The Meme Says It All

We all make mistakes.  I make at least one every time I open my mouth.  I try to overlook the mistakes others make, in hopes they'll overlook mine.  Sometimes though, I just can't do it.  Sometimes, I have to withhold that "like".

Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection: Warms My Heart (but my feet are cold)

Click here to buy on Amazon
Click here to buy on iTunes
Also streaming on Netflix

I'm having my socks blown off right now.  For real.  I just hopped on the treadmill to get my five miles in on a rainy day.  I flipped the tv on, fired up Netflix and was presented with a new choice: Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection!  It's no secret that I'm a lover of animated movies, but they have to be really good to earn my heart.  Pixar is, of course, the gold standard, but even Pixar doesn't always live up to my high standards.  (I see The Toy Story trilogy, The Incredibles, Up,   Wall-e, and Ratatouille as high points in not only animation, but in filmmaking in general.  Cars2 not so much.)  I'm often less than impressed, so you can take my word for it when I tell you this is not your average collection of cartoons.  

Right off the bat, the first three shorts had me all but crying and in awe of their gorgeous art and story telling. John Henry told the familiar tale with gorgeous stylized art and real feeling, but I thought the cats doing the tango was the best I'd see.  The art and animation was so vibrant, creative and fun!

 

Then came a wordless, beautiful telling of The Little Match Girl.  It was so different from the dancing cats, but so pretty and poignant I had to like it even more.

Then my nostalgia got going with a new Goofy short that felt just like a Goofy short from my childhood, you know, the pre-Katzenberg era when Disney was creative and fun and well, goofy! 

Of course not every short in the collection is ground breaking artistically and some are definitely made for commercial appeal (the Tangled and Frozen sequel shorts are included) but each one tells a complete story and all are better than anything Dreamworks will ever crank out (How to Train Your Dragon excepted).  So here's to Disney!  They're not only furthering the possibilities of animation technically, but also raising the bar artistically.  Thanks for  always telling a great story and for making me smile. Thanks for twelve sweet tales that warmed my heart today.

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Develop Confidence! 3 Tips from TED-Ed

This video was in my Facebook feed yesterday.  I like it so much I want to always know where to find it, so I'm sharing it here.  It was created in partnership with the #LikeAGirl campaign, but it's great advice for everyone.  We can always use more confidence.

3 tips to boost your confidence
Happy #InternationalDayoftheGirl! To celebrate the occasion, check out this lesson on confidence we made in partnership with the Always #LikeAGirl campaign:
Posted by TED-Ed on Sunday, October 11, 2015

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(Almost) First Day of Autumn - It's Boot Season!!!

It has begun.  All the sharing of pumpkin recipes, fall bucket lists, leaf crafts, Halloween memes.  They're everywhere!  All that is fine and good, I mean, who doesn't love pumpkin flavored everything while hot gluing colorful leaves around your house?  For me though, the best part of autumn is that my boots are back in season.  Sure, flip flops are great.  Sandals and flats are nice, but I love just grabbing a pair of boot cut jeans and slipping into my Ariats.  A good pair of boots feels like a hug on my feet. They're like arriving home after a long vacation. They're the ultimate go anywhere, do anything shoes.  So hooray for boot season!  I'm glad you're back.

The Boots I Live In

Ginny

I wrote this post almost two months ago.  My dog Ginny was rapidly declining, and I could not ignore the inevitable.  The night I really understood her end was near I stayed up late, unable to sleep.  I finally wrote this on my phone but was too raw to post it.  She hung in there exactly a week, which is almost a week longer than I expected her to.  Ginny has been gone now just over a month, and I'm okay with sharing this.  I can read it without weeping, and choose pictures that make me smile for my sweet girl.
-rue

The last picture I took of Ginny, the day before she died.
She had a great day and I hoped she would rally and stick
around a while but the next morning there was no question
it was time to let her go.

My dog is dying.  God, what awful words.  How unfair it is that our sweet friends are given such short lives.  To be honest, Ginny has technically been dying for a while now.  We found her first tumor two and a half years ago.  We chose not to treat it because she was already nine years old and I decided that if the cancer grew quickly it was already too late (the tumor was soft ball size and involved a leg when we found it), and I didn't want her remaining time filled with uncomfortable (at best) treatments.  If it was slow growing, I hoped we'd get to keep her to a natural lifespan, which for her breed is 12-15 years.  Fortunately, it was a slow grower and she lived well with it.  It has caught up to her now though, and the end is coming.  The stupid, heartbreaking end.

Ginny was a bonus dog in my life.  My father-in-law imported her grandfather from England.  He was a rancher who bred his own dogs to help work his cattle.  Ginny's grandfather was his star dog.  Her father, Hooper, had been a special gift to my husband when he was in college.  We bred Hooper during what became his last year alive to continue the line. I called them heirloom puppies.  We only meant to keep one, but when we went to pick up our choice, I couldn't stop looking at Ginny.  She was fat and wiggly and sweet.  Her pretty little face just stood out from the rest, and considering there were eleven beautiful puppies in her liter, that's really saying something.  My husband saw that I couldn't leave her alone.  We had already chosen one dog, the only one we intended to keep, but he said "Do you want to get two?"  Oh boy!  Did I!!!  I would have kept all eleven if I could have and he knew it, so giving me the go ahead to claim another one was like Chirstmas in August. Bonus dog!  I scooped her up, happy as a clam.  

As we got to know our new puppies, we could see Ginny was a meek one.  I decided to name her after the Harry Potter character who was shy but strong and also a beautiful red head.  Her brother Rex became the king.

Elise with Ginny.  They were a great pair from the start.

Our oldest daughter was seven months old when we brought the puppies home, and Rex was a little rambunctious for her.   Ginny as very calm and patient.  Our daughter was crawling and figured out pretty fast how to find the puppies.  She loved to pat Ginny and Ginny allowed it.  Rex would take a little affection, but he liked to jump on her and play too rough.  Ginny just wanted snuggles.

Madelyn, rubbing Ginny's tummy on her last good day.
Madelyn knew Ginny wasn't well and wanted to make her
feel better.  You can see from the look on Ginny's face
that she basked in the attention.

Ginny always wanted snuggles.  She was willing to play fetch, go on long walks or perform all the fun tricks she knew, but you could hear her heart sing when she got a good loving.  Her favorite thing is still having someone sit on the floor and rub her tummy.  Just tonight I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed that tummy.  She smiled her dog smile and was happy.  

These good dogs grew up with our kids, and I suppose there is a case to be made for the whole comparison of kids leaving the nest and dogs moving on to explain why I'm so sad, but honestly, I'm a mess every time a pet dies.  I'm practically weeping just writing this,  how am I going to tell my kids about Ginny?  They can see she is very sick, but how will I get through telling them it's time for her to go?  That she's gone?  I hate this.  

Book Review: The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban

Buy it on Amazon

       I picked this book at the library based on three factors - it was on a shelf of books nominated for a Beehive Book Award (best/favorite books in Utah), it had an interesting title, and good cover design.  ( Hey, I was there with my three kids, I didn't exactly have the luxury of pouring over each book, deciding which to choose for myself.) When I got home, I read the inside jacket and wondered what I'd been thinking.  A teen romance?!?!  Jennifer Weiner gave it a glowing review?!?!  I hate her books!  I did eventually open it and was surprised.  It wasn't terrible.  It was fairly well written. I liked the device of one boy telling another his tragic love story remotely, and the characters were okay for a teen romance.  However, it was a really slow read.  I had to force myself to finish it.  So, I didn't hate it but I won't rush to find another like it.

(This review also appears on my other blog, Lost Cat Books.)

Movie Review: The Judge

Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall in The Judge

I love Robert Duvall.  He's one of my favorite actors who doesn't work enough so I try to watch everything he is in.  Like the rest of the planet, I also love Robert Downey Jr.  He's terrific fun to watch so I usually make the effort to catch his movies, too. Honestly though, if Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr. weren't in The Judge, I would have turned it off.  It isn't BAD, but it is very poor story telling.  The acting, and idea were great, but they didn't make up for weaknesses in the script, direction or editing.  I felt like I was watching a movie that was intended to be much longer but was cut dramatically for time so all the pieces weren't there.  And still it was too long.  I really feel bad about not liking it because of my fondness for both Duvall and RDJ, but honestly, it just isn't very good.  (But how 'bout Billie Bob?  He was fantastic!)  On a scale of one to five I'd give it a 2.5.

Dreams, Nostalgia, Happiness and Anger

Last night I had a dream about my grandparent's house.  Sort of.

I grew up only three miles from my paternal grandparent's house, and was very close to them.  I spent time at their house almost every day until I was a teenager and had teenagery things to do.  They were my second home, and I miss chatting in my grandma's kitchen or watching M*A*S*H with my grandpa pretty much every afternoon while I did homework.

My grandpa, uncles and dad, at home in the early 1950s.

My dad's milk barn as it is today. You can see my grandparent's
house in the distance.

In real life, my grandparent house has been sold a few times since they've passed, and not cared for at all.  My grandma's pretty yard is dust and to say the house is in disrepair is an understatement.  I can barely stand to drive past it in real life.  It breaks my heart to see it so.  But in my dream last night I was driving past their house and it was as it used to be, pretty yard and all.  There were dozens of people in the yard.  It seemed to be some kind of family gathering, just like our family had there in our day.  I had to stop and take it all in.  It was so nice to see the house sparkling white with it's quaint red shingle roof.  Even the little apple tree I used to climb was there again, complete with tire swing.  In my dream, I sat in my truck and watched this other family and felt happy.

My dad left his barn as if he was coming back.  Seeing this picture
makes me feel happy again.  <3

Suddenly, the people started yelling at me to leave, so I drove down the street to my dad's old milk barn, which really is at the other end of the block from my grandparent's house.  In the dream, there was a light on in the barn, and there should not have been because A: in real life it hasn't had electricity since my dad retired in the late 1990s and B: it's supposed to be locked up tight.  In my dream, I stopped.  I got out of my truck and climbed through the corral to one of the cow doors, which I jimmied open.  I walked in to the tank room where the light was and lo and behold, who was there but the one of my right now, real life elderly neighbors whom I just met in real life yesterday.  (So weird to see someone from my current life in that part of my past!)  She was trying to feed a can of tuna to three stray cats who were cowering in a corner.  In my dream, I said "What are you doing in here?  This is private property."  She turned around and tried to hug me.  She said "Oh, I'm so glad you are here!  I've been so worried about these cats.  I feed them every night.  They wouldn't know what to do without me."  In real life, my dad's barn is almost exactly as he left it the last night he milked cows there.  It's practically a shrine to my memories of all the comfortable hours I spent there with him. It really pissed me off to think this woman had been going in there every night to feed cats who were terrified of her, violating the space of my memories.  I was about to tell her so when I woke up. I realized I was angry, then felt let down.  Such nice nostalgia about my past, and then anger.  Twice.  That's no way to end a dream that started out with such happiness.

Wine Tasting

This South Park picture and quote have been floating through my Facebook feed lately.  I decided to put them together into one graphic because it makes me laugh.  

Robert Redford on My Father-In-Law, A.C.

A.C. on the cover of National Geographic

My father-in-law was a larger than life man. Sometimes it seems he could have been an American tall tale, like Pecos Bill or Paul Bunyan. He was a rancher and a rodeo star and I think everyone who ever met him has a story to tell that will make you laugh, shake your head and say "Only A.C.". Back in the 1970s Robert Redford took an interest in the Outlaw Trail, which ran right through the ranch A.C.'s ancestors had homesteaded and A.C. was currently running. Robber's Roost was a point of historical interest for Redford and A.C. was a human link to the past. Redford eventually featured A.C. in his book about the trail, as did National Geographic when they published an excerpt of Redford's book.









Check out this short interview clip of Robert Redford's observations of A.C. and his type's influence on the American West.

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Lego Back to the Future!!! Yay!!!

You may know that I had a major crush on Michael J. Fox back in the day.  Family Ties was my "I'm gonna die if I don't get to watch it!" show as a tween, and I sat through all his post Back to the Future movies, no matter how bad they were (Light of Day anyone?).  When it comes to Back to the Future itself though, it was not only my favorite movie of the 1980s, it took Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to dislodge it from it's spot atop my all time favorites list.

These days, LEGO rules at my house. Not only is my son obsessed, but they are the subject of truly cool pop culture homages.  Both the LEGO company videos (the LEGO Star Wars episodes are must see for any Star Wars buff) and the fan made creations are clever and fun. The best evoke nostalgia and this does.  Seriously, LEGO Back to the Future wins the internet this week.

(I recommend watching it in HD and full screen.)

Indoor Cats

The glorious Mr. Fluffypants

When I was a kid, cats were strictly outdoor animals.  (Okay, at our farm all animals were outdoor only animals.  My parents were old school that way.)  I always wanted one to sleep with me but my mom was having none of that.  I grew up, got a house of my own complete with cats and dogs.  They were indoor/outdoor animals. The cats got to sleep with me but also hunt birds, climb trees and all the things cats enjoy doing.  I had kids.  My kids love animals the way I do, but one of my children is C. R. A. Z. Y.  about cats.  She's also quite sensitive and when something goes wrong with her day,  it can sometimes ruin her whole world.  She has a special bond with one of our cats, Mr. Fluffypants. He's become something of a therapy animal for her.  He can instantly sooth her, bringing the sunshine back to her life with willing cuddles and licks.

Freddy and Mr. Fluffypants birdwatching.

One day, Mr. Fluffypants decided to act like a cat and pretend he couldn't hear us calling him in at night. He sat on the neighbor's deck, in plain view, and just looked at us as we begged him to come home.  For three days.  That was a pretty long three days for us as we tried to minimize his disappearance for our daughter.  After that we were hesitant every time we let him out, and kept a close eye on him.  I trained the cats to come running at the sound of a spoon on a plate.  Then we moved.  Twice in a year.  Moving with cats can be tricky.  They'll sometimes try to go back to the old home, or get in trouble with unfamiliar streets or animals.  It was important to keep all of our pets safe during this time, so all three cats became indoor only animals.  I feel a little guilty even though I know it's for their safety,  even though I have an enhanced interest in keeping Mr. Fluffypants safe for our daughter's sake.  I know life in a house is dull for a cat, they are natural roamers and hunters. Toys and kids are fun but I'm sure my cats miss climbing trees and really sunning themselves on fences.  I've hung a bird feeder where my cats can sit in a windowsill and watch them eat.  I did it thinking it would entertain them, and it does.  I do wonder though, if it's more of a cruelty to show them what they can't have.  They sit and chitter at the birds, noses almost pressed to the glass.   Our cats are safe, but are we cheating them?

It was a pretty good show this morning.

Dogs Love Snow

We've had a super mild winter this year.  We had a little snow for Christmas, but spent January in the mid-60s.  It was lovely weather, but we did miss the snow.  Last week we got about a foot of the stuff and it melted pretty fast.  Today we woke up to snow just plunging from the sky.  It accumulated quickly (we've got almost another foot as I type) and the dogs didn't really want to go out in it.  Once they were out though, it was happy time.



Exibit A:

Another Indicator of My Advanced Age

You know you're getting old when the decade you think of as your childhood decade is now a silly "dress up day" for your children.  Today is Decades Day at my daughter's middle school.  When I was her age, that meant dressing up as a hippie or bobby sockser.  For Elise, it's a Valley Girl.  We had a blast trying to make her bangs a "claw" and teasing her  side ponytail as high as we could.  She's amazed that everyone in the 80s hasn't died from lung cancer from all the hairspray we used.  As she layered on the jewelry (we were bummed that we forgot the giant earrings) she giggled over the silliness of it all, and wished I'd kept my charm necklace.  I taught her how to peg her pants and she commented on how much longer it was taking for her to get ready.  She said "just getting ready for school is a job!"  She's grateful she's not growing up in the '80s.  I'm grateful I did.

The Tragedy of Glen Campbell - I'm Not Gonna Miss You

I really don't care a lot about the Oscars.  I mostly think the big Hollywood awards are generally a bunch of  privileged pansies congratulating each other on how wonderful they are and with the exception of the technical categories, are more a reflection of popularity and political trends among show biz elites.  In fact, I watched most of last night's ceremony on fast forward thanks to TiVo.  I did stop to watch Tim McGraw pay tribute to Glen Campbell though, and let me tell you, I don't think I've ever heard a sadder song.

If you don't know, Glen Campbell is being claimed by Alzheimer's disease.  A horribly cruel disease, it is robbing him of himself and he knows it.  Fortunately, before his health deteriorated too much, Campbell and his family produced a documentary about his life and his illness.  He wrote an amazing song about it that is utterly heartbreaking. Tim McGraw's rendition at the Oscar ceremony was wonderful, but I think the song is even more powerful sung by Campbell himself.  You'll want to get some Kleenex before you click play.

You may also want to check out the movie this song was made for.  

 http://glencampbellmovie.com

The Perfect Winter

I live where I do in part because I enjoy truly having four seasons.  I like them all and I like the variety.  I could move 45 minutes away and have a completely different climate, where it's pretty much warm and sunny all year long.  But I don't.  I like it here.  That said, winter does seem to be the longest season so I get tired of it long before spring. Not this winter though.  This winter has been The Perfect Winter, warm and sunny with only two large storms to speak of.  The kids and I were actually missing the snow (not so much the cold).  We were happy to wake this morning to several inches of the greatest snow on earth.  The dogs were surprised, but Rex was happy to go romp around a bit before coming back in to his warm bed.  Ginny, bless her sweet old heart, went only far enough to find a potty spot.  That was enough fun for her.

Come on guys, let's play!

Nope, not playing.

Rex loves burrowing through the snow with his nose.

Ginny, happy to watch Rex have all the fun.

Queen Birdie

Once upon a time we had a fat tom cat.  Fat Tom (name changed to protect his privacy) allowed mice to live in the garage.  I found this unacceptable, so I went looking for a new cat.  Having grown up with herds of feral farm cats, I knew that females are better hunters. I focused on finding a female cat in need of a home.  I learned a stray cat had given birth in a friend's garage and she was looking for homes for the kittens. I picked the prettiest little female, named her Birdie and congratulated myself when, at about seven weeks old, she caught the garage mouse with great ferocity. Birdie grew in beauty and attitude.  She is a fierce girl who accepts affection only on her terms.  We jokingly call her Your Highness, but she merely twitches her tail at us.  Acknowledging our humor is beneath her.

Coffee and the Internet

My dogs when I asked them if they wanted a walk.

It happened again.  The great magnet that is a creamy cup of coffee and the yawning depths of The Internet has trapped me.  I see my oldest daughter off on the bus at 7:15, and for two mornings this week I then took my elderly border collies out for a quick walk before I had to get my middle daughter ready for school.  The spring like mornings out put an extra bounce in my step for the whole day, my very bored dogs were happy to get out of the house and smell new smells.  Then Wednesday happened.  The kids school schedules are all messed up on Wednesdays, so there goes my schedule, too.  On Thursday, I drove my oldest to school but promised the dogs I'd take them out tomorrow.  Here it is, Tomorrow.  Instead taking them out I poured a fresh cup of coffee and woke up my laptop.  I never even thought of walking the dogs, even though they were sitting by the patio door, staring hopefully at me.  It wasn't until my middle child wandered out of her room that I realized how late it was, that I'd spent the intended dog walk time fluttering around my Facebook feed. Ugh.  Sorry dogs. Maybe we can walk this afternoon.

Severus Snape in a Nutshell: His Most Important Moments

Severus Snape is one of the most interesting and complex characters ever written.  His on screen portrayal by the sadly underused but brilliant Alan Rickman is so deep and nuanced as to only be fully appreciated once all of Snape's story is known.  To say  he is my favorite character in a series chock full of amazing characters is a massive understatement.  It is my dream that one day J.K. Rowling will write a complete book telling Snape's life story.  Until that day however, I am pleased to know this video is in the world.  YouTube user kcawesome13 created a 15 minute compilation of the Half Blood Prince's most important moments from the films that I could not turn away from.  Yes, I cried again as he held Lily, and as he asked Harry to take his tears to the pensieve.  For a fan like me, this is a must see.

Sweet Corn : A repost in honor of Ray Bradbury

When Ray Bradbury died, I learned that he was quite disciplined about writing every day.  He was also fond of short stories.  He wrote one short story a week for pleasure and discipline.  After his passing, I thought I'd try my hand at writing a short in his memory.  I was quite pleased with how it turned out, considering I wrote the whole thing on my phone in the bath tub.  (Haha!! I'm sure that's how Ray did it, too.)  If you're interested in seeing the original post, it's here then here.

This is the story I wrote.

Sweet Corn

Posted on June 7, 2012 | 4 comments

In 1982, our town was tiny.  I was a happy kid on our farm, spending most of my free time rambling about the fields or skipping rocks in the river that ran through them.   In my six years I had learned a lot about cows – calves in particular.  I’d learned you had irrigate a corn field so the water got all the way to the bottom of each furrow and I’d learned how to catch the wildest cats you ever saw.  I hadn’t yet learned that sidewalks were not an exotic luxury to most of the country.  I was about to learn something so big some people struggle with it their whole lives.

My dad was a dairy farmer.  He raised corn and alfalfa hay for our cows.  His corn was mostly what he called “field” corn.  It had giant ears full of tough muddy yellow kernels.  The field corn was only for the cows.  You’d have to be awfully hungry to eat the tough field corn if you were a person.  It was like chewing on an old stick.  Dad did plant several rows of “sweet” corn for the family though.  Near fall we’d pick the sweet corn endlessly – so it seemed- and help my mom shuck it and cook it and cut it from the cob for packing in to bags for the freezer.  We ate it for every meal.  You’d think we’d grow to hate it, but let me tell you, there are few things in life as good as corn picked moments before it is served.  I crave it to this day.

My older sister Jill and I also sold the sweet corn out of an old blue plastic wading pool in front of our house.  We had a big sign propped against the mailbox announcing fresh sweet corn for sale.  Lot’s of kids in the area sold sweet corn out of old plastic pools, but Jill and I had an advantage.  Our house sat on major highway, in the first town travelers heading east would have seen for possibly hours.  We had many customers stop to buy corn who said they wanted to arrive at their destination with something good to contribute for supper.  The lure of fresh corn was too much to resist.  The kids further on down the road didn’t sell nearly as much corn as we did for this reason alone.

One summer, Jill and I sold a brown paper sack full of corn to a nice man from Las Vegas who drove a Cadillac.  I remember he wore a pretty watch and was very friendly.  He was really interested in us and asked a lot of questions.  A week or so later, he stopped to buy more corn.  He said he’d been thinking about how good it was and couldn’t wait to eat it again.  A few days after that, Jill and I received a letter in the mail.  Since most of our family lived pretty nearby, personal mail was a rare thing.  We excitedly read the letter out loud.  It opened with “to the two beautiful girls selling corn on Highway 89″.  The man’s name was Hal, and he had served our corn at a dinner party where all of his guests raved over it’s flavor.  He said he’d be back our way within the week and hoped we’d still have corn to sell.  He knew it was toward the end of the season.  He said that if we had enough, he’d like to buy 200 ears for a church dinner.  Normally, a dozen ears was a good sale and if we sold two dozen ears a day it was a pretty good day.  At .15$ an ear, we weren’t getting rich off our corn stand.  Jill, who was six years older than me, did a little multiplication and we realized if we sold Hal 200  ears of corn, we’d make more from him than we had all season!

We beat it out to the corn field to pick all the sweet corn we could find.  We picked for what must have been hours, swatting at bugs, counting and recounting to make sure we’d have enough.  On the day Hal was to arrive for the corn, my dad decided he wanted to be there when this stranger arrived for the third time to do business with his young daughters.  Late in the afternoon Hal’s car pulled off the road, kicking up remarkably little dust on our dry dirt driveway.  Hal got out, shook my dad’s hand and exclaimed how happy he was to have our wonderful corn.  He assured us we had greatly improved his church’s summer picnic.  He asked our names again as he paid for the corn, and remarked that it had been wonderful to meet us.  He said goodbye, and got back in his Cadillac.  He waited for our neighbor, who was a highway patrolman, to pass, then pulled on to the highway.  As Jill and I watched Hal drive into the sunset on his way back to Las Vegas, our neighbor turned his big cruiser around.  He pulled into our drive in a cloud of dust, got out of his car and walked toward my dad.

“Who was that LaVoy?” he asked.  My dad explained, as our neighbor shook his head, staring down the road.

“That sure looks like a car I helped clean up off the side of the road about a week ago.  Driver was out of Las Vegas.  He was killed in the crash.”

We all looked at each other in wonder for a moment, then Jill and I lost interest and went in the house to divy up our cash.

A few weeks later, almost Thanksgiving time, a strange phone call came in.  My mom thought it was a joke and exasperatedly told the caller to call later in the day so they could speak to my dad, imagining they never would.  They did.  We only had one phone in the house, the kind you plugged into the wall.  It was in the living room so you couldn’t help but over hear every conversation.  I didn’t pay much attention to my dad’s half if the discussion, other than to recognize that it wasn’t a joke at all.  Later, my mom and dad talked a lot, in the kind of voices they used when they didn’t want little ears listening.  The next day they put on nice clothes and went in to town.  When they came back, they looked stunned, as if they were suddenly required to explain quantum physics in front of Einstein himself.  Finally, my dad cleared his throat and started talking.  They’d been to see a lawyer, turns out, about Hal.  Hal had been killed in a car accident after his second stop for corn.  In his belongings was a note to his secretary, telling her about me and Jill.  He thought we were wonderful and wanted her to send us gift.  A big one.  My parents had returned from the meeting with a check.  A check big enough to send me and my sister to college, and then some.

That day, at the age of six, I learned that there are not only figurative angels who decide to send little farm girls to college, but literal angels, who come to say goodbye in person.  There are those who have doubts about an afterlife,  but I will never be I one.  I still have the letter from Hal.  Inexplicably sent after his death.  I don’t know if it’s proof of a God, but life goes on.  That I know for sure.

Inaugural Post

I have another blog by this name but I don't like it.  It's a Word Press site and frankly, I am not serious enough about blogging to spend the time learning to use it.  I prefer blogger and I'm sticking to it.  So, I will probably repost some of my favorite things from that blog and then resume not blogging here just like I did there.  :D