My nephew Cameron borrowed his mother’s car today and pulled out of the driveway to see my girl (in fact, Mary’s cat) Trixie lying dead in the road…I suppose from having been hit by a car…I always knew that something bad would happen because of that close, busy road in front of Mary’s house. I’m really sad about Trixie, and especially will be when I go back to Biloxi to visit. Trixie was my girl, enough so that I gave her her own personal rap name, “T-Rix.” but moreso :’-(

Any time I went over to my sister’s house, the first (and last) thing I did was track Trixie down, which could be difficult, given that she liked to lie in weeds, flowers, bushes, the clothes dryer, etc. And she was the only cat I knew who could meow without making a sound, or, at most, no more than a squeak. Trixie had a little head on a lumpy squishy body, just like me, so maybe that’s why I liked her so much!

My father apparently has a piece of rusted metal in his eye (?!). Since it’s rusted, the metal piece can’t just be pulled out. So my mother said they were going to “burnish it out.” I thought she said that they were going to “burn that shit out.” She laughed and laughed.

I suppose “burnishing” is a lot less traumatic than what I thought was going to happen!

The picture of all of us is from around 1980, give or take one year.

L to R: Fred, Jim, Jamie, Jane, Carroll, Mary

The picture of all of us is from around 1980, give or take one year.

L to R: Fred, Jim, Jamie, Jane, Carroll, Mary

Heard on TV this sunny Monday morning:

“Requip (ropinirole HCl) helped me make peace with my legs.” I suppose some wampum was exchanged and a peace pipe smoked between the woman and her legs.

Good news, seriously I know, for those with restless leg syndrome, but unintentionally funny for the rest of us!

Heard on TV this sunny Monday morning:

“Requip (ropinirole HCl) helped me make peace with my legs.” I suppose some wampum was exchanged and a peace pipe smoked between the woman and her legs.

Good news, seriously I know, for those with restless leg syndrome, but unintentionally funny for the rest of us!

I figure I ought to put a picture of my brother Jamie up (some have said he and I looked alike). He’d be 40 in August, two weeks before Jerry’ll turn the same age. Jamie’s 16 in this picture, in 1982, 10th grade at Biloxi, MS High School. This was 6 years before he was hurt while co-oping at NASA in Virginia, and 9 years before he finally died, of heart failure, in Slidell, Lousiana.

I asked my mother once what it was like to have a daughter who was 40. And I remembered she’d asked her parents the same thing once, except about what it was like to have a 70-year-old daughter!

Then my mother told me that she met someone once and told her that story. The woman responded by saying, “That’s nothing: my mother’s 80 and her mother is still alive!”

On the way to Freeport, Maine this morning, Jerry and I were fixin’ to go through a toll booth when we saw a state sign, letting people know about an upcoming interstate project. The sign said, “Think Ahead: The Widening.”

We both laughed and Jerry said, “That sounds like a new Stephen King book.” Then he guffawed, grabbed my hand, and said, “I guess that’s (the widening, that is) what’s been happening to me the last twenty years!”

I figure I ought to put a picture of my brother Jamie up (some have said he and I looked alike). He’d be 40 in August, two weeks before Jerry’ll turn the same age. Jamie’s 16 in this picture, in 1982, 10th grade at Biloxi, MS High School. This was 6 years before he was hurt while co-oping at NASA in Virginia, and 9 years before he finally died, of heart failure, in Slidell, Lousiana.

I asked my mother once what it was like to have a daughter who was 40. And I remembered she’d asked her parents the same thing once, except about what it was like to have a 70-year-old daughter!

Then my mother told me that she met someone once and told her that story. The woman responded by saying, “That’s nothing: my mother’s 80 and her mother is still alive!”

On the way to Freeport, Maine this morning, Jerry and I were fixin’ to go through a toll booth when we saw a state sign, letting people know about an upcoming interstate project. The sign said, “Think Ahead: The Widening.”

We both laughed and Jerry said, “That sounds like a new Stephen King book.” Then he guffawed, grabbed my hand, and said, “I guess that’s (the widening, that is) what’s been happening to me the last twenty years!”