Life Lessons

In the past couple of weeks, my saint of a friend next door, has been besieged with trouble:

Two of her last pecan trees have lost enough of themselves to block the street and are now on their last legs.

George, her innocent-looking little kitty, chewed all the vents while hiding from humans behind the dryer, turning her laundry room into a sauna.

Her alarm system broke--again.

Her $40 Fit Bit died right in the middle of doing its job, counting her steps. 

Her hot water heater also died.

As did her AC, requring her to "spend her children's inheritance" to replace it.

Add to all that, the final blow: her hopeful pomegranates have all turned out to be duds.

If you saw her walking down the street, sassy as ever, her gait lively, her moves evidencing her loyalty to yoga, you'd never know that she's survived a Biblical attack on her sanity and bank account.  She looks on the bright side: her computer, car, and  phone all seem to be doing what they came here to do.  She still has food and water and a roof--which she will remind us is not available to so many. 

A motley crew of love

I've now watched both seasons of 

My Family

It's a beautifully written and cast movie about love and honesty, forgiveness and openly expressed anger, acceptance of differences, and so much more.  

One of my favorite lines:

"We're not exactly a family; we're a motley crew of love."

This one, in my opinion, is going to win some awards.  It's a not-to-be-missed story.

Wonderful Series on Netflix

An Italian film called My Family.

Usually, I prefer to watch a foreign movie with subtitles, but this one is very well dubbed, so I'm listening to it in English.  

Just beginning Season 2 on September Friday night.  

I've got the blues!

 Out with the red, in with the blues!

SO I bought my first and last red car in February 2025, right after the election.  Carlene gave Bob and me each a portion of the sale of her house (each our bedroom, she said) and I chose a cool Honda HRV Sport.  Four wheel drive. Black interior.  

I had two long road trips in it and it handles very well.  But it wasn't....

BLUE! 

I wanted blue. I always want blue.  I made an impulsive decision to go with the red, and after a year and a half, it just didn't feel like ME.  

So after seeing this little powder-blue Volkswagen Taos, I went over to the Alamo Heights VW dealer and took a test drive, fell in love! Tonight it came home with me and Luci in it. 

My salesman, Cameron Harris, was wonderful!  Today was his 34th birthday and he shared his red velvet birthday cake and lots of easy-going no-pressure conversations.  I considered buying Blue's big sister, a dark-blue Tiguan, but Jan and I decided the lighter blue would be less hot on these summer days.

My three favorite cars have all been blue:

My first car-of-my-own was a 1990 turquoise Acura Integra--a beauty. 

My second Mini Cooper was Easter-egg turquoise. 

And now we have Blue, a gorgeous 2026 Taos. 

What a thrilling day to get the BLUES! 

Live Love Laugh

On childhood trips to Daytona Beach, Bob and I could hardly wait to stop at a restaurant called The Green Frog.  Not particularly for the food, but for the toys and trinkets you could get there.  

Traveling in other directions, say to Chattanooga to see our Harris relatives, we were just as excited to stop at Stuckey's--wtih their signs and jingles, "Just wait til you get to Stuckey's; Stuckey's is not very far...."

Backseat kids must have been the target audience for these food stops.  Stuffed and plastic animals, bows and arrows, and all manner of cute things created a festive air of expectations and it was worth the wait.  

The super gas stations of today are Stuckey's on Steroids.  You can buy anything you want: kitchenwares, sweat shirts and jerseys, deli foods, toys, you name it. Roadside stations big and small feature a wall or two of rhinestone pocket books, fringy blouses, crosses, flags, and inspirational quotes on distressed wooden plaques. 

Inevitably two signs are always in on the wall: 

Believe

Live Love Laugh

Believe what? I always wonder.  Believe in.... the Easter Bunny, Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy? 

America the Beautiful?  Jesus? Yourself? It could be anything you like, just believe something. the soggy seems to say. 

"Live Love Laugh" is printed, painted, stitched, and stenciled on wood, paper and fabric millions of times a year.  

The book I'm reading now is entitled Live Love Laugh--written by Kristin Kobes Du Mez  a scholar and historian of religious movements in American for the past two centuries. It's subtitled: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. 

Live Love Laugh

Six years ago, I read her excellent book, Jesus and John Wayne--that traced the shift from gentle lesus in the Gospels to big strong tough John Wayne Jesus.  A big segment of the Christian communities of the time yearned for a more "badass" Jesus.  An Alpha Jesus.  Jesus with big muscles and a gun. 

In this her most recent book, she traces the long and bumpy road to the changes in religious sentiments that have led to the current political climate.  

it's a fascinating read!

When it's for your own good

When we were children and had to take medicine, our parents told us it was for our own good.

Now that we are adults, that phrase is a cover for manipulation: I know better than you do what's good for you.

My least favorite cliche in the English language--when people gang up on another adult or violate her privacy--is "We're only telling you this (doing this, revealing your secrets, whatever) because we LOVE you."

When the boundary busters and the boundary bustee are in their 70s, both sides know how it feels to be treated as if we've lost our marbles:  it's patronizing and insulting for a person, or group of persons, pretending to be benevolent, to share our private information with someone else (our children,  spouse, best friend) hoping to get them in on the same icky "love" attack. 

Here's my opinion: If you really love a person, don't go over their heads or behind their backs.  If you think I have a problem, take a look in the mirror and attend to your own --I've got mine covered. Most of my family--including my children--give me credit for having a brain. 

As you can guess, I've recently been the target of some love bombing "for my own good." 

A person in one of my friend groups decided that some of the meds I take could--taken together--cause death.  She told two other friends, then texted my children late Sunday night to name the meds I take and warn them.

If I had known they were so curious, I'd have emailed them all a list of my prescriptions and invited them to join me on my next doctor's visit--why not?  But not one of them asked me for that information--they took it on the authority of the one who'd texted and called Day and Will.  Who does that to a competent adult friend who still has her share of marbles?

I've had friends who've walked Luci on days I couldn't, brought me dinner on a bad day, gone with me to doctors' appointments, and done all manner of things to get me through the hardest days.  I can't count the times those gestures of love have made me teary with gratitude, like now, right now, right this minute. 

Labor Day Weekend in Athens:

Day and Tom, Jackson and Deanna, and Marcus and Lucia drove down from Virginia to visit Nana for a belated birthday celebration.   What a van-load of happy! 

Nana and Tom

Luci and Nana

Deanna and Nana

Jackson--who's 25 in October

Gratitude to those of you who read this blog

I don't know who. reads this blog--only numbers.  I was happy this week to see that up to 55 people read my blog without a theme!  

I started this on a road trip to the west coast 13 years ago and I found that this space just kept me writing. 

Thank you so much to all of you who have read it!  

What I'm Reading, Watching, and Making

 Books I'm reading this week: 

On Netflix:

The Airport Chaplain

Private Life

Paddleton

On Prime:

Mr. Burton--excellent movie about the young Richard Burton and his teacher

PBS

Here I Stand--about Dolly Parton

Saved by the World: A documentary about Mary Oliver

Online Art Classes 

I won a 6 week course on gel printing that begins in mid-October. 

I purchased a class on collage from the Take Two site of outstanding art tutorials; I've barely begun, but it's going to be a great class. 

Lyn Belisle's outstanding classes on making reliquaries

I continue to watch a wealth of classes as a member of The Handmade Book Club--today's being a fun class, "Mixed Media Embroidery Hoop"

This is the only book I've made headway on this summer.  The book is made of one 32x22" sheet of watercolor paper.  This is only the beginning.  It still needs content and closures, and I'll show you those when I'm done;

Some days, some years even, are like the air and solid ground. All is well. People behave the way we'd like them to.  We seem to behave the way other people like us to. Stories have happy endings.

Some days, some years even, shake us up. We encounter paradoxes and disturbing things.  They part the curtain and introduce us to formerly unimaginable things we'd rather not see.  Or the slow accretions of aging we've gone through for years suddenly lurch into the foreground, demanding attention. 

Two nights ago I had the unique-to-me opportunity to ride inside an ambulance. My back went out trying to remove a compression stocking. 

Four medics showed up and got me onto a stretcher while Jan supervised.  The newness and suddenness of the situation made me wish I'd packed a Go Bag for times like these. What should I take?  Who would care for Luci? Should I call my family in Virginia, Georgia and Colorado?  Jan handed me my phone (low charge) and the men got my pocket book and a pillow from my bed.

These men did the kind of work Will used to do: taking blood pressure, putting little sticky things on my chest, asking questions, treating me with kindness. 

I felt like a minor character in The Pitt--being rolled into an emergency room. But unlike the full noisy cast of The Pitt, The NE Baptist Hospital was almost deserted as far as I could see. The main guy in charge of Back-Out-Lady stayed with me in the hall until I was checked in, and we had one of those small world conversations that revealed pretty soon that he knew one of my best friends who, like him, had grown up in  Utopia, Texas.

The next day:  Calls from Georgia, Virginia, Colorado: Do you need me to come? Come stay with us.  I don't like living so far apart.  Jan and Freda and Cecelia took great care of me and Luci, doing all the things I couldn't yet manage. 

So this summer, in addition to two very pleasurable trips, one to Colorado, one to Georgia, I've fallen flat on my face in Albuquerque, had to move out for a power outage, and discovered what people mean when they say their backs are "out."  I"m moving gingerly, but planning--as soon as I'm up and about better--to create a Go Bag to be prepared for the next time, if there is one. Here's my list so far of what goes in it: 

A fast phone charger

A list of people to call or text

Password to phone--if you have one.  (I don't).

Copies of insurance card and ID

List of prescriptions.

A change of clothes, underwear, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc. 

Two or three books and a good pen

Non-slip socks

In my case, a note that I have an embedded  neuro-stimulator and controller--in case imaging has to be done and the stem needs shutting down.

Hand lotion. 

Laptop or iPad and charger.

A can of Diet Coke

Some snacks