I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Personal

  • if cats have nine lives, how many lives do dogs have?


    we tried to warn you, Charly said

    Charly’s loud barks startled Pretty and me late Friday night when she jumped to her feet from her bed next to me in the den, staring toward the darkness of our backyard. Spike joined in with her from his sofa in the living room.

    What’s up with the dogs? I asked Pretty who shook her head as she scrolled Twitter from her chair for any tidbits about the first round of the Final Four women’s basketball games we watched that night. I glanced behind me from my comfortable recliner in the direction of Charly’s gaze but didn’t see any lights from our backyard motion detection devices, sighed, gave Charly a withering look for disturbing my focus on the second half of the UConn/Iowa game, raised the volume on the TV until Charly and Spike eventually stopped barking.

    Some time later I noticed our elderly 100% deaf dog Carl wasn’t in his usual spot on the rug in front of the fireplace screen. Do you know where Carl is, I asked Pretty who looked up from her phone in the direction of the kitchen. Probably in the kitchen, she said. I got up and checked his alternate sleeping spot in the kitchen, but he wasn’t there. That’s odd, I thought.

    He must be outside, but I’ll take a look, I said to Pretty who nodded. Charly seemed eager to go out with me.

    As we walked around the swimming pool in the chilly air, the motion detection lights clicked on to reveal what looked like the shape of a very large rat swimming barely below the surface of the water at the deep end of the pool opposite where Charly and I were standing. She ran around to that side of the pool as I followed her.

    The moving object came into focus when I approached, and my blurry eyes finally recognized Carl’s little terrier head barely above the surface of the water but still moving with his short arthritic legs keeping him afloat.

    I can’t swim so I started yelling for Pretty who couldn’t hear me over the TV in the den. I walked as fast as I could to the back door yelling Carl’s in the pool, Carl’s in the pool!!

    Pretty jumped up, ran past me to the swimming pool where Charly was still standing guard over Carl, and the next thing I saw while I tried to reach them was Pretty diving into the pool to lift Carl out of the freezing water, swimming him to the nearest ladder.

    Minutes later we had wrapped the shivering Carl in towels and blankets in front of gas logs blazing in the den. I held him while an equally shivering Pretty changed out of her wet clothes. We had no idea how long he had been in the pool, how much water he swallowed, whether he would survive the whole ordeal.

    You’re my hero, I said to Pretty when she walked into the den in dry clothes. She shook her head, but I repeated No, you are really my hero. Carl would be gone without your brave rescue. Let’s hope he pulls through tonight, Pretty replied.

    ********************

    Carl two days later – with a look that might say you should have listened to Charly and Spike Friday night. First, you take me on a car trip across the country to a basketball tournament in Albany, New York and when I make it home from that adventure this week, you nearly let me drown in the swimming pool. Talk about March Madness, and thank God for Pretty and April, if you don’t mind me saying.

    You know what, Carl? I don’t mind your saying, and I couldn’t agree more.

  • March Madness on the Road with Pretty and Carl from South Carolina to New York!


    Our family road trips following the Texas years have been far and few between as my cousin Martin used to say, but March Madness brings the passions that are often an impetus for wild yearnings to be a part of something bigger than our living rooms. Before you could say Go Gamecocks, Carl and I were passengers in our Grannymobile being driven by Pretty to watch our Gamecock women’s basketball team play in the Sweet Sixteen in Albany, New York, a mere 853 miles from our home in West Columbia, South Carolina.

    We were welcomed by North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York on our trip – but Virginia’s Blue Star Memorial Highway pet rest area was Carl’s personal favorite. Pretty and I oohed and aahed over the beautiful Shenandoah Valley in Virginia between the Blue Ridge mountains to the east and the Alleghenies to the west while Carl slept in the back seat. He missed breathtaking vistas during that 140-mile portion of the trip but didn’t seem bothered when he woke up in West Virginia.

    Gamecock mascot Cocky cheers with fans at team send-off in their Albany hotel on Game Day, Baby!

    Associate Head Coach Lisa Boyer and me in hotel lobby

    (hm. I possibly had cocktail before this picture was taken)

    Head Coach Dawn Staley leads team through hotel lobby to bus

    basketball buddy Brian, me and Pretty in MVP Arena on Game Day

    basketball buddy Robert with new Gamecock friends we met at game

    Brian, Robert, me and Pretty thrilled as Gamecock women wins in Albany send them to 2024 Final Four!

    Consider the 2023-24 South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team which at the end of the regular season + the SEC tournament + the first two games of the 2024 NCAA women’s basketball tournament + the Sweet Sixteen + the Elite Eight = the only undefeated team on the road to Cleveland, Ohio, for the Final Four. Go Gamecocks!

    ****************

    We’ll be watching March Madness this weekend at home from our living room – still trying to catch our breaths from road trip – catching up with laundry, too.

    (Thanks to Robert, Brian, and Pretty for photos used today.)

  • Still I Rise


    Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com

    Today is Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter for Christians around the world who will focus particularly on the miracles of resurrections in words and songs during the next seven days. He is Risen, the New Testament gospels proclaim. Hallelujah.

    When I think of resurrection, I hear the rich voice of a Black woman named Maya Angelou reciting a favorite poem:

    Still I Rise

    You may write me down in history
    With your bitter, twisted lies,
    You may tread me in the very dirt
    But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

    Does my sassiness upset you?
    Why are you beset with gloom?
    ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
    Pumping in my living room.

    Just like moons and like suns,
    With the certainty of tides,
    Just like hopes springing high,
    Still I’ll rise.

    Did you want to see me broken?
    Bowed head and lowered eyes?
    Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
    Weakened by my soulful cries.

    Does my haughtiness offend you?
    Don’t you take it awful hard
    ‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
    Diggin’ in my own back yard.

    You may shoot me with your words,
    You may cut me with your eyes,
    You may kill me with your hatefulness,
    But still, like air, I’ll rise.

    Does my sexiness upset you?
    Does it come as a surprise
    That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
    At the meeting of my thighs?

    Out of the huts of history’s shame
    I rise
    Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
    I rise
    I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
    Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
    Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
    I rise
    Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
    I rise
    Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
    I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
    I rise
    I rise
    I rise.

    Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

    ********************

    Still, like air, we can rise. Hallelujah.

     

  • March Gladness


    wishing our friends in cyberspace March Gladness!

    particularly nine-day-old Penelope a/k/a Penny

    Penny is the newest addition to our good friend Susan’s farm in Elgin – Susan loves her Gamecock women’s basketball team almost as much as she loves Penny.

    Here’s to new life in the spring, renewed hope in a future that includes another national title for Coach Staley and her Gamecock women in the NCAA tournament starting today in Columbia!

    Go Gamecocks!

  • we are all Wonder Women


    Four years ago I published this piece and today felt a need to remind ourselves and others of our power. To whom it may concern: Do Not Try to Control our Bodies. Bad idea. We will remember in November.

    Huge thanks to my good Sister Marla Wood for posting this powerful image on her FB page. I thought when I saw it, wow, this is a great theme for Women’s History Month. Let’s get down to it.

    In March, 2021 women are in powerful positions across the globe. Vice President Kamala Harris cast a deciding vote in the US Senate March 04th. to break a tie (50 Democrats for – 50 Republicans against) beginning debate on President Biden’s massive $1.9 trillion Covid Relief Bill approved by the House of Representatives. Bi-partisan support for the bill? No, not really.

    But the first woman veep in American history who also serves constitutionally as President of the Senate said hey boys, either jump on this train to help people who are sick, jobless, grieving the loss of loved ones, struggling to keep food on the table and/or a roof over their heads for their children because of a pandemic the previous administration chose to ignore as science fiction – or don’t. This train is leaving the station.

    Celebrate Women’s History Month by discovering the Wonder Woman you are!

    *****************************

    Stay safe, stay sane and please stay tuned.