the new normal

We celebrated Daddy's 78th birthday today with a southern fried feast, complete with green 'maters. BG and I whipped it up in about an hour down at their place. It's so much easier to cook in their kitchen...and besides. It tastes better there. I can't count the number of times we've lined up through three rooms of that log cabin waiting on a Memaw cooked meal. After lunch Daddy went for a walk to the mayor's house and us girls settled in to chat. Mom kindly reminded me of the time the middle school principal came and picked her up from work so they could find my truant ass. Yes, it involved a boy and yes I was in deep dodo. Ms. Ponder called me a tramp. Fun stuff!

I was, though not a BAD kid, a very curious teenager during the changing times of the sixties. Still, I wasn't sure that going totally radical was the way to make my parents happy so I compromised and rode the fence a lot. Most of my friends were in the high school sorority and I chose not to be because I liked sleeping late on Saturdays while they were up doing bake sales. Hey....at least I'm honest. I did manage to keep the hippie values of peace and love and rock'n'roll as a prominent part of my personality though. And here I sit at 53, spirit intact. They never really understood that part of me, but they've accepted it.

Now that we are a functioning family unit again, we've all had to accept some warts and go with the flow. That means understanding that a particularly bad day for one of them means they're both miserable. Part of the fronto-temporal thing is a rigid adherance to rituals and schedules. I've seen my dad, on more than one occasion, sit on the porch watching the second hand move until it's time for the news to come on. He is fixated on TV and goes into a panic if it's not available. And this is the man who used to wouldn't DARE let a day like today go by without working in the yard. A new medication has put a check on his angry outbursts so mom is a bit more mellow.

It's a good day in the community of Samaria Bend ^j^