Time Flies

Well here it is December 10. It has been about 20 plus days since I tried to write anything here, and they have been busy days. Some days I couldn't write because it hurt too much (physically), and some days I just had to work too hard to make up for the days when I was incapacitated. I went to my daughter's for Thanksgiving, and it was wonderful. Two of my sons came, and I fixed the turkey (spending some time sitting on a high stool to do it, but I got it in the oven and out of the oven and it was good. (I am going to try to mount some pictures of the bird, but I don't guarantee a thing.) The son's went home Thanksgiving eve. with pressures of going to work, but daughter wife and I got up early and did our duty to the nation. We went shopping on Black Friday. Janet and I were both hobbling a bit, so we didn't infuse as much cash as we might have into the national piggybank, but we did our best.

We had planned to stay over till Wednesday to dog, cat, and house sit since daughter had to go to Baltimore for some kind of conference. (I used to do that, don't anymore, and I'm glad). We had to cut the visit short to be back home Friday night to get ready for- - - are you ready for this? --another funeral of another good friend. We lost three wonderful ladies and friends in five weeks. This one was a particularly poignant one for me.

When we moved to Georgia in 1970 she had just recovered from cancer of the colon and was very weak, but she and her husband were among the sweetest people in Georgia, and in the small Mormon congregation that was here. About the third week we were here, I sang a solo for our evening meeting, and after the meeting she took me by the hand. "I know how you college people move around," she said, "but you can't move from here for a little while. You have got to sing that song for my funeral." At the time, I am sure that she thought her funeral was only a little while away. For years, we, kind of, joked about that. I told her a couple of years ago, right after my quadrupal bypass, I told her that we were going to have shift gears and she would have to sing at my funeral. About a month ago she had a heart attack. When I saw her in the hospital she was still feisty and determined to go home. About a week before Thanksgiving Janet and I went to see her in Hospis, and we knew that there was not much time. As luck would have it, I was in South Carolina when she passed, and I never did get to sing at her funeral (except very quietly, under my breath as they took her from the chapel to go to the cemetery.)

When we went home from Columbia on Friday we took Roscoe with us (Roscoe is the basset hound that owns my daughter). We had a good time dog sitting though Roscoe missed his mistress and his cat (the cat "Meow" really belongs to Roscoe. One only has to watch her bite his ears and see him, in punishment, pick her up by the head and toss her onto his bed, to recognize the relationship. It is hilarious.)

The funeral was beautiful and sad, though my friend was well into her nineties and her beloved husband had passed many years ago, and I think she was eager to join him.

I will try to sort pictures of my daughter's lovely little house in Carolina (It was originally a one room school house) and the beautiful fall colors in her yard, as well as photos of Roscoe, Meow, and even our new home, but I will have to add them to this post a little later.

Janet is getting useful treatment for the pain in her hands, and, although I still have an appointment with the neurologists at the Medical College of Georgia at the beginning of next month, thanks to lorcet and enough ibuprofen that I think I can hear my liver going down for the count, I am functioning with a minimum of pain. I helped pour slabs behind my house for my hot-tub (much needed, I think I can cut down on the ibuprofen once it is functioning), and my sculpture studio (I haven't sculpted in a year and a half, since before we went to Finland, and I may never use it, but my spirit needs a place to shape clay and cut wood. (That's another thing I have to start posting, some of my old puppets and dolls- - - and maybe, when the studio has returned to function some new ones.

I have been frothing at the mouth to post political stuff, but , so far, have limited it to posting on other blogs. (Yes, I AM one of those.)

I will try not to let so much time go by without posting again. Writing, like sculpture (or acting or any of my other outlets) is really necessary to me whether anyone reads it or not. When I can't write, I'll dig up some more stories out of my memoirs (ah, youth, where is it now that I need it.)