More of my random thoughts, if you can stand it. I know all my loyal fan have been waiting for more stories. If you have any thoughts or comments, please email me
I just completed the annual ritual of changing the calendars. Good bye to 2001 and let’s face 2002. What kind of year will it turn out to be?
I have several calendars I use. I have two daily ones, where each day you get a new message or picture or fact. I have three wall calendars. And I have two calendars for keeping track of my appointments and activities. Those have been changed already and do have things written down in them. I start with the birthdays, then add the other stuff.
Over my kitchen sink I had a daily calendar by Sark. She is the author of Wild and Succulent Women, which is supposed to empower and encourage women. Two of my women friends raved about the book. I’ve never read the book because I think that sort of stuff is baloney. I saw that calendar half price after Christmas last year, and bought it on a lark. Last night, according to her, was supposed to be a Night of Ecstasy. I passed on attending the neighborhood new years eve party, but I know I wouldn’t have found ecstasy there. I went to bed at 10:30 and slept with my cat. Fell quite a bit short from ecstasy, like from the top of the Empire State building. I did enjoy a few of her days, like her occasional nap days and the permission to be crabby day. On the whole, though, I was not moved to become a succulent woman. I couldn’t find another calendar by her, so instead, I got 365 French phrases for that spot. Bonne Annee, avec le accent sur le premiere e. Happy New Year. That was today’s. I normally don’t look ahead.
Next to my computer I now have the LA Times crossword puzzle calendar. I haven’t quite figured out when I’m to do the puzzle. If I do it now, early in the morning, for the rest of today it will say January 2. So I guess I’ll do today’s, tomorrow. It replaced the Mary Engelbreit one, which I’ve used for several years. I used to be a big fan of her artwork, until she became an industry unto herself. I felt it was time for a change.
On the wall in here is my Trout Unlimited calendar. I think the only reason I hung one up when I first moved here is that there was a hanger for a picture. As one of the benefits of belonging to TU, they send you a calendar each year. I keep hoping this will inspire me to go fishing again, but so far, it hasn’t.
In the kitchen now hangs 365 Days in France. I can always dream about going there. It replaced the “naked women from England who made the calendar to raise money for cancer research” calendar. I first heard about this calendar at an AAUW meeting, where it was suggested, and I’m not that certain in jest, that we do one for a fundraiser. These women are tastefully hidden behind vases and kitchen items and flowers. I liked the idea of raising money for cancer research, but I’m not going to miss those old English broads.
I have the Charles Wysocki Americana calendar on my dining room/study wall. I’ve bought this one for the past 29 years, so if I ever decided to frame the pictures, I’d have quite a collection. His pictures take you back in time and place to a more serene time. At first I didn’t think he was going to have a new calendar, because I didn’t find one when I went looking, but I should have known better. He’s copied so many times over by other artists that I knew there would be one.
The two calendars I run my life by are the ones I write in. I have an agenda in my purse and one in the computer room. The purse one fits into a lovely leather cover, which I’ve had for a good 15 years. The one I keep next to me is courtesy of my stockbroker. Just a basic monthly calendar, but with big enough spaces to write in. I’ve used this one for a few years, too. I keep track of all my meetings in it, my volunteer mileage and other appointments. Once a week, I compare the two to make sure they both have the same information. Already January is getting filled up with boring meetings. Plus I’m getting a haircut on January 15 and I leave for Minnesota on January 21 for a doctor’s appointment. There are no birthdays in January that I have listed. I could list the house party I am invited to for today, but I still haven’t decided about attending.
For fun, I bought a doodler’s calendar on sale this year. It’s black and came with three pens to write on. I’m not sure where I will keep that one. I love to doodle, so maybe I’ll take it along with me when I’m at boring meetings to give me something to do. I bought it after Christmas when I was down in Phoenix to take my kids to the airport. Evelyn wanted the same one, and Lowell got two of scantily clothed women.
It’s the beginning of a new year and the slate is clean, more or less. I keep my old calendars and it’s time to put the 2001 ones away and look ahead. It’s reassuring I can always look back when I need to.
©1 January, 2002I ended up going to my friend’s open house after all. So belatedly, I added it to my calendar. I got the invitation a good two weeks ago, and opened the letter three days ago. She and her husband have done this for many years, bringing with them this new year’s day tradition from Minnesota.
Enclosed in the invitation were two lists of people who were invited that I would know. I felt very special to get two lists. One was people we both know from AAUW which contained several names. The other was some of the Child Haven board, which was three names. I called Julie, who was on the Child Haven list, to see if she was going, and when she said yes, I decided, why not go? It would be better than staying at home by myself. I called Elaine around 11 am and asked if it were too late for me to rsvp. She said no, come on over.
The party lasted from noon till 5 pm, and I didn’t want to get there too early, or much earlier than Julie said she’d be. While I know all the women from AAUW, I don’t know their husbands. I like them, but don’t feel any special bonds with those women. So I left my house about 12:30 to drive over to Elaine’s.
Prescott isn’t a big town, but she lives on the other side of town and it takes at least 20 minutes to get there. There was little traffic, which was nice. Most people think you can get anywhere in a small town in five minutes. That’s just not true. It would be nice if it were.
When I got to Elaine’s house, there were only two cars parked on the street. I hesitated but decided to go on in. There were three more cars in her driveway, which made me feel a little better. Her husband, Tom, greeted me at the door. I know him from several events we’ve attended. I wandered to the back room where liquid refreshments were and greeted everyone in there. I then went and sat in the living room. I was offered to try some of Tom’s specialty, sauerkraut and pork. Mixed together. I said no thanks. But everyone who had it said it was wonderful. Tom spent all yesterday and today getting the food ready. Elaine offered me a roast beef sandwich, which I accepted so she wouldn’t feel like a bad hostess.
I spent much of the time in the kitchen talking to Carol. We joined around the same time, so we have that bond. We got acquainted at the new member get togethers they had that year. Plus she is a writer and we have talked many times about getting together, but neither of us have been motivated to do anything to make it happen. People came in and out of the kitchen to get food, and we greeted them, but we continued talking just among ourselves. She’s from the midwest like I am, so she’d down to earth and I feel comfortable with her. Her husband joined us a little later, and he’s a nice man, too.
I was thinking about leaving when I saw Julie and her husband arrive. Julie is the first person I met here in Prescott, and we’ve been friends that time. She was president of the Monday Club when I joined, and I became her board secretary. Now I’m her board secretary for Child Haven. She’s just a few years younger than me, which is unusual, since most of the women I know here are older than me. I excused myself from Carol, because at that time, the only people there were all AAUW, and I knew Julie wouldn’t know anyone. Besides, I like talking to Julie.
When I sat with Julie, it was like I became invisible to the AAUW women. No one came and sat near us, and those who were sitting in the living room ignored us. This didn’t bother me, even though it might seem like it did. I tried not to let the fact I was the only single person there not bother me, either. After a bit, her husband was chomping at the bit to get home to watch the Fiesta Bowl. So I said I’d bring Julie home, and he left. We talked a little longer, and then I said, let’s go. It was close to 4 pm and I’d been there a long time, plus I didn’t need to be at Elaine’s house to talk to Julie.
We said our good-byes to our hosts, and left. Julie asked me if I wanted to stop at her house for a while, but I was kind of tired of being around people by then, plus I knew I’d see her on Thursday, if not tomorrow. One of the other women from the Child Haven board invited us both out to lunch, but Julie wasn’t sure she could go.
I drove home listening to the radio. Traffic was still light and it seemed like I got back in no time. There were two phone messages for me. One from Susan, who I’m having lunch with tomorrow, and one from Lowell. I changed out of my jumper and into my jammies to be comfortable. I called Susan back and we confirmed our plans for tomorrow. Then I called Lowell. Finally I could relax and enter my own little world again. I watched Miss Congeniality, had a salad for dinner. Tomorrow, it’s back to the real world, for at least part of the day.
©1 January, 2002The cow game was invented by my friend Randy, to keep his kids occupied while on trips He explained the rules to Evelyn and myself before we started driving from North Carolina to Arizona. The rules are simple. When you see cows on your side of the road, you count them and keep a running total. If you see a church on your side, you double your cows. If you see a cemetery on the opposite side, the other player loses his or her cows. Pretty simple. Horses or other farm animals do not count. There really is no prize for winning, at least Randy never told me there was.
When Evelyn and I were driving here, we saw lots of cows. When you pass a big herd, where it’s impossible to count the actual number of cows, you estimate how many. And it’s never a round number. Something like 347, not 350. I think we made up that rule. In Texas, it seemed like the cows were evenly distributed. She’d get some, then I would. We decided this was to keep the earth in its proper rotation. You don’t want cows to tip the earth over.
I’ve played it on my way to Las Vegas with Lowell. On the way up, I know I will see lots and lots of cows on my side. Then we get to a town and there are at least five churches on my side. So less than 40 miles from home, I’m already in the thousands, and he barely has any. The fact that this is reversed on the way home doesn’t seem to console him much.
Yesterday, while driving back from California, I was surprised when I saw cows, not having seen any on the drive there. The person I was with was puzzled as to why I cried out, oooh, I’ve got cows, and estimated there were eight in the field. So I explained the game and the rules and we decided to play during the rest of the drive home. There aren’t many cows on the way. There isn’t much of anything, actually. So we were creative in where we thought we saw cows. We were sure we saw cows hiding behind rocks or telephone poles. They were hiding in a canyon. All of a sudden, there was a major herd of cars on the other side. We guessed there were at least 717. I was way behind. It would take a lot of churches on my side to get near to that.
I never did catch up. I don’t think we saw another cow after that. It didn’t really matter. It’s a silly game intended to pass time on long road trips. We had fun playing and I conceded graciously. But just wait till next time.
©14 March, 2002For me, this time of the year is almost as bad as Christmas. It’s Mother’s Day today and my birthday was a few days ago. This creates unnatural frivolity and frustration for me.
I used to make a big deal out of my birthday, naturally, when I was young. When my mother was still alive and when I lived with my family, I wanted the day special. Now, it’s been ten years since she died and I’ve been on my own almost five. They have become just another day to get through for me, nothing special but of course I do acknowledge them. But it is no longer an important day.
I haven’t had a birthday party in decades, and don’t see that day as anything special to celebrate. Every day in a way is a birthday, another new day to experience. The one who should have been excited about my birthday was my mother, finally giving birth and being able to get back to normal, whatever that is. I know I feel very special about my children’s birthdays. They are much more significant to me than mine.
Since I’ve been on my own, I’ve celebrated, or more to the point, lived through them, all alone. Yes, there have been phone calls and the occasional present from my children. Old friends use this time to reconnect. The one person I wish I could share that day with is my mother, and since I moved out her home, I don’t recall spending one with her since then. Just another day.
But then there’s Mother’s day to contend with. We get bombarded for weeks in advance with all the ads for things to buy your mother. I can’t buy her anything, I can’t talk to her, ask her for advice anymore. Not that I usually listened to her advice, but I was reassured knowing she was there if I needed her.. I think I wanted my mother most when my son died. I wanted to sink into her loving embrace, pretend I was a little girl again, and rely on her strength to get me through that. In a way, I did. Mother’s Day has not been a happy day for me in years.
I am also a mother. And my children want to honor me, I suppose. It bothers me more not to be with them today than on my birthday, but it’s something I’ve accepted as inevitable. I thought about asking my ex to send Lowell out here for a few days, but he would miss school and I hate asking my ex for anything. I got a card from Lowell, and will probably get an email one from Evelyn. They’ll call. They sent me a suitcase for both events, which is what I asked for this year. After I hang up, the realization, which never leaves me, that Greg won’t call, hits me and I no longer want to think about Mother’s Day.
It’s very early in the morning here, and I have the entire day to get through. I will as I have every day since I left Minnesota and since Greg died. At least there will be hockey on television to occupy my thoughts for three hours. And to all you mothers out there, I hope it’s a happier day for you.
©12 May, 2002There is a small advertising calendar on my refrigerator. I've been asked why I still have it. It was left there by the people I bought this house from earlier that year. I'd just been living here since mid-April. It is still on June, 1999. I guess at the time, I didn't think to tear off that page and go to July. I did leave here, suddenly, on July 5th for Minnesota as my son was back in the hospital. He only had two more days alive on the day I flew out of Phoenix.
I had plane tickets to go to Minnesota that July. My ex was going to be out of town and I was going to stay at the house. Then the phone rang on July 3rd. Whenever my ex called, I knew the news was not good. I still have the piece of paper I took notes on about Greg's condition. The cancer was now in one of Greg's kidneys and they were going to operate and remove it on the 6th. The doctors were concerned that the tumor was growing into his heart, so they were doing some tests before the surgery.
Instead of flying out that day, I decided to wait, knowing I would stay in Minnesota till the day I was already scheduled to return. I called Northwest Airlines and tried to rationally explain to the person on the other end of the phone that I had this ticket, and why couldn't I just change the departure date instead of having to buy a whole new ticket. I do believe I got rather angry at her, but I paid whatever they said. You can get a lower that full air fare for family emergencies. Was my son already in the hospital? Yes, I said in tears. I think I had to pay something like $300 extra to change the ticket. At times like this, you don't think about the money.
I drove to my friend Michael's house on the 5th of July, 1999. He would take me to the airport and have the use of my car. I could have taken the shuttle from Prescott to Phoenix, but I needed the sense I had control over something. Michael did the same thing when I had to fly back in May when Greg had brain surgery. He had a tumor there, too. But he bounced right back from that surgery, and I expected the same from the kidney surgery.
My flight was scheduled to leave at 4, but because of a dust storm, we sat on the ground for a good hour. I tried to be calm, even though every molecule in me wanted to be in the hospital room with Greg. Waiting another day suddenly didn't seem such a good idea. Finally we took off, but there were storms in Minnesota, and they said we would have to land in Duluth. That's 150 miles northeast of Minneapolis, I was getting edgy, but knew the situation was nothing I could control. Then the pilot made an announcement that conditions in Minneapolis were better and we would be landing there. I was already some two hours late. As was every one else on the plane. The flight attendants asked all of us who didn't have connecting flight to please wait and let those who did deplane first. Yeah, right. The moment the door opened, everyone got up to stand and wait to get off the plane. I was one of them.
I found a pay phone and called the hospital. I think Evelyn came to pick me up. It was well after 11 pm by the time we got there, and I stayed with Greg over night. So what if he was 17? Of course you can't sleep in a hospital, so we had some time together. There are so many things I wished I had said to him. So many questions I never asked him.
The surgery was postponed one day so they could do more tests. We all spent the day with Greg. For my birthday, I had gotten a digital camera, and I wanted to take some pictures. Greg said no, but I overruled him and took two pictures of my three children. Lowell took one of Greg and I. He said enough, so I agreed, thinking I could take more later. I am so glad I used my parental authority to get him to take those pictures. We watched tv, videos, and played on my ex's laptop. That night, Evelyn stayed with Greg.
I slept in Greg's bed at the house, and I think we were back at the hospital by 7 on Wednesday, July 7, 1999. We watched the Price is Right, one of Greg's favorite shows. I blame Bob Barker for Greg's death, because that day, both contestants spun the big wheel for first $1,000 then $10.000. What are the odds of that happening? Then we started watching Animal House till the nurses came to get Greg and take him down to surgery.
It was a familiar stay in the pre-op area. This was Greg's fifth surgery at the U. For some reason, I couldn't stop crying. I had to leave the area so as not to upset him. When I composed myself I went back in, held his hand until he was wheeled into the operating room. I said, I love you, Greg and he said, I love you, Mom.
We went up to the waiting room. We staked out a big enough area for four, and then I forget who, Lowell and I probably, went up to the cafeteria. I had spent more time in that waiting room than I like to think about. It's also where I sat with Barb, the mother of my CARE partner, while Christine had surgery. I remember sitting there and holding her hand. And all the times while Greg was in surgery.
I decided to try and sleep a little so I wouldn't be too tired that night. I know I felt Greg's spirit fly through me. When my ex woke me, to tell me the nurse wanted to talk to us, I knew. She took us into a private room to tell us there were complications. The doctor would be in shortly. He came in, his face unreadable. He started giving us some medical mumbo jumbo, but I interrupted him, and said, Greg's dead, isn't he? He said yes, and nothing else mattered. He left us to let the horrible news sink in. I clung to my ex and my children. Tears, shock, numbness. Then the nurse came in and said we could look at Greg's body if we wanted to. Only Lowell didn't, and he was just 13 at the time, so the nurse stayed with him.
He looked asleep. Except he was already turning blue. He was cold to the touch. They covered him with a blanket, but I wanted to look at his newest scars. I didn't though but I should have. I can close my eyes and see him dead. I kissed his forehead and left after a bit.
Back in the little room, we tried to pull ourselves together. It was not easy. Finally, someone said, I guess I have people to call and the rest of us said, yes, me too. Lowell said something that completely broke what was left of my heart. He said, he didn't have anyone to call, because Greg was his only friend. We made one last trip up to the fifth floor to collect Greg's things. I took the toothbrush he used for the very last time. We gathered his clothes and Spud and his cd's.
Evelyn and I drove to the house together. I remember crying the entire time and we sang the one line song we made up on one of the many trips back from the hospital when we only had to go as volunteers. One of the nights when Christine was dying, we made up a song about a drunken Indian. It didn't help.
In June of 1999 my son Greg was still alive. I know time doesn't stand still, though I wish it would. I wish Mr. Peabody could tell Sherman to set the Wayback machine to March, 1996, before cancer was found in Greg's body. I wish it were still June, 1999.
©29 June, 2002I had to buy a new computer last week. My old one, which was made for me before I left North Carolina, back in 1999, was dying. I had two different computer repairmen look at it, and both said it was fine. They were wrong. At the end, it was turning itself on. I’m not kidding you. I would shut it down and when I’d come back into the computer room, it was on. Which was amazing, since it would take numerous tries to get it to actually start up. I was talking to a friend who lives 45 minutes from me a week ago Friday, and he said I was nuts to put any more money into my old computer. I had to agree with him, and he said, come on down here and we’ll go together to Phoenix and look for a new one. Despite the fact it was early afternoon and already 100 plus degrees in Phoenix, I drove south to meet him.
I am so lucky to have a friend like Michael. He’s done many things to help me since I’ve moved to Arizona. He is the one who picked me up at the airport when I returned after Greg had died. He’s done small chores for me around my house. He’s a caring friend.
First, we went to a regular Costco. There were some decent buys, but he thought we should go to the Costco business center store a few more miles south. I’ve never been to such an empty Costco before. After looking at the different systems they had available, we called the sales person over and Michael asked him some questions we, really he, had about the system. I went to get a flatbed cart to carry the box out and as they were lifting one of the two boxes on the cart, I said, oh, I wanted the other box. The one they were putting on the cart was torn. The salesperson just smiled and got the other one.
Michael and I drove back up to his house, first stopping at Sonic for something to drink. I guess he’s forgotten where things are in Phoenix, even though this particular one was just blocks away from his old house, because exiting the freeway, he turned the wrong way. I pointed that out to him, in a nice way.
When we got to his house, it was about 5 pm. He called his wife, who is a nurse in a Phoenix hospital and found out what time she was getting off work. He had just enough time to come up to Prescott and set up my new computer. I drove back up here in my car, and he followed. Till he passed me near Sunset Point. I passed him before the exit to Prescott and he passed me going into Mayer. I thought he’d be sitting in my driveway waiting for me, because on that stretch of highway, I try to stay within five miles of the speed limit, as there are almost always highway patrolmen waiting. But I passed him again going into Prescott Valley and he followed me up Sunrise to my street.
You should have seen us trying to carry that huge box up the stairs to my house. Everything was inside one big box and my stairs are uneven. We switched positions before we got to the landing, because I was tired of him making fun of my backwards climbing the stairs. He didn’t do much better himself. We opened the boxes and he took out the new computer as I moved the old one from its familiar space.
It was all hooked up and we went to turn it on. It made some funny noises, and nothing. He tried a few things, we tried the setup function, and nothing still. Finally it said something that to him told him the hard drive was no good. So, we broke down the new machine, all the while, Michael is apologizing. I kept telling him it wasn’t his fault. I’m the one who wanted the non-torn box. He said he’d take it back down to Costco the next day and get me the other one. He set up my poor sickly old machine and headed back down to his house. I gave him my credit card in case he needed it for the exchange.
Saturday afternoon and I hadn’t heard from him. I managed to get the old computer to start and I sent him an email with the subject, Mexico? Five minutes later he phoned and assured me he was still in Arizona and that he had made the exchange with no problem. Unfortunately, the soonest we could get together to set up the new computer was Tuesday. At least the old one would stay connected long enough for me to check my email,ebay and a few other things.
It was Sunday night when it turned itself on. I was done using it and shut it down. I saw the it is now safe to turn off your computer screen and heard it shut down. Imagine my surprise, when I woke up in the morning and it was frozen on the Windows page! I started it up and turned it off and went about my day. That afternoon, I was working on a jigsaw puzzle I’d started a while ago, but decided I didn’t like so had just left it on the table. With no computer to keep my occupied, I had been working on it. I thought I’d heard some sounds earlier, but attributed that to outside noises. As I stood at the table trying to put together the quilt in the puzzle, I leaned my head toward the computer room, thinking I’d heard the fan. Sure enough, it was going, this time it was the screen saver. I figured as long as it was on, I’d check things, then turned it off again. This time I shut off the power.
Tuesday morning, I decided to rebuild my computer table. It’s basically three levels, one at the feet, one mid level and a top shelf. With the new monitor, I thought I should take off the top part so it would fit better. I had originally put the desk together so I took off the old computer parts and began dismantling it. I moved the middle part up two notches, but I was having a difficult time getting the back panel to screw back on. Finally, after much sweating and no swearing, but taking a break in the middle, I managed to attach it. But the front supports were at a different level. I moved those again, and by the time Michael got up here, the table was ready for its new computer.
Once again, he set everything up and plugged it all in. I hesitantly pushed the start button, but this time, it went right into Windows like it is supposed to. Everything worked. Michael took my old computer tower with him so he could transfer my files onto one hard drive and then install it in the new computer and I could have all my old programs.
It was weird getting used to XP, and a computer with no sounds, no animated cursors, no programs I was familiar with. I like customizing the computer with different colors and sounds and I slowly went about doing this. I downloaded Eudora, my mail program. I downloaded an IRC program and am trying to recreate my notify list. I don’t have my address book either or my mailboxes. I talked to Michael online and he said he was having problems getting my computer to run. I reminded him that’s why I got the new one! I also told him that since it crashed at least a few dozen times a day, and it wouldn’t stay on long enough to do a scan disk, the hard drive must be really screwed up. I started thinking about all the programs, files, sounds, etc I might never see again and tried not to get upset.
It’s now Sunday, and I have begun to make this computer mine. I put pictures of my children on this new drive from floppy disks and have that as my desktop wallpaper. I have sounds now, different ones, but that’s ok. I have animated cursors. I even downloaded some of my favorite MP3’s to listen to while I work. So far, I haven’t downloaded Snood, a game I am addicted to. I’m waiting to find out what Michael can save from the old computer. There was only one file on that thing that is irreplaceable. It’s a four second, 10 meg avi movie of Greg and me. Luckily, I uploaded to my website’s server. But I didn’t have an ftp program so I could get it. Today, I tried downloading a new one, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. It really bugs me that I will have to pay for a program I had on the old machine, but I got Cuteftp. At first I couldn’t get that to work either, but in their help files, they reminded me how to set it up. What a wave of relief I felt when I finally connected to my server. I downloaded all the files, and now I have the pages and graphics for my webpage on this new computer, as well as that movie.
If I’d thought about it, I’d have saved more things from the old computer to disks. About the only data I regularly saved were my bookmarks. I could have saved my fonts or my graphics, but I didn’t. I couldn’t have saved that avi on a floppy, but at least I thought about the importance of it and did save it. It’s now on this new computer and I feel like I can cope with whatever else happens to the old one. This is the first story I’ve written on this new machine and I think there will be a lot more that are created on it.
©25 August 2002My mother didn't like animals, so growing up, I never had a pet. A German shepherd bit her when she was twelve. She used to show me the scar on her leg whenever I asked for a pet. I did have several short-lived goldfish, and a turtle, but not a real pet. Not one you could hold, name, and love.
It was when Fred and I were living in Chico, California, back in 1975, that I got my first pet. A friend of mine, Shannon, and I were hitting garage sales one Saturday, and at one of them, they had kittens. Free. I picked them all up, and eventually decided on a grey tabby. Taking one home was a spur of the moment decision. I named him Sparky. I'm not sure where the name came from, he just seemed like a Sparky. When we were driving back to my apartment, I was holding Sparky and he jumped. I screamed, thinking he'd peed on me. Shannon laughed at me, but she drove a little faster.
I wasn't too worried about Fred accepting the new family member. He grew up with dogs. When I first met his parents, they had the ugliest, strangest dog I'd ever seen. He was low to the ground, with almost no legs, yet a big body. And he drooled. Fred thought Sparky was cute, and we had our first addition to our family. Not long after Sparky was with us, we had him neutered. He wasn't more than four months old, so he really didn't understand what he lost.
Sparky was mostly an outdoor cat. He moved with us all over the country. He lived a month in a motel in Yuba City while Fred trained for management in a pizza chain. He really liked it in Atascadero, where he had a big yard to play in. That was where he had a bladder problem, which apparently is common to neutered male cats. We lived in a converted gas station across from the Southern Pacific railroad's mainline. Sparky helped me keep my sanity that year. He went with us to Chicago, while Fred was in grad school. In Chicago, he was an indoor cat. Next he moved with us to Minneapolis.
I had heard all the old wives tales about cats and babies. I was five months pregnant when we moved to Minneapolis. I kept an eye on Sparky after Evelyn was born, and no, he didn't suck her breath out of her body. He actually was pretty disinterested in her. One day, there was a mouse in the house. Sparky was chasing it, playing with it. He would catch it, then let it go, and catch it again. I was near hysterics, and called Fred at work and said that Evelyn and I would be sitting out in the car till he got home and took care of the mouse. Did I mention it was the middle of winter? Fred did come home, and put the mouse outside, so I could go back into the house.
Sparky then moved to Memphis with us. We had a house with an even bigger yard, and he was happy. I don't think he picked up a southern accent while living there, like Evelyn and Greg did. Six years later, we were moving back to Minnesota. We wouldn't be able to move into our house for a month, so we had rented a furnished apartment for that month. Sparky was 13 years old by then, and we left him in a kennel.
When Fred went back to Memphis to supervise the movers, he drove up with Sparky in the car. Somehow, in all the confusion of moving, packing a house for five people, I hadn't really paid much attention to Sparky. Fred called and said Sparky didn't look too good. One of our closest friends back in Minneapolis, had become a veterinarian while we were south. I made an appointment to take Sparky to see Arlo. The prognosis was not good. He had a tumor in his jaw. I took him home and loved him for a few more days. He didn't do much besides just sit, didn't eat, didn't play. I called Arlo, and made the arrangements to put Sparky to sleep. I cried the entire way up highway 18 (now 169) and cried all the way home. For the few years before my children were born, Sparky was my baby. I used to talk to him, and sometimes I thought of him as human. While I was watching my mother die several years ago, I thought back to how humanely Sparky died. It probably took Sparky a few minutes to die; it took my mother seventeen days.
Now I have Sylvie. She is my cat, and is more like a dog than a cat. She is at this moment, sitting by my feet, waiting for me to go to bed. Then she will crawl under the covers, and put her paws on my arm, snuggle next to me and purr while I fall asleep. There are Gordon and Mielle back at the house in Minneapolis. I still have fond memories of Sparky and remember all the lessons I learned in having a pet. He was more than a pet, he was a member of my family.
©5 April, 2000I lived for six years in Memphis, Tennessee, from 1982-88. My youngest son Lowell, was born there. This was the first time I'd ever really been in the South for any length of time, and in a lot of ways it was quite an experience. Southerners are definitely different from the rest of America. We used to joke this was a "foreign assignment", me being from Chicago and California and my ex being a native Californian. There were many things I liked about living in Memphis, and I realized how much I had liked living there after I moved away.
There's a big old grand hotel in downtown Memphis called the Peabody. It was built 130 years ago, shortly after the Civil War. They say the Delta starts there. Unlike most downtown areas, Memphis downtown is relatively alive at night. The Peabody is within walking distance to Beale Street, which is famous for its jazz clubs. The Rendezvous restaurant is close by, too, which is famous for its ribs. I am sure that the Peabody went through bad times over time, but now it is a gathering place for much of Memphis' movers and shakers. Its been renovated and restored to its former glamour.
The most famous guests of the Peabody are the ducks. Ducks?, you ask. Yes, ducks. Quoting from the Peabody's website
"In the 1930s, General Manager Frank Schutt was returning from a weekend hunting trip to Arkansas. Schutt and his friends thought it would be humorous to place some of their live duck decoys (it was legal for hunters to use live decoys) in the Peabody fountain. Three small English call ducks were selected to be the guinea pigs, and the reaction was nothing short of enthusiastic. Since then, Ducks have been in the fountain every day.
In 1940, Bellman Edward Pembroke, formerly a circus animal trainer, volunteered to care for the ducks and taught them to march into the Lobby - initiating the famous "March." The late Mr. Pembroke was named Duckmaster and served in that position until 1991.
Today, the mallards are raised by a local farmer and friend of the hotel. They live in the lavish "Duck Palace" on the Plantation Roof. Every day at11 a.m., they are led by the Duckmaster down the elevator to the Italian Travertine marble fountain in the Grand Lobby. Red carpet is unrolled and the ducks march through crowds of admiring spectators to the tunes of John Philip Sousa. The fanfare is repeated at 5 p.m. when the ducks retire to their rooftop palace."
Many times when we lived there, we took the kids to the Peabody just to watch the ducks. They really were cute, and put on quite a show. They would swim around in the fountain in the lobby, but of course, we tried to be there when they went up or downstairs. We also went to various functions there. We never actually stayed in the hotel, but dined there many times.
So why am I even thinking about the Peabody? There's a man I've been chatting with online for almost three years, and at one point, we were talking about meeting midway. On neutral territory, so to speak. While Memphis is a little further for me, when I mentioned the ribs at the Rendezvous, he seemed to think that was a better place to meet than say, Tulsa, which is about half way. Of course, now he is having second thoughts about meeting me (I really am a nice person and have never harmed anyone). For some reason, I woke up thinking about Memphis and the Peabody. I usually wake up thinking about him, too. I am tempted to go to Memphis, sit in the lobby and wait and see if he shows up. Maybe I should send him an email and tell him I'll when I'll be there. Sitting near the ducks, like all the other tourists.
©April 20, 2000There are more stories I have written to read. Please remember these are my original stories and thoughts, and to copy or otherwise use them without my permission is a copyright violation. I would love to hear your random thoughts on any of these stories.