An import by any other name........

Driving around is a time when my mind wanders, not that it is a function that is totally confined to the time I’m driving around.   I hate to admit it but as I sit at red light it often happens that when a car catches my eye, it’s a foreign car.   Part of the reason could be because I instantly recognize the Chevy and Ford emblems and I don’t make a mental note, but some of it is just because there are some very nice looking foreign cars.

It’s certainly no state secret that one of the biggest blows to our economy has been the lack of American car sales.  How do we combat the influx of foreign cars and get Americans to buy American?   I have a suggestion!  It certainly falls into the “every little bit helps” category, but here it is:   We simply do not allow foreign manufacturers to use American words and cities on their foreign cars.  We put a stop to the “familiarization” of the cars and trucks they sell here.

Here’s a big “for instance”.   One car that continually catches my eye is the Kia, Soul.   A funny looking, square little car that intrigues me.  Would I even look twice if it were named the Kia, Seoul???    Hyundai is also really hitting it hard with the, Santa Fe, Tucson, and Vera Cruz.   Would those cars be as attractive if they were named after the Korean cities from which they sprang?  Think about it, do you think you’d be as anxious to drive a Hyundai Daegu….or a Busan?.....maybe an Incheon?

Toyota is now the number one selling “American car”……..(insert primal scream here).  That means the Avalon, the Sienna, Tacoma and Sequoia must be very well received by American car buyers.   Think how that might change if you had to drive a Toyota Hiroshima…..or the Tokyo….or the Yokahama.  

Imagine this scenario.   A group of retired guys meet at McDonalds every morning for coffee….cup after cup of coffee.  Sitting around for hours they chew the fat about the only thing older guys have left to talk about…cars and trucks.

“I decided to trade in the old van and get something new.   I’ve been looking at a Toyota Hiroshima.  What do you guys think?” says one guy.   His comment is met with dead silence.   No man is going to admit he’s been looking at a “Hiroshima”, let alone drive one!   That’s just not gonna happen.

I must plead total ignorance about world commerce. For instance,  I can’t really say that our American made cars sold on foreign soil aren’t still named things like the “Ford Focus”, but I’m betting we don’t sell our cars in Japan under the name of Ford-Sushi…..just a wild guess there on my part.

I know it’s just a little thing, but it just might help; let’s call a spade a spade and an import an import.  Next time you’re stuck at a traffic light give it some thought….but don’t ever forget Life is Good.

How many teeth do you really need??

The day started quietly enough.   I went to work, knowing I had to leave about nine thirty for a dental cleaning appointment….which I did.   That’s when everything went wrong.

Walking into the dental office I was greeted by a young lady who checked all my information and had me sit down to wait.  (Yes…I am Diana Coon….no my information hasn’t changed….ID?, sure…..yes, these are my teeth)

Eventually whisked off for x-rays, I exchanged pleasantries with the chirpy dental assistant who admired my necklace and listened as I explained its origin.   Then off to the chair.

After putting on my nice paper bib she summoned another gal to help with “numbers”.   I vaguely remember this from earlier visits.   Dental hygienist, “two, two, three, four, two, two,”   Person behind my head, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes”.

Poking, prodding, gouging…..and then, “Oh, dear,” from the hygienist.  “I’m sorry I have to tell you this, but you’re a five,” she said.  The girl behind my head “hummed” her agreement.

So….the girl behind my head must be the” judge”?  Like most women I’d always aspired to be a 10, but fell far short of that.   But really…at my age and advanced stage of decay being a five isn’t an insult.   I’d have said a four a few years ago, but five?    I’ll take five………..

I was snapped back to reality as my x-rays flashed on the TV screen that has taken the place of the little swirly sink in today’s modern dental office.  Looking at the skeletal picture, dialogue from television forensic shows played in my brain.  The chirpy hygienist pointed out a spot on the skeleton’s teeth, explaining it was infection that needed to be treated immediately.   To wait might mean loose teeth, or lost teeth, or some of this other horrible stuff in the glossy flier (featuring the teeth of the cast of Deliverance)  she stuck under my nose.   Ugh!! 

“What do we do about this, I asked?”

“Oh I hate to tell you this…..but I need to use my deep digging hydro sonic water thingy.  (cha-ching!)  Then I put antibiotic in there, (cha-ching)  and you get a super duper, industrial strength tooth paste and rotating brush that you use fourteen times a day,” I think she said.

“Crap,” you know that was me.

So, as luck would have it, her next appointment had cancelled and she had plenty of time to use her deep digging hydro sonic water thingy on me.  Seems my luck had changed.  (That is a deeply sarcastic remark, in case you misinterpreted it)

The deep digging hydro sonic water thingy is only used after painting your gums with some icky stuff that makes you numb and drooley.  I’m not trying to bore you with all these dental terms, but that’s what it is.  It also shoots a stream of water that the chirpy hygienist assured me would be taken away by the sucking hose she hung in the corner of my drooping mouth.   She obviously has not had the deep digging hydro sonic water thingy treatment, because I nearly drowned.

The whole procedure was not painful, or if it was it was masked by the icky stuff that makes you numb.  It is, however, the dental equivalent of water boarding.  Three times I got choked and had to stop, sit up, and fight to regain my breath.   They must not teach you the artful interpretation of gurgling noises in today’s dental school.   If they would only take the doggoned TV screen away and put the swirly sink back some of this could be eliminated!  Eventually I signaled and grunted to the chirpy hygienist that I would like the TV to be turned off.  Personally, I find annoying to have aggressive people with six pack abs trying to sell me an electronic belly stimulator when I am fighting for my life.

Eventually it was over, and the chirpy hygienist proceeded to show me how to floss, brush, turn on the new toothbrush, turn off the new toothbrush, mix the swishy stuff,  floss with the new dental floss, and a few other things that didn’t register either.

Did I forget to mention that this “uh-oh” pocket of infection is attacking a tooth that supports a bridge in my mouth that cost only slightly less than the Brooklyn Bridge to replace?   I thought so.    That’s something to look forward to, now isn’t it?   But first we must get this infection cleared up before it attacks my heart, my mind and other parts of my anatomy that are too personal to write about here.

And so, today dawned with my freshly lacerated gums aching, and me bumbling around, trying to remember what she told me about how to turn this on, off and what the speeds mean.   I now know firsthand that high speed will put tooth paste on the bathroom ceiling if you don’t shove it into your mouth before you hit the green button.   Live and learn……or read the instruction booklet.

Fixing that pocket of infection that was pointed out to me on the little TV screen, and replacing the bridge that has to be redone to accomplish the final work?……about four thousand dollars.    Having teeth that are mine….priceless.

And now to all my friends:   The canisters will be going out next week to area retailers.   Please give generously when you see the big white cans with my picture on them.   I appreciate your help…..Life Is Good

The Coffee Connection

There was a time in my not too distant past when I secretly chuckled at the sight of people standing in line at Starbucks.     After all, who in their right mind would pay four bucks for a cup of coffee?

 And then there is that intimidating language barrier.   I’ve only recently learned what a “barista” is……and I still haven’t figured out what “latte” actually means.   Is that the foamy top or does that refer to the lighter color when you add milk??    And all that really only scratches the surface.  What about espressos, cappuccinos and macchiatos…oh my!!  If you stand in line, trying to decipher all this stuff, with a crowd in back of you there is definitely going to be a riot.  I had decided I was just too lazy to become a coffee snob, so it was Maxwell House for me.

And then came Keurig.  It started innocently enough as a Christmas gift from our kids.   I figured it wouldn’t be my favorite appliance, but what the heck.   Little did I know this thing produced the crack cocaine of coffee, and I would be totally hooked.

It’s been a year since I said goodbye to Maxwell House.  No….I don’t stand in line, but I buy the little “pods” of coffee that hold the brown elixir I have become so addicted to by the case now.   Oh yes, by the case.

Last week we were having breakfast in a restaurant and my husband and I both turned down coffee refills.  Nothing tastes right any more unless it’s been squeezed and steamed and swooshed through the silver Keurig machine that sits on my countertop at home.   The first person out of bed in the morning at our house is responsible for turning on the pot.   If I’m still in bed I wait till I hear the pot makes it moaning “ooooh oooow” sound informing me it is now possible to get a good cup of coffee should I decide to get out of my nice warm bed.   The coffee is so good it gets me moving every time.

You might think I’m getting a commission from Keurig….I assure you I am not.  I am not happy with myself because this feels a lot like some strange addiction, and that goes against my grain.   I get that small tug of worry when I see the bottom of the box of coffee pods looking up at me….and that seems to be happening a lot more often.   I thought we’d drink less coffee, making it a cup at a time it would seem logical, right?   Wrong!!    It’s a trick.

So….I have gotten over my smug “who’d stand in line for a cup of coffee at four bucks a pop” attitude.  I realize I have a problem.  I am hooked on Green Mountain, Nantucket Blend coffee from my wheezy, cranky, Keurig coffee machine.  It’s not something that makes me proud, but there it is….but before you judge me try a cup yourself.  And then get used to carrying a thermos, buying coffee by the case instead of the can….and feeling like a dope.   It’s that good.   And life is good…….

A far away winter.....

We have been fortunate so far this year, the weather has held out beautifully.   The small amount of snow we've  had hasn't been much to deal with, and many days the sun has been out, making it a great time to walk and enjoy the outdoors.  Walking in the chilly sunshine makes my mind wander....

Sitting in a nice warm house it's easy to forget that not so long ago the world was not quite as comfortable.  The bite in the air takes me back to a childhood that was not temperature perfect.

Growing up, our house had one large register in the living room wall, and that was it.  Close the door to the bedroom and you might just wake up with frosty eyebrows.   When the furnace kicked on we would soak up as much heat as possible, almost always cuddled under a throw to watch TV.  The room would not have passed muster with Martha Stewart, because it was arranged around that heat vent all winter long.  Each evening after school I'd arrive home to the smell of something cooking, the front window steamed and frosted inside from top to bottom.  Mom would give me heck for scratching my name in the icy crust.

My grandparents homes were much the same.   One house had a big floor register that served as whole house heat, the other had a coal stove in the living room that always sported a tea kettle full of water on top of the red hot fire box.  The further you got from the stove or register, the colder the house became, and long sleeved flannel shirts were the order of the day.   Beds were layered with hand made quilts and blankets, their weight bearing down and holding you in one position all night. 

Visiting at my Great Grandfathers house was also a chilly event.  Everyone congregated in the "front room", which was heated by a fireplace.   With the door to that room closed, everyone gathered around the fireplace....taking turns standing first facing, and then backed into, the blazing fire.  I'd stand there till my skin burned, then flip around to cook the other side.  Life back then was less about comfort and more about being together....not a bad thing.

Summer was just the reverse.  There was a window fan in my parents bedroom that roared like a Boeing 747 all summer.  Assorted smaller table top fans stirred the humid air around in the rest of the house.   No air conditioning meant tossing and turning all night with a fan aimed directly at you, providing little more than white noise to block out the street sounds coming through the open windows.  Hot weather was a steady assembly line of ice cube trays and Kool Aid mixes.

Ah, but the long, hot, summer  was also time of "fine art".  Each year the local funeral home in Mom's home town would put a new picture on the fans they passed out to mourners.  It was something I looked forward to, seeing what beautiful picture would be on the summer funeral fan.  I'm sure DaVinci would have been proud to see his work imprinted on cardboard squares, stapled to the "tongue depressor" handle and used to stir humid air across the ruddy cheeks of the locals.  It never occurred to me that someone actually had to die to supply me with this small entertainment.

It didn't happen often, but occasionally the ice cream man came around our neighborhood in the north end of Mansfield.   Not the colorful, music spewing truck that tours neighborhoods today....this was the Bloodgoods Ice Cream Company.  They paid boys to ride bicycles with coolers of ice cream mounted on the front.   These "ice cream rickshaws" went all over town, a row of bells mounted over the cooler, jingling frantically as the boys peddled in the hot summer sun.  Definitely not a job that was in danger of being outsourced.

So here we are today,  hot house flowers darting from air conditioned car to climate controlled building and back again.  Like vampires avoiding the sunlight, we spend our days slathered in greasy sun block, wearing hats the size of hoop skirts and shirts that promise SPF 60 protection.  Venture out in anything less and someone is bound to look at you, cluck their tongue and murmur "melanoma".

Those were gentler days, and a great time to grow up.  We thought the sun was good for you and winter was supposed to be cold.  For both seasons our clothes came from Montgomery Ward, and no one knew anything about Gucci or Coach or Vuitton.  We did know that "Fruit of the Loom" went in the back, and if the label was on the outside of your shirt you had it on inside out.   Simple.

         Yes....I remember being cold.   And I remember being hot.   And I remember being happy.

                  Funny how taking a walk on a cold winter day can bring back memories.....

                                                                   Life is Good.
 

Name that Tune......

                                I have come to the realization that I am growing old. 

You might think by this point in my life I’d have come to terms with that, but until recently I truly had not.   Every morning I face a woman in the mirror who returns my watery stare.   I see her there, day after day, and she doesn’t change much over night, so perhaps I’ve not been paying close enough attention. 

I have slowed down, but not all that much.  I still manage to do most of the things I’ve always done, with the exception of the things I’ve come to realize just aren’t all that important.  When I changed our bed this past weekend I commented to my husband that it was the second time I can remember using pillow cases that were not lightly starched and ironed.  Is that a sign of aging or just better time management?

No….it isn’t the crow’s feet, grey hair or un-ironed bed linens that make me know I am getting old. It is the change in the background music that constantly runs through my head.

That may sound crazy, but it’s true; I’ve always had back ground music in my head.   A convertible with the top down on a bright summer day usually starts “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by the Rolling Stones playing in my head.   Before I retired I was often stressed and stretched, and “Theme from Miami Vice” streamed through my frontal lobes.  I've always known nothing makes your high heels click faster than walking along to “Let’s Give ‘em Something to Talk About”……see what I mean? 

The change began subtly enough.   “Theme from Miami Vice” was replaced by Carly Simon tunes shorty after I retired.  Then, Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” (Summer movement, of course) started playing when I was whipping along in the convertible one day.  Barbra Streisand’s rendition of “Evergreen”…..or Josh Groban crooning “You Raise me Up” started showing up a lot.   Then sitting out on the front steps at home one velvety evening I heard Susan Boyle doing “I Dreamed a Dream”.  When I finally went back into the house it was knowing this change in background music represented even bigger changes going on in me.   

Maybe I’m silly to equate the slowing of the music to the slowing of the life force, but I do.  It seems the only logical explanation for the increase in Andrew Lloyd Weber and the lessening of the Rolling Stones on my internal play list.  Just the same, it’s okay because it’s still music, and it’s still my life.  I am really just grateful the music is still playing at all.   Perhaps that’s how I will know I am truly old, when the music ceases.  Or, maybe the music doesn’t stop until we do...which makes me  wonder if my final exit song will be Peggy Lee singing, “Is that all There Is?”

Take time to listen to the music…..Life is good.  

 

 

New Year....same old me.

Here we stand on the threshold of another brand new year.  Some of us look at what is ahead with fear, after all the Aztecs didn’t bother to add any more time to their calendar after 2012.  Some of are full of hope, hence all the cherry cheeked presidential candidates.   Some of us will march fearlessly into the New Year with a list of personal changes tucked firmly under our arms.  Ladies and Gentlemen….I give you the dreaded New Year’s resolution.

Like every adult in the U.S.A. I’ve made more than my share of them, and my New Year’s resolutions have included but are not limited to:

I will lose ten pounds (or twenty or fifty)

I will stop smoking (which I did without the help of a New Year’s resolution)

I will be more patient (generous, tolerant, attentive, etc)

I will work harder (or not as hard)

I will learn to ski (or roller skate, or sing, or play the harmonica or something)

I will stop swearing (cough)

I will spend more time with (someone who drives me nuts and I avoid 364 days each year)

You get the picture, because just like every other dissatisfied adult in America you’ve made them, too.

Having shared that list with you I have an important announcement to make:

   I DO NOT have any New Year’s resolutions.   Not one….nada….zip….zilch.

I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you it’s because I believe I’ve reached perfection.  I only know that I am going into the New Year with one thought…..I am enough.   Perhaps this epiphany has come to me in the form of wisdom at this later stage of life, or perhaps it’s just fatigue, but it’s what I know.  

New Year’s resolutions are a search for perfection after we have compared ourselves to others and have been found wanting.   Over the years I’ve gotten past that and I’ve given myself permission to be who I am: a woman aware of her shortcomings and quite comfortable with them, thank you very much.  After wishing to be taller, smarter, more attractive or to define my talents, I have finally come to this understanding:  I can wear high heels to feel taller, I can read more to learn more, I can comb my hair more often, and I can admire other people’s talents….but I am what I am.

Over the years I’ve come to the gradual realization that I am “hard wired” in some areas of my personality, and my belief system has evolved through my life experiences.    I think I have always tried to be the best “me” possible, but trying to be someone I am not is a waste of my gradually diminishing energy.

Who wants to be perfect anyway?  The Kardashians are perfectly famous.  Lindsay Lohan is perfectly beautiful.  Donald Trump is perfectly rich.  Casey Anthony is perfectly free.    I wouldn’t want to trade places with any of them….would you?

I know I’m flying in the face of tradition here, but I think you should join me this year in my “no change…no way” mind set.   Check your emotional “basement” to make sure the foundation is secure, and then forget about it.  Maybe we’re not perfect, but then what is?       

                                          Be who you are….because you are enough.

                                                   Happy New Year... Life is good. 

                                               

The Joy of Socks........

  

 When you look around you at all the mysterious things in this world my question might not seem so important.   After all…we will never know how they built the pyramids, or what Stone Henge is really all about.  I question whether we’ll ever understand why we are born, age and die.   Those things are for bigger minds than ours.  I can live with that.

   BUT DO YOU THINK SOMEONE COULD FIGURE OUT WHERE SOCKS GO WHEN YOU PUT

                                                                      THEM      

                                                 IN THE DOGGONED WASHER????????? 

My husband and I have been together for a lot of years.   We have raised three beautiful children into adulthood, and now they are raising their own families.   But when they lived at home not one of us was ever be able to figure out where a lifetime of family socks went.

At one point we had in our basement laundry room a basket that any snake charmer would have envied.  It was three feet tall and round, made of some exotic natural reed woven by a bare skinned native woman in a country far, far way.    I purchased it at World Market for over ten thousand times what that bare skinned basket weaver was paid, and I brought it to my nice cool basement to solve the mystery of the socks.

My plan was this:  Each child/adult would take his or her pair of socks and force the toes of the pair through a brightly colored plastic ring.  These had been carefully selected, along with the beautiful basket, to hold two socks together in the wash, guaranteeing matching socks for our family of five.  I was in the middle of this organizational binge after being unable to find socks for school one morning, and the result was my daughter had to go to gym class with taupe knee highs rolled down into her gym shoes.

After frantically searching through hundreds of mismatched socks that I could swear I had never seen before, I sank to my knees on the basement floor (Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind) and proclaimed, “I swear we’ll never go sockless again.” 

And so, for years we filled that basket with socks.  The plastic rings only lasted through two wash days, and then they too disappeared.   About once a month I’d dig down a foot or so into the basket and match up enough socks to keep Children’s Services satisfied, but I never found a system to put two matching socks into the washer and remove two matching socks from the dryer.   

So……where do they go?  I estimate over the twenty years of raising three kids, a husband with dress socks, me with knee highs and golf socks, we have shelled out ten thousand dollars in sock money….easy.

It’s not like I threw them away, I swear!  Many years after I bought the beautiful basket we got a new puppy, and when she took it upon herself to consume the bottom row of basket weave we found baby socks!   My kids were teenagers at the time, so these socks were obviously reappearing in this dimension from a parallel world.

I thought maybe the kids were trying to “gaslight” me for a while, but when they grew up and moved out the trend continued.   The long ago basket has been replaced several times, but all the containers seem to be home to a vortex into that same parallel world that only one sock at a time is permitted to enter. 

I may not know much about the Druids or space aliens or the canals on Mars, but this I do know...somewhere there is a graveyard that holds mismatched socks, paper clips and hair bands.  It belongs to no one, but everyone contributes.  It is more difficult to find than the Lost Dutchman’s Mine….but someday, someone will find it!    Then, maybe we’ll have the answer to the age old question:  “Have you seen my socks?”        

                                                            Life is good. 

            

..........and to all a good night

           If you’re very lucky you have some wonderful Christmas memories.   I am very lucky.

My Mom, Dad and I always went to my grandparent’s house in Kentucky for Christmas.   As  little girls my cousin, Theresa, and I loved to crawl under the live Christmas tree, lie on our backs and look up through the branches at the bubble lights.  I thought they were the most beautiful things, and I still find those lights mesmerizing.  (note to self: shop the after Christmas sales for some bubble lights!) 

I think I must have been nine or ten the year I so desperately wanted a record player for Christmas.  I had a small one as a very little girl, and I had one record for it.   “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” was the song, and I can hear it to this day. 

At my grandmother’s house that year there was one box under the tree that was big enough to hold my dream gift, and I begged for clues from my Mother.   “Just tell me the first letter, just the first letter,” I begged.   My Mom thought a while and said….”Okay…the letter is P.”   I was crestfallen.   I wanted a RECORD PLAYER.   That Christmas morning I tore into the gifts.   The first, and largest, box I opened held a grey suitcase record player.   My Mom laughed as she introduced me to a new word… “phonograph”.   It was my treasure, as was the first 45 single I bought, “Wake up Little Susie” by the Everly Brothers.  

I think it was at Smarts Records on Main Street back then, when you bought 12 records they gave you the 13^th free.   Each week my Dad would let me pick out a record for 48 cents.   I became the proud owner of a punch card, and every week I would present it to the clerk so he could punch another hole in it that put me ever closer to the cherished number 12.   All week I would count the holes, then recount as if another might have magically appeared.   I still have some of those old 45’s with my name scrawled in a childish hand, all part and parcel of that special Christmas.

I’ve had a lot of Christmas gifts since that year, but none sticks in my mind quite as clearly as that phonograph.   After that year it seems that my memories jump forward to putting together bicycles, tiny tin kitchen appliances, wrapping gifts till the wee hours and stuffing stockings for my own children.   Those pre-Christmas evenings began with bathing three excited, wiggly little ones; working to get them stuffed into pajamas and tucked into bed.  While I herded the kids, Larry would start the process of deciphering toy assembly instructions, breathing a silent prayer that all the pieces were in the boxes. 

There’s nothing to prepare you for Christmas Day like advanced Christmas construction that keeps you up half the night.   Our kids were all pre-dawn Christmas celebrators.   I seemed as if I had no more than just closed my eyes (nearly crossed from trying to fit tiny screws into holes that didn’t mesh for a minimum of four hours) than the bed would explode into motion with three little ones squealing, “Mommy!…Daddy!.....Santa was here!!!   Get up…call Nanny and Grandpa!!!”    We would call my parents at some ungodly hour, and they would come over to watch the kids open their gifts.   Dad would unload another car full of packages while the kids danced and chattered with excitement.    It really didn’t matter if it was the middle of the night, we four adults sat drinking coffee while the kids ripped and shredded everything in sight. 

After the unwrapping carnage ended, Dad was always the first one to grab a garbage bag and start picking up ribbon and paper and torn boxes.   It was “his job” every Christmas, and the first year after his death none of us quite knew what to do; no one had the heart to be the one to pick up a bag and start cleaning up.    Somehow we got the job done, but we all knew that none of us is quite as good at it as my Pop was.

Our Christmas celebrations have certainly changed.  My Mom still bakes her pumpkin cake her grandchildren love, but our children have become beautiful adults.   They are loving and thoughtful, giving of their time and strength to friends and family all year long.  Our own seven grandchildren are growing tall and strong.  Everything has changed but the love, and that is the true gift to all of us this Christmas.   Looking around me on Christmas Day I am thankful for each one as they open gifts, laughing, teasing and enjoying each other’s company. 

Oh, my yes……Life is Good.

 

         

The Golden Girls

My grandmother always told me that the older you get, the faster time goes.  At the time I thought that was impossible, but now I know that, like most things she told me, she was right.  Another year has come and gone and this evening marked a yearly event that I always look forward to......the Golden Girl's Christmas party at my house.

A lot of years ago I dubbed the four of us the "golden girls".   We four old friends met for dinner at my house one summer evening when everyone was in town.  At the time two of us were living in town, one in Florida and one in Phoenix.  My husband snapped our picture to mark the event.   Later, when I was looking for a card to tuck a picture into for each of them, I came upon cards with the "Golden Girls" on them; we've been the golden girls ever since.  

These are women I've known since girlhood.  We all grew up in the north end of Mansfield, went to Mansfield Senior High School, married about the same time.  For the most part we swooned over the same neighborhood boys, went to the Friendly House dances, and shared the same growing pains.   Now, all these years later, several husbands have come and gone, kids have grown up and provided us with beautiful grandchildren, we've comforted one another through the loss of parents, loss of siblings, and the loss of a child.

   

Once a month I count on the counsel and support of these three special friends of mine.  We share our complaints, our triumphs and our tragedies over angel hair pasta and iced tea.  More importantly we share our memories.   These are three faces that always light up at the site of the fourth coming through the door, always looking forward to hearing what each of us has been up to.  These are the golden girls.

Ours is not an intrusive friendship.  In between these monthly dinners we seldom see one another, and except for the occasional email or phone call we usually don't talk in between.  But in a way I think that's what makes our monthly meal a special time to catch up and renew our friendship.  The fact that we are not on the phone every day doesn't detract from the knowledge that if any of us needs the others, we will all be there in a heartbeat.

                                                                     Golden Girls
                                 Ellen Matthews    Diana Coon     Chris Butler      Becky Myers
                                                                   Molly the wonder dog



And so this evening we shared a "retro dinner" at my house, right out of 1965, with subs from the Leaning Tower, Jones Potato Chips, and Pepsi.  We exchanged gifts and stories and laughter; four women who are in touch with their shortcomings, and celebrating their strengths.  These are women as individual as snowflakes, and I love each of them dearly.

It seems to me that it was just a few months ago that the four of us were wearing bobby socks and wrapping our boyfriends class rings with angora yarn....talking about Fabian and wondering if Ricky Nelson would sing in the weekly episode of Ozzie and Harriett.   The time has gone by at a decidedly faster clip as I've aged, just as my Grandmother said it would.  I cannot hold time back, but I can hold my friendships and my family dear and try to remind myself to be grateful for every moment.

Christmas has always been the stake in the ground that marks the passage of my life.  For some reason it’s an emotional season, where losses are harder and gains are greater.  It makes me understand that one of the greatest gifts anyone can receive is an evening with old friends, and the hope of many more.
Merry Christmas, my friends……….Life is good.

Nothing is constant but change for the holidays.

I seem to have done it again.  I really hate being predictable, but as crazy as it seems, I am.   Here we are at the holidays, one week to the day from Christmas Day.   Am I content to shop, bake, wrap, and mail Christmas cards?   Oh no, not me.

Just as I have done so many times in the past I found myself in the middle of a remodeling/redecorating project.   It's almost as if, somewhere in the middle of my tiny brain, there is a circuit that shorts out when the holidays get closer.  There is the smell of burning plastic, the arcing of hot wires....and the next thing I know there are workemen in my house and an impossible delivery date for furniture....or something.

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By five p.m. on Friday...just two short days ago, there were men exiting my house who were covered in dry wall dust.  They'd been busy carrying out the plan I'd made with the contractor just two days before,  two days of tearing out a door, drywalling a wall, then taping and mudding and smoothing.  Before I knew it they were gone, and I had no idea if they were going to show up on Saturday (isn't that overtime?) or wait til Monday (six days and counting from Christmas) to finish the wall, paint, and replace woodwork.  And that, of course, is when my own work really starts to get the room cleaned and together for our family gathering.

How does this happen?  One year I ripped the paper off the dining room walls two days before Christmas...another year I washed up after Thanksgiving in a "temporary" kitchen because the new countertop had arrived cut to someone else's measurements.  I've had holidays with no furniture....no kitchen....a "barely made it to the finishline" bathroom and other projects too numerous to mention.  My plans never leave any room for error, and they push the abilities of mere mortals to the breaking point. 

It's not as if the holidays aren't stressful enough...and even when I was managing a dozen radio stations I followed the same pattern.  I guess my sub conscious mind just says, "Hey!!   Let's see if we can bring this body to it's knees!"

It's not as if I didn't start the search for furniture at a good time...but even though the first furniture (which I never got) was purchaed the first week in September, the continuing saga is only finished today.

So....the workman showed up yesterday and did an outstanding job on finishing the wall.  I am now happily minus one door, I have a freshly painted wall, new furniture, and it took me half a day to clean up the white dust that covered everything like a tracking snow. 

I love our new family room.  Even though I tend to be color phobic, I chose a warm pumpkin color for the wall, and the room feels warmer and cozier.  The furniture (which my husband ultimately selected, by the way) is very comfy and we have plenty of wall space for a real couch, thanks to the nice young man who worked so hard to make the door disappear.

And so....it's "the holidays".  There's one sure way to tell...you can look at a calendar, your phone, or your computer......OR you can come by my house and look at the mess and you'll know the holidays can't be more than a week away.

The first step toward order is disorder, and finally everything is in order for the holidays.  My holiday tradition is this...the paint is dry and the food is hot....HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

 Life is Good.

What goes around comes around....finding a happy memory.

I got an early Christmas gift today.   While cleaning out a drawer in the kitchen, working ever so slowly toward that de-cluttering of my life I’ve talked about, I discovered my gold fox head ring!    

Several months ago I rubbed my thumb on my left index finger, just as I’ve done for so many years, and my ring was gone.   It’s just one of those long standing habits you develop, and I was startled to find it was not there….I didn’t remember taking it off, but it was just gone. 

I bought the ring in August of 1991 as a reward for accomplishing a big goal, and to mark the event.  The year before I had been granted the gift of building the carousel in downtown Mansfield.   It was the most abstract job I’d ever tackled, and one of the most rewarding.   Always in love with the downtown, I was thrilled to be the first director of the project.  There was no real game plan, there was no instruction manual.   Basically I got a job title, the carousel building and a brown desk phone that sat on the cement floor.   I was now officially the person who would answer it.

At the time I walked into that building as the director the whole carousel project was very controversial.   I got the call on a Sunday that I had the job, and my husband and I had a cook out to go to that evening before it had even been announced.    I was talking to someone at that gathering when I heard the man behind me say, “I just saw the funniest bumper sticker.  It said, ‘Last one out of Mansfield, Turn off the Lights off on the Carousel’. “   I turned to meet him, tapped him on the shoulder and said, “I’d like to introduce myself.  I’m Diana Coon and I’ll be turning off the lights on the carousel.”   He proceeded to tell me why it would never get built, and why I should start looking for another job… pronto.

I listened, not at all sure that he might not have a point, and I told him I’d give him the first ride on that carousel when I got it built.   Eventually he got that ride, and he was such a good sport he wrote me a check for $500.00 to support the project.    

I did a lot of talking to groups during that time, trying to change opinions and gain support.  In one  such speech, I talked about my wish to see rocking chairs around the carousel for people to sit in to watch the children, listen to the music, or just relax.   Someone from the telephone company, Sprint at that time, called me and said they wanted to raise the money for the chairs.   Through 'dress down Fridays' and bake sales and donations, they did.   I had brass plaques put on the rockers to acknowledge the groups contribution.  The chairs are still there today, and I sat in one, rocking my granddaughter, not long ago.   I'm sorry to say I simply don’t remember the names of all the people who were so kind and worked so hard to make the Carrousel Park the place it is today, but I’ve never forgotten one of their faces or what they did to help.  

 Since this was the first hand carved wooden carousel to go up in the country in the last sixty years, it wasn’t possible to pick up the phone to ask someone, “So what did you do when you built YOUR carousel?”  I haunted the library for several weeks, putting together an idea of what I thought needed to be done.  I talked to everyone who would talk to me, and gratefully accepted all the help I could get.  Through books from the library I discovered the old carousels had used tokens, and  I wanted Richland Carrousel Park to have them too.  Eventually I found out who manufactured the tokens for the New York City subway system, and they did the original tokens for our carousel.    It was a wide open challenge, and I loved every minute of it.

So, it was twenty years ago this summer that I bought this ring.   It marked the completion of the carousel project for me, and every time I look at it I am reminded of that time and how proud I was at that grand opening.  It was a lot of very hard work, and my husband and children supported me every step of the way. 

All these years later the carousel that no one thought would last is still going round and round.   I love being downtown in the summer when the doors are up and the happy, tinkling music fills the air.   I remember the day that organ was installed, and the day the center pole went up,  the work crew who built it, and the challenges that so many people met to get it completed.  

And so, my early Christmas gift was finding this ring today, long after I had accepted the fact that it was gone.    I’m delighted to have it back on my left index finger where it belongs, and I am thankful for the happy memories it carries.  I also know I am a very lucky woman to have both…….Life is Good.

   

     

Somebody is walking on my grave

My husband, Larry, and I have been fortunate to have been able to do some traveling.  We’ve been to England a couple of times, to the Netherlands; we’ve walked the Champs Elysees and looked over Paris from the Eiffel Tower.   I have some wonderful memories of trips we’ve taken.

To say I am a frustrated photographer would be an understatement.   I imagine I’ve taken about a gazillion pictures in my time.  Now that you don’t have to wait to have them developed and pay to throw three quarters of them away, I like it even more.

Two of my gazillion pictures stand out because they are unusual and they were taken on two different continents.

One of my favorite places to visit as we travel is the local graveyard.   Every culture treats death differently, and every tomb or stone or slab is a mini history lesson.  I’ve traipsed through graveyards all over the world.

We were in Paris, staying in a hotel that had a wonderful view from rooms that were not much larger than a telephone booth.  Needless to say we saw a lot of Paris just to stay out of that room.

In our wandering around we discovered that a block from the hotel there was a huge cemetery, right in the center of Paris.  We strolled through it, admiring the tombs and monuments and commenting on how different this site was from the American counterparts.

As we walked and talked I noticed over in a shady corner, stretched out on a big stone slab in the only shaft of sunlight in that whole area, was a large black cat.  The tomb resembled a four poster bed of stone, and although it may have been macabre I found it intriguing, so I snapped the picture.   The cat bounded away and I wasn’t certain I’d gotten the shot.   Since I was using film, I had to wait until we got back to the States and developed the film to see that it was a very good shot.   Well….if you appreciate graveyards it was a very good shot.

Several years later we were in New Orleans.  We took the trolley to the Garden District so we could walk through Lafayette Cemetery.  New Orleans is famous for ghost stories, Voo Doo princesses, and folk lore.  I didn’t want to miss this notorious cemetery…

Walking through the beautiful Garden District we admired the stately old homes, the riot of colorful flowers, and then we came to the cemetery surrounded by, what appeared to be, an ancient stone wall.   We found the entrance and as we walked through the big Iron Gate Larry quipped, “Would you like me to conjure up another black cat for you?”   I laughed as we rounded a corner and viola’……there it was.   Another big, black cat was lazing in the sun on a crypt.   He didn’t seem to pay much attention to us as I took several photos, but when I finished, the cat got up from his resting place and came directly to me.  He stayed right by my side as we walked through the rest of the cemetery, rubbing against me and twining himself through my legs as if in appreciation for having his picture taken.  Finally I sat on a bench in the sunshine, stroking him and talking to him as he looked me straight in the eye without any shyness at all.

We stayed longer than we had planned walking around the small cemetery a couple of times just because the black cat seemed to enjoy having some company.  As we exited he walked us to the gate, where he stopped as if he’d been trained not to leave the place.  He turned and walked back into the labyrinth of crypts and stones as we walked down the street.

Later that day we recounted meeting the black cat in the cemetery to the desk clerk at the hotel. "Oh, that's Tom.  He's like the tour guide there, been around since anyone can remember,"  he said.

The black cat pictures are matted and framed and they hang in our hallway.  They're my two favorite travel photos, and I have to admit that every time we travel, every time we stroll through a graveyard, we both have our eyes peeled for another black cat on a grave.   I guess you could say it's become our unusual vacation tradition........life is good.