Weeki Wachee

The car is about to pull out of the driveway, and I'm thinking maybe they had better leave me at Weeki Wachee Springs!!! Water seems to be my only relief these days for my springtime broken leg. Or did it happen in Winter?? Seasons run together, probably for the best?? Doctor V said this week that I could NOT take 2000 mg of Advil a day. Listening to doctors, not a strong personality trait of mine!! " I have to walk doc." She preceded to ask me if I wanted my kidneys to work for a few more years, and my stomach to stay in one piece??? "Of course but........I would like to walk also." I explained that in the swimming pool, all leg pain ceases. She had lost eye contact with me at this time!!! So I had to come up with a plan. Vacation was inching its way to be today!!! How am I going to function??? Is Weeki Wachee still around? Maybe they will hire me, to be a cougar mermaid!!!!! Thinking about it made me smile, I'm still smiling. Glorious water and a few puffs of oxygen now and then. Ship leaves out of Jacksonville, wonder if they will drop me off??? Can you use a cane under water??

Birthday Wishes

Soon to be 59 years of age.
August 1, 1952, in pea green St. Luke's Hospital, Jacksonville, Florida.
Each year I celebrate earlier and later. I'm now deep into July, and have received two gifts !! My people know me so well, no delayed gratification lives here. Not only do I "Happy Birthday" myself for months on end, I buy myself some treasures. I started today with some darling cereal bowls, two skirts and some flowers. A bunch of Gerber Daisies, for the birthday girl. You see I have learned after so many years, to buy my own gifts, and many!! There will be cards and sweet things coming for days from friends and relatives. I love them all BUT...I'm prepared if there is a lull. This is my last year in the fifties, so I have bought extra. It is just the right thing to do, and smart. Realistic expectations of humans, sometimes falters. I want to be fair, so I don't expect much, and I'm always pleasantly surprised. My people have jumped on the "Birthday Train" with me, and enjoy the silly, hoopla of celebrating for days!!! It just makes you feel so worth it, happy to be alive for another glorious year!!! Treat yourself special and see what happens.
Happy Birthdays to my dad, who turns 80, Susan and Paula my friends for life. Summer birthdays!!

How Many Books? How Many Days?

One Hundred Names For Love by Diane Ackerman, started my reading binge last week. It is a story about a stroke, a marriage and the language of healing. Brilliant book about living, in all its pitfalls and glory. My highlights on the kindle, are very random, and will not help you understand the story. They are amusing in their , out of context, form. He collected words like rare buttons. When you can't, toss drop cloths over everything, lower the heat to save energy and allow a sedated overseer to take charge. We all need a sedated overseer from time to time!!! Who knew what lay ahead. I laughed at myself remembering Dorothy Parker's quip: "What fresh hell is this?" awesome. I felt tired as wet sand!!! store this in my memory bank. Never before did I have to store someone else's trauma. Words are such small things, like confetti in the brain, and yet they color and clarify everything.Women ply the rapids of language more easily. Can you see the rhythm of this writer? Creativity is an intellectual adventure into jungles where jaguars of sweet laughter croon, with a willingness to double back, ignore fences, or switch directions at the drop of a coconut. This intimate story, touched my heart, made me cackle and required me to read slowly. July has afforded me several other jewels, A Good Hard Look, by Ann Napolitano. A novel about Flannery O'Connor's hometown in Milledgeville, Georgia with all of her wit and peacocks. Southern crazy and perfect. Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay, full tilt different from the other two books. This book may haunt you, and it will hold onto you forever. The Holocaust continues to make us examine humanity. All of these books were delicious, I ate them all up. You can feast on them also, that is what sharing is all about. Share with me some of your favorites.

Chupa What?

People all over the world love their kids, and on some days hate!!! My children crack me up. Not crazy, crack up!that I take care of myself!! Funny crack-up children, is what I have.
This morning while checking my e-mail, I saw a rare note from my Hart, number four son!!! Telling me about a boy in Texas that had killed a Chupacabra. A what?? This beast of lore, hangs in Texas, and a kid is toting a gun, I'm in!!! I love the stories, the make-believes and could be real stuff. My precious ones know this. The Lochness monster, Big Foot, Dragons and Fairies, UFO sightings and now Chupacabras!!! There was a picture, I have to believe. I replied back to him, knowing he would not be up for HOURS on a Saturday morning. Dear Sweet-Hart, "I think it is a hairless Armadillo, or maybe a werewolf-cat???" Love, MOM
This may require some research and a road trip!!!

Bring Back The Dreads

Each summer I seem, to fall in love with a few special things and people. It is something I look forward to. Last summer, with all her cupcake glory, Katy Perry kept me singing. This summer I have loved Steven Tyler's new song, and his new-old self delights me. Bruno Mars causes me to smile, and nod my head like a monkey, who has nothing to do!!! I would take a grenade for him!!!! So cute, in that "Little Anthony" sort of way. I needed more.....summer tomatoes can only fill a void for so long!!! When I heard on the tube, that Lenny Kravitz had a new cd coming out, and his new video was about to play. The summer gods were about to shine on me, L.K. is on my bucket list, for MANY reasons. I sat on the end of my bed, like a school girl. Then I fell off the bed, sobbing, what that heck am I watching???? He is dressed up in wigs, and there is a "Let's Make A Deal" theme, and the song is horrible!!!! Who took Lenny Kravitz? Where is his guitar and tight jeans? Bring back the dreads. Where are my tomatoes, I feel the shakes coming on, and Lenny is not the cause!!!

Go to you tube and watch it. If I knew how to copy and put it on my blog I WOULD NOT, it's a crying shame.

IT'S A DUCK!!

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, and it has baby ducks, IT'S A DUCK!!!!!
Walking through the landmines of conversation with families can sometimes be explosive. Especially when some of us, just say what is on our minds. There will be casualties. I have never done "restricted conversation" well. My filter switch stays loose, and out it comes.
I would not change anything. In the south, some practice, "If you can't say anything nice, say nothing!" Those people have ulcers and bowel problems, for holding in things. My plan is not to wake up and see how many people I can hurt. I want to be an instrument of peace but.......there are things that need to be said. My brother says( he can say what he wants!!), "Its how you say things, Bonnie!" Really!!! How many ways can you say, "It's a DUCK!" I guess I could say, " Oh my your duck looks so much like a duck, it must be a duck?" or "Is that albatross you are carrying, a duck?" Words have power, and I respect that. I also know that being heard shows respect, even if the other person doesn't like what is being said. We need to agree to disagree, and call it a day. Not talking, quacks!!!

Hello Down There!!!

My yearly tits and ass inspection is due today.
Break out the glitter powder!!
To examine ladies "hoo-hoos" and "ta-tas" all day, every day seems a drag, so I like to light up their world a tad. Stickers, glitter, all that sparkles on show in the stirrups. Legs are shaved, toes are painted bright blue, and I'm shinning. Doctors and nurses will smile, and me too. It makes an unbearable medical procedure, more like a carnival ride. My inner thigh sticker today is a flag, I hope they appreciate my patriotic theme. Each year they want to hear the shower story. You know the one about me thinking I found a horrible lump in my breast, and it was just an earring that had become stuck under the mountain!!! It fell out of my ear at night and somehow??ended up in the valley of the dolls!!! Also many will ask, "Where do you find this glitter powder?" Its private, just like my parts!!!

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

Searching for something to read has never been a dilemma. My kindle is stacked high, along with some stray, real books to quench my desire. Libraries, book stores, bestseller list, kindle stores can guide me. Persuade me to choose, this or that. What thrills me most is the prize read that I have picked out, totally due to book cover and title!!!! Such as, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, My Year of Magical Reading, by Nina Sankovitch. Magical reading, or purple chair? hard to say what grabbed me, but it wasn't a review that I had not read. Never heard of this author, like the name Nina, I have been known to pick a book because of a good name, you never know?(long run-on sentence, makes me happy also!! so don't squirm) So last week, I sunk into my spot, and buried myself in this grand book. It is briefly about a women whose sister dies. She vows to read one book a day, and write a review, to honor their love of books. Sort of??? It is so much more, it is about living, and circumstances. Values of Experience, real or imagined, is that it shows us how to-or how not to-live, a highlighted line in the book, by me. Some others that required an underline or two were, I lost faith in the future. I took my sisters death as a sign that the whole world no longer waited for me. Also, My life is a reflection of her life. I will anchor myself with her life, and not her death. Death took choices away from her, but not from me, and I choose to live on with her beside me. None of these quotes mention books and reading, confused yet? How about this line from Henry Ward Beecher, " A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors." That better describes what reading provided for this woman, her year of reading. We race through life, filling our lives and others with lists of things to do. Sometimes we need to just sit still and read. If you are lucky, you have a purple chair.

Hot July

Most celebrated the 4th of July with a flurry of fireworks. I looked at my yard.
You see, it has been four years since my boy died, and there have been no fireworks since. Many things ceased to be, after such a shocking loss, and my yard was one of them. I could not find the will to turn over dirt and plant something living. Grief had me weak in the knees, and heart. This year is different, things are blooming and thriving. If there were words to explain this, I would write it, there just are none. I can only say that I see beauty all around me, and I'm not mad at it. You see grief not only makes you sad, but it carries anger in that bag, then hangs it on your neck. I could not understand why the world could grow and be beautiful, when I hurt so bad. Of course the hurt has not gone, it has just be replaced with something. That something doesn't have a word either, and yet I still try and explain it!!!! Life is about growing, learning each day that mistakes will be made, but still look for the lesson. My yard gave me a signal, this hot July day, pay attention and celebrate like the 4th of July!!!!