Humor – Page 25 – I'll Call It Like I See It

33 Years of Fun with Dick and Curtis

(left to right) Tom, Curtis, Dick and Pretty

pitchers of Sangria helped everyone’s memory on Game Nights

Playing variations of Trivial Pursuit on monthly Game Nights with friends was a favorite activity of Pretty’s and mine in the early years of our relationship at the turn of the 21st. century. Trivial Pursuit aficionados changed over the years we played except for our two friends Dick and Curtis who enjoyed the merriment as much as we did and never missed the opportunity to get together for fun and games. We reminisced about those times last night over dinner at their lovely “country” home off Backswamp Road in Hopkins, South Carolina. Curtis mentioned he and Dick celebrated their 33rd. Anniversary this year, and that sounded like such a long, long time rather than the hot minute it seemed to me.

Dick and Pretty worked together in the residential real estate business for seventeen of those years which added a new dimension to their friendship, but Curtis and Pretty became the real team for Game Nights. When Curtis and Pretty were on the same team, the rest of us were doomed. Dick and I were always left in their dust, usually rolling our eyes at each other when the teams were chosen because he and I were consistently picked last. Our favorite moments on those nights were the delicious dinners served by the hosts.

Last night wasn’t a Game Night, but we still laugh whenever we gather for the delicious dinners served by our hosts who have welcomed us into their home and lives for as long as they have been together; we celebrate them not only for the joy their friendship gives us but also for their contributions to the advancement of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina for more than three decades.

Onward.

October 16, 2023

Meet Me at the Rocket!

The South Carolina State Fair is in town thru October 22nd. and Friday night at the Fair with three granddaughters was a memory maker. Our core group pictured above: four year old Ella, six year old Collins, Kitty before face paint, and Kaka who has a long tradition of State Fair attendance. Ella adores Collins who is the granddaughter of our best friends Kitty and Kaka. Our group also included Nana Pretty, Pretty Too Caroline the mother of Ella and Molly who spent much of the evening being whirled around in a stroller on loan from Grant who works with Kaka. The stroller was a lifesaver!

Molly and me at the Fair

before getting in better mood with bucket of Fiske Fries and corn dog

yeah, it’s a corn dog on a stick

and this is how it all went wrong

face painting not for the faint of heart – who is this Joker?

Collins wisely wore hoodie which came in handy as soft rain drizzled on us –

raspberry/blueberry snow cones not disturbed by rain

as girls take break from slides, monster rides, bumper cars and Big Ferris Wheel

pony rides always popular during rain

it’s okay for me to pet Lucy

ducks anyone?

Hey, I had a GREAT time, too, once they let me loose

Caroline texted us after getting Ella and Molly to bed much later than usual following our big evening at the Fair: “Ella told me on the way home she wanted the Fair to be her home and wanted Collins to live there, too. She said she’d sleep on the rides, and they’d pee in the grass. Lol. I was like there are bathrooms, Ella, and she said fine we will use the bathrooms.”

When can we go to the Fair again, Nana?

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For all the children everywhere. Please stay tuned.

P.S. Thanks to Caroline who is responsible for most of these photos. Thanks to all our followers in cyberspace for going to the Fair with us!

October 14, 2023

a saga of one family’s achieving the American dream in Rosenberg, Texas

Mom, me, and Dad in front of our home

at 1021 Timber Lane in Rosenberg, Texas circa 1968

Rosenberg is now a city of 39,468 (2021 census) inhabitants and a part of the Houston – The Woodlands – Sugar Land metropolitan area. When my parents moved forty miles north from our home in Brazoria to Rosenberg in June of 1964, I was a new summer school student at the University of Texas at Austin. How new, you ask? Well, when I wrote my folks to tell them I had found a ride home for a weekend visit in July, my dad wrote back something to the effect that I needed to come to Rosenberg because he and Mom lived there – not in Brazoria where we had lived for the past five years. New jobs for both Dad and Mom, new rental house, new church, everything new. I was horrified – I had hoped to see my friends from high school who stayed at home for the summer instead of going off to college. Why move to Rosenberg, I wondered. Mostly I felt hurt that they hadn’t prepared me with the truth.

The Rosenberg years in the 1960s and early 70s for my parents were good years for them. They were finally able to purchase their own home (1021 Timber Lane pictured above) in 1965 after nearly twenty years of marriage. My mother taught second grade in a much larger school district where my father was assistant superintendent for the Lamar Consolidated schools that continued to grow as Houston expanded south and west. Mom played piano for a Southern Baptist Church as she had done her entire life wherever we were, and Daddy sang in the choir.

Daddy and Mama with their three bird dogs Rex, Dab and Seth

those old dogs couldn’t hunt,

but they did love the sofa in our den on Timber Lane

Daddy with his small grill where he loved to cook steaks

in the driveway of Timber Lane – his one attempt to cook

When I graduated from UT in the summer of 1967, I moved to Houston to take a job with Arthur Andersen, one of the top eight CPA firms in the nation at that time. Sundays often meant driving the half hour from my apartment to see my folks in Rosenberg, making sure I was there in time for church.

This picture is such a favorite of mine because Mom and I are laughing together – I remember she was trying to help me learn how to place my feet at an angle when I stood in high heels. That advice never resonated with me…

…but I did have fun trying to make her happy

I never felt that Rosenberg was my home, but my parents loved their jobs, church, frequently seeing relatives and friends who lived in the Houston area, finally able to purchase their own home on Timber Lane that allowed them to experience the American dream their immigrant ancestors crossed oceans to find. I loved my parents dearly, but I was off to new adventures in the Pacific Northwest three thousand miles from the house on Timber Lane in Rosenberg.

Clouds loomed on all of our horizons as a new decade brought unimaginable losses.

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Please stay tuned.

October 12, 2023

the sundowners starring someone you love (part 2)

Earlier this year our fifteen year old terrier Carl began strange behavior in the late afternoon that didn’t concern Pretty and me at first, behavior we could ignore but gradually attracted our attention when it became more pronounced as time passed. Between 4 and 5 o’clock every afternoon now Carl paces back and forth between the den and kitchen like a tiger in a zoo, becomes agitated like monkeys can be in a cage at the zoo. Anxious, disoriented, restless for four hours of the day, yet content and clingy with us otherwise. Because of our experience with my mother’s dementia in her later years, Pretty and I were better equipped to recognize similar patterns of changes in Carl.

We were still unsure about a diagnosis of his doggie dementia (Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome or CDS) issues until a conversation with our vet last month confirmed what we also suspected was his total inability to hear anything or anyone. The deafness seemed to happen suddenly this summer, but it could have taken place over a long period of time, Dr. Wales told us. When I asked about other issues Carl had that seemed to happen late in the afternoon and early evening, she explained sundowning in animals occurs similarly to humans.

At our house we have three rescued dogs that live inside ranging in ages from 10 to 15 years. While our best guesses about their ages may be slightly off, Pretty and I laugh about running an assisted living home for elderly dogs. Their activities of daily living (ADL) include eating, sleeping, guarding our home against unwanted doorbell ringers, protecting our mailbox from the mail carriers unlucky enough to be assigned to our address, and occasional short walks. Carl’s hearing loss this summer has been an obvious physical change but not totally unexpected since he had serious ear infections when he came to us in 2020. The behavioral changes, however, have definitely been gradual with increasing intensity, and some research explores a significant incidence of deafness in dementia.

We keep a watchful eye on Carl to monitor his quality of life, but so far he manages to keep up with his ADL; his favorites continue to be eating and sleeping which, if I am honest, are probably mine, too. Dr. Wales told us CDS could not be cured and would worsen as he got older. She did prescribe gabapentin which we tried for two weeks but didn’t appear to help – now I am searching for other options from Dr. Google. These past two days I gave Carl Melatonin gummies in small doses, but he wasn’t happy with the taste and/or texture of the gummies – so peanut butter was the answer for us. Again, limited improvement in his conditions so far, but we’ll keep trying. If anyone in cyberspace has recommendations they have successfully used for Sundowner Syndrome in dogs, please share!

Carl interpreted by Wayside Artist Ann D’onofrio

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P.S. Note to my friends at Animal Couriers in Europe: older cats may also have CDS – Web MD has great info on feline symptoms and treatment. As with everything else I’ve learned about cats, feline behavioral changes can be disguised more easily by cats than by dogs. Hm…makes me wonder.