I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • Breaking News – Pretty Update


    Please pardon this interruption, but so many of our friends and family have asked about Pretty’s personal saga with her knee replacement which now includes another hospital stay this week for a second procedure three months after the original surgery. Her doctor assured me today all was well, and so I will take him at his word, although I seem to recall this was the same remark he made after the first operation. Hm.

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    Pretty’s old knee in happier times 

    with Smokey Lonesome Ollie in Texas

    Pretty is connected to a gazillion machines with blinking lights and flashing numbers that apparently have some meaning to somebody somewhere, but not to Pretty or me. The most important machine is one that keeps her knee in constant motion bending it at various angles. I have named it the Constant Motion Magic Machine because it is supposed to make her knee regain flexibility following today’s manipulation by Dr. Cool and Smooth. Here’s hoping.

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    Pretty and The Red Man on Worsham Street

    (before any problems with her left knee)

    If all goes according to plan, Pretty will be home Thursday and beginning another arduous round of physical therapy. She is very determined to bend her knee to her will; I admire her for that.

    Thank you to all of you who have called, texted, visited, brought homemade brownies with homemade whipped cream to her hospital room…or delivered Dutch comfort food to Casa de Canterbury in the form of a delicious casserole filled with meat, potatoes, cheese and cabbage… or brought brand new purple and white socks to the hospital tonight in honor of the colors of the Suffragette Movement. We are so very lucky to have friends like you in our lives. For our cyberspace friends who live in other parts of the USA and other countries around the globe, bless your hearts for caring.

    Kindness is catching on – big time.

  • Try a Little Kindness


    Our household at Casa de Canterbury has suffered a post-Election Day Depression that has cast a pall on our happiness in the past week. Charly and Spike and I have tried to rally to lift her spirits, but Pretty has wrestled with her grief and discouragement and basic lack of faith in the goodness of the American people. We are a political household – actually activists in the LGBTQ movement for 30 years – and so have lost battles in our lives to bigotry and bullying rhetoric before, but I think we had wrongly believed we had as a nation moved past the hateful and harmful to the more harmonious.

    In the midst of this overwhelming gathering of dark clouds of despair, we heard a knock at our door this afternoon. Pretty went to the door and saw a younger friend of ours named Travis who stood outside the door holding a gift bag and purple flowers. Attached to the gift bag was a wonderful letter, and I wanted to offer a portion of his letter as a perfect example of what is meant by trying a little kindness.

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    Hello my friends,

    I have been thinking of you. While I have seen a lot of craziness posted on Facebook and through other media over the results of the Presidential Election, I wanted to spread hope and comfort. So, that is why this Democrat Care package has landed on your stoop…

    Purple flowers – look at the beauty of these fine gifts of our Earth…today I want you to see how beautiful the purple is when red and blue come together…

    Chocolate…lifesavers…a nice pen…you know the pen is mightier than the sword. Use it and your voice to protect reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, criminal reform, healthcare reform…

    …if the chocolate does not work, ditch the flowers, wash the glass and pour a big glass of your favorite drink (wine, bourbon and Diet Coke all count). Drink that one glass and during that drink allow for anger, self-pity and worry, BUT never despair! When you are done reach out to me and let’s see how we can make a difference!

    All my love,

    Travis

    Pretty and I were both moved by the letter, flowers, gift bag goodies and a card that all combined to make a Care package we will never forget. As he left, I looked at the sky and thought I detected a few rays of sunlight piercing the darkness that had been hovering over the gigantic oaks in our front yard. I think Pretty saw them, too.

    Kindness really matters to everyone. Pass it on.

     

     

  • Suzanne (Part I)


     

    Thank you for Suzanne and all the other music you gave us. Rest in peace, Leonard Cohen.

    (Reblogged from February 28, 2014)

    Sheila Morris's avatarI'll Call It Like I See It

    Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river

    You can hear the boats go by, you can stay the night beside her

    And you know that she’s half-crazy, but that’s why you want to be there.

    And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her,

    She feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China

    Then she gets you on her wave-length and lets the river answer

    that you’ve always been her lover.

    And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind

    And you know that you can trust her,

    for you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.

    ————- Leonard Cohen

    Alrighty then.  Why Suzanne?  Why Leonard Cohen?  All I can tell you is that my friend Donna and her partner Jenn served delicious fruit as a healthy dessert choice to go with the German chocolate…

    View original post 422 more words

  • A Little Good News and Sweet Dreams


    When I was a little tomboy growing up in Grimes County, Texas, which was one of the poorest counties in the rural southeastern Piney Woods side of the state, my dad’s brother, my Uncle Ray who lived in the big city of Houston, was a huge country music fan…and when I say huge, I do mean huge. He was like the most faithful Saturday night radio Grand Ole Opry  and Louisiana Hayride kind of country music fan.

    The rest of my family was luke-warm to what are now considered the country music classics because they were all gospel music folks, snow white Southern Baptist church music kind of folks: quartets, singing conventions on Sunday afternoons with dinner on the grounds, Baptist Hymnal songs played on the organ and piano on Sunday mornings for the congregational singing.

    Out of that place I began to sing solos in the little country church we attended before I could read the words to the songs. My mother taught them to me by repeating the words over and over until I could remember them. Then she would have me stand on a little folding chair on the floor just below the minister’s pulpit on Sunday morning to sing the “special music” for the service while she accompanied me on the piano.

    I could look out on a congregation of maybe 50 people that included my two grandmothers, my dad, my grandfather, and at least two of my uncles…sometimes one more if my Uncle Ray came from Houston for Sunday lunch at my grandmother’s house. They all beamed back at me with love and great appreciation for my singing talents.

    So much so that my Uncle Ray paid me the highest compliment he could give me one Sunday when I graduated to standing without the chair and actually was able to read the words to the music on my own. I must have been around eight years old at the time.

    Sheila Rae, he said, you sing as good as Patsy Cline. You should be on the radio on the Opry or the Louisiana Hayride.

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    Well, now this suggestion made quite the impression on my prepubescent self – remember this was in the 1950s before American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, The Voice and reality TV – and that comment sparked my interest in country music that has lasted for the past 60 years. Could I sing as well as Patsy Cline? Clearly not, but I could fall in love with her music.

    In times of trouble and deep distress, therefore, I am more apt to listen to George Jones than I am Hootie and the Blowfish or the new country sound of Darius Rucker. Yesterday I resisted MSNBC, Blue Bloods, In the Heat of the Night, a tennis tournament in Singapore, Ellen and Sharon Osborne… and found myself with the Country Classics. It was good for what ails you.

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    Here’s a portion of my playlist…

    That Woman I Had Wrapped Around My Finger

    Came Unwound

    (George Strait)

    A Wound Time Can’t Erase

    (Stonewall Jackson)

    Blue Moon with Heartache

    (Rosanne Cash)

    It’s a Long, Long Way to Georgia

    (Don Gibson)

    If I Miss You Again Tonight

    (Tommy Overstreet)

    Ghost Riders in the Sky

    (Johnny Cash)

    Sweet Dreams

    (Patsy Cline)

    I Met a Friend of Yours Today

    (Mel Street)

    Don’t Fight the Feelings of Love

    (Charley Pride)

    Together Again

    (EmmyLou Harris)

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    The Right Combination

    (Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner)

    A Little Good News

    (Anne Murray)

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    I’ll let the titles do the talking.

    Until we meet again, I leave you with this Irish blessing: may all of your troubles be less and your blessings be more and may nothing but happiness come through your door.

     

  • Back to the Basics: Seinfeld, Hot Dog Baskets and Yushino


    Time to focus on the basics once again following the gut-wrenching defeat that was Election Day at Casa de Canterbury. Pretty and I stayed up until 3 o’clock this morning to watch the results by ourselves after our last two survivors from the disastrous Victory Party gave up a little after midnight. The small gathering got off to a rollicking start around 7 p.m. as the smiley Rachel Maddow and Brian Williams practically glowed with excitement and anticipation of the final Glass Ceiling having a big old crack in it. Just like the media, our friends came in with Victory on their minds. 

    We had tons of food and drink and dessert was a wonderful cake decorated with pink roses. “Girl Power” was what I asked the cake decorator to write in pink on the white icing across the top – and thought how clever I was. Pretty insisted we couldn’t cut the cake until Hillary Clinton won, and we all said that was fine. Plenty of other things to eat.

    Our friends Nekki and Francie brought a gigantic bottle of champagne which we kept chilled in the refrigerator to drink when we sliced the cake. Plenty of other things to drink.

    The American political process was in full display unfolding before our eyes.

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    As the evening wore on, Rachel and Brian’s expressions began to shift from joyful to puzzled to we can’t believe what we’re seeing to shit house mouse. And our little group watched as the Democratic Party defied the pollsters and pundits and were able to snatch Defeat from the jaws of Victory in this the 2016 Presidential Election Year.

    About midway to midnight, I asked Pretty if we could go ahead and cut the cake, but Pretty said absolutely not. Things would turn around soon. Everyone else nodded…but with less conviction and longing glances at the cake.

    At 10 the mood in our living room was becoming as chilly as our champagne, and a few people left to go home to watch in the privacy of their own living rooms. Who could blame them.

    But then two latecomers arrived and that helped us focus on something other than the returns for a few minutes as they settled in with food and drinks. 

    What about the cake? I asked, but Pretty held out until around midnight when she put her head in her hands and began crying that it was over. You might as well cut the cake. Which I did – but by then no one really wanted a piece. We never opened the champagne.

    And so today I’ve decided to put the election and cake behind me and return to the basic comfort food groups which for me means a hot dog basket complete with fries and slaw from Rush’s, a local burger chain. My TV was turned to re-runs of Seinfeld tonight instead of the 24/7 news channel MSNBC which has lost me for the foreseeable future. Goodbye to Rachel and Brian for a while. I’d like to say it was fun but then, it wasn’t. 

    As this day draws thankfully to a close, I will turn my attention to playing the numbers game Yushino with my friends online. I find numbers to be more reliable on the Yushino board than they may be elsewhere so that makes me happy.

    And what makes me even happier is my wife and dogs Charly and Spike are already in bed waiting for me. That’s true Girl Power.

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    Tomorrow is another day, and I remain hopeful with Maya Angelou that I will still rise to meet it.