I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: happy new year

  • The In-Between Years

    The In-Between Years


    This post was originally made on December 31, 2012 – many of you might have missed it, and others will be reminded perhaps of what you were feeling on that New Year’s Eve ten years ago when you read it for the first time.

    Through the good or lean years and for all the in-between years is a line from a Frank Sinatra classic All The Way. As I lay 2012 to rest for a final countdown before the ball drops in Times Square in New York City tonight, I ask myself to rate the year as good, lean or in-between. Understand this is a subjective, biased, prejudiced and totally personal evaluation. It meets none of the standards for any Academy of Anything and as such, is not subject to review by a replay official. I’m not sure if the year passed as quickly for you as it did for me, but I confess mine seemed to pass faster than a falling star so I hope you have a notated calendar to refresh your memories as mine does for me.

    The first day of 2012 I was in Texas and spent New Year’s Day with my mother who lived in a personal care residence with two other older women and the two wonderful sisters who cared for all of them. She was in the severe stage of her dementia and, although I had no way of knowing it on that day, she wouldn’t survive the year;  neither would the other two women who shared the home and enjoyed my New Year’s visit. I’ve always loved women of any age, and these were some of the most entertaining ever.  It was a good start to the new year.

    IMG_5392

    Mom

    IMG_5394

    Miss Ann

    IMG_5393

    Miss Virginia

    Whenever I’m in Texas I always have great visits with my favorite Aunt Lucille who lives in Beaumont, one of my least favorite Texas towns. My aunt will be ninety-three years old in 2013 and is an avid reader and crossword puzzle aficionado. She lives now in an independent living apartment in a retirement community in Beaumont. The nearness of neighbors and a standing dinner group of six women from her building in the late afternoon for dinner suit her social nature, her need to be out and about. Movies? Politics? TV shows? Books? Ask my aunt about any of these and she’s in her element with an attitude toward life that says hey take your best shot at me, but I’m hanging in for as long as I can. In 2012 I saw her more than a dozen times which was more than I’d visited her in one year…ever.  Each visit lifted my spirits and was just plain fun.

    IMG_3556

    My favorite Aunt Lucille

    The year confirmed my status as a bi-stateual with extended periods of time in Texas and South Carolina plus keeping the roads hot from here to there and back. My partner Pretty traveled with me whenever she could get away from her job – I managed to coerce other friends to make the trip when she couldn’t go with me and refused to let me drive by myself any more. Even with my “new” eyes from a second cataract surgery in July, my truck bears the dents and dings of my parking misadventures and alas, let’s face it. I have a GPS but occasionally disagree with it, and then I find I am not there when I need me. I am somewhere else.

    Pretty and I did some fun trips during 2012. At the end of February, which is our anniversary month, we drove to Valle Crucis, North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains for a couple of days of work and play. She worked.  I played.

    IMG_5612

    Blue Ridge Mountains, Boone, North Carolina

    Six months later in August we had a family vacation with our son Drew and his girlfriend Caroline. We drove to the northeast to sightsee and spend time together, to try to re-group from the losses earlier in the year. Abraham Lincoln blessed us in Gettysburg and we traveled safely to the shores of Maine, along the coast in Rhode Island, saw beautiful scenery in Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Boston was a hit for many reasons not the least of which was its good food. We counted on Caroline to make sure we ate at the best restaurants according to her online guides.  Iphones were in; Pretty and Drew had dueling GPSs that didn’t always want to go in the same direction. So many gadgets…so much confusion. So much merriment.

    088

    On my birthday in April I was at the funeral of the woman I knew as a second mother for over forty-five years. She and my mom were as close as sisters. They were both heartbroken when I had to separate them four years ago because they could no longer take care of each other. Willie Flora was eighty-two in March of this past year and my mom was eighty-five that same month. Willie died on April 14th in Richmond, Texas and my mom died eleven days later in Willis. It was sorrow upon sorrow.

    IMG_1122

    Willie

    In September my neighbor Heather and I had a shower for another neighbor, Becky, who created additional excitement by announcing that her water broke a couple of hours before the shower was to start. High drama, but we moved the time up, she came and opened her gifts, had a piece of cake and was then whisked away by her husband Gary to the hospital where she gave birth to her third baby boy four hours later. George is growing by leaps and bounds and should be a fine nuisance for his older brothers Oscar and Dwight.

    021

    Dwight plus Oscar plus cookie jar = Good Times

    024

    George in his New Baby phase

    In November my third book was published and I was thrilled with how it looked when it came from the printer. I loved the cover and had a sense of accomplishment as I placed it in my office next to my first two books. I hope my cyberspace friends will want to read the final version since you’ve shared a number of the stories with me in the past year right here on this blog. There is freedom in growing older and a sense of entitlement to Call It Like You See It — and even sweeter to see what you’re calling in print

    Good year? Lean year? In-between year? The votes have been tallied by an unreliable CPA (me) and I have to report the in-between has it. Births and deaths mark our beginnings and our endings, but the middle is what keeps our attention. I’ll lay 2012 down tonight and pick up 2013 in the morning. I can’t predict what will happen in the New Year, but I can predict I will struggle to stay awake to ring it in.

    Pretty and I wish all of you a Happy and Healthy New Year!  Thanks for stopping by…

    ***************

    P.S. I would lose my favorite Aunt Lucille in 2013. I think of her often and am grateful for that Texas time with her.

  • fa la la la la – say what?

    fa la la la la – say what?


    Fast away the old year passes

    fa la la la la, la la la la

    hail the new, ye lads and lasses!

    fa la la la la, la la la la

    I’m a little late for decking the halls with boughs of holly and trolling yuletide carols, but I 100% don gay apparel every time I get dressed. Surely I get points for that. Fa la la la la, la la la la.

    I had this ancient Welsh folk tune running through my head on my morning walk today, a walk shortened by inclement weather. This grey day drizzle was reminiscent of my Seattle years before I came to South Carolina in 1972 – reminding me of what I disliked in that breathtaking Pacific Northwest with its majestic Cascade mountain range topped off by Mount Rainier, the glorious evergreens, and the wondrous lakes I loved to drive across going to work every day.Yes, had it just not been the dreary winter where the sun refused to shine, I might have stayed in the city with the bluest skies you’ll ever see in the summer. Fa la la la la, la la la la. Fast away those old years pass…

    As I wrote the year 1972, I stopped and got out my calculator to be certain of the math I had quickly calculated. Hail the new year 2022, lassie – it’s the 50th anniversary of your life in Columbia. Goodness, I have lived 2/3 of my 75 years in a state other than my “home” state of Texas which still calls me one of its daughters of the republic. My daddy used to say when I lived in Seattle, you can take the girl out of Texas, but you’ll never take Texas out of the girl. I have the boots, saddle and headstone that would make him smile. Fa la la la la, la la la la.

    Tomorrow the old year 2021 passes – we will hail the new year with our own hopes for the future wherever we are. I am grateful to celebrate life every new year with Pretty and the rest of our growing family, with our friends in real life, with the exactly 800 followers from around the world of cyberspace whose support encourages me to keep writing, and for the work of the January 6th. Congressional Committee which seeks to uncover the truth of the attack on our Capitol one year ago next week. My hope in the future for my granddaughters and their granddaughters is that we will leave them a safe and sane environment brimming with peace and prosperity, filled with love for one another. Fa la la la la, la la la la.

    From our house to yours, Happy New Year!

    Please stay tuned.

    *****************

    Irrelevant conversation overheard by no one at our house this past week.

    Pretty: you know if I ever have a cat, I would like for it to look like Carport Kitty.

    Me: you do have a cat, and it is Carport Kitty.

    Carport Kitty surveying her kingdom yesterday

    Carport Kitty rules.

  • You Don’t Have to Break Up to Wallow


    Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life made its Netflix debut over the Thanksgiving weekend with much fanfare, hoopla and hype as the three leading actresses appeared on every talk show under the sun to promote the four-part mini-series that was supposed to be a panacea for the yearnings of a major contingent of followers who wanted more from the Gilmore women of Stars Hollow and Hartford. The original American TV comedy series ran for seven seasons from 2000 to 2007 and was apparently quite popular and still missed by many.

    Pretty and I were not Gilmore Girls watchers in those first runs; perhaps because we were younger, our relationship was newer, our social life was busier, we were watching Frasier re-runs… or something else I can’t remember. Whatever the reasons, we missed it the first time around. But since we are now seasoned Netflix subscribers and recently finished the gazillion-episode BBC series Doc Martin  and needed a new diversion, we decided to give the Gilmore Girls a whirl.

    We recently started with the first season and are now prepared to spend the rest of our lives watching Loralei and Rory get daily coffee fixes at Luke’s coffee shop because each of the early years had at least a hundred episodes per season. Luckily, we found ourselves growing fond of the characters as we usually do when the writing is good and the actors as good as the script.

    For example, in one of the first season’s episodes this week I was disappointed when teenage Rory’s first true love, Dean the grocery store bag boy, dumped her. Such a cute, sweet boy – young love blossomed, bloomed, bleeped, fizzled, done. And on their three-month anniversary, too. Sigh. What to do? Talk to Mom.

    Mom’s (Lorelei’s) advice to her teenage daughter was priceless: wallow. That’s right. Wallow. Stay in your pajamas all day while you eat pizza and ice cream…don’t put on makeup…don’t shave your legs…sit in a dark room watching old movies like Love Story, An Affair to Remember, Ishtar, Old Yeller and have a good cry. Wallow the day away.

    What’s really amazing about this advice is that I’ve been wallowing minus the crying part and old movies for years without realizing it, and my wallowing has nothing at all to do with my love life. I was born to wallow, and then I had a relapse when I had a real job that required getting out of bed, applying Clinique makeup every morning after my shower, spending a fortune on perms and color to give my straight-as-a-board graying hair curls and blondeness,  getting dressed in appropriate business attire, commuting long distances to an office where I sat in front of a computer screen looking at numbers all day while agonizing over the financial decisions my clients were wrestling with…all in all, a relapse that lasted 40 years.

    But now, I have reclaimed my roots (the silver ones, too), and I wallow almost each day. Some days I never get out of my pajamas, my toothpaste gets more use than my bath soap, I gave up shaving my legs for Lent and didn’t resurrect it for Easter, I only wear makeup for date nights, and my straight short white hair qualifies for the “man’s haircut rate” with my hair stylist.  The longest commute I have is from my upstairs office to the kitchen downstairs. Life is good.

    Writing is the perfect career for wallowing. If Pretty asks me what I’ve been doing when she comes home from surveying her antique empire and finds me still in my pajamas, I can say Oh, I’ve been writing all day – which could or could not be exactly true. Unless you count watching In the Heat of the Night as research. (Ishtar, no thanks.)

    Today is New Year’s Eve, the last day of 2016, the day when many of us will be making our resolutions for 2017. I have started my list with the same one I’ve started with for the past 40 years: I need to lose 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 pounds this year. My, how time flies.

    Hm. I never get past that first one.

    If you are making your list and checking it twice, add a day to wallow once a month. You don’t need to break up a relationship to do it – simply indulge and wallow. Indulge. Wallow. Enjoy.

    Pretty and I wish you a Happy New Year from our home at Casa de Canterbury to yours wherever you are in cyberspace around the world – stay safe, and we’ll look forward to having you hang with us in 2017!

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Horse You Draw is the One You’ll Ride


    Through the good and lean years and through all the in-between years…is a line from Frank Sinatra’s hit tune All the Way.  I looked through the archives of my posts and saw that my final post of 2012 was a blow-by-blow recap of that year in review for my life.  Not a bad post for one titled The In-Between Years but it seems like such a long time ago in a land far away from where I am today.  A year can fly past in a hurry and yet, the passage of time, regardless of our perception of its speed, never leaves us unchanged.

    I rarely “mix” blogs, but I want to quote The Red Man’s opinion of 2013 in his final December, 2012 post.  He has such a way with words.

    I’m not sure what my plans are for the New Year, but I don’t like the sound of 2013.   It’s an odd-numbered year, and I don’t accept odd-numbered years as authentic.  I would prefer to have all even-numbered years.  So we’d skip 2013 and go right on to 2014 and then 2016 and so on.   You get the picture.

    Yes, Red Man, I do get the picture and you are a prophet in your own ‘Hood.  2013 was one of those lean years Frank Sinatra sang about.  To tell the truth, the bad so outweighed the good I won’t bother to review it.  The better news is it’s finally coming to a close and 2014 is just around the next Bowl Game.

    I was talking to a cousin who called me on Christmas Day to wish me a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I appreciated the call and the visit we had.  The thousand miles that separated us couldn’t break the ties that bind us.

    We were talking about the vicissitudes of life, as my daddy used to call them, and Gaylen who has spent over forty years hanging out with cowboys at rodeos told me one of their favorite quotes:  The horse you draw is the one you’ll ride. 

    I like it.  No apologies.  No excuses.  No whining about why did I get this horse.  No wondering about whether this rodeo was one I should’ve signed up for.  No mulling over how I ever got to be a cowboy in the first place.  It’s now or it’s never – so you ride.

    I have hope for 2014 along with The Red Man who loves even-numbered years and am optimistic that I will be a better person in the New Year.  I can’t control the rodeos around me, but I have been reminded I can still ride.

    I hope the horses you draw in 2014 will be ones you’ll want to ride.

    Teresa and I wish you all a Happy New Year from our family to yours!

  • The In-Between Years

    The In-Between Years


    Through the good or lean years and for all the in-between years is a line from a Frank Sinatra classic All The Way.   As I lay 2012 to rest for a final countdown before the ball drops in Times Square in New York City tonight, I ask myself to rate the year as good, lean or in-between.   Understand this is a subjective, biased, prejudiced and totally personal evaluation.  It meets none of the standards for any Academy of Anything and as such, is not subject to review by a replay official.   I’m not sure if the year passed as quickly for you as it did for me, but I confess mine seemed to pass faster than a falling star so I hope you have a notated calendar to refresh your memories as mine does for me.

    The first day of 2012 I was in Texas and spent New Year’s Day with my mother who lived in a personal care residence with two other older women and the two wonderful sisters who cared for all of them.  She was in the severe stage of her dementia and, although I had no way of knowing it on that day, she wouldn’t survive the year and neither would the other two women who shared the home and enjoyed my New Year’s visit.  I’ve always loved women of any age and these were some of the most entertaining ever.  It was a good start to the new year.

    IMG_5392

    Mom

    IMG_5394

    Miss Ann

    IMG_5393

    Miss Virginia

    Whenever I’m in Texas I always have great visits with my favorite Aunt Lucille who lives in Beaumont, one of my least favorite Texas towns.  My aunt will be ninety-three years old in 2013 and is an avid reader and crossword puzzle aficionado.  She lives now in an independent living apartment in a retirement community in Beaumont.  The nearness of neighbors and a standing dinner group of six women from her building in the late afternoon for dinner suit her social nature and need to be out and about.  Movies?  Politics?  TV shows?  Books?  Ask my aunt about any of these and she’s in her element with an attitude toward life that says Hey take your best shot at me, but I’m hangin’ in for as long as I can.  In 2012 I saw her more than a dozen times which was more than I’d visited her in one year…ever.  Each visit lifted my spirits and was just plain fun.

    IMG_3556

    My favorite Aunt Lucille

    The year confirmed my status as a bi-stateual with extended periods of time in Texas and South Carolina and keeping the roads hot from here to there and back.  My partner Teresa traveled with me whenever she could get away from her job and I managed to coerce other friends to make the trip when she couldn’t go with me and refused to let me drive by myself any more.  Even with my “new” eyes from a second cataract surgery in July, my truck bears the dents and dings of my parking misadventures and alas, let’s face it.  I have a GPS but occasionally disagree with it and then I find I am not there when I need me.  I am somewhere else.

    Teresa and I did some fun trips during 2012.  At the end of February, which is our anniversary month, we drove to Valle Crucis, North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains for a couple of days of work and play.  She worked.  I played.

    IMG_5612

    Blue Ridge Mountains, Boone, North Carolina

    Six months later in August we had a family vacation with our son Drew and his girlfriend Caroline.  We drove to the northeast to sightsee and spend time together and try to re-group from the losses earlier in the year.  Abraham Lincoln blessed us in Gettysburg and we traveled safely to the shores of Maine and along the coast in Rhode Island and saw beautiful scenery in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.  Boston was a hit for many reasons not the least of which was its good food.  We counted on Caroline to make sure we ate at the best restaurants according to her online guides.  Iphones were in, and Teresa and Drew had dueling GPSs that didn’t always want to go in the same direction.  So many gadgets…so much confusion.  So much merriment.

    088

    On my birthday in April I was at the funeral of the woman I knew as a second mother for over forty-five years.  She and my mom were as close as sisters and they were both heartbroken when I had to separate them four years ago because they could no longer take care of each other.  Willie Flora was eighty-two in March of this past year and my mom was eighty-five that same month.  Willie died on April 14th in Richmond, Texas and my mom died eleven days later in Willis.  It was sorrow upon sorrow.

    IMG_1122

    Willie

    In September my neighbor Heather and I had a shower for another neighbor, Becky, who created additional excitement by announcing that her water broke a couple of hours before the shower was to start.   High drama, but we moved the time up, she came and opened her gifts, had a piece of cake and was then whisked away by her husband Gary to the hospital where she gave birth to her third baby boy four hours later.  George is growing by leaps and bounds and should be a fine nuisance for his older brothers Oscar and Dwight.

    021

    Dwight plus Oscar plus cookie jar = Good Times

    024

    George in his New Baby phase

    In November my third book was published and I was thrilled with how it looked when it came from the printer.  I loved the covers and had a sense of accomplishment as I placed it in my office next to my first two books.  I hope my cyberspace friends will want to read the final version since you’ve shared a number of the stories with me in the past year right here on this blog.  There is freedom in growing older and a sense of entitlement to Call It Like You See It — and even sweeter to see what you’re calling in print

    Good year?  Lean year?  In-between year?  The votes have been tallied by an unreliable CPA (me) and I have to report the in-between has it.  Births and deaths mark our beginnings and our endings, but the middle is what keeps our attention.  I’ll lay 2012 down tonight and pick up 2013.  I can’t predict what will happen in the New Year, but I can predict I will struggle to stay awake to ring it in.

    Teresa and I wish all of you a Happy and Healthy New Year!  Thanks for stopping by…