Tag: Navel gazing

Now

I’m trying to live in the Now. Not past, not future, just now. You know, like a dog. It’s difficult.

It’s also pretty tough to come up with blog fodder when all the living in Now is mostly in my head. But… here’s what’s happening in my life.

Started: Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune series. Currently on book 13: Swamp Spook.

Saying: Christ the King Novena, thanks to Pray More Novenas dot com.

Accomplished: Finally finished painting and cleaning the living/dining room! Now on to the hall.

Recommend: Sr. Mary Martha’s Pause for Prayer on Facebook live every morning. One of the Daughters of St. Paul, she is also singing with their choir.

Looking forward to: Advent and my new Memento Mori Advent companion.

Now: Listening to my sister in law bitch.

Next: Yard cleanup.

Earlier this week: My view from the sofa…

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Feted and Ensconced

I loathe funerals. The entire circus: viewing, service, graveyard sobbing while the casket lowers.

Not all people feel this way of course. Funerals tend to be great family reunions. Folks take pictures of the body in the coffin, selfies of themselves with the body and gather in groups for photos that resemble a cheerful event such as a fish fry or church picnic. I can’t count the number of times I asked my mom to identify a group of black and white people (yeah, I’m old) only to hear her reply “Oh, that was taken at Uncle Ollie’s funeral”. To name only one.

My (adopted) father’s funeral in 1978 was about as surreal an event as I’d ever encountered. The body in the coffin didn’t resemble the man I knew in the least and the Baptist preacher pressed into service had a speech impediment and called my father ‘Johnny’, which might have earned him a punch in the nose had the man himself not been dead as a doornail. The graveside service was where I finally woke to the fact that we were going to leave my father there, in the ground. I was the last to leave; the hardest thing I’d done so far in my short life.

I’ve not attended a funeral since and don’t intend to do so. When the inevitable happens I want a Viking send off – well, the cheap redneck version. Put me in a rowboat and push it off into the water armed with an explosive on a timer. Then forget about me because I’m long gone.

While I type this my birth father, whom I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and loving these last three years, is having his funeral in another state. Hope they take good pictures of each other.

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Escape

Martin Grelle

The man and I hadn’t been to a proper sit down restaurant since before covid started… and six months before that. I don’t like eating out anymore. The tables seem closer together these days and people are loud, especially children. One of my favorite sounds is kids playing out in the yard or street… but transfer those cries and screams to a booth behind me and food is the last thing I want. Escape becomes a priority.

Continue reading “Escape” →
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2013

O.D. wants some photos of her and Mike so I’m going through my folders… and I’ve deleted over 3,000 so far! Who wants a hundred pictures of a bug… or bird… or blister…?

Autumn has finally come! Not really, they do this constantly.
Holy mother of pearl..!

That’s what I said upon finding this photo… holy mother of pearl… I used to take pictures!! And I enjoyed it! Just when I was starting to feel like a non person, too.

Larger version just because.

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The Aftermath

…of Wilma.

As I wrote in the last post, I put this here not for anything or anyone other than myself. It’s what happened after a Cat 3 ran over us in 2005. Nothing like Andrew, but still…

Thank God it’s cool!! If this had happened in August we’d be miserable. Even a normal October day is usually warm and humid. Two colds fronts equal another miracle! Before she left for home Tonie and I went to Publix for staples and of course she left for home with one of my bags. A heartfelt thank you to Publix for opening their doors! Without power they may have been trying to get shed of some perishables, I don’t know. That’s what I’d do, anyway.

The line outside Home Depot is long, considering the generators haven’t arrived. We need a generator and a new gas grill (not to worry, we have two generators now). Cleaning the fridge and freezer out.

Dammit, Tonie left with my trail shoes!

Continue reading “The Aftermath” →
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Wilma

Ran across this account of Hurricane Wilma’s aftermath while cleaning out my desk. Though I wrote about Hurricane Andrew’s passing, it’s certainly not for consumption. Our experiences after Wilma, though, are simply boring. Putting it here to save it.

Hubris and the Hurricane or How We Found our Miracle

::Cue the Gilligan’s Island theme::

Continue reading “Wilma” →
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Pink Sky at Morn

As usual I went out with the dogs early this morning. The day was breaking. Soft tendrils of pink floated across the western sky.. then billowed, like cream in coffee. Then upon entering the back yard, I saw much the same, but on a grander scale: the eastern sky was alight with corals and pinks! Alive with color, pinks alone wove their way north then settled west, as if the angels were knitting.

No, I can’t take a decent photograph of the sky.

That’s not pink, silly.

Not this morning. Dug this out of my drafts folder.

Continue reading “Pink Sky at Morn” →
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Old Birdbath

Found this while going through old files. Unfortunately the birdbath is long gone.

There was just something about it that made me happy. Possibly the dragonflies.

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Loathsome August

I do hate this month so, so much. Here I am, larking about the place… dogs in tow, fire extinguisher in hand… (I’m not a good cook) and 1,000 miles away a fecking great bloody hurricane storms up the Texas/Louisiana border lashing everything half to death with the waters of the Gulf.

It’s not as if I wanted the blasted thing here, but there is an element of… guilt… for some reason. We south Floridians have had so many similar ‘episodes’ that we might be better equipped to deal, if you understand me. We’ve had to rebuild our homes. The cracker box has Cat 4 windows (even if they did install them wrong side around – shhh… don’t tell the man!), a new roof and new doors that Jesus himself, should He decide to come round for a cuppa, couldn’t manage without a key.

A Cat 4 is catastrophic anywhere, though. I’m not looking at the aftermath because I don’t need to – August 24, 1992 is still fresh in my mind. Hurricane Andrew blew in as a Cat 5 and changed the landscape… and many lives… forever. Laura will do the same as those before her.

People ask -as if no one’s thought it before- “why would you live in such a place?” Gee, why would anyone live in ‘tornado alley’? There are many reasons, but most important among ours is money. Will we move when the man retires? I don’t know. There is the ocean, after all…

This is just to say: Feck off, August.

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