I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Reflections

  • Celebrate Good Times!


    What do weddings have in common with the Southeastern Conference women’s basketball tournament championships?

    Ding, ding, ding – and the answer is The Daily Double or, in the case of the 2017 Lady Gamecocks, The Annual Triple. That’s right, Sports Fans. This year’s Lady Gs are the gifts that keep on giving – over the weekend they won their third straight SEC Tournament Championship much to the delight of 8,000 fans who drove 100 miles north from Columbia to Greenville, South Carolina which was the site of this year’s tournament.

    (By the way, my new best friend ESPN analyst Nell Fortner was in the stands for the final game Sunday afternoon and finally “came out” as a Gamecock fan after the game when she donned an official baseball cap for the SEC Champions. Nell, Yes!)

    A’ja Wilson and Kaela Davis made the All-tournament team and A’ja was also named the Most Outstanding Player of the week to add to her laurels as SEC Player of the Year for the regular season. You know what I love about her? Everything. She plays with grit and gusto, a never-say-quit spirit that inspires her teammates to focus and finish.

    As for the rest of the Lady Gamecocks, you know what I love about them? Everything.

    As for Coach Dawn Staley? How do I love thee – let me count the ways…

    Which brings me to the weddings. Saturday afternoon I skipped the semi-finals of the basketball tournament to attend another event that made my heart sing. Two young lesbians were married in a gorgeous ceremony attended by their biggest “fans,” the family and friends who promised to stand with them as they began their life together.

    The setting was a pastoral one outdoors on a lovely farm at sunset. As the colors in the sky changed from blue to shades of pink and red, the two brides exchanged their personal vows mixed with humor, promises to be faithful and most of all, to love. The smiles on their faces as they turned to walk down the aisle between the rows of white chairs and benches for the guests were, I’m sorry I can’t think of another word, radiant.

    The party afterwards was perfect with tons of food, drinks and be merry to the tune of live music in the farm’s version of a barn which was way too fancy for anything with four hooves. For sure everyone there had two feet – and most of them were dancing. One of my favorite moments was the first dances with the brides and their fathers…

    A wedding and a 3-peat SEC Championship – a beginning and a finish – both the best of times and causes for celebrations.

    Life is good.

     

  • 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.

    001

    #41 Alaina Coates

    002

    #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

  • 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)

    003

    Rumor, Best in Show at WKC last night

  • I don’t want another dog or another husband


     

    011

    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.

    001

    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.

    002

  • Despite Countless Warnings, I…


    …browsed through the AOL news this morning. I know, I know. My friend Dick Hubbard is shaking his head in dismay if he is reading this right now. “Please don’t read the AOL news,” he’s warned me over and over again. “You’ll be sorry.”

    Ha, ha, ha, said I to myself. What could happen on a Sunday morning that would either (a) bewilder me (b) mildly annoy me or (c) raise the level of my blood pressure which has been WAY too high recently. Thank goodness for my wellness exam that uncovered my old friend Hypertension who my doctor reminded me was the Silent Killer. More meds, please. Thank you very much.

    When I have distractions like the Australian Open for two weeks or the current Gamecock men’s and women’s basketball season or the Gilmore Girls original series on Netflix with Pretty every night or my cyberspace Words with Friends, Yushino and Word Bubbles or God forbid, I actually read a book or even more unlikely, work on my new short story which has so many threads I can’t figure out how to put Humpty Dumpty together again or who shot who which for a mystery is troubling – I really have no time to read the AOL news.

    Today, as I was hopelessly bored while I waited for Pretty to get up and get dressed for our brunch with Pretty Too and Pretty Too+ later this morning, I mistakenly read a few stories in the news and found a few that piqued my interest and, sadly, fit my categories. Sigh.

    (a) Bewildering – HGTV Flip or Flop stars Christina El Moussa and Tarek El Moussa who are apparently in the process of a divorce were together at an investment seminar in Las Vegas.

    This was bewildering to me since the only reason I even know who these people are is because I watch them at my orthopedist’s office for the two hours I wait to see him but I had no idea they were getting a divorce. I also never know whether to flip or flop.

    (a-1) More and more Texans are doing “doomsday digging” – the survivalist bunker business is booming these days. Seriously? The mind races with underground shelters fighting for territory with moles that are frantically fleeing to Mexico.

    (b) Truly annoying – Kellyanne Conway has hired a chief of staff. I really don’t know what to think about that and the fact that my tax dollars are paying for her to have a chief of staff. What good can come of this? Hm…perhaps the chief of staff can help to connect her mouth to her brain which would be a monumental achievement. I heard Ivanka Trump will be designing the wardrobe for Kellyanne’s new hire.

    (b-1) The foods for a better sex life are, unfortunately, not in my basic food groups; sugar, the WORST food in the world to eat if you want any kind of good health, IS, unfortunately, my basic food group.

    (c) The Trump cabinet and its $1 trillion-dollar connection to Exxon – now that raises my blood pressure, I’m sure.

    Enough of this. Pretty is up and ready to go to brunch, thank goodness. And tomorrow the Lady Gamecocks play the number one team in the nation, UCONN.  I will avoid the news like the plague this week and faithfully take my lisinopril every day. Can’t say the same about avoiding sugar.

    Oh, well. You can’t have everything.

    Stay tuned.