A sad day for music...

Some person (who shall remain nameless) borrowed my sweet little green I-pod to go to Texas (I'm not naming names here) and lost it!

Sniff.

Sniff.

I shall not be bitter because that nameless person is, in ironic fact, the person who gave it to me in the first place.

I am deeply reminded of Mary Chapin Carpenters song "This Shirt".

This shirt was the one I lent you
And when you gave it back
There was a rip inside the sleeve
Where you rolled your cigarettes
It was the place I put my heart
Now look at where you put a tear
I forgave your thoughtlessness
But not the boy who put it there

Technically, though I guess I won't get it back, the nameless person doesn't smoke, that nameless person is not thoughtless and I would forgive him just about anything.

So I guess the lyrics are not really relevant at all and I'm not sure why they popped into my head other then my Mad Cow disease is flaring up...

...and I'm just plain odd.

It's still a good song, though.

Sigh.

Insomni-BLAH!

It's Steves fault this time. How could he abandon me like this with no warning? Just disappear into the sunset without a word? How can a woman expect to survive such neglect and cruelty?

OK, technically he just went to Dallas for two days on business but I forgot about the whole being gone overnight thing.

That is just wrong.

I understand the need for business but at least he could come home so I have someone to cuddle up to during our frigid, bone-chattering Arizona nights. I think it might have even gotten down to the high 40's last night. I know! I know!

You are shocked also that sweet Steve could be so mean.

Well, he is!

So there!

And I'm crabby today because I didn't get any sleep so you better not side with him in this matter....

Grrrrrrr.....

My dishwasher broke this morning

My dishwasher broke this morning. I went to unload the dishes and they were disgustingly caked with dried bits of who-knows-what. We bought the dishwasher because it was supposed to be one of those never-rinse-your-dishes kind of things so we succumbed to the fancy sales pitch. But they lied.

So I filled the sink up with soapy hot water and started putting dishes in there to soak and pretty soon I was up to my elbows in sparkling suds washing and scrubbing and then I realized it actually felt good.
It felt wholesome and healthy and brought back so many memories of standing by so many sinks doing the same thing. My parents had four dishwashers (each of us girls reluctant and complaining) and for all of the first years of my marriage I did dishes by hand. After family parties we always end up with lots of dishes to wash by hand and, of course, doing Thanksgiving dishes is almost a written-in part of the holiday itself.

But it doesn’t seem like it should be a treat does it?

But our Granddaughters clamor to help wash dishes if they see me doing it. They drag the beaten-up old brown bench over and stand bright-eyed, armed with their dishcloths ready to dry, dry, dry away.

I never see their bright blue eyes light up in anticipation of loading the dishwasher. I never stand dreamily at the dishwasher watching the morning awaken the side yard and illuminate the just unfurling ash leaves with tender golden color.

Well, I have dishes to dry and put away but I wanted to tell you the big news. My dishwasher broke this morning. Aren’t I lucky?

The rest of the story

So... Steve forwarded this e-mail to me from his cousin who still owns and operates the Lewiston Tribune.

Great remembrance! You know, he might have died with your belt on.

I remember the Lewiston visit well. I was covering the Roundup and up to
my ears. Alice (this is Steve's Mom) gave me a phone call at something like 4:30p, inviting me and Nancy)(Nancy is the cousins wife) to the social at John (John is Steve's Dad) and Alice's. No, I said, but thank you; I explained there's no way I could get away. Yes, she said, you can
and you will.

So, of course, I did! I remember having two Scotches and then proceeding
to the North Lewiston park. John got me together with Paul Harvey for
about a five-minute chat. My remembrance, other than his personality and
golden voice, was this advice: Son, you've got a cigarette in one hand
and an alcoholic drink in the other. I suggest you never have either
again. Period.

Steve doesn't have a blog so...

I thought I'd share his sentiments on the death of Paul Harvey...

Maybe I should make a claim on the estate for that belt he “borrowed” from me in 1965and never returned.

He was the “grand marshal” of the Lewiston (ID) Roundup parade that year, brought to town by my father and his radio station partner Gene Hamblin which broadcast Harvey’s ABC New commentaries. He stayed at the house for the local events that year. And he needed a belt, which was loaned by this high school sophomore, but never returned. The visit did turn into a pretty good interview for the HS newspaper, a story that won several state & national HS journalism awards that year.

Monday, Monday

Hmmm.... here I sit surrounded by stuff to do .... hmmmm....

I really want to crawl back into bed but billing awaits.
Little girls await.
The piles of chaos in my office await.
Solving the problems of the world awaits.

All I can say is thank God for coffee!

If you see my Cousin Allison you can yell at her for me for making me create the piles of chaos in my office. I signed up for a card-making swap (hmmmm.... yet again) and she sent me some card kits that are too wonderful. Now I have to rethink my whole "slap-a-sticker-on" and call it a day approach. And on top of that she sent me some little cute lime-green fancy stapler and I cut up all kinds of strips of paper to make some little bows. If I have time afte I get the billing done before the little girl invasion I'll take some pictures of the cool stuff she sent.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

But I refuse to put on a sweater because, hey, I live in Arizona and, hey these five months are our reward for tolerating blood boiling temperatures all summer long.

Morgan is doing wonderfully. Hooray. Her voice is still very high and sweet and it just melts my heart to talk to her.

I'm getting annoyed. In part it's because I've not had any coffee yet since Mr.-sleep-until-noon (OK, technically it's 7:30 but that's still pretty darned late for our household) has not yet made it but it's more then that. It's family stuff.

Our family is loosing touch with each other. It's horrible.

I IM'd my younger sister yet and she didn't know Morgan had been in the hospital. Not that the whole family communication is all about me but, darn it, I think we all need to know more about what's going on.

Since I have the biggest mouth I think I'll just write everything I know here until I can find a way to get a participatory thing going.

1. Dad has got some lung thing going on. He is coughing and stuffy.
2. Aunt Sharon (who was visiting my parents with her husband John and got deathly ill to the point that she was admitted to a hospital in Kansas on the way home) seems to be doing better
3. Mom is having eye surgery this coming week. I want to say it for glaucoma but we talked about it while I was on severe sleep deficit so now I forget ....d'oh)
4. Jessie is doing good. Kevin is traveling some for his job. Their house is looking neat and Jessie is doing a lot of gardening (I'm ahead of her, though, hee hee)
5. Chris and Lindsey are settling into Tucson and Chris is pretty overwhelmed at work. Lindsey (at this writing) had not found a job yet and is wondering if she will be able to continue on her education path if the school there closes.
6. Becky and Mike are engaged.
7. Ben is settling into college and starting to travel with the team. He is having some health problems. Poor feller.
8. Sam is playing ball and that's all I know about Sam.
9. Julia is done with basketball and I'm not sure if she loved it but she sure improved since she started.
10. Riley's soccer season will be over next Saturday but she will start spring league in April.
11. Dan and Emily are still getting married the end of May. I don't think they know where they are doing their residencies.
12. Tom and Kris are continuing with their wedding plans. Knowing Kris this will be a serious (and wonderful) event
13. Steve's foot hurts.
14. Oskars stomach hurts from eating trash yesterday. Dumb dog. Actually he must not be because he figures out how to get the child-safe latch up on occassion. Sigh.
15. Greg is home from Vegas for a week.
16. I'm continuing on my paint the house, stain and varnish the woodwork, whine about all the stuff I just can't figure out how to do project! Actually it's fun,though.
17. Oh, and the roses are almost ready to bloom.
18. Jim and Steff will be in Tucson mid-march and then here for a day or so. I'm too lazy to look in my e-mails for the actual dates.

Well, gee, this is just kind of boring. But, hey, I did my part for family communications. So there.

I smell coffee! Bye for now!