Category Archives: Musings

Seeking your opinion

George, Kansas State University, Musings, Pets, , , , , , , , ,

My friend Ellen assures me that pets feel the emotion of their owners and react.

Okay, I accept that about dogs.   Our Pepper would run whenever she thought George and I were about to argue because she could feel the tension between us.  Many a fight ended before it started because we laughed when she took off down the hall.    Our Dreamer would get on my lap and quiver when I cried.  She never did any other time.

But cats?  Ellen assures me they do and I might believe her now.  

We have two incredibly spoiled tuxedo cats (I may have mentioned them before).   Maggie hasn’t slept with us for years and Scooter only bothered George at night.   But during the last weeks of George’s latest and last illness,  both cats slept with me.  It wasn’t a matter of there being more space on the bed.  They cuddled with me.  Scooter used my legs as a pillow and Maggie slept against my side.   This lasted for two weeks after George died when they quit.  

So what do you think?   Did the cats pick up on my sadness and worry?  Were they comforting me?    I think so.  I believe they were using their warm little bodies to keep me warm, to keep me company.   It helped.

And here’s a picture of Kansas State’s Rodney McGrudder

Illogic is me

Musings, Stuff, , , , ,

I’m working on financials, going through baskets full of papers and letters and statements, separating them and attempting to bring order.  Unfortunately, at the moment the dining room table is covered with stacks that spill over into other stacks.  Someday, I’m going to go through all those piles again–someday.

Which brings up the subject of how often I believe the illogical.   Case in point:   I don’t trust banks.   Although I consider myself an intelligent woman, usually, I have a deep distrust of financial institutions.   I’d rather hide our money under the mattress than invest it.   If I lived in a house with a yard, I’d probably dig a hole and bury a box filled with bills.  However, I don’t believe the manager of our apartment complex would appreciate my excavating in the tiny strip of grass between the apartment and the parking lot.

I have no idea why I feel this way.   I’ve read about the Depression but I also know bills were passed to assure this wouldn’t happen again.  Sadly, I also know these bills have been weakened down in the last few years–but even before the crash of Wall Street, I didn’t like financial institutions.   When the junk bond failures hit or Wall Street ruined the economy, I’d say to George, “See, I told you.  You can’t trust banks.”   Perhaps it was the movie It’s a Wonderful Life which I saw when I was very young.  Whatever the reason, I’ve been thinking about buying a shovel recently.

Another illogical belief:  I don’t believe airplanes can really fly.  To me, there is no explanation for how a metal tube can throw itself through the sky without falling to the earth.   

But my lack of  logic is refuted by people who know stuff, who know much more than I.   Because of that, I  know it is safer to keep money in a bank than under my bed so I do that.   I know airplanes can fly because I’ve made numerous trips, clenching my fists and biting my lip but I do.   When faced with the thought of driving for three days of flying to my destination in a few hours, I choose the plane because  it’s faster.  I also read the statistics that it’s safer.  

Do you share these illogical beliefs or do you have others?   Please share–it makes me feel so much better to know I’m not the only one.

And here’s a picture of the UofL Cardinal basketball team    

Please continue to pray

George, Musings, ,

On January 31, George had surgery.  Afterward, he could not breathe.  He had pneumonia.   After a week of treatment, he was released to a skilled nursing center which didn’t take care of him.  When he returned to the hospital six days later, he was admitted into ICU on life support, very sick.

People say to me, “He’s the finest man I know.”  He is.  Please keep prayers and loving  thoughts headed toward Texas.

Me and Fiorello La Guardia

Family, George, Musings, Reading, , , , , , , ,

When George is sick, he likes me to read the funnies to him.  In Austin, we have two pages devoted to the funnies which is better, in terms of reading them to another person, than Houston which had FOUR pages.  I don’t know WHY he likes me to read them.  Sometimes it’s because he’s really sick and doesn’t have the strength to hold the paper.  Other times, the surgeon has told him to lie flat so the incision will heal.   However, I think the real reason is because it amuses him.  I’m all for cheering him up when he’s not well.

What makes him laugh–silently because he doesn’t dare to chortle if he wants me to continue–are the voices I use.  So he can tell who’s speaking without being able to see the pictures, I use a high voice for Blondie and a gravelly tone for Dagwood.   I tried a hip-hop speech pattern for one guy.  I don’t do it well.  I’m really a failure on accents.   In Get Fuzzy, before Satchel speaks, I say, “Woof”, so George knows a dog is commenting.  

 I don’t know why I’m telling you all this but George felt this was worth blogging about so, to make him feel better, here it is.  Also, I’m available to read to you–for a small charge.

Why do I mention Fiorello, the “little flower”, La Guardia, mayor of New York City from 1934-1945?   In 1945, the newspaper delivery drivers went on strike so no one could get the paper.   On the first Sunday of the strike, when the mayor was preparing to do a show, he decided it would be nice to read Dick Tracy to the kids.  Every Sunday from then on, he read the comics to children on the radio and made them happy.

Okay, I don’t read to a city full of children who missed their favorite cartoon characters.  No, I read to George which cheers him up.  That’s a pretty good reason.,

Anyone else have a favorite Fiorello La Guardia story you’d like to share?

My husband is a saint: Part 1

Musings, , , ,

My husband is truly one of the best people I know.   One of the reasons I say that is because he puts up with me and has for nearly forty-seven years.   I am not the easiest person to live with and yet he seems to enjoy it.

Another is that, without thinking about it or a questioning, he acts with great kindness.

When we were living in Houston, a storm started before we left for work.  In Texas, the hardest rain is like one HUGE drop of water which drenches everything and everyone.  I looked outside to see a woman standing under the roof of our front porch to keep dry.  When I told George, he said, “Why don’t you give her an umbrella.”    I’d never have thought of that.  I opened the door but before I could hand  her the umbrella–one of many we’d collected so it was no hardship– she started to rush off the porch saying, “I’m sorry.”    I stopped her and handed the umbrella to  her,  She was stunned.   Two days later, I found it folded against the front door.

Acts of kindness bless the doer more than the receiver.    When I think of one, I attempt to carry through but George acts kindly all the time.  He’s made me a better person. 

Know your limitations! Better yet, hire someone

Celebrating, Musings, Stuff, , , , ,

My BFF—although when we met years ago in the church nursery, we didn’t call ourselves this—recently celebrated an important wedding anniversary. Her children planned a surprise for Betty and Chuck. All their friends were asked to make a quilt square and one of the wives would stitch them together. How much fun, I thought. How easy and cheap.

Ha! I spent nearly seventy dollars on creating that 10” X 10” piece of cotton, expended hours coming up with the design and putting the square together, and it ended up looking as if our cats found a box of crayons and some glue and made a mess.

For that reason and to save you the heartbreak, let me give you some tips if you are ever asked to do this.

1) PLAN I ended up with three different ideas and purchased the supplies for each. That’s what cost so much and took up so much time.

2) KEEP IT SIMPLE My final idea was a montage of events and groups she and I had shared, an homage to the past, nostalgic and heartwarming. However, I had too much detail. If I’d stuck with only a few ideas, there would not have been the big black smear or the messy iron-ons.

3) KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS I’m a writer not an artist. I probably should have written a reflection on all we did together and my memories of my friend and her husband and glued it on the square. I could have printed it off on colored paper. The whole project would have been cheaper and prettier and without the black smear.

4) And this is the one I really recommend: Hire someone to do this for you.

Fortunately, Betty loved the square. At least she said she did. That makes up for the time and money and makes me happy.  (PS, that is NOT Betty and Chuck’s  quilt but that is our cat.  I’m donating this quilt–made by my gandmother nearly a century ago–to Brenda Hiatt’s auction for a cure for diabetes.)

I Hate to Confess, But. . .

Confession, Musings, , ,

Several months ago, I confessed something:  I am not a flexible person.  This was a sad realization because I’d always considered myself to be open to new opportunities, unafraid of change.

Alas, this isn’t true.  Today, that problem I attempt to ignore was savagely reinforced.

At noon,  I reached into the cabinet to get a plate for George’s lunch.  When I looked at the one I’d brought down, I realized I’d grabbed the hamburger plate.  Yes, that’s right.  I have a hamburger plate.  Actually, two:  one for each of us.  His is gold—because he likes mustard—and mine is orange because I don’t.

I put the plate back on the shelf, right above my breakfast plate.  Yes, I have a breakfast plate.  In fact, I also have a breakfast fork, an old salad fork that has survived for thirty years, the only surviving part of that set.

What would happen if I didn’t use my breakfast fork or plate?  Or if I served a sandwich on the hamburger plate?  I don’t even want to consider that.  The thought makes me shiver.

How did this inflexibility begin?  When did I start having a breakfast plate and two back backup breakfast plates?

And, of course, there’s always that toilet paper thing.

What about you?  Do you have a certain way you have to do things?   Do any of your foibles this bother those you live with?  Can you laugh at yourself about these?  If you share, I’ll feel so much better.  Maybe even normal.

 

What happens to research when it doesn’t end up in a novel?

Happening Now, Musings, , ,

We used to live in Buchanan Dam, TX, a town of three hundred about ninety miles northwest of Austin in Llano County.  Twenty miles further west of our house on highway twenty-nine,  every fall a pair of bald eagles built a nest in a large tree about fifty yards from the highway.  This used to be the furthest west nest (sorry about that rhyme) in the United States.   The site became so popular, the county had to put in an off-road parking area.

What I learned both from that nest and reading is that eagles mate for life and that they return to the same nest every year to lay eggs.  The most interesting fact I read was that every year they add to the nest—branches, straw, anything they find.  After a few years, the nest may weight one-hundred pounds or more. 

I write this because I’m going to Buchanan Dam today to eat lunch with a former neighbor and her book club.  As I write this, I remember the sight of those adult eagles watching over those fuzzy headed little one that peeked over the edge of the nest from time to time, and I remember the sight of the adults against the horizon as they glided on the air currents. 

And I also write this because I researched the eagles’ nests for my novel Second Chance Bride.  In that romance, I was able to use the in to use the information about mating for life but that huge, heavy nest didn’t fit in.  Not a bit romantic for the hero to share that information.  However, I hate to let research got to waste so I’m using it here.   

What happens to research that didn’t make its way into a novel?  I blog about it. 

No new year’s resolutions here

A question, Confession, Holidays, Musings, ,

I don’t make new year’s resolutions for three reason.   I could probably dredge up more if I really wanted to explain away my lack of resolution about resolutions, but here are the ones I can think of.

1)  I don’t want to.

2)  I don’t remember to.

3)  No one keeps them.

Okay, the first two are self-explanatory so I will delved quickly into the third.  I once belonged to a work-out place for four years.   What long-time members hated was January because the gym was flooded with new members and became so crowded no one could get close to the machines or the weights or find a place in the exercise classes.   However, we knew that after the fifteenth, the number there would be cut in half.  We also knew that by February, for the most part it would be only us long-timers and a sprinkling of the dedicated resolvers. 

My belief is if I’m determined enough to do something, I SHOULD start immediately, not that I do.  If not, if it’s a gimmick like the new year, no resolution will last long.  Any one have a different opinion?  Did you make any resolutions you’d like to share with us?

How do they live with this?

Holidays, Musings, Small towns, , , , ,

I cannot know or even guess what the parents who lost their children in Newtown must feel.    How can they put away the gifts bought for their children for Hanukkah?    Or those packages, unopened under the tree?  How do they face the closets filled with clothes their babies will no longer wear or the toys they played with only days earlier?

And those children who faced the horror of hearing other children being shot or who witnessed the murder of their teacher or ran past bodies as they escaped from that building full of death?  How do they live with those memories?

How can those who survived believe in safety?  How do they trust?  How do they react when they hear the Twenty-third Psalm:  Though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil when they felt the breath of  evil?

We can discuss and attempt to find solutions so this will never happen again–but why didn’t we do that earlier?    And if they are told this horror was God’s plan, how can those who mourn turn to the God who planned these deaths? 

I don’t know.   I truly believe they are with God and that thought comforts but what are we doing to heal these families and make sure this is the last school shooting?   

If you have thoughts to share, please do.   Perhaps this prayer by Dietrich Bonhoeffer will help us all.

O God, early in the morning I cry to you.

Help me to pray

And to concentrate my thoughts on you;

I am restless, but with you there is peace.

I cannot do this alone.

In me there is darkness,

But with you there is light;

I am lonely, but you do not leave me;

I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;

I am restless but with you there is peace;

In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience. . .