by sheila morris
Breaking News – latest tweet from Top Dog:
“Fake News from msnbc and cnn – WRONG DOG pic – that’s Spike!”
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.
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)
Rumor, Best in Show at WKC last night
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.
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.
…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.
Sixteen years ago today I stepped onto an airplane with Pretty to begin a spontaneous first trip to Cancun, Mexico. I had no way of knowing the day would be the beginning of the most important adventure of my life because at that moment I was more nervous than I possibly had ever been in my previous fifty-four years. Petrified.
First of all, I never did anything spur-of-the-moment and this trip had been planned for exactly two days. Secondly, I had taken off work days during the week to make the trip – I rarely took days off from work. And third, I wanted to impress Pretty with my spontaneity and reckless abandon because I thought I needed all the help I could get to change our fledgling romance into a full-bloomed happening.
As we landed in Atlanta in the early morning, I was disappointed to see the airport bar didn’t open until 9 o’clock, but I made sure we waited in chairs that faced the bar so that I would be the first person to race in for a screwdriver when the gate was raised. I needed fortifying.
When we touched down in Cancun, I had been fortified again by the stewardess who served spirits in the air; my spirits were high by the time we landed. Pretty, on the other hand, remained loyal to her Diet Cokes.
The Cancun trip was memorable for more reasons than I can discuss in this PG blog, but one of Pretty’s favorite stories from the trip was our floating in an inner tube down a section of river beside one of the tourist stops we made on a guided tour outside Cancun. Once again, I had been fortified by tequila shots I happily shared with our waiter at lunch and agreed to dash over to wait in line for our turn to hop into a shiny black inner tube with Pretty to join scores of other fun-loving gringos enjoying the sun as they leisurely hand-paddled their make-believe boats down the beautiful, calm river.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten to mention my water phobia to Pretty who was quite taken aback when I sat frozen on the top of the tube and was unable to help paddle it. The tequila shots were no match for my fear of falling out of the tube into the river.
Gone was any more pretense of the reckless adventurer – my true sober self revealed itself to Pretty when she had to jump out of the tube and swim to shore – pulling the tube and me along with her. She always laughs when she tells this story.
We both loved the trip, and we both agree it was one of the most fun times we’ve had. It was the beginning of an amazing life that continues to produce laughter on a daily basis. We are lucky, and we know it.
So this is an anniversary we can celebrate today, but we will also celebrate our first anniversary on April 24th, the day we legally married in 2016.
Why not celebrate both?
Thank you, Pretty. Where you lead, I will follow…if you need me to be with you, I will be there.
having dinner in Cancun – February 09, 2001
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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