transitions

Our happy homecoming lasted all of about one evening before daddy's dementia kicked back in with the OCD/don't mess with my schedule stuff. He turns the light on his American flag around three PM and from there on goes through the bedtime ritual, usually setting the alarm by four. With mom being sick and needing extra care, there are people coming and going at all hours that he's not used to, and I remember before what an ordeal it was. He gets really MAD like a little kid when things don't go to suit him. He's even started cussing in his old age, which I think is kinda cool. Sometimes like Carlin said, you just have to curse to feel better.

Yesterday, totally out of the blue, I got a call from a co-worker who wanted a puppy because her little girls's had been run over. Anna's father came first and picked out the male wearing Sam's old blue collar and we chatted in the driveway about this and that before he left riding beside the one who spotted him and took up with him. Smart guy. A little while later his wife called and said they wanted the other boy! In my little world, that was nothing short of a miracle for Faith's babies to be raised together as brothers while we watch Ryder grow. She's already wearing a pink John Deere bandana so I reckon it's official. Mom had to corner the little guy on the porch and scoop him up toward his new home. Anna just grinned. Awwwwwwww.

I now officially know enough about healthcare reimbursement and the road to the grave that most people follow today with modern medicine in charge, to be a social worker. My favorite patient of all time is Ms Olive who was still drinking and smoking when I met her ten years ago. We talked today about her recent health escapades and she asked if I still did the beer and cigs thing. When I said yes, she just looked at me all old and wise and stuff. And then I asked," Hey..If you weren't in the shape you're in, would you have quit?" Hell no, she said. You gotta go somehow. She's still got the wit, even as a nursing home resident.

I'm about to pick what will be the last of the asparagus because mr.snake is lurking big time and it's time to let it fern its' little heart out for the summer. All my gardening plans went by the wayside with the drama so I guess I'll be hittin' up the farmer's markets. It's hot as hades around here with about 200% humidity and it's only May. If I hear one more person say out loud "wonder what July's gonna be!" I think I'll pass out from heat exhaustion. You would think that I would have learned a little tolerance after 57 years but it still makes me want to run for the beach every time. I absolutely detest not being able to comfortably sit outside and commune with mother nature sans a sweatfest.

Things are looking better around here thanks to some really manic paper sorting episodes. Though I still don't have the money to repay the people that I owe, I am working toward that place sometime this year and it feels good. If my expected long overdue raise doesn't happen at eval time, I'm outta there and onto something more profitable like day trading. No, wait. That was the eighties! I wonder if there's a job market for smartasses?

While corporate was here I got a chance to meet a granddaughter of the man for whom my father worked most of his life. She lives in Brooklyn and had a lot of fun playing with the puppies. I gifted her with a piece of her distant aunt's monogrammed china and she marched happily off to the truck after we wandered around in the dairy barn looking at the sky through silos build in 1920. We paused on the outside to observe where some asshat wrote "bitch" in blue spray paint on the tin roof. The inside walls are covered with graffiti as well, a testament to the days when nobody was in charge. Basically, this place is a wildlife reserve. To do anything other than that with it in the future would be a real waste of nature's gifts. Her comment about the entire experience? Peaceful.

I can quickly see me becoming an elder as the minds and memories of those before me get more feeble. My mother warned me years ago that I wouldn't know a damn thing if I didn't listen to her recitation of who lived where and what church they went to. And all the cousins of course. My friend is a funeral director and she calls on her quite regularly to check out relations. I have not written that book yet but it's on the list. Somehow, I think it's already been written and all I have to do it find the right editor and trust that Creative Commons is a real deal. If not, I'll just trash the whole thing and go to Fiji.

Gotta run. The cotton is being planted and I'm a country girl at heart.

^j^