So Many Stories To Be Told Here

We have said for nearly 3 years we would get together for lunch~it was said over and over again.
I've written about Phyllis Adair-Ward back in February~she is the author of the world renowned memoir "Wind Chimes and Promises"~her conversation is as flowing and genuine as her writing ability.
Phyllis popped into my office one day this week and said "I came for a hug." "Lunch?" I asked. "How about Friday? she suggested. "Yes! I'll be at your house at 12 noon." Double hug.
Our day started with dainty sandwiches with the delicious trimmings and coffee laced with Grand Marnier~all on the screened porch~her sanctuary. Our chatting never ceased except for her brief jaunt to the kitchen to refill my thin china cup.. She wouldn't let me leave my comfortable chair and I never did. This was the first day all summer with a cool gentle zephyr and it blew our conversations back and forth from topic to topic~writing, reading aloud, art, plays, dreams, past and present husbands, parental antics in nursing homes, the struggle for women's suffrage and racial discrimination in the workplace. We only had one brief interruption the entire day ~ a phone call from her sister-in-law Bea, also a writer and lecturer, better described as dearer than a sister. Bea's personality fills a room and I could tell that from the short lovingly sarcastic retorts coming from Phyllis to Bea. "I'm here on the porch having lunch with my close friend~I'll have to call you back someday". "How can you possibly have fun on that porch without me?" I heard Bea fuss. I knew right away I had to meet Bea someday soon. "When God closes one door another door opens..but it's hell in the hallway"... "Bea'isms"...they were worked into the conversations throughout the day!

Up again she jumped to get us ample servings of rum cake with ice cream and more coffee with Grand Marnier and a little slice of Bea's pineapple pie on the side.

The light changed from bright to dusk to dark and our drink became sparkling cider and our conversations became more personally revealing as close friends choose to do. The words kept flowing, punctuated by the melodious sound of a wind chime somewhere off in the distance.

Next time we will have another uninterrupted day of stories built upon stories and perhaps coffee with Drambuie. A WONDERFUL~EST day!

Tangled Up

It's still hot here in the midwestern United States, but wow, you know something I've noticed? Even though it is still summer...alot of "apparitions" are appearing in blogs. I think this is going to be a very "spirited" autumn...I've even started reading all my ghost story books..so soon but somehow I'm ready to be "scared". I feel like putting my Autumn wreath up and my pumpkins out and perhaps thinking about a Halloween party this year. It's been a couple years since we've had one...they are always full-out creepy and over the top...alot of work...so much so that by the end of the night I can barely walk across the yard! Why we think that we have to decorate everything the day before and the day of is beyond ME! If it happens this year there are going to be adjustments made...mentally and time management-wise!! The difficult part is reigning in KennyRogersLookAlike! He's the loveable problem!!!! He is so creative and has so much energy...which usually comes very late in the day and lasts until the wee hours of the morning...my energy now comes in the morning. By the time of the party I am ready to take that bloody hand stuck in the punch bowl and clobber him with it!! I mutter under my breath while I battery up the final of the 50+ animated Frankensteins and draculas and ladle the chili into my spider encrusted bowl about how I can push that gravestone over onto his foot and he mutters under his breath about...well, I don't know what he is muttering about me...my muttering drowns out his.. Then as we pull on the last bit of our costumes the guests arrive and we are On Stage! You'd never know there was evil plotting in our minds 5 minutes before.
One particular Halloween as I plugged in the warming plate for the gruel, the circuit breaker snapped sending the arriving party goers into dungeon darkness and simultaneously the straggly branches in the haunted forest bathroom full of perched black ravens took on a life of its own and tumbled down and tangled up a startled ghoul as he opened the commode lid ...poor guy..Meanwhile KennyRogersLookAlike twirling in his "cool as a red hot poker mode" was in the basement trying to manuever around all our stuff that we haven't seen in 16 years but still might "need" sweatingly closed in on the circuit breaker box. Finally we untangled the ghoul, put the forest back together minus a raven that got flushed down the toilet and settled down to a normal party of hot, thick gruel and opossum tail stew. I think I may want to have the party after all!

Wisdom Hath Built Herself A House

I remember my first year of college at St. Mary of the Woods back in 1969. Most of my remembrances are from Foley Hall. We dined there, we sang, had art classes there and it was the home of the infamous Faceless Nun legend. That is another story for later. Upon arrival we were told that we would probably never live in a more beautiful place and so far it has been true. I remember the art room on the 2nd floor..it enchanted me. Some creative students had suspended an orange parachute from the middle of the ceiling and anchored it on all four corners of the room. Directly underneath was a large wooden round table which in a former life was a huge cable wire spool for some industrial purpose. Books were placed around the bottom and candles, old art books and pieces of art, sculptures and masks populated the top sphere. The room wasn't large but high ceilinged and it had two doors..one that entered from the long winding hall near the rickety freight elevator and the other door across the room toward the corner that led into a big art classroom. I will always remember that room..it's one of those places that you return to in your mind as a happy place. One early afternoon I was walking through the front doors toward the dining room. I looked down at the marbled mosaic floor just in time to avert a stumble over a piece that had become dislodged and was sticking up. I reached down and plucked it up and put it in my pocket. I don't know what made me do that..a precious relic I wanted to keep and cherish maybe. I kept it all these years guiltily thinking time and time again I should have returned it..it couldn't be authentically replaced for it was over 130 years old. Foley Hall was torn down in 1987, with her went 147 years of history, tradition and pride. The original cornerstone of Foley Hall, laid in 1860 bore the inscription "Wisdom hath built herself a house." I don't feel so guilty now...I have kept a treasured piece of my happy place.

Me Thinks Too Much

My friend, a fellow blogger who actually got me interested in blogging wrote a post today called Living In The Moment that made me think. After a long day of contemplation and perhaps a bit of stewing over the phrase 'living in the moment', a kitty landed on her lap to play with her toes. Yeah, I'd say that's living in the moment. You know when you think about it, moments are all we really have...but we never think of seizing the moment...we all put it in a big ball of wax as she put it and sometimes it just melts into a big glob of crud! Maybe we aren't meant to figure out stuff. Maybe we should just do like they did "back in the day". You know stuff like~they usually married so they could have a life partner to carry on life's work..they didn't look for "soul mates" and besides they were too busy working for the family to contemplate on how to keep it all together. Maybe that's how we should think...or maybe we shouldn't think too much at all. I'm an overthinker...I want all the details so that I can put together the story in my mind...my mind is not based on abstractions~but some people have said that I'm thinking about the non-pertinent things..well, I don't agree...everything is pertinent if it interests me~"momental pertinence". As I have aged (now,this has just suddenly happened to me recently by the way...without warning...the aging I mean..)I feel like grasping the little moments of a squirrel eating a peanut, a bird flitting to a branch, the neighborhood kitties coming for a treat of regular dry cat food I set outside that they think,~fools that they are! ~is a real treat, or the fact that I can put that 'primer/filler' putty makeup and lipstick on in the morning and still dance.

Regan and Marcel's Wedding Moved People!

"We are now Family"

Ahhhh, the American and the Dutch Boy...makes a wonderful pairing! It was a most wonderful outdoor wedding in Portland, Oregon~ where you can pretty much count on a beautiful day this time of year. The uniting of two families from across the big pond who if you didn't know better, you would think they have always been together~and maybe, just maybe they have in another life or realm if you believe in that. It was so wonderful and meant to be that I didn't even cry...which is not like me...but I just shouted Woo Hoo as they paraded down the grassy aisle. I'll let you see for yourself why I was so elated....

WEDDING PRIMER AND SHELLAC

One week from today we will be in Portland, Oregon going through the dress rehearsal for my daughter Regan and her Dutch fiance, Marcel's wedding! Oh we are very, very excited. She waited a long time to find the right one...wow, was she ever LUCKY. When they met it was love at first sight~ across a crowded room..just like the song Some Enchanted Evening.
They live across the country from me and his parents live in the Netherlands,so they are planning the wedding by themselves...prior to this planning they renovated their kitchen by themselves...wow, is all I can say..if you can renovate a kitchen AND plan a wedding all within the same year and still love each other...you are meant to be together! And the ultimate in love is..she told me tonite...that when he looks at her when she is outside, digging in the dirt and gardening with no makeup, hair pulled back and her glasses on..he tells her she is beautiful and has since their first date...NOW, everyone, you will agree...that is true love!!! When a man loves you at your worst he loves you the BEST! She told me this after we laughed so hard at the makeup products she bought to look the RAVISHING BLUSHING BRIDE....PRIMER FOR THE FACE..covers all the splotches and is the base so that the thick makeup paint will stick on le face really well, which is basically FILLER to fill all the large pores in your skin and then there is a spray that is something like hair spray that is designed to shellac your makeup on so that even if you sweat in 106 degree heat..your "face" will not slide off! Then for the hair~ there is an industrial strength Big Sexy Hair product to make sure if you get caught in a downpour of rain you won't need an umbrella~no amount of precipitation will be able to penetrate your lacquered locks! I am anxious to try all these products...maybe the "shellac pour le face" will tighten up my laugh chins! Wonder what Marcel will think of her new look on their wedding day?