Who can find the cardinal in our crape myrtle tree with the same pose as the always stoic cardinal impostor on our bird bath?
summertime sleepover fun on a June weekend with granddaughters Ella and Molly who prefer to decorate their Naynay (me) with magical stickers
sleepover finally adds sleep with Ella clearly exhausted, Molly content with her place between Ella and Nana (aka Pretty) who was happy as she always is with granddaughters
Woody Woodpecker has tough job but attacks with vigor
while I watch on my early morning June walk
to add excitement for the month of June, Nana rescued three little kittens who had lost much more than their mittens which makes for high drama for Naynay who is allergic – help!
Please contact me for adoption screening
smortex@aol.com or 803-348-2767
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Wimbledon starts Monday – hooray for indoor TV that mitigates the horrendous heat! Hopefully it will be easier to watch than Roland Garros which required millennial intervention to follow along. Bless our technically challenged hearts.
Ten years ago today the mass murder of nine individuals gathered in their church for a bible study and prayer meeting struck closer to our home than prior atrocities. A twenty-one-year-old young man from Columbia, South Carolina, where Pretty and I live, drove 115 miles to Charleston, South Carolina, attended the prayer meeting in the Mother Emanuel AME Church, and proceeded to slay nine people who meant no harm to him. Lest we forget I’m reminding myself and you with my original post on June 17, 2015.
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The Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut. An army training center in Fort Hood, Texas. The Washington, DC Navy Yard. A movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. The Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Tucson, Arizona, and the resilience of Rep. Gabby Giffords. An immigration center in Binghamton, New York. Geneva County, Alabama. Seal Beach in Orange County, California. Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston, South Carolina.
Massacre. Mass slaughter, indiscriminate killing, mass murder, mass execution – all of these are words that define massacre according to the Oxford American Thesaurus.
Today as President Barack Obama addressed the country on national television, he did so for the fourteenth time in his presidency to try to offer words of comfort to a bereaved community and a bewildered country in the midst of the horrors of massacres within our own borders. To borrow a phrase from a former American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was speaking one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1945, today is a “date which will live in infamy.” Yesterday in a sister city in the lowcountry of our state, the unspeakable happened; and we joined the names that will live in infamy in this country and around the world for years to come.
I have watched President Obama in these televised messages to the nation on too many occasions, and I was usually struck by the powerful personal images of hope and comfort that he offered. Today, however, I witnessed an additional layer of anger and frustration as he once again spoke about our lack of ability as a nation to give up our guns. I saw a President whose hair is almost totally snow-white and a man whose face looks much older than his years. I wondered if this president’s legacy was going to be Paul Newman’s Cool Hand Luke’s character’s classic lines: What we have here is a failure to communicate.
We have a President who rode into town as a new sheriff committed to compromise who found a posse determined to derail him. They just never mixed. And gun control? Well, that has always been just some people talking.
We grieved for the massacres in the east and the west and states in-between. We truly grieved for these losses and for the families and friends that lost people they loved…people they never even had an opportunity to say goodbye to. But the closer the tragedies are – and this one couldn’t be much closer since the suspect is from the greater Columbia metropolitan area – the deeper the anguish and the anger.
The world continues to rotate on its axis, but it seems slightly tilted to me. We are off track somehow. We have taught falsehoods to our children through our messages at home in the words we speak and the silences we allow. For example, it’s okay to hate people who are different from us. Nelson Mandela said we are not born hating, and he was right. We learn to hate as surely as we learn to ride a tricycle. Our parents teach us to hate. Our friends encourage us to be bullies. Our heroes send us conflicting images of who the good guys and bad guys are. We have national leaders in highly visible positions who don’t play well together in their houses of Congress. Shame on you. Shame on me for re-electing you year after year to continue cycles of contention and confrontation.
And so tonight I am in mourning for the survivors of The Charleston Massacre, and I find no words to adequately express my sorrow for them, for their church family, for the city of Charleston, for my state and for my nation.
Pretty’s birthday party at home of dear friends Dick and Curtis
Saskia and Pretty all smiles while Curtis keeps watch over candles
Dick’s birthday was the day after Pretty’s – much merriment at the dinner table
(Dick, Bill, and Saskia share laughs)
a toast for Saskia who became an American citizen this month
she and her son Finn have been family to us for as long as I can remember
Curtis, Saskia, Finn, Pretty, Dick, me, and Bill
thanks to Curtis for the group photo!
A jolly group – thanks to 14-year-old Finn for lowering the group’s average age, and no thanks to Dick and me for doing the opposite.
Happy Birthday to Pretty and Dick! We celebrate friendships that have stood the test of decades with laughter and love – that anchor holds us together, and we are grateful.
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P.S. Strawberry birthday cake and chocolate covered strawberries courtesy Always Original Bakery in West Columbia. Strawberry cobbler courtesy of Curtis. Strawberry jam made by Saskia. Who thinks Pretty loves strawberries??!! Yummy!!
In April, 2022, I published this piece which has always been one of my favorites. Fast forward to May, 2025, and well, you’ll see…
For my actual birthday week, Pretty took me and our granddaughters to the zoo. She carried two-month-old Molly in her car seat, diaper bag on her back, often carrying two-year-old 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. Pretty has never been known for her patience.
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…
Ella danced with a spoon to the music in her mind
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
(lyrics to I Hope You Dance by Tia Sillers and Mark Sanders)
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.
I hope they both dance…
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And they did!
Molly and her dance partner in the school recitalthis past week
Ella with magical moves – no spoon necessary
Hey, wait a second. Who’s this little boy?
Three months after our zoo trip in 2022, Caleb was born to Caroline’s twin sister, Chloe, and her husband, Seth. Caleb loves to dance, too, and we love him. God bless the children.
(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.)
Pretty and I were privileged to share our home and family for the past five years with a little old man named Carl. He was supposedly 12 years of age when he came our way, quite a mess health wise but full of courage and spunk. Carl’s world had shrunk dramatically in the past few months due to a total loss of hearing, limited vision, stage four heart murmur, and arthritis in his back legs that made any movements difficult. His sideways gait seemed to make his sundowner pacing in the afternoons more agitated. On Friday, May 9th., 2025, we said our final goodbyes to this terrier mix. Our pain was one we recognized and remembered, a pain that was still fresh from Spike’s passing six weeks ago.
Carl reminded me a little of The Red Man –
I hope they get to meet somewhere to swap stories
Red could tell Carl about the Lexington County Animal Shelter where Pretty rescued him, and Carl would have a few stories of his own that only he knew. Pretty also rescued him; they could compare notes on how she managed to keep them without running their redemption past any other family members. Pretty knew best.
Carl in July, 2020when he came to us
Carl the dog with nine lives in April, 2022
Carl on patrol in back yard– he loved his yard
Carl looking dapper after grooming (April, 2022)
Carl sharing space with Charly next to my chair in den– 2024
Carl in April, 2025
Pretty and I still grieve the losses of Sassy, Smokey Lonesome Ollie, Paw Licker Annie, The Red Man, Tennis Ball Obsessed Chelsea, and six weeks ago our other old man Spike – Carl was loved with that same passion. We will miss his spunk, spirit, bravado, loyalty, and adoration – our home won’t be the same without him. His urn was engraved Carl Williams Morris: A Warrior Heart.
May he go to the Place of Endless Treats and rest in peace.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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