Hello?
May I speak with Mrs. Broyles, please?
May I ask who's calling?
This is a courtesy call for breast cancer.
I'm sorry, Mrs. Broyles is not available to take this call.
So what is this? Is breast cancer suddenly polite enough to call ahead? Easy answer to that one. Hang up immediately.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Why does "noone" bother me so much? I finally googled it today to see if it meant what I thought it did and to find out if I have been wrong all my life ... like the time in high school the spelling champion confronted the cheerleaders over "A-L-R-I-G-H-T, ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT." That would be "all right," don't you know. Not sure if I'd caught it or not, but I've never forgotten the legitimacy and honor our valedictorian wanted to bring to our school.
I have seen a lot of changes and morphs and some I just face with some degree of "whatever" but noone is messing with my head. How could anyone, and seemingly everyone, agree that no one can so easily become noone. Noone. That's Old English for noon. Urban Dictionary, my help for all the nonsensical letters of communication - lmao - the hippest of the hip and coolest of the cool defines noone as The incorrect combination of "No one." But hey, that doesn't seem to be slowing anybody down. Noone is going to listen.
I have seen a lot of changes and morphs and some I just face with some degree of "whatever" but noone is messing with my head. How could anyone, and seemingly everyone, agree that no one can so easily become noone. Noone. That's Old English for noon. Urban Dictionary, my help for all the nonsensical letters of communication - lmao - the hippest of the hip and coolest of the cool defines noone as The incorrect combination of "No one." But hey, that doesn't seem to be slowing anybody down. Noone is going to listen.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Each birthday that has a "0" in the ones column generates some sort of anticipation ... yippy 10, wow 20, eh 30, whoa 40, ack 50 ... and so on and so forth. But when I hit 50 I was sooooo grateful to be alive that I threw myself a grand paella party and invited all my most dear and longtime friends. My daughters and sister helped me cook up a storm, rally flowers from the neighbors and help string white lights along the porch - all 600 square feet of it. Celebration galore. But, I was still 50, and lots of life was behind me.
A trip to Puerto Rico less than a year later as a new widow provided a moment when I went to sleep on the beach in the past and awoke, looking through palm fronds to clear blue skies and the future. So as I turned my gaze upon what might lie ahead instead of living so much in what had already passed, The Unit - that's those two daughters of mine and my sister and me - urged me to take a look at what could be some firsts after 50.
The Firsts After 50 list became an official reality with a whitewater rafting trip (a quick aside here based on a typo I just made ... think about what you get when raft is mistyped and the "r" and the "f" are transposed - haha). The list grew to contain my first trip to Europe and my first time speaking French in a French speaking country, making my own bassoon reeds and actually performing on them; learning to drive a stick shift not just in theory but in practice, and owning my own little manual "all-wheel drive to go anywhere" (and did) sporty car; serving as my own contractor and lining up the building of an entire house. A New Year's pledge resulted in finally being able to "turn the corner" on crocheting and I made scarves from yarn from local llamas. I built my first successful fire in a woodstove and became a master of fire building in the big stone fireplace in my house and in our cabin. I cooked over an open fire. I was in my 50's before I allowed the Democrat in me to stand up and be counted. I see these are essentially many things I'd always desired but felt too timid or constrained to try.
My Firsts After 50 list also includes losing my mother. But a few years later I added the joyous first of marriage to my Frank ... his true first at age 58. A honeymoon to Nova Scotia added my first bowl of seafood chowder to my list. I became a mother-in-law. :)
And, I saw Ringo in Nashville and Paul in Las Vegas before it was too late ... for them or for me.
P.S. And, how could I forget!? Another first after fifty ... knowing how to use a corkscrew!
P.S.S. I remember AND have new experiences so, this will simply be the continuing list:
A trip to Puerto Rico less than a year later as a new widow provided a moment when I went to sleep on the beach in the past and awoke, looking through palm fronds to clear blue skies and the future. So as I turned my gaze upon what might lie ahead instead of living so much in what had already passed, The Unit - that's those two daughters of mine and my sister and me - urged me to take a look at what could be some firsts after 50.
The Firsts After 50 list became an official reality with a whitewater rafting trip (a quick aside here based on a typo I just made ... think about what you get when raft is mistyped and the "r" and the "f" are transposed - haha). The list grew to contain my first trip to Europe and my first time speaking French in a French speaking country, making my own bassoon reeds and actually performing on them; learning to drive a stick shift not just in theory but in practice, and owning my own little manual "all-wheel drive to go anywhere" (and did) sporty car; serving as my own contractor and lining up the building of an entire house. A New Year's pledge resulted in finally being able to "turn the corner" on crocheting and I made scarves from yarn from local llamas. I built my first successful fire in a woodstove and became a master of fire building in the big stone fireplace in my house and in our cabin. I cooked over an open fire. I was in my 50's before I allowed the Democrat in me to stand up and be counted. I see these are essentially many things I'd always desired but felt too timid or constrained to try.
My Firsts After 50 list also includes losing my mother. But a few years later I added the joyous first of marriage to my Frank ... his true first at age 58. A honeymoon to Nova Scotia added my first bowl of seafood chowder to my list. I became a mother-in-law. :)
And, I saw Ringo in Nashville and Paul in Las Vegas before it was too late ... for them or for me.
P.S. And, how could I forget!? Another first after fifty ... knowing how to use a corkscrew!
P.S.S. I remember AND have new experiences so, this will simply be the continuing list:
- a cruise to the Caribbean
- riding a tandem bike ...
Monday, August 27, 2012
My sister named it. We call him "Mr. Possibility." That would be my husband. He is a possibility thinker, my sister says. She named what I knew. Each day brings round new possibilities, and it is a wondrous way to live. Seems like I've read that somewhere before, heard it from the pulpit. But do we usually trust it, or live it?
Oh the wonder of it ... time together every morning, on the couch with devotional reading, coffee and notepads, and "simply musts," and ponderings never left without hopeful outcomes ... always watching to carefully tend a possibility, to find a way in a way that those who give and those who receive are Ultimately Blessed. Mr./Ms. Possibility ... a cavalry to the rescue for those who are sinking.
Oh the wonder of it ... time together every morning, on the couch with devotional reading, coffee and notepads, and "simply musts," and ponderings never left without hopeful outcomes ... always watching to carefully tend a possibility, to find a way in a way that those who give and those who receive are Ultimately Blessed. Mr./Ms. Possibility ... a cavalry to the rescue for those who are sinking.
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