The moon was high and pale, almost full. The sky was still black with wispy clouds hurrying by on their way to somewhere else.
The wind cut through my coat as I stood waiting by the car for Husband to lock the door so we could leave.
It was our anniversary and we were headed south. I was beginning to get hungry.
We had decided not to spend a lot of money; no gifts, only eating at a nice restaurant to celebrate. We'd had some extra expenses lately, and being as we were dumb enough to get married a month after Christmas, our pockets were a little empty.
I had anticipated the day, being with Husband of thirty-one years, just us, just 'doing', not rushing or anything.
Then at 4:45 a.m. the phone rang and it was Other Brother saying to "Put your britches on and get down here."
Mother was sick again.
Of course, we were all afraid it was another blockage and the ambulance hurriedly took her away, with all of us in tow.
Turns out she has a U.T.I. and maybe some other stuff, the tests will determine what that might be. She's losing blood somewhere as her count as gone from 12 at the doc's a few weeks ago to 10 when she was in the ER yesterday to 8 a little while ago.
But she is feeling better this morning, after fierce antibiotics given I.V.
So, our anniversary didn't turn out exactly like we'd planned. Most of the day Husband was in the E.R. waiting room and I was in the E.R. with Mother.
We did get to eat out - if Wendy's gobbled down in the hospital counts.
When we got home though, we had flowers. Daughter had written in a card words sweet enough to make a grown man cry and had spent part of her meager money on a bouquet for us.
Older, younger, all the generations surround us.
Troubled or celebratory, they are the tapestry that makes our lives rich.
Thank God for what you have.
The older I get, the more goodbyes there seem to be.
My elders, folks that still make me a child (okay, in my mind only), are slipping away.
The other day, someone who had been very close to me all through my childhood passed away. I knew she'd been quite ill for some months, diagnosed, I believe, with kidney cancer. She declined treatment from the very beginning, being as she was 94 when diagnosed and felt it foolish to make herself sick and suffer from a treatment that in no way would enhance her life and certainly not prolong it.
Eventually, of course, she began the decline and died last week at the age of 96.
She was a huge part of my childhood. She camped with us a lot, hunting and fishing with the best of them. She was a real outdoors person, and after she retired stayed in blue jeans and shirts unless it was Sunday.
She was the school truant officer back in the day. Today, to be more politically correct, I guess, they are called social workers. Think about it: you are laying outta school; you get caught. Who are you most concerned about visiting you, a truant officer or a social worker? Pffffft.
Anyway, when I was very small she would buy me things if she saw I liked them. I still have a small plastic elf that sits on my mantel every Christmas and a five inch, cast iron, pot bellied stove she found for me after searching everywhere, because I'd fallen in love with the one she had at her house.
She had funny stories about stuff I said, just like my parents did.
I called her "Meanie" and she called me "Meanie". The reason is now lost to time.
When I quit school in the third grade (look it up, I blogged about it a long time ago), she was the truant officer and had to visit our home.
I wasn't nervous, she visited our home a lot. It was a little strange because she was in her school clothes; a skirt, blouse, hose and loafers, instead of her weekend clothes, blue jeans. Plus, Mother and Daddy left the room for her to talk to me alone.
I have no memory of what was said, or what she did. But I bet she felt just as helpless as all the other adults I was driving crazy over this.
No one should be shocked when a 96 year old person dies.
Yet, I was, sorta. I mean, if someone has been around all your life and you are 61 years old, shouldn't they stay around the rest of the time? I know the logical answer.
I've felt rather sad for a few days.
I haven't really seen her much in years - only if I ran into her somewhere - and not at all in the past two or three.
But I knew she was there.
And now, she's not.
If you live on this side of the United States, you know it snowed.
We got a good three inches, if not four. Fat, fluffy snow that makes the yard looked quilted. Stuck to everything, so it is lovely. It didn't get above 26 degrees today, so we still have it with us. I think the wind chill factor in the morning will be ten degrees.
But they promise a better afternoon, highs in the forties.
Of course I nagged encouraged Husband to build a fire in the 'real' fireplace. It's been so very nice as we have taken down all the Christmas decorations today.
Right now the house looks like someone ransacked it, but it will take less than half an hour to have it looking pre-Christmas again.
During all this, we had company. He forgot his pants and left them in the living room.
You'd think as cold as it is outside....
AND
We had another mouse!
Have we become a mouse motel and no one told us? The drama ended when all three cats surrounded the tiny thing, Frost hissing at it (!) and all of them going in for the kill.
Husband jumped in the middle, caught the trembling half inch long mouse in a paper towel and took it down the road, into the woods on the other side.
I am sure neighbors will thank us profusely.
What a day!
Guess I'll go clean up the kitchen now.
Better that than help with the rest of the Christmas stuff.
Plus, I gotta find a place to put his pants.
After waiting all day, it finally started snowing around 4:50 p.m. Big, fat, wet flakes, some stuck together as big as silver dollars. Within five minutes everything outside was white: trees, roof, cars and ground.
Beautiful stuff, snow.
Immediately our lights started flickering, one big brown out.
We all hollered, "NO! Don't do it." The lights stabilized and so far, so good (or I wouldn't be blogging, would I?)
I've watched it as long as I've been able, but now it's dark.
I wonder if we really will get eleven, eight, five, three inches. Heck, I was beginning to wonder if we were gonna get a flake.
Dog is fascinated, and Husband has gone back out, for the third time, with her. I think he needs to learn how to say no.
Daughter waited until the last minute to come home. I was getting antsy before she pulled up in the driveway.
Motherhood is hard.
Anyway, we are all home now, and safe. Except for husband, stomping around outside.
Wonder what the morning will look like?
I don't know about ya'll, but I'm 'bout done wore out with this weather business.
You can get any prediction you want, if you look long enough.
This front that's coming may bring us up to 8 inches of snow - or more!
OR: Freezing rain and terrible winds!
OR: Rain (at 22 degrees, I didn't really get that part)
OR: A little ice, mostly sunny.
I ain't making this up.
But it is driving me crazy.
So I took a poll on facebook, and had a good time. Funny answers.
We made fun of the meteorologists, the weather and even the president.
I'm not sure how the president got involved, but right now I'm not sure of anything.
We are hunkered down, ready for anything, as long as our house stands and the generator runs.
I don't know about you, but I got my snowsuit, bathing suit and raincoat lined up, right at the front door.
I'll let ya know how it all turns out.
If I have electricity.
Which I doubt, unless we get a bunch of nothing.
Daughter is still a single gal, so I have no grandchildren to brag about. As far as I can tell, that is what grandchildren are for.
My nephew, however; (my first, practice child) has two children, a boy and a girl. I call them my greats, as they are. My great-nephew and great-niece. Plus, they are pretty great, period.
I thought this was rather clever, until I started thinking back.
The few aunts and uncles I had, for some reason, were addressed by their first names only.
The folks I called aunt: Aint Mindy, Aint Minnie, Aint Hattie and so forth were really my grandparent's aunts (uncles, too, but not so many, as the women outlived the men).
So these ladies were oldern dirt. All of them were little old women with buns, glasses, thick cotton stockings, long cotton print dresses, black lace up shoes and canes. My great-aunts. (great-great, but go with me here, okay?)
I am now a great-aunt.
I froze in fear. I looked in the mirror. No bun. No cane (yet.) No long cotton dresses. Glasses? check. And I'd kill for some thick cotton stockings about right now, it's very cold.
But...
You don't think I'm old do you? I mean as in great-aunt old.
Then I saw where a woman my age - we went to school together - had just become a great-grandmother.
Granted, she married after eighth grade, I think. Musta started having younguns right away, and her children musta had kids young, and then their children must have started young.
At least that's what I keep telling myself.
Meanwhile, I thought I better blog today, as tomorrow I may be too old to even get to this new fangled machine, much less remember how to turn it on.
Who knows?
Goes back to the mirror to look one more time before it gets too dark to see.
It all started when Daughter and I were browsing in a department store. She and I saw, at the same time, a figurine of a cat. It looked almost porcelain, but when picked up was pretty chunky. It was a white cat, it's face lifted up, as though feeling sun on its face.
And it had wings.
We burst into tears.
You may ask why.
Well, that's what I'm here for, to tell the story.
For years we did not have a cat. I know that's hard to believe, but the reason was Sam.
Sam was our Boxer and she hated cats. We purchased her when she was 18 months old, right after we moved into our house. We loved her, and I resigned myself to a catless life for a while.
Daughter came along, and all she knew were dogs. For by then, we had another Boxer, Buster.
Buster died when Daughter was five. Sam died when Daughter was eight.
The day after Sam died, one of the women I worked with called me and said, "I know you can't have cats, but do you know of anyone who might want one? I have this white cat..."
My mind froze. I could see the cat as if she'd shown me a picture. I knew that cat would look like my cat, Scooter, that I had owned many years ago. I had no doubt in my mind. I called Husband, he said yes, and the next day the cat was delivered to my office at closing.
Her name was "White Sox". Why in the world someone would name a solid white cat that, I do not know. But I knew her real name: Angel.
She was smaller that Scooter, by a lot. She never weighed more than ten pounds. But other than size, she looked very much like he did. We thought she was maybe half Maine Coon and maybe some Angora. She had long, silky white hair, and a presence about her that said royalty.
She'd been badly scarred by having to leave the only home she knew, an elderly woman dying of cancer. She'd been taken away and put in a garage with a tom cat, terrified.
Another family took her in, but they had a dog with puppies, and she cowered in the corner all the time.
It took her a while to cotton to us.
Daughter was playing in her kiddie pool on the screened in porch when we brought the cat in. The cat was in a carrier, and Daughter at first thought we had brought home a rabbit.
Angel was truly a mesenger from God; a comfort for our grief over Sam's death.
She lived to be just over fourteen years old. Kidney failure, deafness, and seizures got her. But we loved her and she loved us.
So when we saw the angel cat statue, we were comforted again. Heartbroken, too.
Of course I purchased it. She sits up on top of the chifforobe, sweet face to the sky, a slight smile on her face.
Angel was a good cat; I miss her still.
