I walked five miles to school in the snow!

Somethings just make you realize that you are turning into your parents. I find that I yammer on and on about things that as I hear the words ring in my ears, I know that I sound like an old fogey. For instance, I can not stand that all the trees in my hometown downtown have been chopped down! I realize that they are those Pear trees that have a relatively short life, but still the area looks so exposed and naked. Then, they decided to redo the sidewalks, the roads, tear down the old buildings that lined the once familiar streets to erect a modern style multi-retail building. Yuck and double yuck! I want back the old glass front "Mattress store" that old blind Bess L., who could barely see (and be seen) over the top of her steering wheel drove right into the show room after running the stop sign.

I miss having that memory rekindled every drive by.

I hate the Car dealership that now shines like a beacon on beautiful Lex. Rd. Did I say beautiful, the once beautiful Lex. road. It once boasted beautiful horse farms, gentle rolling hills with the tobacco bases, corn fields and stately mansions (at least they looked like mansions to me when I was a child) sitting behind white washed fences on expansive farms. In a rush to make a buck, the past is quickly being swallowed up as Dairy Queens and sub-divisions chop up the most coveted horse farm land in the world. The absolute worst is the farm that was sold by the heirs and leveled out for a Wal-Mart then went bankrupt. The ugly slash on our beautiful bluegrass sits undeveloped, as the preservationists slug it out with the visionaries, with a large weather beaten sign promising us a new shopping center "soon".

Ver/Lex Rd. will quickly become like the Lex/Nicholasville corridor. Nothing but ugly commercialism as the two towns attempt to merge into one.

I like stuff to stay the same so that I can count on it, look forward to it, and when it finally arrives know that it will be like it was before. Like strawberry season! And Keeneland Race Track being a 21 day event. And when Keeneland closes the spring meet, they move to Churchill Downs and its Derby Week!

This year Derby week began yesterday. Let's see, Derby week use to be the lead up to the Derby beginning with the Balloon Race on the Saturday morning before, the Chow Wagon on Main (which was as many people as possible squashed into a small fenced off area, drinking beer), $1.00 Derby pins, the parade, the Riverboat race, a couple of local events thrown in and then the Oaks, and suddenly its Derby Day!! One week.

Now, it begins three weeks before Derby,starting with the Thunder Over Louisville firework show. The biggest, baddest spectacle of shooting showering color you will ever see!

That reminds me of another story, the one where I attended the very first Thunder! It will have to wait.

I must go make strawberry pancakes.

I've been in and out of Happiness*

I was leaving the Kroger store yesterday, a 12 pack of Miller's Chill in one hand, a bottle of the hard to find Ken's Sun Dried Tomato salad dressing in the other and I became aware of this strange sensation as I walked out into the waning light of a sun drenched day. What is this thing on my face? It's a smile! By gosh, I'm happy!!

Have you had such moments? I remember them like four leaf clovers pressed in some lost book I use to have. Last year I was in a Walmart and suddenly knew I was soooooooooo happy moving to the Louisville area. I don't know why they take me by surprise, but they do.

My daughter is moving into a better apartment across town and I was helping out (just a little) in the clean up and I ran across an old hard plastic pencil box from her grammar school days. I held it up and began to laugh. I had been looking all over for that damn box and had given it up as lost. And there it was, with her.

Rightfully, it/they are hers. She collected them when she was a wee thing. She collected, I bought. I loved those things!

I never did see the "Mary" version of the Garbage Pail Kids, but Bridget hated hers...I'll post it later.

This was my favorite.




* "Is your love in vain?" Bob Dylan, Street Legal, 1978

What I'm reading at the Beach.

Oh woe is me, nothing to write about that is interesting. I did go to the beach in Alabama and it was a very chilly experience. Did manage to catch a little sunshine. I think I was in charge of two teenagers, I say think because my husband could be considered to have just a smige more maturity than those two. Just kidding, but one of them did manage to get a severe sunburn under my care and I am ashamed to say that I trusted that kid to put on sun block! When I say, "Are you using sun block?" and they say, "Yes I am." I should know, I should have known to ask, "Okay, what SPF is that so called sun block?" It was pretty bad, poor baby.

Anyway, that is as exciting as my life gets.

I brought along several books to read supposedly while I laid around with my SPF 30 in the spring sun shine of the Gulf Coast.

Man, what was I thinking bringing along "The Snow Leopard" by Peter Matthiessen! Not exactly a beach book. It reminded me of the time I read "Love in the Time of Cholera" while on another beach last year (a much warmer beach in Mexico).

Seeking.....

Have not written here in some time so thought I would throw something together and maybe get back into the groove.

Since my Fathers passing I thought I would take it pretty well since everyday for the past five years I have thought he could leave us at any moment. Each birthday might be his last, east Christmas the final one we would spend together.

Just like when he was born in 1919 weighing in at 4 pounds, premature, predicted to die. My grandmother carried him around on a pillow so tiny he was.

He always was surprising everyone and when he passed it certainly surprised me. My daughter said to me, "I thought this was just going to be like all the rest, he would come home from the hospital and get better." Me too, I thought that he would resume, rebound, once again sit out his days in the "electric chair" (a mechanical chair that lifts a person and then gently pushes them forward so they can be standing on their feet in a matter of moments) watching John Wayne movies and holding court with all his many visitors. Though he could barely hear us, sometimes not know who we were, he enjoyed company.

Anyway, I though I was prepared for him passing. I have learned that no matter how certain you can handle it, it's heartbreaking and you miss them terribly.

Last Sunday I sat in the electric chair and just ....... just sat there and let my mind drain.

Is there an after life? Does the spirit of those we love hang around and embrace us, engulf us for a while? When I look at that chair I see him there, I feel him there.

Under the surface I have an emotional struggle raging.

I attended another funeral yesterday for one of my parents friends. I dread the next one I attend, knowing its going to be "A" of "B".....and I dread it.

I am becoming philosophical regarding the afterlife. Being Catholic I am suppose to have faith that those who live by God's rules find eternal life......

Eternal Life? What does this mean exactly?

The Gift

Favorite Picture of Me and Dad -

During the morning hours of Feb 4, I woke up around 2am and tossed and turned, tried to read then turned off the light only to turn it back on and try again. Finally at 430 I was able to fall back into sleep.

At 730 am my brother called to let me know that Dad had passed away during the night at home with Mom. Mom thinks it happened sometime between 2-230am. She realized his breathing, which had been labored all day, had become quiet. She made calls and my brother arrived around 3am. They did what you do when someone passes in the middle of the night, then he suggested they say the rosary and finally at 430am she was able to lay back down.

I have written many times about my Dad. As I look back at my very first entry it was about my Dad going into the hospital with CHF and subsequently had a stroke. It has been a long journey, bittersweet at times, and so full of love and the celebration of a life to arrive at this moment when I and everyone who loves him, has to let him go.

"I want to go home!" he told us at the hospital Saturday and by gosh, they let him go home.

Now he has truly gone home. I am happy that his pain and suffering is behind him. That I so firmly believe in an afterlife I know he is now residing in that place I think of as heaven, able to walk without a walker, able to sing Danny Boy at the top of his lungs, hear without hearing aides that really don't work all that well anyway, remembering all the grandchildren names, eating whatever he damn well pleases, driving any car he wants, eating a banana split and swimming in the Atlantic ocean, dancing the jig with my Aunt Pat and Nana, laughing about him being a street urchin running numbers in Hells Kitchen in the 20's and 30's with his brother, and in a safe place without hospital beds, IV's and pills everyday to get you through the day. His heart will beat with the strength of all those who loved him and will remember him.

Round Robin Challenge

While going through my Bloglines I visited this fellow blogger friend, Carly and found that today was the last day to enter the round robin. The theme? Railroads! (Trains)! And I just happen to have one...

Taken several years ago at the Rail Road Museum in my hometown. The old train graces the tracks as you enter the area, very close to the road. Once, about a million years ago, when my daughter was young we would ride this train on various excursions. Like, Morgan's Raiders robbing the train and the Halloween Train. It was always a lot of fun.

This may be a coal driven train.

Find the other round robin participants here.

REDUNDANT

(originally called BEEN THERE, DONE THAT until I realized I had used that title before!)

My entries become farther and farther apart. I have less and less to write about. I have already written about how my family gathers together each Christmas. I have for several years running reviewed the year going over each month with a photo. I have published my New Years resolutions for all to see and for me to know the failure.

It is not that I have run out of things to say, its just that I have learned what an exceptionally small place the Internet actually is, and how one must either go private or write with discretion.

I suppose I have chosen the discretion route which makes for boring boring boring at times.

I am going to rant about Bookmooch.

For about a year I have signed on as a participant and began with a list of approximately 25 books to "swap". I have found that people wanted most my books, but those I am looking for are either "declined", not mailed, (i.e. request ignored) or simply not there. Factor in the move, I have no idea where the books are and when I am "mooched" I really have to dig.

Recently I was asked for "Tuscany for Beginners" and I found the book and mailed it off. I obviously messed up because the person "canceled" the transaction. I e-mailed her back and explained that I had mailed the book the day before.

I received back a snotty e-mail saying that I did not "follow the rules" and acknowledge her mooch therefore she considered it a non-transaction and canceled. Three days after the request.

Then, she slammed the book when she received it, saying it was not the edition she expected. Granted, it was an advanced reader copy that I had not read because I had inadvertently checked out the same book from the library and read it! (that is why it ended up in the Bookmooch web site).

My question is, what is BookMooch all about? Sharing books to read or book collectors in sheep's clothing?

I don't get it. The book had not been read. The spine not broken and the book itself in pristine, excellent, un-snotty condition.

And the very worst, this is a Kentucky girl.

She must have moved here from up North. (joke from Terms of Endearment).

On to a Rave. I saw the most fantastic movie via NetFlix that made me cry tears of satisfaction at the ending (and I was not drinking!!) and had me rushing out the next day to purchase the soundtrack. The later has been played at least 15 times in two weeks and I have burned copies for both my sisters and two of my closest friends. Not only was the movie terrific, the music is unforgettable.

Naturally an Irish movie called "ONCE".

If you have not seen it yet, quick! Rush out and rent it! If you are a romantic and a music lover this film is for you.

Per Per Post anyone? (just joking).