One Year

Today has been one year since Jerry died. I don’t like to revisit unpleasantness, but want to mark this day in some way for such a wonderful husband and father. His presence when he entered a life, or even a room, changed those who experienced him forever. I am lucky to have been the one closest to him, and am forever changed and strengthened because of it.

Last year when his ashes were delivered to me, my wonderful daughter came for support, and I suspected I might need her. We opened the door exactly at the allotted time to see a small box carried by Pee Wee Herman. Not really, of course, but the funeral home rep was small with cropped hair, pointy nose, mischievous eyes and a bow tie. Without sacrificing respect he carried out his duties in an upbeat manner. He even offered to help us see if the ashes would fit the favorite of two containers my friend Pat and I had purchased. It was close, but “Pee Wee” said he could usually “massage” these things into place. And he did. Surely Jerry had something to do with his delivery by the most perfect messenger. I put his card away in my Red Book of information and told Amy to be sure and call him personally when it is my time.

Maybe this is the time to post a poem I wrote this year and then back to living a life that takes all its parts in stride, including the ones that hurt.

Profound Pronouns

Must remember to say

I, not we

Me, not us

Mine, not ours

Was, not is

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Honest Scrap – Trust Me

Amurin over at Stop & Wander tagged me with an Honest Scrap award. I am honored. Of course, maybe I fooled her. Maybe I am really a deranged young man living in a cabin in the north woods, accumulating fertilizer and poetry, and bumping into Bigfoot every once in a while. Ah well. Here goes.

When you get the Honest Scrap award for your honest crap, you are meant to grace your readers with 10 honest things about yourself, and then pass on the award to other blog friends who write honestly and truly about themselves and events in their life.

At this point the blank white screen is imprinting itself on my brain, but I’ll try.

1. In my family honesty was the Holy Grail. Lies were not permitted and the word “liar” hurled at anyone or even spoken quietly evoked a stern look or smack. There was nothing worse you could say of a person.
2. It is unbelievably freeing to no longer be a sex symbol.  Just a hint to the C.I.A.: In my invisible woman phase I could be unfailingly helpful to you. Just sayin.
3. I’m not a one-friend person, always ran in groups (not cliques, we weren’t that important) in school.
4. When a child, I hoarded all my nickels and pennies and counted them over and over, loving the sound of them flowing back and forth from one hand to the other. I still try to keep most in my hands.
5. In school avoided reading and science. As an adult read constantly and am fascinated by science. What happened to “as the twig is bent, so grows the tree?”
6. My grands are the most amazing four people on the planet, followed closely by their parents plus two, my daughter and her husband.
7. I can live without a lot of things, but not cats. (Well maybe this one blocking the computer screen.)
8. I love, love, love guns. So shoot me.
9. My motto is: Old is not a four-letter word. Senior is what I was in high school.
10. But I refuse to wear “granny panties.” If bikinis were good enough for my pregnant body, they are good enough now.

Now watch out! I’m getting ready to tag someone, and it’s: Corina @Wasted Days and Wasted Nights, C\hele, OmbudsBen, & anyone else who would like to join in.

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The Triaged Life

You know what they say happens when you are over the hill? You pick up speed, of course. Darned if it isn’t true and I think I may know why, at least in my case. Older people tend to cast off things that are no longer useful (my mother almost stripped her house) and eliminate activities and associations that no longer give them pleasure. Perhaps the feeling is that life’s fuse is burning shorter and we don’t have a minute to squander on non-rewarding things. I’ll leave that to psychologists. I just held a microscope over my own changes and found them interesting. Here are some of the things I now do.

• Choose microwave over crock pot (all that planning, you know)
• No longer compare purchases strolling store to store, but on Internet
• Encourage e-mails instead of time wasting phone calls (anti-social, I know)
• During commercials, play show recorded earlier on TV and get two in very little more time
• Skim newspaper articles instead of reading every little thing. I’ve seen most on Internet anyway.
• Crave news instantly from Twitter, treating “refresh” like a one-armed bandit in the casino when things are really breaking.
• Revel in flash fiction and haiku (reading and creating)
• Love challenge of squeezing my thoughts into 140 characters on Twitter, making every word count.

For what do I squirrel away all this time, you might be thinking. Family, friends, good books (or slutty books, if I like), working on my house and first garden, exercising, keeping an eye on government, doing photography, matching wits with my cats, any darn thing I enjoy – and nothing I don’t.

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Mag Tags

Stages of life have been chronicled in objects ad infinitum, from the wheels on your carriage to the hearse, from diapers to Depends. But what do those say about your growth, or lack thereof? If you would like to chronicle the changes in your interests during the stages of life, it’s as easy as observing the magazines you gravitated to. This is an abbreviated list of mine. Does any of it look familiar to you? I’d like to know what your “mag tags” are if you’d like to play along.

Weekly Reader

Highlights

______

Comics

Mad Magazine

______

True Romance

Seventeen

______

Mademoiselle

Readers Digest

Redbook

McCall’s

Playgirl

Family Circle

Better Homes & Gardens

Southern Living

_____

Oxford American (sadly out of print)

Smithsonian

AARP Magazine

First Line

Writers Digest

Wired

First Line

Garden & Gun

_____

I am in the last section now. As I look back, the only magazine that still interests me above that line is Mad Magazine. Go figure. And here I insert a plug alert. No I’m not paid to say this, I jut want to increase the circulation of magazines I’d like to see stay in print in this tough environment.

The first is Garden & Gun. If you are Southern, or love any part of the South, this publication will blow you away. I found one of the first issues in the dentist’s office, ripped out the card and ordered it the minute I got home. Several visitors to my home have gone home and ordered it for themselves and friends. Garden & Gun is published in Charlston, S.C., not New York City, like a certain other “Southern” magazine. If nothing  else it is fun to see guests run screaming from your bathroom with the publication in hand, yelling, “Garden & Gun????”

The second one that has more relevance in my life that most on the newsstand is Wired. Never one to enjoy science class, I am shocked at the scientific articles that pull me right in. And then there are the technology articles, and what is more relevant to our lives today? All these years later, after scraping through science class, I discovered, thanks to Wired, that I am more than a little nerdy—and that’s just fine with me.

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