just keep dreaming.....

First time since he passed away I was dreaming about Bob looking like he was 30 something.
I met him when he was 42.
All my dreams so far had been about him being ill with Alzheimer and I would explain to the people (in my dreams) that he was sick and not to pay closely attention as he could get things so messed up. In my dream then he would turn to me and say;"I am not sick I am telling you, there is no disease!"

That part he did tell us for years as he was a devouted Christian Scientist and he never thought he was ill.

So this time in the dream he shows up very young, gorgeous, his curly hair even more curly and he starts to sing to me
a song we both knew as I sang with him (read tried to sing) I kept thinking I must remember what song that is.
I did not when morning came.
He sounded like Sinatra and the chap from New Orleans..whatever his name.
I was shocked, when he was finished "I said, you never told me you could sing like that" (he could n't sing a note just like me)
I wanted more songs and he sort of vanished in thin air.....
I did not think that was very polite....but then Bijou started to scratch on my back and I woke up.....

I so wanted to hear the song again......I so wanted to see him healthy again and that I did see.

My mother had trombosis and for years she had to wear these tight stockings, she hated them, she said they were for old ladies.
She did not like to think she was getting older.....BUT one night after her passing she came in my dream and she sat on the side of a bed dangling her legs like a little girl. She said:"You see my legs are fine, I no longer need to wear the stockings".
That morning when I woke up I cried, I truly think she came with a message.
BUT then in the younger years I believed a LOT....I can't any more.
It's a lot more fun if you can...

flower photos frm Garden Jubilee and others

When my frugal mother had the blues she was a danger to herself, it did not happen often but when it did she went shopping.
Not for a hat or shoes or a purse like I do but for a new sewing machine, a new living room set or something equally
BIG.

I'd always laugh when she'd write or tell me what her latest adventure was.
She was always filled with guild that she had spent the money.
She had enough to live on for quite awhile and still get a depression retail therapy trip.
Guilt was always there.

I do the same in smaller dosis .....had a hard week of the blues....just feeling constantly sad in spite of my lexapro so I decided I would walk to the Garden Jubilee on Main street, I'd walk and leave when Bob would take his nap so he would not
stop me. Somehow he and Sabrina got wind of my idea or know me too well. Brie showed up before lunch and we walked arm in arm all the way from first booth to last.

I always feel sorry for crafters who sit with that look on their face like " buy something already".
Been there done that and wore out many a Tshirt with that saying.
Old Bob and I would always buy something from an artist/crafter. It was routine with us.
Depending on what was in our purse at the time we would find something we both liked.
The only item which I truly LOVED was a birdbath made from antique objects.
This large one (why could I not like a very small one?) had the center made from a candy dish, pressed
aMERICAN glass and in the center of that a cut glass salt, all is mounted on a very large dish which is probably new. It was pricey. I looked and looked, started to drool. Sabrina was already telling me which one I should get, no help there.
Took me a good 30 minutes but we walked away with a gorgeous one.

Now if that was not bad enough we went to sTEINMART.
I had not been there in probably a year.
I still owed my manager a Christmas card after she had written me such a long lovely note.
Felt guilty about that, I did.
She met us at the door with open arms, the crew was friendly and asked a million questions.
Told them about Bobby and tears came to one lady's eyes.
After all this adoration (how I miss that place, wish I could work there again)
I took a look around, had not shopped for clothing since I retired here expect bargains at the Hospice store.I ended up with 4 skirts and 2 tops. The Bohemian long skirts are back in style and you know how often I wear them.Everything was on sale from 30 to 50 % off. I had good bargains. So this morning there is the guilt....oh Mother you taught me well.

Parental love part 2

We see on the news how a mother leaves a kid in a hot car while she goes into the bar, we shake our heads, how can that be?
We hear all the worst case scenarios. We shudder.
Where are our parent heroes?
I know some but they do not make the news, they are the quiet angels who love.Love kids and protect them.Period.
A couple I know adopted a baby who had been mistreated soon after birth. He had problems, medical problems.
The mental problem he suffers will not go away with a pill nor the best of psychiatrist. It is for life.
He has violent moments. He has a heart of gold. He has to be watched 24/7. He will be a teen ager soon.
He is getting stronger, taller, and at times a hand full.
The couple have dedicated every minute of their day to watch this child.
The choice was theirs to adopt or to leave the child to the system, they took him in as a small baby.
I look at this couple and I know there is just nothing there but enormous love, you never hear a whisper of
inconveniences or hardship. It takes angels to do this kind of work with children.
I am very happy I did get to know them.

Parental love

more than 30 years ago a little boy on way to the school bus just vanished.
Vanished on the streets of New York, a nice place at that time to live and bring up children.
(I do forget the name of the street).
The little boy was never found, the police had not a clue.
After all these decades someone came forward to say they knew who did it,
investigations are still on going.
Parents interviewed on the news were asked how come they were still in the same apartment.
The father answered: We were hoping that he was still alive and he would not know how to find us so we stayed put!
Staying in the same place for decades waiting for the door bell to ring.
How hard these years must have been.
I am hoping there is going to be a closure for them soon.

The week has not been my best so far.
The trip for the colonoscopy was not pleasant.
The meds to take before taste horrible (read constant nausea)
I did not have enough stuff for the usual nice soft sleep.
Saw the TV set up next to me and the ugly intestins.
Saw the polips and the tool he used to remove and I yelled out.
If I yelled out loud I do not know for sure but it was a pain or two.
Then I heard him say I am finishing this and so it was.
Brie heard him say they had to use more medication but a nurse friend tells
me that since I had major surgery a year ago they have to be
very cautious at my age how much they will put me under.

Two days later still cramps so I was not in the best of moods.
I do not know many people but I know 3 who had bad reactions, Willy in B
was bleeding and ended up in ICU.
Jeanette had a perforation and so did Rand's mom.
Both were for awhile in hospital and very ill.

Definitely a mood swing during these days.

Trying to see how the Rhonda saga with finding work will be.
Trying not to worry about my children.

In my next life I want to be an optimist.

In my next life I will be a lesbian. Men are too much trouble.

In mynext life I will not care if I am loved or hated.

In my next life I hope not to ever have to come back again.

MAY 10 1940

Dates spark memories.........I never forget about May 10 1940.
Belgium.
I live in Langerbrugge, 7 KM from Ghent.
My grandma came to visit for awhile.
My dad had joined his Army Unit a few weeks ago.
We know the day will come.
I know nothing about war except what my Grandma tells me when her'
husband, an army professional, was taken prisoner of war in 1914.
She has tales of how poor they were and how my father at age 7 went to steal food in the German camps.
My mother talks about fleeing their house with a gas mask on and how frighten she was at that time.
I am 8 and it all sounds so bizarre.
The two women chat and chat and all I hear is war, war, war.
We have a radio, no other communication.
They sit by the radio listening and shaking their heads.

I am laying in a rattan chaise lounge next to the coal stove, it is chilly outside.
I have a sore throat and I am being watched by 2 Mama's and perhaps spoiled.

I am thinking that they have these wild stories and they are so agitated, this must be all special.

I decide I want my own war. Not "Bonma's" nor Mama's my very own so I can tell stories too when I grow up.
Foolish child...a wild imagination.

We had a practice in the house that I hated. All citizens had been given these horrible gas masks, you looked like an elephant from outer space. A long tube went from the mask to the tank. I could not breathe in it. I hated it and screamed when I was told to try it. Equally my father had told me that if they attack in any way I must lay under the mattress.
There too I could not breathe. But that morning all I could see was my two grown ups starting to weep.
Radio had announced that Belgium was at war.

Now that was a confusing picture, so I had my war but I did not like all the crying. Would I need to put on this mask?
I thought it was enough already , lets just stop the war, tell the Germans to go home. Finish with all this.

I lived about 100 yards from the electrical plant. No houses in between us and the plant. The horrible smoke billowing all the time leaving black little specks on my mothers fresh washed laundry on the line. That was just all I knew about the plant. Came 3 o clock that afternoon and I would learn lesson one. Electricity factories are targets. This one was a target till 1945.

The alarm went off at the plant, we had done drills about that, danger might be coming (they told us) if the alarm goes on.
The alarm would go off when all danger had passed so you were to listen to air warnings.

My short rotund Bonma was helped down the stairs in the cellar. We kept potatoes in a bin and coal in another. It was a dark hell hole. A chair had been placed there for Bonma. Her heavy breathing was all I heard as Mom and I sat on the stairs, Bonma did not do well with stairs. We sat in silence and waited. Bonma soon had enough of it and wanted to go back up ,she asked my mom for help going up the stairs and only one step up and we heard a whistle, a loud sound but it was not the siren from the plant and Mom pulled Bonma down the step by her skirt and held us both tightly against her. Within seconds the house trembled, we heard glass crash on the tile floor. We were the target next to the plant. The planes were very low, we could hear their motors, mother later said that she thought they would crash but none did. We had been bombed on the first day of war.

I do not know how long it was before the siren let us know the danger had past.
I ran up the stairs but was held back, the two women knew what was to come.
It was only May 10th 1940 and it would last till June 1945.

Today sitting safely in my house in America I am thinking that all this happened somewhere in a book I read.
However it is not so, I have been known to crawl under the table if a plane comes by and is low.
I have thrown my children in ditches when a siren went off at the fire department.
The plant is now a museum and how many stories it can tell us.
But today is May 10th and I stop with that for now.
I had my war and I can talk about it like Bonma and Mama.

want to marry your cousin? It's OK in NC!

so we lost.....61 % against 38. something

you can marry your cousin in N C but not your gay cousin............
nice bumper sticker

I feel like I lost a friend.

BUT there is also awesome news.

Young Bob came to the polls walked in , voted, and came out without even sweating.
Our voices did not count enough to win this but he won his battle to go into a building.
Also to drive up to it.

When I take it all in we won, the Kensingers won again.

There is life at the end of the tunnel.

Of course he has a lot more work to do. One day at a time but the last weeks have been fantastic.

Thanks for the effort, Bobby, to come to THAT place, the place where it all started years ago.
You are my hero!

Voting day and gloomy outside

I am in a bad mood.
Sabrina will come soon, she is my sunshine so perhaps she can change it.
The voting is annoying and a must do, I am so damn negative I have no hope for this to be a NO.

Then I read all my instructions for the colonoscopy, I start with getting the meds today but by Sunday
I must start the cleaning and I am not in a good mood about that.

I do not like the "clinic" they are doing it in and now when I read the small print it said I had a choice between St Jo's hospital and them. I loved it better at the hospital. Too late ,it is all set up and I waited long enough.

I am overwhelmed somehow.

Shop was still slow in April so I may have to close the first one which only has antiques, linens and do da's.
It is now an interior design market, who wants Grandma's milk glass? Limoges china? (a no in the dishwasher), who wants to polish the sterling silver? Who wants to iron linens, so what if they are Irish or Belgian and the best quality, they do need ironing right?

The jewelry shop continues to do well so I must make some more necklace , like yesterday........

Bijou knows I am grouchy, he keeps looking at me and turns his head left and right.

I can't claim menapause that was taken away from me 40 years ago....
Maybe I can just say that I am a grouchy old lady.
Voila!!!

The right to vote

Great day and full of hope for tomorrow's vote.
There is always hope.....

The best for our gang and mostly Bobby is the fact that the last time he drove was when he took me to work at Steinmart and when he came to the shuffle board place he had a very bad attack, he was so frightened that when a cop passed by he wanted to chase the cop and attack him so the cop would shoot him out of his misery. I was sweating bullets in the car not knowing what to do with him. Neither one of us had a cel phone then. I found someone inside the shuffle board place and called Ari.
She was there very quickly. He could not drive home. He stopped driving then and there.
She had to take him one block at a time and stop to calm him, first to her mom's house a few blocks away and then home a few more blocks.

Yesterday we took a drive together, he passed the place for the first time and I could see the tension on his face.
I was worried. He continued driving onto Canuga and turned on Hebron.
Hebron holds the nursing home and I do not want to go by there but this is his recuperation.
I showed him the place and he had no idea where Bob had to go to at the end.
He kept driving further and further but his face was white from the tension.
He went back to go past the shuffleboard place. Then home.

He was spent, he took a nap.

Later he told me that come hell or high water he will vote tomorrow.
The vote is important to him as it is to me.
Chances of winning are not good so many other states have voted for this amendment.
This is a Republican state and a Republican town plus the churches have come out
in droves promoting only marriage with male and female.
It is a personal opinion voting and I do not find it very kosher, pardon the pun, that churches continue
to be on this non loving path. If there is a God then would he make a difference in his children?
I have seen politicians turn around on their statements when their own kids admitted to be gay.
(See Cheney)

So Bob has decided he will go to THAT place and vote. How he will do it I do not have a clue unless he takes the strong medicine which he no longer uses. Bob can have a temper about ignorance. I am hoping no heckling is in the line as there has been in the pre-vote lines. How he can be in line is a big ?????
He does not want to be hemmed in.

Voting is important to him so I hope he has that chance.

partial this and partial that

When you get older there are replacement parts, like superwoman, they put you together with wires.

When you are young (these days) they add to the breast, they stay perky until you are 95 but they weigh on your shoulders,they tattoo eyebrows, lips and heavens what else, need a chin? we got one for you. Seeing a few wrinkles we have shots for that too.

BUT for me it becomes a hardware store around my broken ankle, pins, screws, stainless steels rods. A kidney refuses to work, lets take it out. Your back is kaput from a fall so learn not to bend anymore. Knees refuse to bend too we can always replace with more hardware. A tooth broke after a bad repair from a young dentist so you have a choice, a small partial, a this and a that, first option is about 800 to 900 the others are all in the thousands. I am forced to go with the "cheap" one.
Got it in on Friday and had to take it out today sUNDAY. They put that partial on top of the tooth just removed which is now a hole going to China. That was a tiny bit of an ouchie! I gave myself a present, I bought flowers.

This morning I tried to pry this thing out of my mouth, looks like I cut into the corner of my mouth too, could not get it out, tried again and again. We already know I have a form of dyslexia so I do not know right from left and looking in a mirror and trying to fix hair or a partial is absolutely obscene.
Finally I decided that the one "hook" around the tooth holding up this small affair does not want to give up the wire, by now I am shaking. I am furious because I am 80 and I want to be the one like the young ones who gets boobs that will stay perky forever and for sure I need a tummy tuck, like 25 of them! Instead I am in front of this mirror trying to see how to get myself out of this mess.
I got it out by smearing the tooth with ranch dressing and then the wire slid off.
Now I am just calming myself down writing this stuff so I can get it back in and so far it is a NO GO.

See you at the dentist....

Cinco de MAYO, I have still to go and check what the Mexicans are celebrating but the restaurant was full today.

The latest news is, of course, still about son, Bob.

I never had a "Bucket list" like in the movie, we lived pretty much on impulses ,that way you do not get
into too much trouble messing with expectations.

BUT after Bob got ill I surely did not have anything left to wish for except a cure for Alzheimer and we know
where that is going.....then young Bob moved in and helped me and also lost his wife at 35 years old.
He was in bad mental health to begin with, had severe panic disorder. I had it for 7 years, I knew what it
entailed. His turned into agoraphobia. So...he had been in our house for about 4 years without leaving at all, crossing the street was major.

Took years to get mental health professionals to be able to come to the house.
That was last September.
2 times a week they come and talk and try and help.

Now with mew medication which calms him but he is not OUT of it like some others did ...he is now improving daily.

Every day he sits at our kitchen table and shows me on one of his gadgets how far he has driven.
Yesterday it was 10 miles, all around our street, but this is huge, every day he adds another street and
the two of us follow the map like 2 generals at war.
At war we are with the mind. So I thought that my only wish on my bucket list would be to see Bob healthy.
On the side I was hoping for one more trip and follow route 66 to California but that would be an adventure
which would require us to travel with 3 dogs.
I have a Maltese, he has a Corgy and a rescue dog of many papas and mamas lineage.
Neither one of us would have the guts to put them in kennels.
They are our children.

To say that I am on cloud nine is hardly enough, I am so darn happy now that we see improvement every day
from a horrible disease.
Life is good.
I miss old Bob a lot but I know he would want me to go on and try to be contend. I am trying to do that
and with the kids help it is easier.

If this prints in one sheet without paragraph I will have kittens, or I may start swearing.
It also printed the way I wrote and now it changed.
Yuk Yuck!