(I looked over my posts in 2022 to determine which ones were favorites as decided by my followers in cyberspace, and then I picked one from your favs that was in my top three to post again. Enjoy.)
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder, You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger, May you never take one single breath for granted, God forbid love ever leave you empty handed, I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean, Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens, Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance, And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.
I hope you dance… I hope you dance…
I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance, Never settle for the path of least resistance, Livin’ might mean takin’ chances, but they’re worth takin’, Lovin’ might be a mistake, but it’s worth makin’, Don’t let some Hell bent heart leave you bitter, When you come close to sellin’ out reconsider, Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance, And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.
I hope you dance… I hope you dance.
(Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along, Tell me who wants to look back on their years And wonder where those years have gone.)
lyrics to “I Hope You Dance” by Tia Sillers and Mark Sanders
For my actual birthday this week, Pretty took me and our granddaughters to the zoo. She carried Molly in her car seat, diaper bag on her back, often carrying Ella in her left arm while I tagged along with my two bionic knees. We had a small parade of our own. Please know that I offered to rent a stroller when we entered, but Pretty said the line to rent one was too long to wait. There were two people ahead of me.
The day was a memory maker, and Pretty deserves an award for creating a magical time for the four of us. I love all my girls.
Last week I saw our 3 year old granddaughter Ella trying her best to strike our Pride flag with a broom she found in the back yard. I watched as she struggled to swing the broom handle several times in the air with increasing agitation each time she flailed without success.
“Ella,” I said. “What in the world are you doing? That’s our Pride flag – it’s very important to your nanas.”
“I’m waiting for the candy to fall,” she answered with a withering look in my direction.
Lol.
Ella and Pretty at the Gamecock Women’s basketball game several days later
“Nana, did any candy ever fall out of your Pride flag?”
When Carport Kitty (may she rest in peace) first started hanging around in our carport more than a year ago, a larger comparatively healthy looking gray cat which I now know is a type of Tabby attacked the smaller frail Calico we named CPK when she walked toward her food bowl one afternoon. I then jumped to the conclusion that the larger gray cat was malicious so I named this interloper Bully Cat. Later on I found it strange that CPK always left Bully Cat some of her food – she seemed to be friends with this cat I chased off every time I caught him lingering over her food bowl. And when I say chased off, I’m not talking about chasing in a nice way.
How could Bully Cat be mean if CPK liked him?
Regardless of my high drama trying to scare him away, the Bully Cat stayed close to CPK for as long as she lived. Since her death five weeks ago, Bully Cat and another CPK amigo I dubbed Tuxedo Cat have wandered through our carport periodically. I told Pretty they were grieving for her, but turns out they were interested in the reliable food chain that once belonged to Carport Kitty.
No one will be surprised I put out a small amount of kibble in the morning for Tuxedo Cat when she triggered our security lights the way CPK used to do. Sigh. I miss that little creature every day.
Tux usually shares with Bully Cat like Carport Kitty used to do.
This morning, however, I looked out my kitchen door and saw the Bully Cat hissing at Tux, his back arched for battle, teeth bared. What in the world had gotten into him? And then I saw it: a pink rhinestone infused collar around his/her thick neck. A light bulb went off in my tiny brain that I had just seen Bully Cat sharing a morning meal with Tux in our carport. No sign of a pink rhinestone collar five minutes before.
The only explanation I could think of when I told Pretty the story was the Bully Cat I had berated for months was really Carport Kitty’s friend – there was a mean Tabby in our neighborhood, but it wasn’t him. I felt awful for my mistake, my unwillingness to change my original judgment which was a simple case of mistaken identity. (Bully Cat has been renamed Belli Cat by Pretty, same initials BC.)
No one lives to be seventy-six years old without making blunders, but this one was a doozy. I have no excuses, but I hope I’ve been reminded of a valuable lesson about looking twice before I jump to judgment…sometimes our mistakes have a ripple effect that hurts the innocent.
If we’re lucky, we get a second chance.
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Today is the 1st day of December. Pretty and I want to share a miraculous Christmas cactus we somehow managed not to kill in the five months since she brought it home from one of her treasure hunts. Enjoy.
“Do these need to be cooked, like really cooked?” Pretty asked as she took the three large catering size aluminum pans from our fridge Thanksgiving afternoon. She placed the pans on top of our stove – they were so big they covered the top. I had come into the kitchen to help because I was really hungry. Old people like to eat their noon meal at noon, and it was already 1:30 by the time the pans, which were to be our meal, were rescued from the fridge. We both stared at the contents: dressing, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese.
“I think they might need to be cooked,” I answered. “I can’t believe there were no instructions for people like us.” People like us meaning those who never cooked anything except breakfast with a menu of grits and toast. White bread toast.
“Oh, wait!” Pretty exclaimed. “I think they gave me a sheet of paper when they handed the pans to me, but I left it in the car.” She promptly turned and hurried to the car, returning with an 8 x 11 sheet of typewritten Thanksgiving Dinner Cooking Instructions. The word microwave wasn’t mentioned anywhere which meant we were in trouble.
Macaroni & Cheese – Preheat oven to 350. Loosen foil cover.Bake 15-20 minutes covered,then remove foil and allow to finish cooking another 20-30 minutes, until bubbly. If macaroni looks dry during cooking, add a little milk and stir.
Uh, oh, I thought as I mentally calculated the nearly an hour amount of time required to cook the mac and cheese. Hm. Dressing cooking instructions were actually a few minutes longer than mac & cheese which left us with mashed potatoes as our only hope for something quick. (Why just three choices? Because we are going to a Friendsgiving the day after Thanksgiving and we were assigned to bring the “sides.”) To Pretty who is a pescaterian the word “side” is a synonym for carbs, although I was asked if these three sounded good. I was quick to say yes; I liked everything.
I made a spur of the moment decision to work on the mashed potatoes because they offered an option to be removed from the aluminum pan and heated thoroughly on the stove top in a different pan. So we took three spoonfuls of mashed potatoes from the huge aluminum pan and put them in a pot on a large burner on top of our stove. I tried to speed up the cooking process (remember I was the one who was already starving) by adding a splash of half n half. Pretty came up with the idea to add butter, but she added so much butter I thought I should add more half n half to counteract it. Which I did. Unfortunately, by the time we finished adding things, we ended up with potato soup.
Pretty grated cheddar cheese for me to add to the smashed potatoes because she knew I loved all things cheddar cheese. She heated the gravy the Cafe had supplied and added to hers. Delicious. Not exactly what we had expected, but an important lesson for our Friendsgiving contribution. We will definitely need to get started much earlier on the sides than we originally thought…plus beware tampering with the cooking instructions.
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Our granddaughters were with us the day before Thanksgiving when we drove up to Pretty’s antique empire in Little Mountain to meet Ella’s favorite Aunts Darlene and Dawne. We had a wonderful family time together with lunch in the Cafe and shopping in Pretty’s booths before we loaded up our aluminum pans in the grannymobile for the short trip home. Dawne always captures the fun with her camera, and I would have added her fab pictures if only I knew how to send photos from my new iPhone. Will add later!
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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