and learning her history makes her return to Elvenhome at the end of the quest in "The Return of the King" all the more poignant. We see how dwarves came into being, and Orcs, and Sauron. Tolkien created the mostly fully realized other world I have ever encountered in literature.

Today, however, is September 22, so I will once again invite myself to the long-expected party and wish Bilbo and Frodo, uncle and nephew, bearers of the Ring, the happiest of birthdays. I will gasp at Gandalf's fireworks and refill my beer mug as often as I can get away with. I will eat like a hobbit and put even more meat on my bones, for dark times are coming when food and drink will be scarce, and I will wage war against evil side by side with my friends from the Shire.

But that comes later.

See you at Bag End tonight. Wear your party hats.

The first 40 years are the hardest...or so I hope!

In our church, parishioners take turns hosting the Fellowship Hour that follows the last Sunday service each week. Early in each year a sign-up sheet magically appears, and it's amazing to me how quickly the available dates get filled. This year, I noticed that one of the Fellowship Hours fell exactly on August 10th, Dave's and my anniversary, and so, like the dummy I am, I signed us up for it.

Did I mention it was our 40th anniversary? A rather significant number, I thought. We married young, obviously, though he is MUCH older than I am (he was born in June, I in September... of the same year.) We missed out on any big celebration for all the five year milestones from 25 to 40. We had planned to go to Michigan to celebrate our 25th anniversary with our families there but something prevented that from happening: I was hired as a full-time, tenure-track instructor by Motlow College. Kinda hard to start a new job in Tennessee if you are in the Great Lake State, so I didn't attempt it. Jeez, was that really 15 years ago? It seems much longer.

Anyhoo, I remember my mom and dad's 25th anniversary party. My sibs and I threw it for them. My sister got us the use of the community room of the apartment complex where she was living at the time. We split the cost between the five of us, and Sue and I prepared most of the food ourselves. Aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, they all showed up and everyone had a great time. No one got drunk, there were no fights, and for one day, at least, Mom and Dad seemed to really like each other. It was very nice.

I hoped our 25th would be as nice. It wasn't. I missed out on love-fest, which made my new career start off on a bittersweet note. (The purely bitter notes would come later.)

I was not up to travel after the surgery or we could have gone to Michigan to celebrate our anniversary. Instead, I signed us up for the Fellowship Hour. Who better to celebrate an occasion like that than with your parish family and friends?

So I ordered a ton of food from Kroger and actually ordered a wedding cake that kinda sorta looked like the one we had had 40 years ago. We could both eat sugar back then, so we ate our wedding cake. THIS cake we just glared at.

Our daughter flew in from San Diego for the occasion. Several of my dear friends came to the service, as did my son and his family. Kelly and Dave did most of the heavy lifting in getting the food set up. Mama stayed with them in the parish hall while I went to mass.

The only glitch so far had come early in the day when I arrived with Mama and the wedding cake and found two women setting up for fellowship hour. The good ladies had gotten their dates mixed up. Their attitude suggested that they expected me to pack away my goodies and get out of their way, but I explained the realities of perishable, non-freezable foods, an expensive three tiered cake, and that fact that it was my 40th anniversary and I had signed up for this date months ago. They very graciously packed up their goodies and stored them in the church freezer but the whole rest of the day, I felt like I should be apologizing to them. Don't ask.

Once that little snafu was sorted, I left the set-up in Dave and Kelly's capable hands and joined friends and family in the church. Mama did not come with me. Mama stayed with Dave and Kelly.

Marcia and her whole family, looking handsome one and all, filled a pew. Shelia was there. The Gilliams and the Simms were due to show up after the service. I started feeling the stress lifting and fell into the service. I love the service. It helps you get your head and heart straight for the rest of the week.

Time came for communion. I was sitting fairly close to the front, so I was among the first to go to the altar. I took communion and returned to my pew feeling peaceful and blessed.

God as my witness, I did not know Mama had come into the church. I did not see her from the altar as I returned to my pew but I certainly saw her as she made her fragile, pathetic, Sarah Bernhardt approach to the altar. She was calling upon all and sundry to help her up the aisle. She loudly asked for Wilma to help her up the steps, which, God bless her, Wilma did. She went to the altar. She stood to take communion. She turned, sat down in the choir pew, and blithely listened to Nelda on the organ.

Jim, the dapper usher, looked dumb-founded but I was already on my feet, headed for Mama. I helped her out of the choir seat, helped her down the steps, and guided her to my pew. She was, from start to finish, the center of attention, which, of course, was the point. As Father finished feeding his flock, Mama made the periodic comment... "I'm blind as a bat"; I really must investigate sonar for Mama.

No harm, no foul. The congregation is used to, if not on to, Mama. We repaired to the parish hall. That's when it hit me that maybe hosting the coffee hour on your special day is not the smartest thing in the world to do. The hall was packed!

But the hall looked lovely. Dave and Kel had worked almost two hours to set everything out, make the coffee and punch, etc. I had brought from home a decorative ceramic church, and a bride, groom, and minister I had ordered from Miniatures.com to serve as the centerpiece on the cake table. The cake was gorgeous. Three tiers, two of which disappeared so fast I thought Houdini was in the crowd. It was really pretty. You will just have to take my word for that.

Why? Did any of us remember to bring a camera? Of course not. Fortunately, Sandie and Robert swung by after their service ended, and Sandie came prepared so we do have some very nice pictures of the tail end of our "party".

After clean-up and pack up, we all headed to the house and jumped in the pool. Dave grilled steaks and brats and Mama ate like she'd never seen food before. We all had a great time. The only sour note to the day was this: we got no cards or emails or calls from anyone in my family. My dad, my sister, my brothers... not a word from any of them. We did, however, get a great deal of affectionate attention from our kids and grandkids.

We have great friends. We really have made a life here in this tiny little town in middle Tennessee. We have been here 28 of our 40 years together. This is home.

Now, I will share some of Sandie's shots with you. Remember me telling you about the bride and groom, etc. for the centerpiece? Well, sometime during the proceedings, the young thin groom was replaced with George (from my dollhouse).

You will notice the groom is not longer young and slim, and, yes, that is a beer in his hand. One of the little old ladies at the Fellowship Hour was offended by that, but the priest thought it was funny. Who was the jokester, you may ask? Well, I won't reveal her name, but her initials are Kelly Lapczynski.

Here I am, almost done with my part of the clean-up.

Mama, being helpful.

Thank you to all our friends and family- especially Kelly, in her starring role as waitress/scullery maid- for making the day so very special.

No subtle knife, no amber spyglass?

When the movie "The Golden Compass" was being previewed in theaters, I had never heard of Philip Pullman or his triology "His Dark Materials". The previews of the movie looked so fascinating that I sailed down the Amazon... like you do... and ordered the books. I am so glad I did. What a great read! What a terrific writer! I am motivated now to go back and reread "Paradise Lost". Now THAT'S impact- have you ever slogged through "Paradise Lost"? Well, Pullman did, and then stood it on it's ear in "His Dark Materials".


I love this kind of writing. The wonderful thing about fantasy and science fiction is the genres let writers create and explore all sorts of new worlds and take us with them while they do. The best fantasy/sci fi is written by scholars - J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov- who pull from their knowledge base to add richness and depth to their stories. Often, the best work is catalyzed by a single question, such as "What if...?" The value of this type of writing is that it challenges readers to think about the world in new ways or encounter new worlds in old ways, by way of a ripping tale. Great fantasy challenges you to think.


"His Dark Materials" is great fantasy, and the movie "The Golden Compass", produced by the Brits, was wonderfully faithful to its quirky universe. I loved it almost as much as the book. Others must have, too. The movie did well; despite an $180 million budget, it grossed $364 million worldwide and won an Oscar for best achievement in visual effects.

I have been looking forward with tremendous curiosity to the next installment, "The Subtle Knife", because, frankly, I can't imagine how it can be made into a movie. But there is some uncertainty that the second movie will be made at all. You see, only $70 million of the gross for "The Golden Compass" was made in the U.S. Fundamentalist Christians and the Roman Catholic Church hammered "The Golden Compass" as heretical, unholy, and dangerous and it seems that their campaign against the movie did, in fact, serve to limit the U.S. gross.

It will be sad if low grosses in the U.S. prevent the next two books from coming to the screen, and even sadder if religious reactionaries are responsible. I don't get it. Just what is it they don't seem to understand about the word "FANTASY"? (As in the opposite of reality). Why are they so afraid of the power of imagination?

I hereby advise you all to go out immediately and buy the triology "His Dark Materials". Don't worry about the books destroying your faith. If your faith is so fragile that a work of fiction can undo it, you have none. Do I think the work is heretical? Damn straight. Sometimes a little heresy is just what we need. The work is also beautifully written, extraordinarily rich and thought-provoking. It is also a ripping tale! Go! Read! If God didn't want us to explore all possibilities, He would have made us different than we are.

Heeeeeere's.....MAMA!

Saturday morning I picked up Mama bright and early. We had a lot of running around to do but needed especially to get to the Credit Union to deposit her treasury checks. She got a $51 tax refund and a nice economic incentive check and was very excited about both. She was wearing blue shorts, a teal shirt, yellow socks and tan shoes. I tried not to notice.

We entered the credit union (which was mercifully empty). Most people go through the drive-through or get their cash from the ATM on the weekend and I had counted on that. I had counted on that because I know Mama needs special handling and because I knew she was going to have to sign the checks. Mama, as she happily told at least 100 people during the course of the day, is "blind as a bat". She told the teller that. She told me to sign the checks. The teller and I told her she would have to sign them. She told us she couldn't write. The teller disappeared into the bowels of the credit union- a not unfamiliar reaction from people dealing with Mama for the first time. The teller returned. Sign or no money. Mama signed, badly. Apparently she is not Mary Richards any more. She is Mary Richabo. No matter, the teller accepted her signature, since she had both ID and an account there. Mama asked for $100, which I put in her coin purse, and deposited the rest in her checking account.

I do not believe that what happened next would have happened if Mama hadn't known she had an audience. A man and two young women were talking outside the credit union as we exited. Mama informed them as we passed that she "is as blind as a bat". They nodded but made no soft murmuring noises. As we got to the curb, I told her that there was a step down. She raised her right foot to knee level and stepped off the curb like Wendy stepping off Captain Hook's plank. I had her firmly by the right elbow but felt her begin to fall and spin. I grabbed for her left shoulder, but she dipped out of my grip, and, with a slow motion rolling fall that would have made Tim Conway proud, she sat down on the concrete. The impact was about that of a butterfly landing on your cheek, but she continued to roll and swivel, as hard to grab as a wet baby in the bath. I got her to sit still and tried to help her up but suddenly she weighed 300 pounds. She couldn't lift her own butt no matter how much I tried to help her. NOW there were soft, murmuring noises from the talking trio and they rushed to help her- surprisingly, THEY were able to get her to her feet- and with many expressions of concern and relief, they helped me get her to the car. She hopped right in, fastened her seat-belt and said "Where are we going now?" I couldn't immediately answer as my heart had stopped.

Mama wanted some new clothes since she has gained 23 pounds since moving to assisted living. (That's a good thing- she was a stick when she first moved in). So off we went to Mama's favorite store- K-MART! She wanted shirts, shorts and one pair of slacks. She couldn't choose anything, since she is a blind as a bat, so I had her feel the fabric and give me her nay or yea based on the feel (and color) of the fabric. We chose three pairs of shorts that varied only in color, three shirts that varied only in color, and a pair of light-weight slacks. Her whole purchase came to $43. She pulled two $20 bills out of her billfold- NOT her coin purse- and dug out $3 in change and paid the bill. Okay, I thought, she had some money squirreled away. Good for her.

She wanted to go to Applebees for lunch. After a very nice meal, she called for a To-GO box and pulled two $20 bills out of a zippered pocket in her handbag-not her coin purse, mind you, her handbag. Obviously she had $80 (at least) squirreled away in her handbag. She insisted on paying for lunch and gave me the two $20 bills.

"I don't need that much money" I told her, trying to give her half back.
"Take it, take it," she said.
"I'll pay for lunch and give you the change."
"No, you keep the change."

No point in arguing. I will slip the change in her purse later, I thought, and then I said "You did very well today. You still have $100 left."
"No, I don't," she said. "I spent it all."
"No," I said, "You had $80 in your purse when we left The Place. When we went to the credit union, you added $100 to that, which is $180. You spent about $40 at K-Mart, and you just gave me $40, so you have $100 left."
"You're crazy."
"Nope."

She stared at me unblinkingly with her owl eyes and then said, "Then you owe me money". I gave her back the $40 and she paid for lunch. The change went somewhere into the mysterious depths of her handbag. I left the tip.

The next stop was the shoe shop to pick up David's shoes. I tried to entice Mama in, hoping she might be interested in a new pair of shoes, but she was starting to tire and stayed in the car. I compensated by purchasing shoes for myself.

We went to Baskin Robbins for an ice cream cone, then drove to the old neighborhood so I could check on the status of our rental property. Mama was tickled as I tooled my PT Cruiser off the driveway and into the back yard to see if all the storm damage had been cleared away. It had. Mama cackled like we were doing something naughty or dangerous or both, so I obliged her with another turn around the backyard and a quick exit back onto the street. If I knew how to do a boot-leggers turn I would have done one. She'd have loved it.

We got back to The Place tired but happy. I helped carry her packages (plus a goody bag I had brought her from home and her doggy-bagged lunch) to her apartment. She looked ready for a nap. I put the food and drink away, pocketed the K-Mart receipt in case we had to return anything, and gave her a big hug and a kiss.

"Love you, Mama, see you soon", I said.

She smiled up at me. "Thanks for everything, David".

Screw entropy!

I went to see the Indiana Jones movie and hate to admit that it was both very good and great fun. Karen Allen is back as Marian Ravenwood and damn, it was good to see her on screen again. She left the Biz and started her own biz making beautiful clothing out of cashmere. You can check her stuff out here http://www.karenallen-fiberarts.com/home.php


I was skeptical about the making of a fourth Indiana Jones movie. I mean, it's been 19 years since "Temple of Doom" and our hero was no spring chicken THEN! (Remember a past rant about "Geriatric Jones"? The one where I posted a recent picture of Harrison Ford? No? KEEP UP, PEOPLE!!! OK, here's the pic again).


"You're not the man you used to be" (sic) says Marian to Indy at one point in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to which Indy replies "It's not the years, it's the mileage" ...and we all laughed. It was a funny line. And is was true, then. Now... honey, it's the years.

It is not kind what time and gravity do to our bodies. The older we get, the fewer traces there are of us as we see ourselves when there are no mirrors around. We are worn away by time, crushed by gravity. It's as if we desiccate and droop and then fade; our hair fades, the color leaves our eyes; our skin pales; and slowly we fade to black.

Paul Newman, at about 30. So beautiful! With youth he had fire and intensity; he had flesh and juice, smoothness and suppleness, and a sexuality that was primal, immediate, and devastating.




Paul Newman, at 82. You can see vestiges of his younger self still. but would hearts have swooned if he had come to the screen at 82 rather than 30? Being semi-geriatric myself, let me answer that. No. We are attracted to all the things that time and gravity take from us slowly throughout our short lives.


And I guess that is one of the things I enjoyed most about the new Indy film. Shia LaBeouf was on hand to provide the heart-throbs, but Harrison Ford and Karen Allen stole the film. Ford is not as fast or as resilient as he was 19 years ago. Who is? Karen Allen is carrying a tad more weight and a few more lines, but is still beautiful, still endearing. Despite the passage of time and the ravages of being mortal, the chemistry between Indy and Marian is still there, still strong, still believable. So much for "Geriatric " Jones. I came away from the movie feeling there is still time for one last adventure and one last love for all of us.

Throw away all mirrors.

What we are abides and can be seen if sought.

Paul Newman is still beautiful.

Hello, I must be going...or coming out, I can't remember

Hello, I am back after surgery, and on the mend. Thank you for continuing to drop in while I have been laid up. I can't believe it has been over a month since I last posted. Been busy. End of my semester- hectic- ; preparing the Spring meeting of the GFWC Highland Rim District; gearing up for Spring convention for the GFWC of TN. April is a busy month and this year, it all became a literal pain in the neck. Hence the surgery on my cervical spine that has had laid me up and laid me low.

Being laid up as I have been has given me time to think. It hurt, but I did it. And here are the thoughts that have occur ed to me in between hallucinations, sleep-walking and other interesting drug reactions.

I have decided, at this late stage of my life, to finally out myself. Yes, dear readers, it is true. Like Rupert Evert and Lance Bass, I do it with men. ( Well, one man, anyway.) I am sorry to shock you in this manner, but I figured if Doogie Houser can announce to the world his predilections for men, it is probably safe for me to do the same. I hereby pronounce with pride that I am a raging heterosexual! Always have been. Always will be. I am not in the least interested in having sex with women. Lunch, maybe.

Now, if this is more information than you wanted about my sex life... GOOD! Sex is supposed to be intimate, private, based on affection and attraction, and NO ONE ELSE'S BUSINESS. I don't care if Jodie Foster and Neil Patrick Harris are gay. I don't even know these people. I don't want to know when they take a dump or piss like a race-horse or blow their noses. Biological processes are not topics of polite conversation.

I have no idea why this rant popped into my mind. Maybe the man in the bowler hat who has been at the edge of my peripheral vision since I was put on muscle relaxers has something to do with it. Something about a bowler hat just screams man-lover to me. Maybe he's Alec Guinness. I hope he's not Ian McKellen or he'll chew up all the scenery.

But I digress. This sad, fat old heterosexual has been left in the care of the man she loves. Make that left to the mercy of her man. One thing for sure, should I die from complications of this surgery, I will not be killed by kindness. He means well, but he has no bedside manner, groans and rolls his eyes every time I ask him to do something, and bullies me ceaselessly. Apparently, being a bully is the ultimate expression of loving concern. He is trying. He is very tiring. But he means well. Fortunately, he will be back at work tomorrow.

I am going to close this mess now, and try to get some sleep. I am a bit concerned about the goats grazing on my houseplants but feel confident the man in the bowler hat will round them up before they do too much damage. Of all the things to hallucinate about! Do I get Johnny Depp or Gerard Butler? No, I get British solicitors and living cheese factories

Off to get hopelessly lost en route to my bedroom, Better living through chemistry.

Wherein spring arrives and my throat is slit...

Spring is trying to spring in Tennessee, as it always does, with sudden leaps backward into winter and tantalizing forays into summer, with much rain in between. After the drought, you would think the rain would be welcome, but this is Tennessee spring rain, which means flash floods, and people having to boil their drinking water. HUZZAH!! No gift lacks a punishment in this state where spring truly is the cruelest month.

But, hey, spring is the season we live for. Winter wears on grayly and coldly until one despairs of the sun- and then summer comes and again we despair of the sun which now, instead of being absent, is all too present and trying to reduce us to cinders. Spring is the gentle month when the birds return, the trees and flowers bud out, and hope is as thick in the air as chlorophyll and pollen.

So it is in this hopeful season I shall have my throat slit. Alas, a throat cutting seems an inevitable end for an old pirate like myself, but I have hopes of surviving this one. An extremely competent- one might almost say ostentatiously competent- neurosurgeon is going to attempt to repair 30 years of disintegration in my neck (one too many hangings, perhaps- it's a rough life being a pirate), and possibly put an end to the pain. Eight years ago this surgical solution to a drastically deteriorated cervical area would not have been possible. Now it has become almost routine. Frankly, I am more than a little hopeful that all will be well in the end.

Imagine being able to raise my arms over my head, to lift something that weighs more than 10 pounds; imagine no longer having a gooseneck, and horrible muscle spasms. What if the feeling returns to my hands? I have so many hopes and very few fears.

That hasn't stopped me from writing a new will. Hey, I am a realist! But this is the season of hope.

Spring!

This is the blog wherein I channel Andy Rooney (or some other curmudgeon)

Did you ever wonder why Court TV became Tru TV?

• Suppose it was so they could endlessly air mindless, sensational shows like "Most Daring" and "Most Shocking" to amuse adolescent males who are into watching car chases, crashes and people getting maimed?


• Did they call it TRU TV rather than True TV because they have a soupcon of shame? If they wanted to be TRUthful, they would have called it "Shock" TV.


• Who came up with that obnoxious motto: "Not reality - actuality!" God, it's aggravating. One more moronic corruption of the language. Can something be real without being actual? Or actual without being real? According to the thesaurus, these words are synonyms.

Did you ever wonder why Vincent D'Onofrio can approach the size of a grey whale with no negative consequences, but when Delta Burke got fat, she was driven off the air?

Does Harrison Ford look like the 3,000 year old man, or what? I can't wait to see the final episode of "Geriatric Jones, and the Quest for the Fountain of Youth". Did you ever wonder why male actors can find work until they're older than dirt, but a female actor's career is pretty much over at 40?

I think I may be watching too much television. I am actually (really) bringing to care about this crap!

The flu stayed but Mike flew...

I want my money back. I paid perfectly good US currency for a flu shot and got the flu anyway. Can't imagine why they call it "flu". Flux is more like it. And it does not fly, it drags on forever. I have been sleeping on the couch to protect my hubby from infection. I have been keeping my distance from my students. I have been resting every possible moment. Every time I feel like I am getting better, I seem to relapse. I am sick of being sick. I am sick of the flu.

Hope I didn't give it to my baby brother.

Last Sunday, my wild and crazy little brother Mikey stopped in for a whirlwind visit. He was in Huntsville for business and drove up to see us. I was so excited and so was my granddaughter Emily, who had never met Mike but was looking forward to my "baby brother" showing up. I am sure she was anticipating a playmate. The minute Mike walked in the door, Em was outraged. "NeeNee," she said with that majestic disdain only a four-year-old can manage, "THAT is not a baby brother. That is a grandpaw!"

Not strictly true. Mike is just-turned 50 and has two kids in college, but neither one of them has made him a grandpa yet. Hope I live to see that day, though, because Mike will be a hoot as a granddad. He's basically just an overgrown kid as it is- give him partners in crime, and he will be right in his element.

The visit was wonderful but frenetic and way too short. Once Emily recovered from her disappointment that Mike isn't four, she and he seemed to hit it off. They have so much in common. They are both high energy people- Mike makes hyper-kinetics nervous- they are both the center of attention wherever they are, and they are both (forgive me, bro) more than a little vain. Kindred spirits!

Mike accomplished the impossible by getting hugs from the older girls as they left for home. Maybe calling them "mugwumps" helped. Of course, being as strong as an ox and refusing to take no for an answer didn't hurt- he overwhelmed them, as Mikey does to most people. A force of nature, that kid. Even the flu abates before him.

God, I love him so.

The rules always change when it's my turn...

When I was a kid, I had two grandmothers. My maternal grandmother S. loved me unconditionally and I adored her in return. My paternal grandmother H. didn't like me and was invariably unkind to me. It was easy to be polite and respectful to my mom's mom. It was very hard showing the proper respect to my Dad's. I have never known why Grandma H. disliked me so but I can honestly say that she inflicted a lot of emotional harm with her unkindness toward and neglect of me.

And yet, like most kids of that era, I was trained from birth to display respectful behavior toward my elders and there were painful consequences for any lapse. My grandmother H. may have been a bitch (and she was: she referred to me as "the ugly one" and "the cripple", and went out of her way to belittle, embarrass and torment me) but I never entered her presence without speaking to her. I never refused to answer her questions, or engage in conversation with her, no matter how unpleasant it might be. She got the quota of hugs and kisses she was due as the mother of my father despite the fact that we did not love or like one another. She was my elder, and her age alone secured for her a high level of respectful attention.

Flash to the present, where I am the grandmother, and compare my behavior toward Grandma H. to my eldest two granddaughters behavior toward me. Focus on the age differences between us. They are pre-teens. I am pushing 60. By the rules I grew up with, I should now be getting my propers as an elder. Hey, I've waited long enough for it, and I have earned it. And even if THEY don't think I have, I believe that if I could behave respectfully to a grandmother who hated me, it should be easy for them to show the proper respect and affection to a grandmother who has always been good to them. That would be me.

But once again, the rules have changed when it's my turn. The girls are surly, rude, silent and deliberately hurtful and only part of this hateful behavior can be attributed to raging hormones. If I had treated either of my grandmothers the way I am being treated, I would have felt the back of my dad's hand across my face. Unless my mom got to me first.

Not that I am advocating slapping children, though, believe me, I have been sorely tempted here lately. I am just sorry there isn't more parental intervention and instruction on the proper care and feeding of aging grandparents who DESERVE respect and affection.

On a much happier note, Pixie and Pookie, the two youngest girls, are still happy to see me and show no signs of casting me off in the immediate future. Hopefully, when the horrible hormones hit the little ones, they will remember me rightly and give me my propers. Hope springs maternal.

List, list, O list.... remember me

My hubby doesn't get blogging. He thinks it's vanity. He nevers reads my blog or those of his children, so really, we could say anything we wanted to about him with impunity - and yet we don't. A person has to be very circumspect in a blog, even if significant others aren't peeping in, because you never know who is.

Case in point: I had a very pleasant surprise over the holidays. A dear family friend who lives in England left comments on two of my blogs, including the one I wrote about him in 2005 (Dinner with the Nige). I can't tell you how tickled I was that he'd found my blog and that he'd enjoyed what I had written, even though it was written quite some time ago. All the more reason to be circumspect- old blogs never die, they linger in cyberspace.

Someone once said "The Internet is forever". Of course that's not true, but it may be true enough. In fact, that may be the reason I blog in the first place. Forever sounds pretty good to me.

Perhaps because of perilous health in childhood and too-early experiences with death, I have been alive to the certainty of my death since the age of four. I can honestly say that a day never passes where I don't think about death in general and my own in particular. I know that I am temporary and insignificant.

But like all people, I would like to be remembered. I would like ME, the way I really am, remembered. I will never be famous, will never be published, and will never have much of an impact outside my small, parochial sphere of influence.

Yet I feel connected to the whole of creation. I love being alive, and I love this beautiful blue marble I live on. I love people, and music, and words, and birds, and works of art and I want to be remembered for that.

I am funny. I am smart. I am a good woman. I know these are small accomplishments and yet I think they should be memorable. Maybe I am wrong.

I may live to be 100, but I know I could be gone tomorrow. When I am gone, I will really miss this wonderful planet. Is it wrong to want it to miss me in return?