Just Checkin' In

I am still enjoying Myspace.com. Now that Google bought it, it will probably be sued by everyone, go out of business, or start charging. Anyway, I'm just checking in with Blogger to see if I can still manuver around. It was nice reading anothernotebook again. I wish she/you would post more often. I am currently dog-sitting for my son. She is a beautiful, white with brown markings, Pitbull. She is the best dog I've ever met. She obeys and she is gentle. She has been sleeping in my lap, until my leg goes to sleep. She is heavy. I love loving her. That's not always the case with my other dogs. I love them, but I don't always enjoy loving them. They stink. Even after I bath them. And they are neurotic. Not unlike me.

I've Moved to Myspace.com

I am leaving Blogger.com. I am having more fun at myspace.com. It is easy to search out people and places of interests, and there are "old" people on myspace!

www.myspace.com/sraffray

The Young

I joined MySpace.com and I have zero friends. I feel really stupid for joining. I enjoy looking at my sons' MySpace pages, but I wasn't allowed to look at the pictures unless I was a member. So I joined. It was a warm fuzzy feeling to be able to see pictures of them that I hadn't seen before. It was also nice to see their friends again. I miss having them at home. I thought MySpace was the next best thing. Until I realized that they can't be added to my page without me being added to theirs. Well, they can't have their Mom on their page; that's just wrong!

I gracefully bowed out of the seen. I am thinking about deleting my MySpace page. I asked my one friend to join, but I don't think she will. I don't think it is cut out for old folks. We are destined to live a life to and among ourselves.

"How is your health today?" "Well, my back is really hurting and I didn't get much sleep last night and I had beans and rice for supper with a green salad."

I miss the young.

Generation to Generation

Barry barbecued chicken, hamburgers, and hotdogs today. Ronnie, Judy, Tiffany and Josh came over for lunch. We enjoyed three hours of each others company discussing health issues and reminiscing about our horrific Hurricane Rita evacuation experiences. That led to funny Hurricane Carla stories that weren't so funny to a past generation. The food was good and the music lively. Barry looked as though he was having a religious experience as he danced around the smoker to the beat of the music. Ronnie has lost weight and fit nicely into the plastic lawn chair. Last time he chose to sit in the swing and the chain broke. He recovered nicely. Tiffany and Josh went next door to play with Emily and Andrew and then they came back here and played computer games. Josh is sporting a new hair cut. He looks like Bart Simpson (cute).

Last night I went to the movies with them to see The Shaggy Dog. I thought is was just o.k., but Ronnie loved it. He was imitating it today. Josh fell asleep on the way to the movies. We all enjoyed watching his head fall from one side to the other. Judy got a migraine headache as we walked into the theater.

The old school cafeteria was torn down this week. I sat in the swing and drank a beer while listening to its destruction. I couldn't help feel the symbolic nature of the destruction equaling the passing of my parents' generation (Uncle Bunyan died March 2) and the passing of my generation into the older generation.

Stress, Strain, & Bloody Eye

This past week has proven to be an emotional one to say the least. It started out pleasent enough with a one day/one night visit with Jacob in Dallas. While he was at work, I lugged, washed, dryed, and folded six loads of his laundry (happily). After work we drove to Addison in peak traffic (unhappily) and ate a tasty Italian dinner. Jacob insisted on driving my car. His driving scared me, and it wasn't until we made it home in one piece that we noticed that he had driven home with the emergency brake on. P-U

I arrived at Rick's house Tuesday morning (my birthday). We enjoyed a cup of coffee together and then he left for work. I looked around, a bit overwhelmed at the clutter (my job). I began with the dishes and ended with the boxes. In between Nathan and I moved the piano against Rick's wishes. The newly refurnished wooden floors were the center of conversation and obsession. He wanted me to call a furniture mover to move the very heavy piano three feet. I could not find the phone book amid the clutter. I made an executive decision to utilize Nathan (who looked like PopEye with buldging muscles). If we did not move the piano, it would have stayed in the middle of the room for another year, and Julie had said that moving the piano was the catalyst to get her to go through the myrid of boxes. We were VERY careful, but the top of the piano came to a rest against the trim of the walkway leaving a tiny indenture. Rick freaked out and made an awlful comment that made me cry. Julie was very understanding as I broke down on her shoulder when she arrived home, late.

Meanwhile I received a sad phone call from Barry. John Smith called to let us know that Tala's son, Robby, age 21, had died in his sleep. We were friends when she was pregnant with Robby, and we spent many weekends on the dike with our children (as newly singled moms). I have fond memories of Robby running on the sand like a little bird.

I called a plumber (with Rick's permission) to fix the hot water nozzle in the bathtub and to check on why the hot water had low pressure. I was very impressed with the plumber. He fixed the faucet and said the low pressure was probably due to rust build up. He said it would probably be cost effective to replumb the pipes rather than replace all the elbows. I left him in Rick's care. The last I heard, Rick doesn't like him and is going to call someone else. (They'll live with low water pressure until they die)

In the middle of all the stress and work, I managed to enjoy visiting with the boys. They are so cute and unique. And Julie bought a cake and a gift for my birthday. Christopher called to wish me a happy birthday while they were singing to me. He listened in and then spoke briefly to R and D. He totaly surprised me. :)

In all fairness to Rick, there is a reason for his demeanor, and I love him in spite of it.

It's so good to be home. Barry cut his hair and trimmed his beard just for me. He looks 10 years younger. We drank beer and sang kariokee and he brought me my coffee upstairs the next morning as I was talking to Jacob on the phone. He's glad I'm home, too.

Oh, my left eye became bloody after I moved the piano. It looks really nasty. I thought I was going to die the night of the move. I felt myself fainting during my sleep, so I sat up real quick and recovered. I may have been dreaming.

Birthday Month Ramblings

This month will see Duncan, Ricky, Chris, Todd and me all turn a year older. We are all walking our long green mile. How will we end? It's anybody's guess. Keep it in mind so as not to get stale in life.

I think about staleness in life as I prepare to go to Fort Worth tomorrow. I am becoming stale. This is my first trip alone in a long time and I am aware of it for the first time. I usually just hop in the car and take off without a care, but this time I am oddly aware of myself. I think of being alone, getting into car trouble, being lonely, not being able to help correctly (I'm helping Julie organize her house), etc. I don't feel comfortable driving from Fort Worth to Dallas to visit with Jacob (although I will do it). The traffic scares me like it never did before. This makes me want to cry. Getting older is a strange and ugly experience, but at the same time I don't think I'd want to be younger. Naaa. I wouldn't mind being in my 30's again. That was a perfect age for me. Even though those were my hardest years (divorce and a 2nd marriage), they were my finest. My fourties have been the tell-tell "I'm aging" years. My mom's death catapolted me into the new "oldest" role that I somehow do not fit in. Now Thanksgivings and other holidays are different (not as fun). I'm the one in charge as the younger ones play. I don't like it. I want to play. And I can never live up to what was before me. My house is the ominous place of 'Grandma.' I'm not even a grandma and I'm grandma in personification. Everyone come to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving this year! This house has a love/hate presence about it. If I lived in my other TC house, no one would want to come to TC for Thanksgiving. It's this house. And that is exactly why I bought the thing. It's power over me is strange. I think it must be Mother's power over me. "Sarah, please buy this house and take care of Ronnie when I'm gone." Jeez..............

I'm going to go get another cup of Jo and get reborn. :)

Sidewalk Passing

Today as Barry and I were walking down the sidewalk along Texas Avenue towards 6th street, we noticed a man walking in our direction. As we got nearer to each other, the man moved off of the sidewalk onto the street. (The sidewalk was large enough to handle all of us). Barry and I both nodded our heads "hello" and Barry audibly said "Howdy." The man did not return the gesture. He only gave us a little more than a glance with no facial or audible hello.

Can you guess why?

Fifty Kitties

It is an absolute beautiful day today. Barry and I took off on our bikes. We stopped by the lawnmower repair shop and the owner yelled across the room, "the gear box is not in yet!" So we rode across the street to look in the windows of the mysterious building called Whiskerville. Low and behold we saw over 50 cats in the fist window we looked in. It was something to see. As we were cupping our hands around our eyes to get a better look, Barry's watch reflection on the inside wall caught the attention of more than 15 cats. We had the best time watching them all look to the left and then to the right as Barry moved his watch. They had a real nice set up for living. A lot of high perches to sleep on as well as cabinets with drilled entry holes to enter a dark sleeping place. Plenty of kitty litter boxes. There was a rocking chair, too. And each window had a place to sit and look outside. The cats followed us from window to window. We never see the owners on the premises, but it is obvious someone is taking good care of them.

We then headed to the park. We found it harder than usual to pedal today. We made it to the Skyline Drive and enjoyed a rest on a bench overlooking the Bay. An old man without a shirt walked by. His boobs were bigger than mine. I got tickled at the thought of putting on an old-man-mask and walking without my shirt on. :) It was fun coasting back down the levee and riding through a different neighborhood on the way home.

Now it's time to watch the Bold and the Beautiful. Felicia might die today....

A Night to Remember

Wow! Tonight Barry and I went to the College of the Mainland to hear the Reverend Samuel "Billy" Kyles (recipient of the Tennessee Living Legend Award) give his eyewitness account of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. It was truly a moving experience. What started out to be a trickle of people turned out to be standing room only. Pastor Jones from Galveston gave a heartfelt and true to life rendition of the "I Have a Dream" speech. He was fantastic. I found myself self-consciously dealing with tears rolling down my cheeks. Before he spoke, a 100-year-old black woman by the name of Mrs. Edith Randolph, from the Sunlight Baptist Church in Galveston, slowly made her way to the podium and sang a moving solo. They both received a well deserved standing ovation.

We didn't think the keynote speaker could top those two, but he did. He encouraged the young people to clean up the environment, take full advantage of achieving an education, and to register to vote. The thread to his speech was a statement that Robert Louis Stevenson made to his mother after she asked him why he kept staring out the window, "I'm watching that man poke holes in the darkness," he said, as he watched a man use his ladder to climb light pole after light pole and light each of them. MLK represents the man and his ladder poking holes in the darkness. He was assassinated in an attempt to squash his "dream," but instead, as this witness to a crucification said, "...thousands of little lights began poking holes in the darkness, hallelujah, hallelujah, halleujah..." and now his dream is being lived.

To think I would not have known he was speaking here if I hadn't checked the paper today makes me sick. He and MLK, Jr. were friends and fellow preachers. Rev. Kyle and Rev. Abernathy spent the last hour with MLK before he was shot while standing on the balcony of a hotel looking down at and speaking to Jesse Jackson. keels shares that fine speaking ability that MLK had. The crowd thoroughly enjoyed his speech and his spirit. He is truly inspiring to the young and old.

I feel genuinely blessed to have been in the presence of such a special and unique man.

The Race

"The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, but time and chance happen to them all" Ecclesiastes 9:11 NIV

The introduction to the book of Ecclesiastes in the amplified bible states that wisdom, education, knowledge, pleasure, happiness, power, influence, and religion have lasting value only insofar as man relates all of life to God.

hummmmm. I'm not so sure about that.

Many of the treasured (lasting value) writings of humankind were written by philosophers who did not relate all of their life to God.

Lasting value must refer to eternal value. Lard, lard, lard. There's that eternity thing again.

I can't help believing that life is worthwhile whether there is or is not a God.

A Pigeon and a Hotel, Gone

Today's walk proved interesting. Walking down 2nd street toward Texas Ave., while we enjoyed looking at a tree full of pigeons, we heard a pellet/b.b. gun and watched as the pigeons flew away; all but one. I looked around a bit nervously to see where the shooter was. I never saw him. The pigeon lay dead on the nice brick patio of an expensive home. I felt vunerable to whomever might want to kill someone from their living room. We kept walking. All along I had been hearing a boom noise in the distance. This boom was getting louder. The closer we got to Texas Avenue, we saw it. A big cherry picker tearing down an abandoned hotel from back in the day. I wondered if Dad had delivered groceries there when he was young or visited friends or relatives there. I held the dogs outside the bank as Barry took care of our banking business. I watched from the bank parking lot as the cherry picker gently nudged each wall to assist in its collapse. It was loud and exciting. We walked passed it on our way home and bid our farewells to a part of TC history. I noticed Sammy limping. I checked his paw and a sticker was lodged between his pads. I pulled it out and he was happy.

Two Little Pictures & a Pig Mug

Two little pictures and a Pig Mug made me happy today. They caught my eye at the newly opened resale shop down the street. Barry and I stepped into this new shop while on our daily walk. I knew immediately when I saw them that I would be back to buy them. By the time we got home we were tired. Barry lay down for a nap and I jumped in the car and headed back to the shop. I went straight to where they were, picked them up, and headed for the cash register. The fat smoker lady commented on my fast shopping. I guess she didn't remember me. I brought them home and washed them in some fresh hot soapy water. I am now drinking some hot green tea from my pig mug (each pig is posing differently with some balloons). Earliar with B's help, I hung the two little pictures in the bathroom above the commode. This is a unique place for a picture I thought since a large window takes up most of the room above the commode. Including the frame, the pictures are about 9 X 7. The frames are a dark red. A white border surrounds a multitude of pastel red, yellow, white, blue, and green depicting a man pushing a white (Target) dog with a black spot on his right shoulder in a wheelbarrow as another of the same type of dog is following him, but his black spot is on his right hip. The man is white with black clothes on. The other picture is of a woman, also dressed in black, leaning on a white shovel next to a huge white dove, as tall as she is, with pencil thin legs. On the other side of her is a birdhouse, complete with a gray bird pirched on its ledge, atop a tall skinny white board. There are tall skinny flowers sporadically placed around. I wonder if these are well-known pictures or just some unknown artist. I can't read the artist's name, but I like his or her work. :)

A Day in the Life of

Today Barry and I were a part of the unveiling of a Texas Historical Marker. A year or so ago we went to the University of Houston-Clear Lake to hear an author speak about his book concerning a civil war battle in Galveston. Today the local paper reported a ceremony at the gravesite of Lt. Comdr. Edward Lea was to take place today in Galveston. The author was to be there to tell the story of Edward and Albert Lea, son and father on opposing sides of a civil war battle. The son, Edward, was aboard the union ship that was the center of the battle. He was mortally wounded. Before he died, his father, Albert was allowed to board the ship (the confederates had won at this point). They exchanged loving words. Edward was buried with both union and confederate soldiers in attendance and his father spoke at the funeral. His words were read today amongst costumed sons of union and confederate soldiers holding musket guns and flags. The union soldier representatives gave a 21 gun salute and the historical marker was unveiled. Dignitaries including Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson were in attendance. I enjoyed walking between the soldiers before the event started. I felt the power of the uniform. :) I also enjoyed talking with two older ladies who sat in front and behind of me. The one in front had an unexpected nose bleed and the one behind me provided the Kleenex for her. I was the middle-man.

Barry and I went to eat at the Shrimp and Stuff place. We each ate a shrimp Po-Boy. On our way out we ran into Lee Blanton as he and his mom and dad were walking in. We greeted one another and he suggested we drive by his brother's house where they were working. We did as he suggested and found it to be a huge historical home with a lot of work to be done.

We then visited the Rosenberg library which turned out to be something to see. A museum resides on the second floor showcasing art work and photography of Galveston during the 19th century. The building itself was my favorite thing to see with its large wood doors and windows, round wood tables, unique reading rooms, and fantastic wood curving staircases.

It was a very nice day.

Fester and Rot

Happy New Year.

Harnessing time was a grave mistake. To not be aware of time would be my new year‘s resolution if I made one. Time is making itself known to me these days in awful little ways: barnacles, brown spots, white bumps, fatty tissue, wrinkles, isolation and loneliness to name a few. I do not like my life as it is at the moment. When I feel pretty, I want someone to notice. When I am lonely, I want someone to be with. This is not too much to ask. But who wants to ask?

Today is my 9th wedding anniversary. He is watching football; I’m lonely and forgotten. No presents, no date. Just football. I’m angry. I feel cheated. I’m loosing my self, my identity. Who am I these days? I feel invisible. I’m frustrated. Why should I tell him my feelings just to see him hyperventilate at the thought of a deep emotional confrontation. Forget it. I’ll just fester and rot.

Why did he ignore me today? Is it because I suggested that we move our wedding date to June because I was tired of sharing our special day with football and New Year‘s? Did he actually take what I said as the way it was going to be? If so, how about telling me so! I’m so sick of our communication problem. Neither one of us can communicate our deep feelings with each other. Why? We are both sick-o’s.

Fester and Rot. Those would be perfect nicknames for us.

I bought some books with a Barnes and Noble gift certificate I received from Kent and Melissa. I’ll choose to be happy and I’ll go read.