Relax much?

Guess Misha's getting over having a dog...

Lots of answers to questions you didn't know you wanted...

Have you ever licked the back of a CD to try to get it to work? You can do that? I bought some gizmo that licks it for me.

What's the largest age difference between yourself and someone you’ve dated? 10 years

Ever been in a car wreck? Yes. Sometimes my feet still hurt.

Were you popular in high school? No. I was a loner and hung out with the freaks because as long as you weren't a narc, they didn't care who you were.

Have you ever been on a blind date? No.

Are looks important? No. Only as a reflection of how you feel about yourself.

Do you have any friends that you've known for 10 years or more? Several.

By what age would you like to be married? You mean I have to do that AGAIN? I don't think so!

Does the number of people a person's slept with affect your view of them? Not any more. I guess I'm older, wiser, and less judgmental than I used to be.

Have you ever made a mistake? Yes. Marrying my first husband. Then staying with him as long as I did. I knew before the first year was out that it was a mistake.

Are you a good tipper? Yes, usually at least 20%.

What's the most you have spent for a haircut? $90. It wasn't worth it.

Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? No, but I had one on a church youth leader.

Have you ever peed in public? Not that I can recall...

What song do you want played at your funeral? "Unwritten"

Would you tell your parents if you were gay? Yes. Then they'd quit asking about grandchildren. Just kidding Mom and Dad! You've already gotten your grandson out of me.

What would your last meal be before getting executed? A traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

Beatles or Stones? This used to be easy (Beatles), but as I've gotten older, I appreciate the Stones more... they make me dance more.

If you had to pick one person on earth to die, who would it be? He's already dead.

Beer, wine or hard liquor? Beer

Do you have any phobias? Things that spin

What are your plans for the future? Getting healthier, writing more, listening more, learning more, loving more, enjoying my life more.

Do you walk around the house naked? No. Don't want to scare the furniture.

If you were an animal what would you be? A gazelle (oh, wait... what I want to be, or what I am? If it's what I am, I feel like a hippo on some days and like an ant on others)

Hair color you like on someone you're dating? Gray (if I were dating...)

Would you rather be blind or deaf? Deaf. The world is too darned noisy.

Do you have any special talents? I make a mean quiche. I can clean house like nobody's business. I'm not afraid to tackle home improvement, write a letter, or talk into a microphone.

What do you do as soon as you walk in the house? Lay down my burdens

Do you like horror or comedy? I like horrible comedy... or is it comedic horror? Actually, I like horror books and comic movies. But not horror movies. It's always worse in my head, so the movies are letdowns. I don't bother with them anymore.

Are you missing anyone? My grandmother.

Where do you want to live when you are old? Away from everyone else

Who is the person you can count on the most? My husband, my parents, my brothers. It sort of depends on what I'm counting on them for...

If you could date any celebrity past or present, who would it be? Sam Elliot

What did you dream last night? I don't remember. I was too tired.

What is your favorite sport to watch? World Combat League kickboxing (yes, you read that right, Andy - KICKBOXING!)

Are you named after anyone? My father's first girlfriend and my godmother.

What is your favorite alcoholic drink? Mudslides

Non alcoholic drink? Used to be sweet tea... now it's water.

Have you ever been in love? Yes. Still am. Every day.

Do you sing in the shower? No, but I sing in the car all the time.

Have you ever been arrested? Nope

What is your favorite Holiday? Christmas, followed closely by Halloween

Would you ever get plastic surgery? Yes. tummy tuck and a neck lift.

Have you ever caught a fish? My first catch was a sheepshead. My second was a hammerhead shark. I was fishing for redfish both times. I finally caught one on the third try.

Thanks to HoosierGirl for passing this on!

Death of a Friend, Once-Removed

I got a phone message from my best friend on July 3rd, which said, "Hey, it's K. Call me. Not good news."

I didn't get the message until 11pm - too late to call anyone, so I waited until the morning of the 4th to return the call.

"Hi. You rang?"

"I'm sure I did. What did I say?"

"Not good news."

"Oh - yeah. Well, last night I called to tell you that B was dying and it didn't look good. But I've got an update. She died last night."

B had been friends with K's husband since they were small children. When K met her husband, he took her to this little bar off campus and introduced her to B, who was bartending there. K and B hit it off right away, which was a good thing because when K married her husband, B was part of the package. Like family is a part of the package. Like friends are part of the package. I was hanging with K at that point too, but since I wasn't much for hanging out in bars, I was never really a part of that crowd.

As the years passed, I would bump into B from time to time. Usually at K's house. We would chat, but we were not meant to be close friends, I think. Just acquaintances who both loved K.

I would hear about B's struggle to have another child. The testing, the in-vitro attempts, and finally the pregnancy. B was tiny and when I saw her pregnant, she looked like a belly with a head and lots of hair sticking out on top and a couple of legs to carry it around. Finally, the baby - and he was SO cute. Mama loved him so much!

Then, when the baby was about a year old, B started having these headaches. They never completely went away, and then they got worse. A trip (or a few trips, actually) to the doctor later and she was diagnosed with cancer. Chemo, radiation, bone marrow transplants.... remission!!! We were all so relieved. Because B was a huge presence in a little body. She was sweet and rude, could out-cuss a sailor, yet be a patient ear for K.

The relief was short-lived, however. The cancer came back, agressive. It attacked her bones. It shut down her kidneys. Everything was failing. But she was still B. Still sassy, right up to a couple of days before she died. I got updates every now and then from K.

Then finally, B gave out. The pain was too much, and despite having a teenaged son and a 4-year old and an adoring husband and lots of loving friends, I think she was ready to go. She said her goodbyes and went.

And now I know the reason B and I were acquaintances. Because when K lost her other best friend, she needed the one left to understand but not be grieving the way she is. She needs me to be strong - to hold her hand while she mourns, to take her children when she needs a break, and to not be emotionally crippled by grief at the same time she is.

And even though B is gone, she will still be holding up her side of the triangle that is the friendship between B and K and me.

Fun Monday - Memories of Summer

Fun Monday is hosted this week by JeninKS and she posed this challenge:
The topic for this Fun Monday is summer memories. Besides a few of your favorite summer memories, I'd like to hear what summer means to you. Is summer all about fireworks, watermelon seed wars, catching fireflies, days at the lake, family vacations, or the perfect swimsuit? What sights, smells, sounds, tastes, feelings do you associate with summer?

I live in Florida. I grew up in the same city I live in now (only back then it was a town). If you've ever been here in the summer, you might agree that it's a miserable affair. Or maybe it's me... millions of people make the journey to just be here for a week or two out of the year because of our climate. I don't get it though. To me, hot and humid are two words that should have NEVER seen each other or been combined. I absolutely wilt when it's like that - and it's like that almost everyday of the summer and right on up into October. I felt this way, even as a young child living in a house with no air conditioning. Every summer night, I would lie on my bed using the window sill as my pillow and could only sleep when the gigantic attic fan drew the air over my body and cool me enough to be comfortable. You can't do that now. Attic fans were terrific for moving air, but no one sleeps with their windows open anymore. Just as my town has turned into a city, my cooling devices have turned from attic fans to air conditioning units and ceiling fans.

So it was with great joy that I became "old enough" to go to North Carolina in the summer.

I may have mentioned my somewhat odd family dynamics before... My Grandmother L (GL) divorced my grandfather when my mother was a young teen. But she kept his family. His sister (Aunt H) was her sister, his father her father, his nieces and nephews her nieces and nephews. We'd always kept in sporadic touch with them as they traveled through our town on their way to other places.

And every summer, Aunt H and my great-grandfather's second wife Aunt R would stop in and stay overnight with Grandma L on their way to North Carolina. This was always the occasion of a big family dinner, because traveling with so many kids, my parents took few trips. It was just too stressful and too expensive. So when anyone "passed through town", we got all our visiting in during the stopovers.

Until one magical summer, when Aunt H and Aunt R invited Grandma L and me to come up and spend a week in North Carolina with them. OMG, the excitement!!! We would drive up the next week. Just me and Grandma L (no brothers allowed!). I packed my shorts, my T's, my swimsuit and my flipflops and Grandma L picked me up in her red Mercedes to drive north.

Side note: When in town, Grandma L drove like a little old lady. It took forever to get anywhere. But put her out on the interstate and she drove like a bat out of hell. She was always telling us to watch for "spotter planes" while she rediscovered the thrill of pushing the needle up over the 100 mark. Trips to North Carolina took place in record time.

Every summer, Aunt H and Aunt R rented a cabin at Nantahala Village, an old timey kind of mountain resort with a lodge, a rec hall (plus swimming pool), and log cabins scattered through the woods. It was also COOL. Nantahala Village was located in the Nantahala Valley, near the Nantahala River (famous for rafting and kayaking), so we enjoyed misty cool mornings, brief warm afternoons, and lovely cool evenings. Sheer heaven for a heat-slogged kid like me.

But even better than the cool was the family. Aunt H's youngest two boys would drive up separately - Cousin F and Cousin S were teenagers of the coolest kind. While Cousin S was into music and girls (and we hardly ever saw him as a result), Cousin F was more of a loner and artistic in an interesting sort of way.

He was also more open to having me hang out with him. We drove around the mountains looking for fireworks stands (never found them), or he would watch over me when evening came and we headed up to the rec hall for a swim with the bats skimming the surface for bugs and occasionally my hair. And he would sit back quietly in a chair by the pool and smile that secret smile when he overheard people talking about the latest weird phenomenon to occur - like all the chairs piling up like a house of cards in the rec room. Or the gigantic spider web near the graveyard that had clothes stuck in it. The speculation over that one was hilarious. And Cousin F never said a word... just sat and listened and smiled to himself.

I hung out with the Aunts and GrandmaL a lot too. We'd go all over visiting fruit stands and funky little shops on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. A favorite pasttime was wading in the millions of little streams coming off the mountains and collecting stones from the bottom. Only the best stones would come home with us. I still have some of mine. One time they took me into Cherokee to see "Unto These Hills", which is an outdoor play about the history of the area. But mostly the evenings consisted of playing parcheesi and sitting on the front porch in rocking chairs and lawn chairs chatting about everything. None of those conversations stick out for interesting, memorable topics, but the feeling of closeness and enjoyment are what I remember most about them. Sometimes the cousins were there, and sometimes not... But I do remember one particular night when Cousin F and I were still sitting on the porch when Cousin S came home. The Aunts and Grandma L had just retired for the evening.

Cousin S joined us on the porch and we rocked back in our lawn chairs listening to the crickets. The porch of this cabin on a hill overlooked a ravine, and when you tilted your chair just right, you got the sensation that you were flying through the trees. So we sat out there together and flew our chairs for a while, drinking icy Coke out of bottles, telling stories and listening to the music of the night.

This time was all too brief. The Cousins became adults and got jobs and families of their own. The Aunts continued making their trips for a couple of years after that, but stopped after that - perhaps it was too lonely with just them.

I have lots of fun summer memories, but this one is closer to the surface right now because on Wednesday, I will be seeing the Cousins again!!!! I haven't seen them in 8 years and so much has happened and changed since then. Children have been born. Children have grown up. People have moved. People have retired. People have died. Jobs have changed. Trips have been taken. And new memories are ready to be made.

Crickets? Or the sound of saws?

If you check in regularly enough, you probably notice that I write something nearly every day. And it's been a few days, so you might be wondering exactly where I went...

The answer is nowhere.

Friday, my darling man went fishing for grouper with three other friends. They were lucky! He brought home a HUGE grouper. Big enough to share. So he called his parents and asked them if they'd like to come over for lunch Sunday after church - to which they enthusiastically replied YES!!!

Never let it be said that I am not like my mother. In some ways, I am EXACTLY like my mother. Especially when it comes to home improvement urges. All the time I was growing up, we lived in houses that needed work of some sort. And what would happen is that someone would call and say they were coming to visit. And all hell would break loose. Suddenly, the kitchen floor, which had been perfectly serviceable up until then needed to be retiled. Or the guest room needed painting. Or the tub re-enameled. Or the cabinets must be rearranged... You get the picture. It was like a sudden onset of pre-birth nesting and there was always a limited time window in which to accomplish the impossible.

When my inlaws moved out of their house, they offered me their dining set. It has a huge china cabinet, and a largish table and six chairs all stained a medium dark color. I said no, thank you. You see, even though I'd just moved into a nice new (to me) house, the diningroom was small and rather dark. Add to the mix tons of boxes that we'd stacked in there, along with all our pictures. AND it stank. OMG, did it smell bad! I'd cleaned the carpet, sprayed the carpet, cleaned the carpet - nothing helped. The previous owner apparently penned her dogs up in the diningroom and they had accidents of both varieties all over the place in there. It was hideous and I felt nauseous whenever I passed close by (nevermind actually going into the room). I said "no" to the diningroom set over and over. They asked me 100 times. I said no 99. You guessed it - the lovely, but large and darkish diningroom furniture came to live in my small, dark, smelly diningroom.

So... the invitation. The acceptance. Now what? We have a nice patio table on our back deck, but it's just too darned hot and sticky to eat outside. The only alternative? Pull a MOM.

Saturday, I informed my husband that we were "doing the diningroom". He had to work some on Saturday, so I told him to come home ready to work. Zboy and I pulled everything out of the diningroom except the big china cabinet and the table. I unscrewed switch plates, took down the curtains. I went to Lowe's and got new flooring.


Because of the flash, it's hard to get an idea of just how dark this room is. Dark gray green paint and that really dark gray green carpet. Also, I'd already cleared out the stuff and taken down the curtains, which lightened it up a bit and started cutting in the corners and baseboards. Tottie really wanted to "help" so Zboy helped keep her out of the way. That's the gigantic china cabinet.

When Darling Man returned, we took the rest of the furniture out and pulled up the carpet in there. The smell was overwhelming, but the house began to smell better immediately after we hauled it outside. The dogs obviously were in there A LOT. The stains and smell went all the way down and into the plyboard below. We scraped the bubbled up woodpulp so it was level with the rest of the floor and painted primer over it to seal it in.

While Darling Man and ZBoy took the carpet to the dump, I painted the room Crescent Moon. I love this color - it's not white (too stark) or yellow (too hot) but a nice sort of glowy color that picks up and reflects light beautifully.

Upon return from the dump, we started the floor. ZBoy helped, but he also managed to amuse himself when we didn't want his help...

We all stayed up until nearly midnight working on the floor. I put the second coat of paint on after the boys went to bed, then stumbled into the sack myself, exhausted.

We got up this morning and went right back to it. Lunch was scheduled for 1:30. We got up at 7. I went to the grocery store to get what we needed for lunch, then we finished the floor, rehung the curtains, put the china cabinet and the table back in - and proceeded to clean the rest of the downstairs, which had been thoroughly trashed in the process of doing the diningroom. I was doing the final vaccuuming when they pulled up.

And when they got in, this is what they saw:

I think it turned out pretty well, don't you?