i’ve been doing stuff, seeing stuff, thinking stuff and trying to find bags to put all this stuff into.

If you are on facebook you will know that yesterday we had the entire kid population in our neighborhood at our house (well almost all of them).

there was poop on the shoes, dogs getting loose/running free, kids falling down, kids breaking sticks on trees, drawing on windows with markers that you can use to draw on glass, sliding down muddy hills and all around tom foolery.  i thought i was going to lose what’s left of my mind.

you must understand that i am NOT complaining about the kids b/c i LOVE kids, love hearing them run around acting all crazy and kid like.  sort of like how my generation were raised to be seen and not heard?  but not like that at all.  the exact opposite.

typically i can herd a crowd of kids pretty well, but today was a little different.  are we in retrograde again?

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i got augusten’s new book today in the mail.  i got two of them, although i’m not sure why i got two unless i screwed up the order and tried to clear it and the first one didn’t get cleared so i got two.  i’m not that broken up about it, b/c you know IT’S AUGUSTEN YA’LL!

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i got stanley bing’s book “what would machiavelli do” in the post last week and i do not remember ordering it even though i do love the stanley bing, he’s got a great sense of humor.  i’m taking that as a sign from the universe that i need to stop being so nice and start tearing the flesh off of anyone that gets in my way.  thank god there is a book to teach you how to DO THAT!

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the week before THAT, i got a surprise card in the mail from a this woman that i am in blob love with and is my friend (or rather she lets me be her friend b/c she totally doesn’t have to be my friend back but she is).

i think this cancels out the fact that she is a lady gay that is married to another lady gay in the eyes of our lord and saviors.  she has a heart the size of texas and if she weren’t already married i would put her on my marrying list.

i pray to the jesus that somehow she’ll have to move from where she lives to my small anti-gay town but i know that’s a LONG SHOT.

the thing about that card she sent, out of the blue, b/c IT REMINDED HER OF ME?  the inside of this card says “i’ll see you when i see you” which WAS SOMETHING MY DAD USED TO SAY (before he died).  he also used to say, “i’m glad you got to see me”.  that man was beyond amazing with his words.

**i hid her message to me so ya’ll wouldn’t get jealous.  KIDDING!  she mentions how we are going to THROW DOWN in NYC for the next blogher.**

her timing on the card was divine b/c it was the day before SOMETHING REALLY BIG THAT HAPPENED THAT MADE EVERYBODY CRY.

prior to getting her card that day, i was at a ladies store trying to find something decent and LADY like to wear to the BIG THING THAT MADE EVERYONE CRY.

i was looking around at stuff and thought, “i have no idea what to get b/c i am not the best at dressing myself”.  so i called a friend and it wasn’t until she answered the phone that i remembered that she doesn’t dress herself well either.

so i thought WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!

then it dawned on me ASK FOR HELP from the sales lady WHO WORKS THERE AND KNOWS HOW TO MATCH HER COLORS.  i’m so used to not asking for help and trying to keep the sales people from bugging me that it never dawned on me that they could actually help me match my colors.

and that isn’t even the best part.

while ringing me up, she gave me a $50 break on the purchase and another $25 in coupons to use when i came back in.

now before you go saying that i’m a beggar, i have NO IDEA WHY SHE DID THIS BREAK IN THE PRICE.  i told her what i needed a fancy outfit for with a few details but not a lot of details.  i didn’t EVEN TELL HER I WAS POOR!

some really neat things happened on the day before THE BIG THING HAPPENED THAT MADE EVERYONE CRY.  i took it as a “sign” from something bigger than me, that no matter what happened, i WOULD NOT LOSE MY MIND and everything would work out the way it was supposed to.

the end.

when did you know you were gonna love me?

was it the time that i sang you that song, or caressed your face as you lay crying in my arms, or the time that i pulled that splinter from your big toe?

love on so many different levels,

with multiple compartments in which to feel our pain,

and our joy.

love, you must realize

is not a toy. 

love gets inside of you, travels your bloodstream and comes out of your eyes,

your mouth, and your nose.

love can drown you if you go too deep, be careful not lose your way and or lose yourself.

love is like a pharmaceutical, it must be dispensed with direction and in proper doses.  some spend their lives trying to find the right formula, tweaks on the dosage, withdrawal from it and dependency upon it.

some, accept it for what it is and puts no conditions upon it.

some try to wean themselves from it, removing it entirely from their cabinets, including the hidden compartments that are harder to find. 

the side effect of this action is pain, emptiness and longing.

maybe some day you will learn that the heart wants what the heart wants, and you cannot deny it the love it needs to live and breathe.

no matter how hard you try.

love is a worthy opponent, one that you will battle time and time again as you wander your way through the battlefield of being human.

it matters not when you began to love me,

it matters simply that you did.

my sister told me tonight that she wanted some funny stories here, no more re-runs and stupid poems.  i wasn’t offended, and i thanked her for the feedback.

the boy did not go trick or treating on halloween and i’m struggling with it.  he was supposed to go to a party before the treating but wasn’t feeling up to it.  he’s had a sleepover the night before but came home very early the next day b/c he wasn’t feeling very well.

he stayed home from school on friday b/c he had a low fever.  i had planned to take him in if his fever broke.  i had a doctor’s appointment that morning that took way longer than it normally does so i didn’t get back home until like noon. 

since we only have one car, husband couldn’t drive the boy in to school.  he was ok to go to school, i think it was mainly allergies although he did sound a little like a baby seal when he coughed.

back to halloween night, it was raining and the dad told him that we might have to postpone halloween.  i made it clear that i wasn’t giving up yet on the treating (the boy picked out his costume two months ago). 

we waited for the rain to stop.  a half an hour later  i asked him if he wanted to go, we could bring an umbrella. 

after the 2nd time, he said he was SURE he didn’t want to go and he was ok with it.  i had a hard time believing that so asked him many times after that until he asked to PLEASE SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY!!!!!  (he didn’t really say that but he wanted to.)

so there we sat on saturday night, no halloween decorations out.  typically i’m quite a fan of the halloween and have spent a small fortune building my collection.

over the past two years my halloween spirit dwindled and i hope to find the magic again.  maybe i put it in a box under the house with the decorations.

today is my dad’s birthday, he would have been 72.  he died three years ago on february 1st 2006.  the world hasn’t become any safer without him, and i haven’t been able to relax quite as much without him here.

i know the things he would tell me when life gets really, really hard but it isn’t the same as hearing it with his soothing voice.  i could always count on him to rub my neck just where it needed to be rubbed, to give me smooches with his prickly beard, hold my hand to tell me something taking like 25 minutes to spit it all out.

he never said anything without thinking first.  he was gentle, calm and very thoughtful.  i think he got most out of caring for other people, and comforting them.  he was really good at it.  he had a way of making everyone feel special and he looked in your eyes when you spoke (unless the redskins or the panthers were playing on the television, then it was just better to sit with him and be quiet).

i remember shortly after i moved up to connecticut with the husband-to-be, i literally SCOURED the area for baby ruth candy bars to send to him for father’s day and luckily i found them.

shortly after we moved to amherst, massachusetts, i got a call from a family member saying that dad was in the hospital spitting up blood.  i felt so helpless and wanted to immediately move back home.   we did move back shortly after that.

after one of my first abuse encounters, he went looking for the guy and found him on a street corner with a bible in his hand.  he said to the guy, “do you believe what’s in that book?” harrry evans nodded his head and said, “yes sir”.  my dad said, “you better b/c if you ever touch this little girl again you are going to need it”.

he wasn’t a big guy but he had a way of putting fear into you if he needed to.  it wasn’t something he did very often.

my dad was married to another woman before he met my mom.  he has three kids from that marriage.  at one point that wife left him for another man and then came back after she got pregnant.  my dad raised and loved that child as his own, no questions asked.  the boy drowned in a lake in florida after getting caught on a branch under water and this haunted my dad for the remainder of his life.

when he met my mom, she had three girls.  he fell in love with her and brought us in as if we were his own.  he had enough love in his heart to go around.  he made some mistakes, i didn’t realize until his death that moving to north carolina meant leaving behind his three kids.  that haunted him too.

back in those days, the mothers were the keepers of the children in the event of divorce.  he wasn’t sure how to handle the situation and he did the best that he could, making mistakes just like the rest of us.  maybe that’s why he was extra special, some type of living amends for not knowing the right thing to do at the time and realizing it later.

he was a scribe, a poet, a songwriter.  i used to wonder how he wrote with such depth and emotion, only to realize after his death that he carried around a lot of regret just like the rest of us.  he would never intentionally hurt anyone but as life happens we inevitably cause others pain. 

he was madly in love with my mom, they were best friends and did everything together.  he cared for her and tried to protect her from harm and he did a good job of it.  i think he felt guilty for dying first, hoping that she would be as well cared for as he cared for her.

not a day goes by that i don’t think of him, and miss him.  i am grateful that i had him for as long as i did, for all the things he taught me, the love he gave, and the sacrifices he made for others in his life, and that i was able to quit my job so i could have those last three months to spend with him taking him around to all his appointments.

happy birthday country scribe, i hope i get to see you again some day.

this was down by the boat docks, across the other side of the lake.  that’s someone’s house but i have no idea.

this is a weird thing that shows up in my yard sometimes but this wasn’t in my yard, this was on the side of the road.  i saw it and then pulled over b/c i do that.  you never know when the light will match up again or you’ll see something the same way if you put it off.

i think some people call this “the cay” but i’m not sure.  i like to take pictures of it during season changes.  (also the backdrop of one recent marriage proposal that i was asked to take pictures of.)

another angle of the same thing as above.

a flurry of color.

this is another great view that i like to take pictures of.  it’s near the pool and fitness center that we go to.

the lonely swing, void of children.

america’s most wanted C. A. T. kilborne, my faithful companion of 17 years.

honkey dog sampson having a serious moment.

i just discovered the auto focus on my camera and i went nuts trying to test it out.

i absolutely did NOTHING to this photo aside from pulling it from the camera to the pc. i took it looking up at the trees on the girls bedroom side of our house.

tomato plant fading away with the cold (testing out that auto focus thing!).

another angle from tomato plant.

close up of the spearmint that i have in my garden.

a bird’s nest i presume.

the end.