June 29, 2012

It's Hot Y'all

I mean it.
104. Tomorrow 105. 
The cats are all wilted over some cool surface - a wood table, the slate hearth, tiled bathroom floor. I'm parked in front and/or under a fan. If I don't exert myself (meaning any old kind of activity) then I'm fine. 

Whenever it gets this hot, I think about women who lived in centuries prior. Having to wear petticoats and slips and long skirts and corsets. Laws. Heaven help you if you were not the rich white lady in the big house who could just sit on the porch all day fanning herself. Because you were working in the fields or the kitchen with all that heat and all those clothes. And sleeping in the top floor of a hot airless house. 

Today let us thank all those people who contributed to the invention of the air conditioner and the microwave.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with "Game of Thrones", a ceiling fan, and a chocolate truffle brownie from Daisy Cakes.

June 19, 2012

In Which We Never Speak of It Again

But that won't happen.
Because death just keeps on a'comin'...to chickens and dogs and cats and parents and friends and on and on.

They've stopped treating my neighbor's father, the one with a brain tumor. The one that's my age. She said it was probably down to 2-3 weeks.
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Sometimes I fall prey to someone else's timeline, someone else's modus operandi, someone else's Bible verse when it comes to grief and sadness. Instead of just listening to myself and being still in the pain. Like labor, when one resists, it's harder.

There's a thin line between sadness and wallowing; between acknowledgement and detachment.

The one thing I do know - the only way out is through.

June 6, 2012

We Are All Creative

I finally subscribed to Bedlam Farm. Not sure why it took me so long.

Chickens, donkeys, dogs, and cats. And art and beauty and creativity. All there in every post.

With sadness I read that Izzy, the dog of the hospice journal, crossed over the Rainbow Bridge in April.
(one thing Jon - an archive would be great, so one does not have to click "older posts" forever to get past what one has already read.)

I love how he encourages us all to be creative - because we all are creative.

even when we think we're not.
even when that BIG LOUD critics' voice in our heads tells us we're not.

even when we're on what his wife Maria calls "the shit-train".

even when we think we have nothing to say and no one will ever read this minuscule boring (uh oh shit train thinking) blog.

even then.


Anniversaries

Two today:
Of moving back "home" sixteen years ago.
Of Mom dying six months ago (seems kind of wrong to call it an anniversary).

In Which We Talk of Haircuts

Lovely weather we've been having - decidedly not very North Carolina June. There's your snippet of what my cousin and I call Old People Weather Talk - OPWT for short.

Saturday we went out on Jordan Lake for an evening cruise and jackets were needed. It was great.

 Earlier in the day we saw "Snow White and the Huntsman" and except for Charlize Theron's costumes, it was not great.

But I didn't come here to talk about that.

Sunday after a mini Chapel Hill pottery tour excursion with "Myrtle's" daughter "M", we went over to CB; it was the first time I'd been this year. Ms. Myrtle was sitting outside in the courtyard, dressed in a white cable-knit sweater, khaki pants, and white sneakers with black socks. The black socks did not go over well with M, as she had brought over twelve pair of white socks recently. 
The haircut Ms. Myrtle was sporting went over even less well than the socks. Using the word haircut is being extremely generous - this was a hair chop. The part of her hair that used to be bangs (fringe as the Brits say), was sticking straight up in the air, making her look a bit like a ninety year old Mary in "There's Something About Mary". And while this look was funny in the movie, it is not funny on a defenseless elderly person.

Ms. Myrtle was not the only current casualty, another woman said her husband's hair had been butchered. M said several other people's hair looked bad as well. I had to intervene several times with this hairdresser on behalf of Mom's hair.

What gives with this woman!? These folks have so little left, they should be treated with dignity and respect, especially when it comes to things they can no longer do for themselves. They all either look like little children (with bad haircuts) or with the same exact style.

Honestly, I have so many emotions about this, I don't even know how to express them. It pisses me off.


Poor M was so upset she went inside for a bit to recoup. I continued to talk to "Jean" who had recognized me through the window and came out to sit for a bit. There was a story about her father, her husband, and her daughter. We held hands. It was nice. Then it got too hot for her and she went inside, and I chatted with Ms. Myrtle.

"Where is everyone?" she asked, "Is this a story?"
Everyone was beautiful, including the brick building. The man who built it was old or handsome; she wondered which it was.
I offered that perhaps he could be both.
She did not seem to think that likely.
Neither did I.
Not with that haircut.