I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Personal

  • Mouth Almighty, Tongue Everlasting!


    562 people who like “Sheila Morris, Author” haven’t heard from you in a while. Write a post.

    Alrighty then. This is the first time a Social Media Monitor has scolded me about too few posts so I am jumping right on it.

    Let me begin by apologizing to the 562 people who like me on my Facebook Author page, and I will add my apologies to my 706 FB friends on my personal page who apparently have no advocate and my special apologies to the 18 followers I have within that 706 friends.

    I imagine there is some overlap in these numbers since I don’t have 1,268 people that give a tinker’s damn about me to be either a friend or follower or page liker. Regardless, the Social Media Monitor has now given me an “F” for failure to post, and I have always been an overachiever so this makes me feel very bad.

    I’ve had a few mitigating circumstances this week which should count as excuses for not writing a post, but they are quite lengthy and convoluted and, in the end, probably add up to be no more viable than the dog ate my homework. Sigh.

    Hey, wait a minute. I just checked the date of my last post, and it was on the 20th. of February. If I’m not mistaken, today is only the 25th.? So I am being reprimanded for not posting in the past FIVE days?

    Whoa, Nellie.

    Attention, attention, attention Social Media Monitor: you are way too quick to jump me this week…there’s such a thing as too many posts which might lead to my being accused of having a Mouth Almighty, Tongue Everlasting which is my new favorite saying that I learned from my good friend Kati last night while I was losing money playing Shanghai.

    I see this phrase re-appearing in future posts – I can think of a prominent person at this very minute whose Tweets represent a Mouth Almighty and a Tongue Everlasting. This should be fun.

    Stay tuned, and have a fabulous weekend!

     

     

     

     

  • A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever


    University of South Carolina Lady Gamecock Kaela Davis (#3) stole the basketball from a Vandy guard and dribbled it hard down the court toward her goal as the Vandy player tried desperately to retrieve that ball from her. Gamecock teammate Allisha Gray (#10), who always has a nose for the basketball, ran full speed parallel to Davis on the other side of the Vandy guard. The trio barreled toward the goal at an amazing speed as Kaela leaped toward the backboard apparently for a difficult lay-up when all of a sudden KD made a no-look bounce pass to Gray who caught the basketball and effortlessly made the lay-up for the two-point score.

    Man, oh man. Pretty and I were sitting with our Gay Boys Basketball Buddies in our regular seats at Colonial Life Arena which are directly above and slightly to the right of the goalpost – just in the perfect position to see the three women thundering down the court and cheer the beautiful pass from Davis to Gray as the ball swished into the net. It was a Harlem Globetrotters moment.

    My words don’t do it justice, but to me, as Granny Selma used to say when she was in her right mind, that pass was a thing of beauty. Whoa, Nellie.

    Davis and Gray are both junior transfers from different schools playing their first year in the Gamecock uniforms and figuring out how to maximize their play together is no small task for Head Coach Dawn Staley, but last night’s efforts against Vanderbilt showed a maturity and presence for the whole team that was fun to watch.

    001 For every game this season, my personal heroes have been our big girls who endure heavy blows to their bodies during the games but still have a smile for the fans whether they win or lose.

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    #41 Alaina Coates

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    #22 A’ja Wilson

    Alaina and A’ja are two fierce competitors who strike terror in the hearts of their opponents when they control the rebounding and scoring in the paint. They don’t mess around, sisters and brothers. You better have on your Big Girl uniforms when you come to play against them because they will be your worst basketball nightmare if you aren’t prepared.

    The good news is we won last night – the bad news is we are getting to the end of the regular season play, and Pretty and I are wondering what we will do without the Lady Gamecocks in our everyday lives. Sigh.

    Let’s hope our post-season play goes all the way to the Final Four in Dallas this year – now that would be a memory-maker!

    (My thanks to the USC Gamecock Basketball Gameday for the unauthorized use of their pictures.)

     And thanks to our Best Candy Maker friend Dick Hubbard for another thing of beauty this week…yummy…creamy fudge…mouth-watering…Happy Belated Valentine’s Day to all our cyberspace amigos!

    dick-hubbards-fudge

  • Kellyanne’s New Chief of Staff Resigns!


    Breaking News – latest tweet from Top Dog:

    “Fake News from msnbc and cnn – WRONG DOG pic – that’s Spike!”

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    Spike has never won anything

    In an interview with the real news Fox News, Kellyanne Conway revealed she had to fire her new Chief of Staff for attaching Spike’s picture instead of the real Best in Show winner German Shepherd Rumor.

    Rumor has it Spike has connections to Russia, but that’s just an alternative fact.

  • Top Dog Salutes Best in Show via Kellyanne Conway


    The new Chief of Staff for Kellyanne Conway released the following tweet from KAC twitter account moments ago:

    “Top Dog says Congrats to Rumor, Best in Show at 2017 WKC – world’s GREATEST  Dog ever!” (picture attached)

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    Rumor, Best in Show at WKC last night

  • I don’t want another dog or another husband


     

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    My mother Selma (left) and my Aunt Lucille

    in their younger days

    My mom was relatively infamous in our family for her conversations which she uttered more like pronouncements than regular chit-chat. You know, the kind of awkward things that made everyone uncomfortable, and I do mean everyone because her speaking voice was louder than most. She had no indoor voice.

    For example, “I wish all those gay people would go back in the closet. I’d slam the door on them myself,” was a personal favorite she occasionally pulled out of abstract thin air with absolutely no relevance to what anyone else was saying. Since all my family members recognized I was a lesbian except her, that tended to be a real deal-breaker for further small talk. People coughed or mumbled something inane as they melted away from her at family gatherings. My dad’s sister Lucille could handle my mother better than anyone with just a quiet, “Now, Selma…”

    As the years went by, my mother developed more mantras that became her touchstones which I now realize she needed in her life of quiet desperation as she slipped away from herself behind the barricade of dementia that must have made her so afraid.

    “I don’t want another dog or another husband,” was one of her select quotes in the years after her second husband died of leukemia. She did have many dogs in her 85 years – but she had been no Elizabeth Taylor husband collector – only two for her.

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    Mom and her last dog Alex

    Perhaps the mantra that affected me most – even more than her preference for gay people in the closet – was, “I am never lonely, and I am never bored.” This was truly an alternative fact for her because, of course, she was both.

    My maternal grandmother had been plagued with depression in the 1960s, and my mom had been responsible for managing her treatment options. I was a teenager at the time, but I have vivid memories of my mother’s carrying my grandmother to an array of doctors, clinics and hospitals before finally bringing her home to live with my parents. Mental illness in the 1960s wasn’t pretty or easy to deal with.

    Apparently some doctor somewhere told Mom her mother needed more to do since she wasn’t working anymore. Mom tried to interest her in countless books, recipes, puzzles and finally gave her a needlepoint sewing kit to make an elaborate tablecloth and 8 napkins which, as I recall, she ended up finishing herself when my grandmother was unable to concentrate on it.

    “I am never lonely, and I am never bored,” was Mom’s final defense against an enemy she didn’t know she had and one which may or may not have had any connection to the enemy which stalked my grandmother. I’ll never know for sure because she forgot all of her mantras in the last four years I was with her – even the one about where the gay people belonged.

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