If you're feeling old

If you've just turned 40 and you are feeling a little old go play bingo in a nursing home. Everybody bingos twice and the came isn't over until the cards are full.

Fear of Knitting

Here I am in Dallas. Again. For the first time since 9/11/01 I brought my knitting on a plane. I've always been afraid of having it "seized." I was mildly anxious the time since I'd made no advance preparation as to what to do with it if they wouldn't let me through security. I just gambled that the very fine, very blunt bamboo needles 1) wouldn't be seen or recognized on the scanner, and 2) wouldn't appear threatening if examined. It helps that there is the very diminutive embryo of a sock hanging off of them. Maybe we are on our way back to civilization.

Snapshots

I'm here at my desk on Sunday trying to get caught up before I leave town again. And, oh yeah, write the talk I'm to give on Saturday. So obviously I'm taking a break at the moment in order to provide a couple of links for you faithful reader. I managed to take some cool photos on my recent safari to Arkansas what with being up and out at all hours. So first here are the photos of the way down there. These are mostly of Cairo, Illinois and of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers at the freakin' crack of dawn. Next there are some pictures of the monastery where My Beloved spent some of his high school years because his parents didn't have a clue what to do with him. Western Arkansas is really beautiful. Maybe it was just me who didn't know this but did you know they have mountains there? Finally there are just two shots of nice spots in Arkansas that My Beloved showed me.

Goodbyes

After the little pause that accompanied my re-entry to the Burgh I'm going to try to tell you a story about what happened at the wake.

My Beloved and I spent virtually all of our time sitting with his Grandmother at the nursing home. She enjoys company and Dogzilla has a lot of fans there. The day of the wake we sat with her all morning and then returned to wait for My Beloved's sisters to come and get Grandma. My Beloved had dearly wanted to drive her there and be with her when she first saw her daughter's body but he had been denied this privilege by his aunt who will hence forth be referred to as Lady Tremane. My Beloved had earned Lady Tremane's disfavor when he objected to Grandma being put in the nursing home a year ago. He and numerous other people thought this was unnecessary. He and I believed then and believe now that this was purely a move to obtain control of Grandma's modest annuity.

My Beloved adores his grandmother. When she was ill last year he spent weeks in Jonesboro, hours a day at her bedside and was generally a burr in the sock of those who wanted to do their sneaky deeds unobserved and unquestioned. Lady Tremane and her Fools are so afraid of My Beloved's ability to do what he sees fit with total disregard for their plans that they are driven to some pretty bazaar behaviors. One day last year he and grandma sat at the Home looking at multiple generations of family pictures and drew up a family tree. This was interpreted as My Beloved making grandma sign papers and caused an uproar. Later when she was settled at the Home and he was packing to return to the Burgh one of the Country Cousins physically assaulted him because he tried to leave Grandma's old house with a duffel bag containing his filthy clothes and a box of photos. I can only assume they thought he was making off with the Confederate gold Grandma had hidden in the attic all these years. Keep in mind these are the same people who provided a live re-enactment of the War Between the States at our wedding 3 years ago. Apparently last week they managed to work themselves up into such a state that they imagined My Beloved would kidnap his grandmother and head for the border if he was allowed to drive her to the wake. This is the only explanation I can think of for the presence of the perplexed Jonesboro police officer at the nursing home when the girls came to get Grandma.

Well, we were pretty sickened by this but there wasn't much to do about it. We dropped Dogzilla off at a friend's house and went to the wake for the last few minutes of the private viewing. Before hand we stopped for a strategy session. Over a quick coffee (they have two coffee shops in Jonesboro) we shook off our nausea and got reoriented to the fact that this was about his mother not about Lady Tremane and her hi-jinks. With a little prompting My Beloved was able to conjure up his fondest memories of his mother and with these images in his head we went to face the Fools. As we pulled up to the funeral home we realized there was more than one service going on and shared a bleak joke about his mother's being the one with the cop stationed in front of it. There was no cop but it gave us a laugh anyway. On the steps outside were some married-in members of the clan. One went out of his way to make us feel welcome but the other high tailed it into the funeral home. Apparently he needed to alert the Fools inside and sit next to his wife just in case my beloved uttered a swear word and had to be challenged to a duel. We were there no more than 10 minutes.

My Beloved's mother is dead. Her wishes and dreams as well as her suffering are over. It is not what I wish upon those people but rather what will inevitably happen. One day hopefully a long time from now their mothers will one by one die. They will stand next to the casket vacantly accepting condolences and they will feel that chill wind that picks up at your back and strengthens slowly as each of your elders leave this world and they will feel remorse if only for an instant for their cruelty to my Beloved upon the death of his mother.