O where, O where have I been?

My sister re-read my whole blog and asked me why I stopped writing...I dunno...I got lost in the last few years and my writings got lost as well...I think I know when and why it happened now... I lost one of my best friends from Jr High and one from High School in the last year or so. Did I become depressed? Even more than usual? Maybe...maybe so...

Am I done grieving my friends now? Can I write again if I am? Will I write again if I am?  No, I am not done and maybe, just maybe I can write again, I dunno...

I have been angry and sad and mad... at God? No... He took them to be with Him. He does what He does. I don't question Him...much. And when I do, He lets me know  He is who He is and that "It is what it is" What?  you thought someone else made up that saying?...Try and change any little thing He is in charge of, just go ahead... I dare you...We won't get those answers until we come face to face with Him our very selves, now will we?

So why am I still so upset? And why is Facebook such a blessing and a curse? I have the answer to that one, yes I do...

I was at work one day and my sister called and told me that Donna had died. She saw it in her messages on  Facebook and it was sent  by her daughter,  I now know... I knew she would never joke about anything like that, so I immediately had a meltdown, right there, very softly in my cubby. Not so softly though that my friend did not come running to see what had happened. "What? When? How?" but I had no answers to any of these questions.

I was very kindly taken to an empty office by my friend where I proceeded to call Donna's daughter, her sister and then her mom, all in SC. I sat in that office for 3 long hours and never received a return call, (although Donna's daughter did send a message on Facebook later). Three long  hours. I called Dee and told her and she was so sorry. We were all friends since we were in 7th grade "My God, what happened?" I had no answer. I called Denise, who had been Donna's roommate at one time after high school and they had remained friends and kept in touch and I was sure she would know. She was stunned and started making phone calls of her own. She would get no information either and we kept in touch for several days hoping one of us would hear something. In an ironic twist of fate, Denise herself  passed away within the next several months and again we found out through Facebook. Her daughter apparently sent an E-message to my sister that showed up almost a year later. Strange, but true...

 Within the next few days, a service had been arranged according to the message we got. It is still blurry to me to this day though. Cee found the obituary online soon after but when final ... I did not have time to get there for services and to this day, I don't know if she was buried, cremated or what?  Hmm...Meanwhile I had sent a  plant with Daisies and had posted some pictures to her

Obituary page as well as messages. I sent sympathy cards to the family. I tried to message her brothers on Facebook... Nothing was acknowledged. I lost touch with her daughter and still don't know the whole story, although she said she would share with me someday. I can only guess her grief is blocking her as well.

Now I had not lived near her for many, many years. She had lived with me and my husband and our first baby and she loved being Aunt Donna. She adored her and helped me in every way she could. She moved in with Denise after that and her world became "complicated" and she would soon move away to SC where part of her family had already moved. They were originally from there and had gone back and forth for all the summers all through school and we were dedicated pen-pals for all those years...all those years...

So I lie awake and think "What happened?" Here's the craziest part; we were close, really close... We lived 4-5 blocks from each other on the same street from 7th grade through 12th grade and our parents were there many, many years later. Her parents still own that home and come down for the Winters. On Saturdays, we took turns and we got up early and met each other half way and then walked back together to whichever house we chose to clean first and then we went and cleaned the other house. We each had sisters, but this is how we did our chores, together...We were in each other's family homes all the time.

 We loved The Monkees and we watched every show and bought all the LPs (albums) with our babysitting money. My dad drove us to Miami to see them-our first concert! My sister Cee and Dee went too and we all wore "micro-mini" dresses and more or less got a lot of unwanted attention from some very "touchy-feely" boys there. Oddly enough, Jimi Hendrix was the opening act and that was a great story to tell for years to come.. Most people thought we were crazy for screaming "We want The Monkees" while Jimi Hendrix played Purple Haze. Years later, Cee and I actually met Mickey Dolenz and he told the same story, the same way and it was very bittersweet to meet him without Donna.

We were women of the 70s and we loved our clothes. Poor as church mice, but well dressed thanks to sewing skills learned in Home Ec class. We sewed a lot of our own clothes and we had Big Sister hand me downs. Donna always had a new pair of Bass Weejuns each year that she got in SC before  school started and Cee and I were secretly jealous of those shoes. We had Latisse purses and Gant shirts and Villager skirts, We were Carnaby Street, Twiggy makeup wearing, psychedelic print obsessed fashionistas! I even cut my hair like Twiggy. I was tall and skinny and a major Twiggy Wannabe. And Donna was maybe ONE size bigger than me and always thought she was a chubby girl. I was only skinny because I ate tomato and mayo sandwiches almost every day. Lunch meat was a special occasion at my house and we all loved fried bologna sandwiches and made that for lunch at Donna's (5 kids) or we went to Linda's ( 5 kids) around the corner. Why was it that the more kids a family had, the more food they always had? plenty to share, always. I somehow ended up at Dee's house (4 kids) around dinner and Mama Davis would sit me down for supper with them quite often. We had 3 kids in my family and three skinny ones at that. My brother and I refused to eat liver  (once a week) and snuck it to our dog Rebel or my sister Cee and they would oblige and so: one less meal a week for me and my brother!

Back to our clothes, though. When I say we were obsessed, I mean obsessed! It was better than LSD, which was popular and very scary in the 60s and the 70s. We knew kids who “dropped acid” but we got "high" shopping for psychedelic fabrics at Zayre's. My brother always said I was "naturally high" and sweet. I think in hindsight it was his way of telling me not to do drugs…

We used to sing in Donna's bathroom because it had great acoustics and our hairbrushes made the best microphones, too. Not many people knew what a truly beautiful voice Donna had... I just wanted to be her backup singer, that was all. She sang "High and Mighty" at a church function once and it was like an angel was singing. I would never forget it.  I remember she felt pressured by her family to sing and I went along for support. She was always shy around a lot of people, but never with any of us. She knew she was safe with us. We all went to the Baptist church together each Sunday. My dad would drop us off with Dee and Donna would already be there because she had to go to Sunday school. Her whole family went every single Sunday. We went when we went and Dee and I were baptized together, but Donna had done that long before. She “grew up” in church.  To this day, I drive by that same Baptist church and drive those same streets that we walked as well. Thankfully, it was there in church, we learned that if we came "just as I am" to meet Jesus, that we would all spend eternity together someday... The Doobie Brothers were right because "Jesus was just alright, oh yeah"

I remember one day Cee and I met up with Donna for a walk. We walked all over West Hollywood, which kept us thinner and healthier. On one particular day, in one of the most regrettable moments of my life, I made some dumb comment about Donna's Blue Toile Butterfly Shorts. What was I thinking? She was so hurt, she stomped off and went home. And then my sister and I did not know what to do... She was crushed and I was crushed that I had crushed her. She was the most sensitive, gentle soul, always, always... Somehow we got through it and we were fast friends again, but it always hurt me that I had hurt her (over Blue Toile Butterfly Shorts? really?) I think I was just jealous and to this day I can see that print and wish I had a pair of those exact shorts...

Dee was and still is my other best friend forever. She shared my world of socialization with the opposite sex and she was my mentor  as far as boys were concerned. I did not know how to talk to them, much less become friends with them or actually have a date or a boyfriend. Dee could just look at a guy and say "What a babe" and the next thing you knew, they were dating. She was amazing and I was so very crushed and sad when she moved to a small town about 3 hours away. It may as well have been a million miles away.  I will write about Dee another time because there is so much to tell of my other BFF as well. So as crushed as I was when Dee moved, I knew I had Cee and Donna.


Donna was my world of art and fantasy and music and theatre and design and of course, Shakespeare! I knew I could survive the last few years of high school and just be a girl, no need for a boyfriend. We were ok to just be us. We were progressive thinkers and did not even know it,

and she would get me through our Senior year, which brought us closer than ever. We took all the same classes. I took Shakespeare for her and she took Sewing for me. She helped me with my "to be or not to be's" and I helped her sew her Maxi-dress. She went on dates with me and my boyfriend (really!) She was so much fun and had the best sense of humor ever and he really enjoyed spending time with her, too. One fateful night, he introduced us all to "Tom Collins". We actually spent the
night at his house on July 4rth. No problem, my sister was there and she was dating his older brother and we had already told our mom that we were spending the night at Donna's and she told her mom we were spending the night at my house. Oldest trick in the book. We all had a Drunken Good time, our very first time. Bittersweet memories, yes bittersweet....

After high school, I was married and Donna lived with my husband and I and our new little baby in a one bedroom apartment downtown. We would drag out a mattress onto the floor each night and make it up for her to sleep. She would keep her money in a little chest and my husband (who also very much enjoyed her company) well, he would "make" her buy us a pizza at least once a week and if she hesitated, he would "threaten" her with a "mule bite"  

Now, a Mule Bite was a way of grabbing the knee so that it would either really, really hurt or really, really tickle  and she would always "give in" and get out the cash! It was more or less a game they played, because we would never take a penny for room and board while she was with us. After that she moved in with Denise for a while and eventually ended up in SC, where she met and married Randy many years later and had her own baby girl named after her husband and me: Randi-Marie. The truth is, she had a new life there and I was not aware of her wedding or having the baby until after the blessed events happened. I know she knew I would have come for both, but think she did not want me to feel pressured to make the trips. I never felt hurt by not knowing because, she honored me by naming her little girl with my name. She could do no wrong in my eyes and I could do no wrong in hers. That is the most important truth about our friendship. That, and the fact that we told each other everything... all the joy, all the pain, all the successes, all the failures, all the secrets, good and bad...

 She was still going back and forth to visit and always stayed at her Family Home. We would go to High School Reunions together and our favorite one was the 20th because we were BOTH skinny. We had both turned into yo-yo dieters and  would fight that battle for the rest of our lives. At this particular reunion, we happen to sit at a table with my husband's former girlfriend, as well. Donna and I thought it was quite hysterical when we went off to the Ladies room together and left himsitting there with her, and so we secretly watched from around the corner. He was very uncomfortable and very pissed at both of us! I had no problem because she had happened to marry one of my old boyfriends and by this time they were already divorced, so let's just say we were being "Mean Girls" for the first time in our lives...mean, pretty, skinny girls! And it was kinda fun, wickedly so, but fun! It was actually my second time though, if you want to count The Unfortunate Butterfly Shorts incident.

My husband and I drove to Gainesville when Donna's sister died at age 49. She was crushed and never really got over losing her and I would have felt the same had it been my loss. I wrote a poem "Grief's Door" for her (a la Shakespeare) after that loss. I had no idea this poem would carry me through so many losses of my own. So many that were so loved by me, including Donna. I read it and wonder where I got the words and I can only say the words came from The Good Lord Himself. In some ways, it is more of a prayer than a poem. Donna knew why I wrote it and she loved it and loved me for it...

The last time I talked to Donna was after her cousin from SC called me to tell me that Donna's niece was killed in a tragic highway accident and she was in so much grief that she could not even dial the phone to call me. I will always be grateful that Donna had her cousin contact me. I called right away and when she answered, all either of us could do was sob uncontrollably because the pain was so raw, so deep, so intense.. We began to talk for hours that night...I can still see where I was, what couch I was sitting on, the room I was in, it is all so vivid and clear. I tried to call her several times after that and left her many messages, but her poor heart was crushed again and I knew she would call again when she was ready to talk again, but she never did...and I never knew and still don't know what happened to her and my grief has waxed and waned ever since...

And so I wonder to this day, What in God's name would make Donna's family think that I should not be one of the first people, after her family of course, to be told of her passing? All I can do is forgive them, but can this human heart forget?
 I knew more about that girl than possibly anyone. I knew every beauty and every flaw. We told each other everything...everything. And more than that we forgave each other everything and our friendship was the true meaning of "unconditional love". My only solace is that I will see her again someday on that beautiful shore with the others I have loved and lost. And Mother Earth's secrets and heartaches will be no more, because we will be friends to "infinity and beyond"



A beautiful smile to hide the pain...did I ever tell you, you're my hero?...you are the wind beneath my wings...

The End is just the beginning

So I have been working hard "editing" my blogs so I can "publish" them all in a book! For publication? I only wish! For personal satisfaction-yep that's it right there. Close enough for now, anyway. And I need to wrap it up, this "Volume I" if you will, because there will be more, count on it!

All kinds of thoughts enter my swirling mind, There is so much to do, so much to say, so much to find...looking for just the right pictures to attach to each story. I have added and deleted and just now after review, see that I have added some pictures twice, so I will need replacements. Geez Louweez! This editing stuff is a full time job! God, I would have loved "that" job. Just poring over other people's writing, their books, their articles, their thoughts...I know, as a writer that I make typo errors all the time and I have a keen eye for them, my own included of course! I just want to get out that RED pen and scratch through those errors and finally feel like a Creative Writing or English teacher! THAT is what I really wanted to be when I "grew up" With a minor in ART of course.

How many of us actually do that? Become what they wanted? I dunno ( slang word for "I don't know" and I am not a tight ass, I do accept slang- no RED pens for that ) How LONG does it take to figure this out? I cannot relate to anyone saying " Oh, I always wanted to be a nurse, since I was a little girl" Not me! Never and I mean NEVER entered this mind. I never even met a nurse, UNTIL I met my neighbor Fran, who wanted to BE a nurse. So I drove her to the school and she enrolled and then started working and told me her adventures and the next thing you knew! I was a nurse too! I was in my 20s though and then Lo and Behold! Fran and I went BACK to nursing school again! But together this time, in our 40s! Whew! I feel "blessed" to have "found" such a career. My life was changed forever, just by meeting one person...Wow.




Nursing became my life...24/7. You can't just "turn it off" EVER, and the ones that can scare me and they should scare you too. But I ain't ( so?) talking about them! Nope! They don't even count, UNLESS they are doing some kinda invasive procedure on you, like starting an IV or something. Then Be Afraid, be very afraid! And don't be shy, ask questions! You know that feeling you get when something or someone just isn't "quite right" It is your "gut" feeling and it is there for a reason. LISTEN to it. If you ask a nurse, "Have you ever started an IV before? and she says, (after it is done ) No, I sure haven't! Pretty good for my first one, huh?" Then you can bet that she HAS done it at least a million times. If she dodges your question and misses the stick more than 2 times, then be wary BUT a "seasoned" nurse will tell the truth, shake her head and say "Well I am off today and I will get my friend to come in" And you know what? She will, get her friend that is...

Every single nurse has a friend that she works with. WHY? Because you become friends with people you trust and who care about others and you. It may be the best "perk" I have ever received in my nursing career-lifelong friends. From the very first, Fran, who inspired me to become a nurse and became my "first" BNFF,  you know, Best Nurse Friend Forever... If I had to list them all, it would be hard, but I will try...

I met Sue and Vickie, the most constant and sweet, in nursing school. And then Marie and Jackie, the most "faithful"  and Betty, another inspiration and Dawn, the most loving and caring, and Susan, dedicated and loyal, all in the Newborn Nursery. And of course Kathy, a high school chum and a brilliant nurse. And then Binnie, who I lost recently and who's passing really led me to THINK of The End...end of life, end of a book or chapter, end of a career, end of whatever... I worked with Binnie in Medical Records and I survived there "because" of her. And then, back to Sue, who NEVER gave up on me and what I had in me, perhaps the truest friend of all, she always, always had/has my back. And then Chris, who became the "younger sister" of my choosing and is my sidekick today as we speak! And then Georgia, who is "always" on my mind, and then Michelle, my Belle, All I can say is No wonder there are songs written about her. And Barb, who was wrapping up her career in nursing and gave hope of another kind. And Carolyn, who has the  greatest sense of humor and fun , who showed me I "could" be a teacher. And then Lynn, the finest, clinical nurse I have ever known and Lisa, who later became what she always wanted to be- a police officer-she is/was a bright and beautiful inspiration to me, to this day. And then back to Marie, my "evil twin" the other half to "my" M and M, perhaps the most versatile and talented nurse I have ever known.

There is a blog ahead for every one of them. They are my friends for a reason and there are also many who were friends for a season, who I will mention along the way, as well. I will not forget any of you, rest assured. And so "The End" to my first Blogger Book is a tribute to all my friends and family who will "become" Volume II...and become a "new" beginning...

Cuz in the end, or the long and short of it, it is all about love and family and friends and forgiveness and tolerance and...

The love you take is equal to the love you make...


                           
                                                                            
                                             
                                                                            
                                                         

Grief

I wrote this poem after Donna's sister Belinda died.

It may not be "usual" blog material, but it is important to acknowledge nonetheless...Donna and I shared a love for "All Things Shakespeare" at one time, and so it should be read in that light...

Grief’s Door

Where would thou lead me, Through Her door?

To find my heart pierced By Her swift arrows?

Arrows wrought by loss, Not Cupid’s love…

When will She leave me? With Summer’s end?

Or will She stay within me Until I am in my twilight?

How could She steal from me One so precious and adored,

And leave behind Her dreary presence?

Stay not with me! For I am spent and worn from these bitter tears…

Depart from me, you Thief! You! Who have robbed me

You have taken a very part of my soul…
You have taken one so dear and ingrained in my heart
That I fear it may skip a beat

And forget to beat again…

My mind swims in your confusion

It leads me not to a safe shore, But weary from ever paddling…

Run from me, Robber! Leave me my rest

For my heart and my mind and my very soul are torn by you

How long will you stay? A day? A week? A year? A lifetime?

Have mercy, I pray. Do not blanket me with this affliction forever!

Who can save me? My Lord, my God, has thou taken my loved one to be with Thee?

Can You love this one so dear to me as much as I did?

The one whose very absence crushes me with pain?

The one whose voice I will hear no more?

Whose lips will not kiss or arms will not hold me?

Do those eyes twinkle now for You and those who came before?

Will you now hold this one securely in Your arms and kiss now that dear face?

Oh, promise me ...Oh, promise me

Can this hole in my heart ever heal?

What can fill it, my Lord?

Will You now comfort me in my night of Grief and also in the mourning?

Would He who loved the world so much That He gave His only son

Save my heart and soul and mind

And send His peace while She is still tormenting me?

I pray He will ...I pray He will



I sometimes read this poem and wonder...just "who" wrote it... I dedicate it to 3 women I lost in my life that I loved dearly; My niece Michelle, her mother Pam and my beloved mother in law Helen.The grief I felt with the loss of each of them is faint now after many years, but not gone...

Ruth 1:16-17- And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.

And today 08/07/2012, my dear, sweet friend Binnie died, and so this is for you, too. My heart is broken once again in the loss of my wonderful friend.
Sadly Donna passed away as well in 2013 and then Denise passed away the next year. I found out through Facebook which is a blessing and a curse... My sorrow and my grief cannot be released into words as of yet...

Life just sucks sometimes...

Well, I haven't written in weeks...Why? Cuz Life sucks, That's why...I am not quite sure when this Cluster Suck started-thought I was gonna say something else,huh? Hey my blog is at the very least PG rated. But back to the "suck fest" I guess it all started in March, when  I became sick and because it was St Paddy's day, some kinda Banshee must have attached herself to me...My blog, My explanation, OK?



So I "missed" O'Candelmo's Big Pre-St.Patrick's Day Party...and then I missed The Irish Day Parade in my hometown-the only "hometown" event worth going to, I might add. So I became deeply depressed and the Banshee wanted me to "find a bridge" that I could jump off of. Luckily, I am scared of heights so I just told her "HELL NO!" and pulled the covers up over my head and just disappeared for awhile, The saddest part is nobody noticed, except my "trusty True Irish Girl Sidekick"  Chris and my "Scorpio SIL Linda"



Life just went on for everyone else as lovely as you please and I realized that LIFE SUCKS! I threw myself a truly deserved "pity party" Oh yeah, you betcha I did and I am still celebrating a little here and there as we speak! now I realize that family and friends do NOT have ESPN as I like to call it and maybe some just didn't know what a HUGE hole I had fallen into. And I have decided to forgive all 270 of my facebook 'friends' for this. After all, people "suck" too...

March turned into April and then May and June and July and nothing good seemed to happen, just a whole lotta boring and loneliness and I wasn't scared of heights anymore... I was wondering if I could "mapquest" a bridge...Luckily Dee called me in the midst of all this strife from Alabama and she DOES have ESP, so she talked me off of the bridge until we could "jump" together...and that wasn't gonna happen anytime soon- we were both stuck where we were stuck. I realized after talking many hours with my BFF, that other people actually thought that Life sucked too! And she was one of them. So why look for a bridge to "jump" from? What I really needed was to "build my own bridge" and get over it and get over me too...

In the meantime, I just couldn't get over the fact that People Suck! Yep, I said it and I mean it, they suck...We are lucky to know a handful of people who really care about us, faulted as we are and  we are blessed to have these people who accept us as we are. You may think you have a lot of  friends, but when the rubber meets the road, there will most likely be just a few left standing beside you. So! I decided to be thankful for those still standing and just let the others jump or build their own bridges because they could be in a deeper hole than I ever was in! And if I "noticed" and wanted to lay some asphalt down for them on their bridges, I would, but if they just wanted to throw bricks at me, because maybe they thought that "I" sucked...then I would just lay those bricks down on the bridge, too... No sense wasting them.

So here's the upside: I have to forgive Life, which sucks and forgive the faulted people, like me ,who suck.  And then I have to pick a new word: like "believe" Nah, I used that word for like 2-3 years straight until something that I actually wanted to believe would happen, happened! Yep that was a good word, alright. So, I picked "thankful" and then I actually became thankful for some of the people who sucked. How about that? Even words can turn on you, in a good way. So I will be thankful that even though I became sick and broken again, that I now could choose to "believe" that I could be "thankful" for people who were just in different places on their "bridges" Maybe they don't even know they need to build one, maybe they are half way over or lucky enough to be all the way over. And if they are thinking of jumping, then I can be thankful that I don't want to jump anymore too. And I "guess" I could try and talk them down or at the very least, throw a few bricks at them, so they could start building their very own bridge, right there and then, right?

So the moral of the story is this: Life does suck, People suck and you SUCK! ( myself included) And it's really a crappy word, so pick another one, like "believe" or "thankful" or "forgive" or even "bridge" And realize that some of us are walking "Seven Mile Bridges" and some only have a hop, skip and a jump and maybe all any of us really need is a little "kindness" along the way...hmm that's a nice word, now isn't it?

And if you try a little kindness then you'll overlook the blindness

17 again

I can write about anything…I just look at a thing or think of someone and I write…and then I have writers block when it comes down to it. And what or who shall I write about? Did I ever write about the truth or the time I seem to be stuck in? There’s something about my age, my generation that makes us all think we are 17 again. A co-worker looked at me at lunch and said “That’s where I really am…” and she meant... or what I think she meant is; our faces and bodies are growing older, but we see that 17 year old in the 60s and early 70s who really just wanted a few simpler things like:

The Vietnam War to end…

The Beatles ( or The Monkees ) to come to town...

To wear the latest fashions...

To have a boyfriend...

To wear the latest clothes, whether we bought them or sewed them or were given “hand-me-downs” from a friend; I think they call them “vintage” now. There was no doubt that you could wear them, they just fit, it was a 17 year old body! everything fit! If only I had taken pictures of my favorite outfits! We had a closet full, thanks to my brother’s girlfriend, mostly. She brought us her “gently worn” hand me downs every few weeks when we were in the last years of high school. She kept us from taking "that" hit... We were dressed for high school success! From Carnaby Street, where my idol Twiggy was from (Austin Powers, to the youngers) to preppy Gant shirts and Villager skirts and LaTisse purses to Bass Weejuns...no,I never had those, but Donna had Weejuns and we just dreamed about them. We wore saddle-shoes and Mary Jane or “baby doll” shoes mostly. We had “shifts" and mini-skirts with wide belts and micro-mini dresses that we all wore to the Monkees concert ( as close as we were ever gonna get to the Beatles) Jimi Hendrix actually “opened" for the Monkees; it was awesome long before awesome! We borrowed clothes from each other and sewed clothes.

We made shifts, mostly and I made the dress I wore to homecoming. It was a pink satin empire waisted dress with long sleeves and a silver trim around the waist...No pictures though, nobody cared enough to be there or take one for me...

There I was in that short dress and I had another boyfriend at the time, but I went with Chris, instead, 

who I was thinking would make a really nice, new boyfriend, but it didn’t work out. I was too quiet and painfully shy and I spent too many "moments" watching my old boyfriend dancing with that blonde chic instead of making my own moments with Chris on the dance floor, myself. He was handsome and sexy and all I really wanted from him was to dance with him and hear him say
 “you are so pretty tonight” Years later, I found out he carried my picture with him when he was in the Navy and told his buddies I was "gorgeous” Wow.

And as vain as it seems, most  17 year old girls will finally admit that what they really wanted was:

To be called pretty

To have someone tell you that “My Girl” by The Temptations reminded them of you,

 instead of feeling like you were being directly sung to when
"Hey There Lonely Girl" came on the radio.

To be a stewardess or model; anything that might take you NYC. 

There were no long term dreams, we loved and lived in that 17 year old moment.

I lived a lot age 15 to 17 and I did not do drugs or sleep around…sometimes I wonder  why I didn’t…

 I guess it was The Baptist church that kept me wholesome, and Dee and I went every week...

To hear the gospel preached? Hell, no! ( but it sure rubbed off) There were some really cute boys at
 that church and we wanted to date all of them. Bobby was one of them, so was Jim and Kenny and
Steve and even Paul...but he was always in the "friend" zone and he knew it and paid me back in
other ways. He told Steve's mother that I was pregnant, which was not true, I told you I was wholesome, didn't I ? What a jerk!

 To this day he denies it and Stevie's mom was so pissed that she  beat the crap out of him with

 a fly swatter for that little lie. She thought I wasn't good enough for her baby boy and that I lived on the wrong side of The Boulevard.
 Just because she saw us kissing at the beach one day. Big deal, lady!
We were "just" kissing. Years later he said it was one of his "most memorable moments" in a 25 year class reunion booklet.
What the hell? He needs to find the nearest bridge and "get over it"
Thought I was gonna say "Jump off of it" huh? Nah, he was cute and sweet,
but he was a Mama's Boy, that's all...

17 again...a simpler, more complicated time? You bet...Would I change anything? Sure, why not?
People that say they wouldn't seem delusional to me. Why wouldn't you change to make things better for you and others?
 What? Worried about messing up the space-time continuum? What a crock!
That just happens in movies, or does it?

And the way she looked was way beyond compare...

Tick Tock

SO many topics, so little time... I am thinking that I don't like the way time is passing! The older I get the quicker, it goes. Now I don't mind it when Monday through Friday goes by like a flash, but can the weekends slow down a little? Geez! 2012 has already "lost" January! Now it's Valentine's Day and then St Patrick's Day and then Easter and then summer with July 4 and then the fall is here with Halloween and Thanksgiving and then Christmas again!  Bam! 2013! Already here!

Let's back up a little, shall we? or "can" we? Some parts of the day go by sooo slow,  like the 9-5 part although I do love my job and sometimes think "where has the time gone? I was just getting into a groove and now it's time to go home...Oh well, seeya tomorrow!"

And then I get home and it's time to get dinner and chill out and watch a TV show or  two. Seems like no time to exercise. I'm "too tired" to exercise and that is why I am hanging out on the couch....By the time, I think I might want to get up and move, then it is time to get up and move upstairs and take a shower and  go to bed. Phew, where did that evening go?
I try to spend some time writing but my mind is already catching some ZZZs and I am misspelling every other word! Thank God for spellcheck! I hope it works and my mind wanders again to thinking that I really do NEED to finish that crosstitch I started 3 years ago...It is a birth announcement for my second granddaughter, that is a "mimic" of the one I made for her cousin, my first granddaughter. That one only took me 2 -3 yrs to complete...

Time, you are no friend of mine
Always running away from me!
Stand still and just be...with me!
Time, are you an enemy? 

Ticking, tocking. Always "clocking"
Clocking my minutes, clocking my hours,
 clocking my days and clocking my nights...
Time, stop running! Taking with you my very life!
Running with the moments that I desire, running with the special times...
times with family, times with friends.
Times that I should have spent more wisely...
Will I ever see that the time that flashes by so swiftly
 is really all I have for "this" moment in time? 

Can time just stop and stand still ?
And let me finish my stitching, finish my writings, finish my readings?
Time, come sit beside me on  my comfy couch and "be" my friend!
 Let me just breathe and "not" count  to ten, because ten comes too quickly.
 Let me count to a thousand or ten thousand and slowly, slow time down...
Time, time, time...



And so I've run out of time and must finish my editing tomorrow and post my blog after that. I am not on a deadline to finish,but sometimes wish I were. I would write more that way. If I just had the time to really spend doing what I want to do, I would probably just waste the time and "veg" out on the couch anyway.                          

If I could save time in a bottle...

Don't argue...

Went to a "support group" with my sister last night for Caregivers...Hmmm, so who are we caring for? Well,  my sister's mother ( as we like to call her ) comes to mind...BUT we find out that we care for more than her , or we should care for more than her, like maybe OURSELVES! There's a thought.
So there was another set of siblings and we are told that we are all lucky to have sibling support and we also find out that "their" mother is the same kind of mother as "our" mother. We went to Leeza's Place which is a place where there is support for people who "care" for their parents as they age and face the challenges of memory loss, confusion, lack of concentration, wait a minute! Are we still talking about our parents, or us???

Some have Alzheimer's or Oldtimers, whatever you want to call it, or Dementia or what we medical people used to call OBS or Organic Brain Syndrome-What? Who the heck knew what that meant anyway? Hello! It means they are OLD, OK?

I personally think that as we get older, we lose brain cells, like maybe every time we brush our hair, brain cells are attached to the fly away hair that we lose....I'm just saying...one Woman's theory. And tonight's word or theme is "positivity" Well, I would say that we are positively looking at the same thing happening to us! Yes, because Bonnie Sunshine told us that 55% of our makeup is genetic! Ah crap! The "odds" are not looking so good, folks! Hey Bonnie, hope you got some ideas for the other 45% we are tying a rope and hanging on here!

Am I gonna start to hallucinate, too? Well, we now learn that we are not supposed to argue with her, just let her be delusional...hmmm, we've been trying to redirect her to the truth or as we say "reality" and she gets all fired up when we don't agree with "her" reality! At first, her delusions were strange, but more pleasant and less terrifying. She told us that "someone" came into her room and took her address book and changed names and crossed out other names and just screwed the whole thing up! Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the "new" handwriting is hers...Then! "someone" drew black circles around the faces in all her photos...Sounded a lot like "The Great Teddy Bear Incident of 2009"  the one where "someone" came into her room and drew black magic marker circles around her little stuffed teddy bears' eyes. Well, come to find out, "Old" people start having a little trouble with their vision, which could be the answer to some of this delusion.

But then, "someone" came in and get this! They REDECORATED her room! Wish "someone" would come to my house, Mom! So turns out, we should just agree, and say "Wonderful job, I like what they've done with the place" instead of "Are you nuts, Mom?" Someone also brought her a brand new sewing box, too, and when she showed it to me, all I could think was "that's the same piece of crap you've had for 12 years" but this time I just nodded and said "Very nice"

And now the kicker... it seem's that certain medications ( Gee, like the one I told them to discontinue, Oh, 5-6 weeks ago!) will cause these poor old souls to actually have hallucinations in the first place! Are ya kidding me? I knew that Serroquell was some bad stuff--Some people call it Silly-quell...So these people that we trust in the ALF to take care of all these old people don't know Jack or Jill about the side effects of the pills that they are giving to them! As a nurse, I try to trust until you earn my distrust and son of a bitch if they didn't earn it...I don't trust any of them...I want to yell at them and make them take Silly-quell for punishment! "The idiots are running the asylum" comes to mind and that about sums them up!
But, not to worry, I only have a 55% chance of having the very same thing happen to me when I get to be an old woman Well, if that's the way it's gonna be, then I positively refuse to grow old gracefully!

So if you should survive 'til a hundred and five...