MATHEWS PROM

Grandson Sam and friend Jacqueline

(How great they look!)

Hope they had lots of fun!!

Double click to see bigger shot.

VIOLETS MAKE ME SMILE

Violets make me smile.

Dandelions do too.

Mourning Doves scratch on a sunny perch.

Camellias blast forth in loud exuberance. 

Cheerfulness sweetly commune with buttercups.

But violets make me smile.

GRANDMA JONES

Born in 1875, my father's mother was tall, slender, and hardworking.  Her favorite color was red, which showed up in her dresses, hats, and even the flowers she grew around her pristine little house.  She had one vice, which she kept hidden from everyone but the grandchildren:  she smoked a pipe!  Her after dinner pleasure was shared with whichever grandchildren cared to spend time with her.  I always volunteered because her bedroom had a fascinating pin cushion in the form of a lady in a beautiful red ball gown.  I danced the pin cushion all over, whirling the red skirt to new heights.

Grandma Lilly

She and my Grandpa Charles lived on a small farm, plowing by horses, planting and harvesting by hand.  My father was the only boy, but his three sisters were able as well.  Aunt Ruth told of the time she was driving a wagon of potatoes to market and the horse got away from them.  They survived on what they grew:  chickens, hogs, beef, and the garden.  What excess they grew went to market.  Hunting skills were not just recreational sport, they were food and survival.

The little house in Pasapatanzie, circa 1907

My grandmother is third from the left her three sisters flank her.

Grandpa Charles holds Aunt Ruth and my father stands by them.

Over with the horses is Father's Uncle Welford 

They were clean and starched and poor but at the same time had everything.  Good food, laughter, shelter, and the beauty of nature.  No one ever needed welfare and there wasn't any.

My Grandma made me promise to never wear a bathing suit.  I promised to make her happy, but I had to take swimming lessons so there went that promise!

Here I keep my promise not to wear a bathing suit!!!

Oh Grandma, see what you made me do!!

BATTERIES INCLUDED

Husband's cardiologist determined his irregular heartbeat, which was not responding to cardio-version or medication, required the installation of a defibrillator, a small implant which helps in many cases to normalize things.

His appointment at 6 AM EDT (which last week was 5 AM EST) required that we awaken at 4:30 AM EDT (formerly known as 3:30 AM EST) to get ready and travel 40 some miles, with traffic lights and the unpredictable Coleman Bridge, to the hospital.

The door we had always used for one-day  procedures was closed and an impatient voice directed us to the pavilion on the other side of the facility.  After clomping through the rain with Husband panting, we found the pavilion, where we were directed to go to another far end of the hospital, which must cover 50 square acres.  He registered and climbed into a bed on wheels pushed up by elevator to the third floor by our transporter, Mozelle.  Given an IV and cable TV, Husband put on his gown and settled in for the wait.  His beautiful nurse, Mary Jo, was six feet tall, thin, and wore a long pony tail.  I couldn't help thinking of Audrey Hepburn.

Finally Mozelle returned and down we went to first floor surgery.  After about 2.5 hours in the waiting room, the doctor was done and Husband had a new energy source planted in his left upper thorax.  I knew we were in for trouble when Mozelle had to keep after him to lie back so she could see where she was going.  Obviously he was fighting whatever sedation they gave him (3.5 times the normal dosage they later said).

Husband Fights Off Sedation

"I want two breakfasts!!

Look!!  I can touch my toes!!

Did you hear the one about the Amish drive-by shooting?"

Back on the third floor, Mary Jo sternly cautioned Husband to lie flat because his incision was weeping and the massive dose of sedative might make him woozy.

Husband and medication sometimes result in Husband squared or Husband times Husband.  Around new audiences, he became the stand-up comedian he was born to be.  Having seen his act before,I tried to keep him flat and when he refused, I went for Mary Jo.  She found him not only sitting up but in the bathroom defying her orders to use the plastic urinal she went to the trouble of providing.  I reminded her that he does what he wants no matter who tells him no.  As soon as we got him back to the bed, he began snoring.  Awake/asleep took about 2 seconds.

Goodnight Sweet Prince

When it was time to go, Mary Jo wheeled him to the entrance and warned me not to stop anywhere because he might try to drive.  And I didn't.  Thanks, Mary Jo!!

FEELING UNCOMMONLY COMMON

The first sights and sounds we experience serve to shape our emotional demeanor and to place us in the hierarchical web of society for life.  A self-appraisal etched in stone then directs us to be what we have been fated to be.

In my case, it could only have been the sound of quarreling and the sight of my parents tussling over money.  Dad liked to gamble and Mom tried to prevent that.  There was never any resolution and after twenty years, they divorced.  My early years were like living in an off-Broadway company of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," minus the alcohol.

Liz and Dick play my parents.

Trying to overcome your early imprinting is just about impossible.  Staying happy in an atmosphere of highly-charged anger requires skill and the ability to hide and remain silent.  I had one place they could never find me - the knee hole of my bedroom vanity.  I could watch them pass me and not answer their calls.  Let them worry, I gloated.  To this day, I have fantasies of disappearing into a sea of unknowns and becoming someone else; to fabricate a new childhood and adulthood; to make the necessary positive revisions to the history of a happy and confident me.

Lets start over again from here!!

I post this self-pity in honor of National Dismal Introspection Month (March) which has people I hardly know calling me to say how depressed they are.  Chin up, people, we shall meet in the spring, if we make the journey through the mattress!!

See ya at the meeting place.

TOGETHER FOREVER

The other day Husband coughed and I peed myself.  Then I remembered, I'm only supposed to do that when I cough, preferably not even then.  I guess it's like Pavlov's dogs.  You hear a bell/cough and you have a conditioned reflex.  Or maybe we just need some time apart, if we've become that entangled.

Cause and Effect Occasionally Baffle Us

We still smile recalling various times when we wandered apart and lost each other,  Europe, Grand Cayman, and frequently Walmart.  We now carry cell phones to keep in touch.  If ever there were two people on different tracks, we are.  It is seldom smooth sailing and often "man overboard" on our Love Boat.  Still we have this strange compatibility and parallel understanding of important issues in life.  

I get my adventures through freak accidents; he through deliberate flaunting of safety rules (driving the zero-turn on our dock).  His life ambition has always been to be pulled down our creek while hanging from one of those human kite things seen at resorts.  I do not want to see it.

This is him, high over the water and hoping for a downdraft.  

If his last wish is a balloon ride, he should choose another partner, one with a death wish as ardent as his own.  But I'll probably do it.

Me not having fun; Husband euphoric.

There's only one burial spot left in the family plot, so since we are both getting cremated, we should just be crammed into one jar and have done with it.  Then we would fit nicely into the remaining place unless there is some bureaucratic unsound reasoning to prevent that final two-fer.  And we can be buried.  With my eccentric in-laws.  Now there's a dramatic box of chocolates.  And at last Husband and I will be together!

With the in-laws.

I look for Judgement Day to be confusing anyway, so why fret the details.

HEARTS ON WAVERLY LANE

HUSBAND AND I WISH ALL OUR FRIENDS A HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

And we're off to Golden Corral!!