In the Good Old Summertime....

I often wonder why our brains hold on to some memories and discard others. How sometimes some of the most mundane ones - like the first time I heard the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" and all I was doing was sitting at my bedroom window, staring down at the house next door. And others - like the day my mother died and I arrived only moments after she'd gone, in time to kiss her goodbye while she still felt as warm as she had in life - that are hard to bear and yet I won't ever want to forget it. Strange, isn't it.

This morning as Dear Hubby and I were riding in his truck - I have my truck, he has his - out to the archery range in Carlton I had a long ago memory come to mind, one that I don't think of very often but I still remember it as plain as day 44 years after it happened. And it had to do with me mentioning men's fedoras. (I put a link to Dictionary.com there for the younger generation who might not know what a fedora is.) When I was a little girl a lot of businessmen still wore them. My dad, an insurance salesman for many years of my childhood, had a couple of them. They were almost as much a part of a man's work attire as white gloves and hats were for women going to church or out for a day of shopping and lunch with 'the girls'.

Anyway...as always...I digress.

In the small town I lived in there was a lake on the outskirts of town. In the summertime my Dad often took my brothers and me and a load of neighbor kids there for a few hours on hot afternoons. My family also had many picnics there. It is where my younger brother, his wife, Dear Hubby, and I went to have our own little private memorial when my dad died. Sometimes, if there was no ride available, we kids would walk to the lake. It was a couple of miles from my house but back in those days no one really thought much about walking that far or riding our bikes even further. The walk there wasn't so bad. It was the walk home that would do us in after swimming and playing in the sun for hours.

I remember a particularly hot day, one that must've crept up in to the 80s which, for the part of the country I lived in, was really warm. My younger brother, my best friend Angie, and I had walked to the lake earlier in the day and were heading home. The road to the lake was paved but it was narrow and lined by huge Douglas fir trees and lots of thick vegetation on both sides as it wound around sharp curves. As we trudged along an old sedan pulled up next to us. At the age of 11 I don't think it's easy to gauge someone's age but the man inside seemed ancient to me. He slowed to a stop and opened the passenger door and asked if we'd like a ride back to town. He'd buy us ice cream on the way home, he said. He wore glasses, a rather ratty old navy blue suit, and a dark fedora. Angie and my brother said "Sure!" and the man reached over the seat and opened the back door of the car and urged us to climb in. As my brother and Angie started to climb in, I grabbed them back and pulled them out on to the road with me again. I locked eyes with that old man. And I very adamantly told him, "NO!" He held my gaze for what seemed like an eternity, then muttered some kind of disgusted oath under his breath, slammed the door, and sped away. I had never ever seen him before in our small town. And I never ever saw him again.

Sometimes I wonder about that moment. Sometimes I wonder what I might've saved us from. What voice spoke up inside of me and told me it wasn't safe to go with that man. What made me brave enough to tell him no when I'd been told to respect my elders all thru my childhood. But I'd also been told to be leary of strangers and I'm glad that on that particular day I was.

Bad things happened to kids in the 'good old days', too, you know.

They just weren't talked about.

This is one of the best coming-of-age novels I've read in a long time.

A Rose by any other name....

Have you ever noticed just how unique blogs are?

How each has its own personality?

Just like its writer?

I wonder what mine tells

you

about

me.

Tell me...did this really happen or not?!

As I was walking the grandboys home from the park a couple days ago I heard a car come roaring up behind me. As the side streets are narrow and the sidewalks impossible to navigate with 100 pounds of laden-down double stroller, I choose to walk along the 'hump' in the middle of the street to keep things balanced. When I heard the car approaching, I veered off to the right to give whomever plenty of room to pass by. At that moment I also approached a Stop sign so stopped at the intersection at the same moment the car next to me did. The driver, a young man, took the opportunity to yell out the open window at me, "There are better places to walk than the middle of the road, ya know!"

Granted, he had a point.

So I called back to him as he hit the gas pedal, "I know, but the sidewalks here aren't built for double strollers. And thank you so much for being so concerned about our welfare!"

Several blocks further as I approached another intersection I stopped as I saw a car pull up to the Stop signs there.

Hmmmmmmmm...the car appeared to be familiar. This same young gentleman who'd been so concerned about our welfare.

I waved him on, as I always do any car because the boys and I are just meandering and never in a hurry. The young man then waved to me to go...and then realized who I was.

Ooooooooops.

He leaned his head out his window and said to me ever-so-contritely "I'm sorry about being such a butt head to you back there."

I'm sorry he was, too.

But I smiled and accepted his apology

And we both went our separate ways.

Somehow I think that moment lightened both our days.

What a disappointment.

Maybe I wasn't in the right mood.

But I did not like this book.

And I usually love books by Jodi Picoult.

Maybe I'll try it at another time.

On another day.

Alaine liked it.

Is there anyone else out there who's visiting today

Who can tell me what they thought

of it?

Bibbledy,Bobbledy, Booooooooooo

I don't think I ever did tell you about the results of my bra-buying debacle, did I? After trying on more bras than I cared to count I settled on a couple of these. At least the photo on the page this will take you to most closely resembles the JMS bras I bought. They are undoubtedly the most comfortable bras I have ever owned and I've been wearing bras for 44 years. That oughta say something about them.

Here's a treat for you.....

You have absolutely got to go read this blog! You need to go back to the very beginning of the archives and read from there, starting at the top of each blog entry and then scrolling down. It is so adorable! My daughter is the one who showed it to me and I'm passing it all along to you. Already it's building up a huge following and I can understand why.

Some people are just soooooooooooooooo creative.

If I'd Known Then What I Know Now....

...I wouldn't have wasted so much time fretting about things that never came to pass.

...I would've taken better care of my feet and not worn all those platform shoes in the 70's.

...I would've listened to my mother and not read in the dark.

...I would've eaten Chinese food long before I finally got brave enough to try it when I was 19.

...I would've kept all of my Beatle records, photos, and magazines with articles about them in it.

...I would've kissed Craig Carter.

...I would've hugged more and not been so afraid of touching.

...I would've held on to some friends more closely and let others go a long time ago.

...I would've read even more than I did.

...I would've learned how to swim better.

...I would've appreciated my parents more than I did.

...I would've tried to store more of my children's childhood moments in my memory.

...I wouldn't have been so timid about speaking up for myself.

...I wouldn't have been so concerned about what others thought of me.

...I would've relaxed more, stressed less, and devoted more time to gardening.

...I would've learned how to play the piano.

...I would've realized that time goes by waaaaaaaaay too fast and to begin savoring the sweet moments at a much earlier age.

I know, I know...there are those who'll say that "You can STILL do several of those things NOW!" And I could, yes. But these are things I've regretted at various stages in my life. And ones I still regret now.

Ooooh! Oooooh! Oooooh!

Does my title remind anyone of "Car 54, Where Are You?"

Ha!

Anyway, guess what book just came in at the library?! I picked it up and have it to read this weekend. This evening after the grandboys leave, Dear Hubby and I have plans to ride out to the archery range. We're picking up Subway sandwiches to take along. He'll shoot and I plan on kicking back and digging into this book. Don't you just love it when a new book by a favorite author comes out? I hope I won't be disappointed.

I love the long twilights at our latitude this time of year. Even with leaving late in the day, there'll be plenty of light for Dear Hubby to shoot his bow. Hard to believe only a couple more days and we'll be heading back to shorter days of daylight again. Is it just me, or do the seasons seem shorter and shorter and shorter.......

I just noticed in my Feedjit feed that someone visited from Monaco.

Monaco?!

Hmmmmmmmm...as small as that principality is,

could it have been royalty?

Woe is Me....

I am feeling unloved, ignored, and unpopular. My Inbox has been more or less empty all week. I know people have been visiting here because Feedjit and my little "Vote For Me' tally tells me so. But it sure is quiet in the blogosphere. Has everyone gone to Twitter and Facebook??? I saw a news headline that said MySpace is laying off 30% of its work force. Oh, how fickle humanity is. How quickly we tire of things. How short is our attention span. Mine included. It's like it takes too much effort to click a button and go anywhere.

Yesterday as I walked the boys and we headed down a quiet side street the door of a house flew open and a young mother and her two little girls came out on the porch, preparing to leave. When the older of the girls spotted us she ran down the steps and to the gate, leaning over it and waving at me.

"Hi!" she called out.

"Hi!" we all called back.

"Happy Mother's Day!" she yelled.

"Thank you!" I yelled back.

I'm wise enough to know that, in her mind, yesterday was Mother's Day.

The wind is moving but I am standing still. A life of pages waiting to be filled. - Michael W. Smith

I was going to continue on with my previous blog entry but it ended up being so much of a book review - scroll down and read it if you like books - that I decided to just leave it at that and continue on to a 'fresh' page. I am plugged in, tuned in, geared up, jazzed up, and ready to rumble this evening. I haven't written anything substantial in like...forEVer...so I have one of my favorite Enigma CD's, "A Posteriori" , playing on my Discman so I won't bother anyone. Not that there's anyone to bother since Dear Hubby just left for church and our daughter hasn't arrived home from work yet. Even so, there's something about having excellent headphones on that block out all the exterior noise...the 'ear buzzes'...that help me focus. Focus on what?! I ask myself. Well, I don't rightly know. I feel like I've been away on vacation from my blog for such a long time I guess I'll start off with one of the old writing exercises we used to do in my high school Creative Writing class...stream of consciousness. Just go wherever our mind takes us and not even think about what our fingers are writing - or in my case, typing . So...I will let my fingers do the talking tonite...

I don't want to write about my beloved grandboys. I don't want to write about family. I don't want to write anything that pertains to anyone but me tonite. Or, at least, how I think or feel about...stuff. There's a lot of stuff going on out there in this ever-more-crazy world we live in, isn't there? Sometimes don't you just want to yell, "ENOUGH ALREADY! Stop this merry-go-round and LET ME OFF!!!" I feel that way right now. I am so sick unto death of the news, whether it's left-wing or right-wing or fair-and-balanced or so-biased-it's-enough-t0-make-you-want-to-gag. It's ENOUGH ALREADY!!!

Sorry.

I just had to get that off my chest.

You know, people are so afraid of getting old. Isn't that sad? Of course we know as we plug along in this race we're eventually going to reach the finish line. I hit the age of 55 at the end of December and I'm kind of getting off on this growing older thing. I now qualify for Senior Discounts at a lot of businesses. And restaurants. And motels. Young people...teenagers!...are especially nice to me. Polite, even. Holding doors open. Moving out of the way on narrow sidewalks when I'm trudging along pushing about 100 pounds worth of kids and groceries and double-stroller. I no longer worry about being 'fashionable'. I. Dress. Comfortably. I don't look freakish. I don't even look eccentric, tho my thoughts tend to lean that way. I just dress for myself. And as long as I get no complaints from family members about being seen with me in public, I leave it at that. But you know what I love especially about getting older? I speak up for myself. Everywhere. I don't allow anyone to shove me around, so to speak. I'm not rude or hurtful or cruel. But I feel I have as much right as the next person to mark my place in this world. I spent too many years of my youth keeping quiet and almost bursting at the seams while I did so, wanting to speak up and being too timid to do so. Feeling the way I looked at things was a little too off-kilter at times, that people might not understand where I was coming from. That's an area in my life where my blog has truly liberated me. Here I've always written just what and how I think and I've had so many people thru my years here tell me, "Why, I've always felt that way...or thought that way...myself!" It's taught me I'm not as alone in this world as I thought I was most of my life. Oh, and if we're lucky...if we're open-minded and willing to learn along the way...the wisdom that comes with age. Knowing to pick and choose what's important to us and sloughing off the rest like old socks. Knowing when something is worth worrying about and knowing when to let something go because it just isn't worth the bother of getting all worked up about. Enjoying our grandbabies even more than we enjoyed our kids, savoring each moment with them because we know their childhoods will be past even faster than our children's were. There's an old hymn called "Sweeter As the Years Go By" and in the many years I've been a Christian now, there have been countless older saints who've told me that Life really does get sweeter the older we get. I'm not that old yet, but I'm older and I've come to terms with the thought that the longer half of my life is behind me now. When I was a kid I used to be terrified by the thought of dying. Terrified. But the older I get, the amount of loved ones who've passed on before me growing more and more all the time...well, what's so scary about joining them? And those I leave behind will eventually catch up with me There. Life does have a way of moving on. Just into different realms.

Were you in Lincoln City on Mother's Day weekend? Did you see a silver-haired lady in jeans and a white fleece jacket dancing back and forth with a blonde-haired little boy, both of them squealing and shrieking with laughter as they dodged the frothy edges of the incoming surf? Did you see how, in their world, only the two of them existed? I'm glad you didn't intrude.

There are so many might've been's. So many could've been's. So many things we did that we regret. So many things we didn't do that we regret even more. There are years of plenty. Years of drought. Years of ease. And years of hardship. There are moments we catch ourselves wondering, "Is this all there is?" And there are moments when we can't contain all that there is. So much hindsight. So little foresight.

I said I wasn't going to write about family. But I had no idea where this was headed when I started out. And my family is a very large part of my life. In 10 days my Dear Hubby and I will be celebrating 35 years together. Do you have any idea how much life is lived together when you've been with another person for this amount of time? A lot. And yet I can say that even tho I know him better than anyone else on earth does...and he me...that we never ever get to truly know a person completely. There is always that deep little core of our essential being we keep solely to ourselves. Some things aren't meant to be shared. And these young starry-eyed idealists who marry and want to know everything, who want to be together constantly, need to realize we still need to individually nurture that one small piece we keep separate. At least we do and we've always been wise enough to know that about each other and give eachother the freedom to do it. I keyed a phrase many years ago in our marriage that I believe is the reason for our success...we are independently dependent upon each other. And as we age together, when I really look at him, as long as I'm alive here on earth with him there will always be someone who remembers that wild, long-haired young man who stood so nervously on my doorstep that cold January nite when we met for the first time.

I apologize for the lengthiness of this one. Do you know most blog readers rarely stay more than a minute on any blog they visit? Most will probably not get this far on mine tonite.

Oh well.

This wasn't written for them.

It was written for me.

Another great book for the beach bag.....

While being sick most of this week with an horrendous flu bug I 'inherited' from my grandboys I read a most excellent book. This one. Even with my fevered brow, a headache that showed no mercy, and a cough that has left my rib cage aching I could not put this book down. Could. Not. Put. It. Down. All I can say is if you've ever kept track of the books I read on my Library Thing on my sidebar and read any of them...if you trust my taste in books...you have got to read this book. I don't want to ruin any of it for anyone. I'll tell you it's about marriage, about children, and about a woman trying to find herself. I will forewarn you that there is quite a bit of profanity in it, especially in the 'voice' of one of the children. I usually don't read books with much if any profanity in them but having worked as a lunch lady in a large city middle school for 7 years, I know how kids talk. I know profanity means nothing to them. It is what it is, and the writer used it, I think, to keep this young person 'real'. And I knew a lot of kids just like this one, sadly. A few years ago I read another book by this very gifted writer called "Me & Emma". That book was every bit as riveting and powerful as this one is. Pick them both up. I don't think you'll regret either one.

Humpphhh Day

I've gotten several inquiries as to how Miss Chloe dog is doing in her new surroundings. She is quite happily adjusting to life on the farm down near Dallas, Texas. She's getting all the love and attention she needs and deserves. She has free-run of the house and fenced-in acreage. She's learned how to use the Doggie Door so she can come and go as she pleases. She is much, much happier now. And I couldn't be more thrilled for her.

I never thought I'd see the day I'd sit down and not have anything to say. That day has arrived, I think. Maybe it's because I'm bleary-brained from NyQuil consumption the past couple of days. Maybe it's because I decided to read thru my Archives to weed out some of my entries - for personal reasons - and as I read what I've written the past year and a half I wonder what in the world makes me think I'm a writer? It killed off any writing juices I have in me, I think.

I dunno.

I seem to be in a stagnant pool of murky musings lately. Not depressed, no. Just kind of here, like I'm existing on auto-pilot. Point me in this direction and I do what needs done. Point me over there and it's the same story. No bumps in the road. No pot holes. Just the same old scenery, day after day after day. Like getting stuck on an Interstate freeway that never ends.

Ah well.

I have a horrible case of the flu I inherited from the grandboys. I know a lot of the way I'm thinking is coming from how I'm feeling...rotten. So I'm heading back to bed. But I thought I should at least check in.

I'm still here.

Just coughing.

Oh, for PITY'S sake!

One should not tweak their blog when they're tired.

I just deleted all my Favorite Coffee Stops.

Again.

I haven't had much time on here the past couple of weeks. Dear Hubby asked me recently if I'd teach him the basics of the computer since he's beginning to do a little bit of work on one at his job. So...we launched out with a few simple tasks. And then I showed him YouTube and how he could look up hunting videos. And thru some other links he found a huge archery website chock-full of forums and message boards and classifieds and tutorials and videos...well, the list is endless and so is his interest in browsing thru these. Not that I have to fight him for time on here in the evening but he is so interested, so absorbed in what he's reading and looking at. He is enjoying himself so much I don't have the heart to tear him away from it. And I must admit I haven't had anything really earth-shaking to write about lately. I mean, when I devote entries to bra buying...of which, by the way, I finally found some very comfortable, well-fitting ones...let's just say if that's the highlight of my week, the most fascinating topic I can come up with as I sit down here. Hmmmmmmm.

Are you looking for a good summer read?

I read this over the weekend. I don't often get a chance to do that. And rarely do I find a book good enough to sit down and just devour.

This was one of them.