Musings, mutterings and meanderings.

    My goal is to sit on the beach and read for as long as I can tolerate it, wade a bit and go read some more. Beach books are the best. 
     Do a jelly fish glide into the world they build for you.  Dip your toes into water you will never feel and have adventures without risking a sunburn. You may be pulled so far out of your own life you have to shake yourself back to reality.
    I love British murder mysteries, they seem so....polite.  P.D. James, Deborah Crombie, I know she is American, but she writes British, Erin Hart for Ireland.  Maybe it is the distance they keep from graphic horror, and that they seem to care without guns blazing. Most Brits are content to let your imagination fill in the blanks.     American Debbie MacComber tells kindly tales of people who are doing the best they can. Anne MacCaffrey's Pern series convinces you that dragons not only fly, but they are sentient.  In Sharyn McCrumb's 'Once Around the Track'. I was part of a NASCAR pit crew at Darlington. Now, I want to know what happens next after the book is done, because the characters became real people, and real people don't stop their lives on page "THE END".   
     I just realized there is not a male author listed here. Too many American authors chew reality up and spit it at you.  I am not a misogynist, except at the beach.   I like watching HG TV because there is no foul language, no one gets hurt, and although they may not find the perfect yard, their problems are solved by a new house.  
    I don't mind reality, I just don't want it to impinge on my life at the beach. I do read the news, but I stick to 'need to know' for daily life. So we are back at the "get me a good beach read" stage.  I've only got three books left.
    Got any recommendations?  
    

[more]

One of the worst curses of all time is "May you live in interesting times." Interesting times ,on the low ground, look really boring. There is no money to go anywhere or do anything, so everyone is inventing stuff to do. Like start a feud, because everyone is poor and looking for someone to blame.

[more]

"Daddy" skills were high on my list and I even told my mother that I had met my future husband. She paled. But no, it wasn't my date that night. The one I had chosen was with a beautiful, kind nurse. And I didn't know if I had a chance. We've been married 47 years.

[more]

    When someone says they have "lost" a friend, it sounds as if that person has been misplaced.  Willie Calhoun isn't lost.  I know exactly where he is, and he isn't in pain or even discomfort any more.  After the long battle with cancer, Willie has finally won.  
    We first met Willie about 10 years ago.  We were new in the area and searching for a church to call home.  A teacher invited our grandson to attend Vacation Bible School at a little white chapel type church out on Edgewater Drive in Port Charlotte.  Our grandson loved it there.  He had friends from school and made new friends at Sunday School.  He fit right in.  We didn't. 
    It is hard to fit into most new churches.  You don't fill much more than a pew if someone doesn't involve you in the workings.  That was the happy magic of Edgewater.  People came up and made it their business to find out where you should fit in.  
    Willie did that.  
    While others moving to the laid back southland wore shorts or khakis and camp shirts, Willie held to his shirt, tie and suit for church on Sunday mornings.  He and his wife, Charlyne dressed for a wedding every single Sunday.  Willie made it his business to meet the newcomers.  He didn't just say hello, he talked to them.  He wasn't really a small talking kind of guy, so it wasn't always easy, but Willie felt it needed doing and he did it. He would invite you into a Sunday School class, or to join a small group, not in generalities as most people do, but making sure you found a place you would be comfortable.  And when Dick and I joined a small group, it was Willie and Charlyne's small group. This small group made up of half snow birds and half sand pipers are about as close to family as you can get without going through the same birth canal. Few of us have lived here much longer than 10 years and most, but certainly not all of us come from somewhere in the midwest or the mid Atlantic regions.  We met mostly at Willie's until he became too ill.  Some of the men in our group took over the care of Willie's yard and any home repairs.  The rest of us visited, and did what we could for Charlyne. 
   Betty took her fishing. It did her as much good as a long holiday weekend. What both of them seemed to miss the most was fishing.  Not some big cruiser out into the Gulf, although that was great, but just going to the beach and casting out a line. A couple of months ago, when Willie and Charlyne went fishing, none of us knew, although we might have guessed, it was the last time.  Willie enthused on that day at the beach for weeks.  It was like the best fishing trip of his life.  I don't recall the mention of any fresh fish for dinner, so maybe there was no 'catch', but Willie went fishing,  one last time on this planet.  And now he is fishing with the greatest Fisherman of all time.  Anytime he wants.   

[more]

    'A la Monte Python's famous knight, "Oi'm feelingg Much better, naow!"  Not good, mind you, but better. I have had every kind of scan available and so far every diagnosis is sheer conjecture. Food has become if not an enemy, at least viewed askance.  I chew up the wrong nosh and the innards rebel with passion. Do I love the taste enough to risk the pain?
       The only foods I enjoy are comfort types.  Fried anything, fish, chicken, eggplant,  you name it, I love it.  If it is a sandwich, make it a reuben, heavy on the corned beef and thousand island. Grease is good, and butter is better.  I adore biscuits and gravy.  Or mashed potatoes and gravy.  Bread and gravy.  I have been known to eat crackers and gravy.  Pot pie, with the crumbly crust my mom called "short" for the almost too much shortening in it.  Yum.  The labor intensive BBQ baby back ribs  my husband makes only rarely these days.  Your lips burn, but you eat on through the singe.  Paprikash on noodles, or mashed potatoes, or biscuits, or Bunny Bread, I don't care much.  The sweet hot paprika making the sour cream turn orange, a meal for royalty.  
    My insides have taken a healthy stand against french fries.  Good for the weight, bad for the taste buds. Ok, I am officially becoming depressed.  I do not like salads, Sam, I am, I don't like them much with ham.  I do not like the leafy greens, they make my temper really mean.    
    I paid a bit for the cousin's lunch. I don't think my cousins make me sick, so i'm blaming the fish sandwich, half eaten. It was a tense night, finally solved with half of a whopper pill. 
    Since then I have been...tired...I don't know how else to say it.  Monday, I asked the doctor why I am so tired.  She said I had been sick.  Yes, that was a while ago.  Now I am better.  Why am I so tired?  She tells me I am getting older.  Right. But, three weeks ago, I was fine, I got sick, I got better, why am I so tired I fall asleep every afternoon about 4 p.m.?  She says I am recupperating. 
    So the answer is there is no answer.  Or for you Douglass Addams fans, the answer is "42".  Do any of you white mice know what the question is?     
    Not a good enough.  The only reason my weight has remained under blimp size all these years is the energy level.  Constant movement throughout the day.    
    Maybe I'll try some grease, just to slide me through the day. 






 

[more]

Part of our St. Louis contingent was in town last week. Ed and Jan were staying in Fort Myers for a week while Ed recuperated from knee surgery. He needed to swim and the pool is here. Even the Sarasota contingent had not been seen for some time. Why do we do that? It is so close we have no respect for the distance?

[more]