Aging

January 31, 2010

Pondering about momma this morning.

I stepped outside this morning to a cold, frosty morning to chase away the neighbor’s great Perinese dog who loves to come do his number on God’s Little Acre. It was a frosty 30 degrees and we were just coming out of the deep freeze of winter. I started thinking about my momma who is still living but can’t find her words when she needs them. Come to think about it. I can’t either!

While standing at the kitchen window, I thought about momma and how she would get out her old skillet and start the bacon and eggs, get the bread out for toast and start the coffee every morning of her adult life. At this moment I wish my momma was here. I feel hungry today. I feel hungry to see my momma this morning and all I have to do is get in my vehicle and go over. I will watch her struggle to make her coffee and get her clothes on for the day. I’ll watch my dad get his self together for the day and act like nothing is amiss with momma. She’ll go in the kitchen and fumble for the coffee. She’ll pour the water in the back of the pot, and pour a handful of coffee in the pot. She’ll figure out how to make the coffee after she has done several different processes, like pour the finished coffee back into the reservoir in the back and run it through again. Perhaps she’ll stab a hole in the filter and let the coffee fall into the pot and eventually, she’ll pour she and dad a cup and they’ll drink it and spit out the grounds.

Momma still tries and dad still eats and drinks whatever is placed in front of him. They seem to think all is well in their world and they are content for now.

Our Friend Denise Cooper - - See you later!

I met Denise when this Collin Community Corner group started. I noticed this woman named Denise the Accounter, who always encouraged each and every writer in the group to connect and communicate. Denise was always welcoming to the new people in the group and she was instantly likable. She was like a warm blanket wrapped around you when you were at your lowest. You could feel Denise’s spirit in her emails to us. She was helpful, loving, and kind to everyone who came her way. She and I began to write personal emails and send funny forwards to one another. Sometimes there were serious moments we needed to talk to a friend about. I know she befriended everyone and had a real personal interest in each of us. She was discreet and you felt you could tell her anything.

She was a good weather woman. Whenever the sleet was pelting against her window, we knew it. If it was raining she told us. Snow, we knew how much in her corner of the world was accumulating. Denise and I loved to tell everyone about the weather as though no one knew about weather stations on television! In fact, I think we all have that tendency. If it is hot, we say it’s hot today. If it is cold, we say it is cold or snowing or whatever is happening outside because we want to connect with one another even when there is nothing but the weather to talk about.

Denise loved animals - - mostly horses and cats. Those are the animals she talked about most of all. She loved to eat at Bill Smith’s – Gravy and Biscuits. She loved Fuddruckers hamburgers, and she loved Richard’s recipe for Banana Bread. We could smell it vicariously when she baked it. Then I had to bake a loaf as well. How many more of you did the same? You could almost hear her humming as she waited for the prize. There was so much more to Denise - - so much. She had many interests and loved the outdoors; flowers, gardens, sunrises and sunsets. She loved us, she loved her family and she trusted everyone. She loved with abandon.

Denise and I were of the 60 Club and wondering what we would do the rest of our lives. Well, Denise went on home to be with the Lord and she doesn’t have to wonder about what she is going to do the rest of her life now. She is walking with the angels, her loved ones and others gone on before us. Denise is not crippled with pain nor worried about tomorrow. While her smiling face and wonderful laughter is not with us any longer her spirit of love is still here and she will not be forgotten by those of us whose lives she touched during her lifetime. Denise we celebrate your life today in the way you would have wanted us to and girl, we are missing you!

Multiplication

The past few years the mice found our house. Not good! The winter of 2004 we were overrun with the little creatures. Cute little furry critters with long silky whiskers, tiny little feet, tiny little noses and teeth like a shark from the looks of the damage they can do…chewed up paper, holes in pajamas in the drawer. I hate MICE!

Chick was in the hospital and I was working full time, we had our two young grandsons living with us. It was 2005; I had to get rid of the mice. What to do? Our 14 year old cat, Furly walked out of the house one morning to do his do and never returned. This is when the mice found us. I could write more about the cat, the mice, the kids, but this is about THE CATS!

It is 2010 and we wished back in 2005 for some feral cats - - a couple, no more. We didn’t promote cats to our house but we talked about trying to get a couple of out door cats to control the mice population during the winter months. My mom always said, “Be careful what you wish for!” I used to wonder what she meant. Over the years I have learned what she meant.

In 2007 I began to see a blur of gray. Out of the corner of my eye would be a streak of gray but by the time I cut my eyes to where the streak had been it was gone. Then the streak of gray slowed down and I named her Sophie. She is a big gray, long haired cat with beautiful green/yellow eyes. She would hesitate at the corner of the porch and wait. We bought food for her. MISTAKE!!!!!

Sophie went out into the woods and talked to her cronies. Now, this winter, we see a blur of black, and several grays and multi colored cats on our porch. The only friendly one is Sophie. This morning I smell cat urine, but the mice are gone. The menagerie moved under the front porch. Time to get an outside dog and soon! The dogs chase the cats the cats chase the rats; the rats chase the cheese…the beat goes on.

New, not really!

New Year’s Morning 2010

I went to bed with great expectations after reading all the Facebook Happy New Year Greetings wishing everyone a better year than last year. Like Scrooge when he went to his home on Christmas Eve I went to bed at a decent hour December 30, 2009, and pulled the covers over my head and looked forward to the New Year coming tomorrow morning.

ZZZZZZZZZZZ’s a plenty; 8 hours later, I woke and realized I slept off the old year and was waiting to see what the New Year had brought me. After all, everyone wished me a better year than last year as they always do. It had to happen didn't it? DIDN’T IT?????

I opened one eye and pulled the cover back. The sun was already shining in my bedroom. That is a good sign! I opened the other eye waiting for the new fantabulous year to jump all over me. I crept up out of the bed. I sneaked past the Old Year into the living room and there still sat my old furniture, my box type television and the dust on the fan blades just like the old year I left behind last night.

Ummmm, maybe I have to make the “Shiny as a new dime New Year” become different. As different a year I can make it myself. Perhaps we all need to make some changes in our attitudes; in our lives as much as we can. We can’t wait around and expect changes to fall from the sky or surround us when we just sit here doing nothing to make those changes. Okay New Year, I think I’m about ready for you. I have to adjust some things first. Come forth! Let’s go and write this New Year and see what the tally is at the end of 2010.