My daughter and I had recently moved to a different state and were just settling in there. Instead of taking our car, I left the car with her sister who lived on campus at university. My son already had a car.
So daughter and I proceeded to find a used car in the new small town in the state we had not lived in previously. Some very nice people pointed us in the direction of a man who sold cars as his father had done before him.
We picked out a car, paid in cash, went on our way. Two days later as were trying to find our way from one town to another town out in the farm areas with no street signs, the engine died. Plenty of gas. No sign of engine heating. That was about all I knew to check for.
Daughter and I got out and walked to where there were houses. We knocked on a door. No answer. Next house. No answer. Next house, an elderly gentleman answered the door, timidly listening to our dilema, but holding the door partly closed. I had no way to call anyone, and this man was not able to help us as he was too old to drive. Actually I remember thinking, thank goodness he would not be out on the streets driving as shaky as he was.
My daughter who was fourteen at the time did her little please help us we are stranded and new to town routine and got the man to let us in to use his phone. As soon as we stepped into the house a woman screamed. "Who are these people and why did you let them in?" Yikes.
He pointed to the phone on a small table and we called the only people we knew who owned a business in town and had to interrupt the scene behind us between husband and wife long enough to be able to tell our friend where we were. She said she would be there as soon as she could. Whew.
Then the man began wiping down the woman's wheel chair, kept rubbing it all over as if in his nervousness at what seemed to be her usual behavior. The woman put her arm on the arm of the wheel chair while he was adjusting things in her chair and talking soothingly and quietly to her and he did not see that her arm was now right where he started rubbing.
The skin on the woman's arm was paper thin. Transparent. Bony wrists. As the cloth moved over the skin on the woman's wrist, the skin rolled back and blood slowly oozed out. Dang.
The woman began simpering and moaning. She scolded the man and asked him why couldn't he watch what he was doing. His eyes behind the coke bottle glasses looked like they would pop out of the sockets. He was in shock. He began wiping at the bloody wrist with the dirty cloth.
My daughter and I looked at each other and silently agreed that we wanted out of there. I quietly thanked them for the use of their phone and she and I walked out the front door and walked a couple houses away to wait for our friend. We don't think the older man and woman even noticed our departure.
My daughter and I talked about that elderly couple many times over the years. It was a touching scene and it felt like we were intruding on something intimate between the husband and wife.
Now that I am in a private and personal relationship and getting up in years it seems natural to see myself with hubby twenty years from now, not driving, helping each other as best we can, in sickness and in health you know, and attending to each others needs, devoted to a cherished and faithful relationship.
Oh yeah, the car? I called the car salesman and told him he had to take the car back and give me a reliable car. He told me that wasn't how it was done, I bought it as is. I told him I would never leave him alone until he made it right. What, I paid a thousand dollars a day for a car and then had no transportation? No way. In the end I got a different and better car.
Note: Illusion graphic found on Google.
This photo was on Lola's blog one day. The writing on one window caught my attention. Do you see the window with the words "Kids Need Role Models"? 
Sometimes something inspires me to write a post; a graphic, a sentence, a memory. A Valentines Day post comes naturally and does not need special assistance from outside influences. 
This is the time of year that the L word is on peoples lips and written about in poetry and heartfelt posts. Since I don't watch TV, I don't know how the L word is thrown around and defamed the way so many things I value are treated on TV. 
A drunk man found lying on a frozen park bench in his underwear survived because of the amount of alcohol in his blood.
Aren't these beautiful pens? They are handmade, hand turned, with love. 
Photo courtesy of National Geographic.
Just after I turn out the light at night my tired old brain decides to become active. Creative. One, two, three and more posts get written in record time in the silence of the bedroom. Sometimes I force myself to get up and write a post while it is fresh and flows. But most of the time I tell myself to remember what I just wrote in my head but in the morning I can occasionally call up the subject of the post but that is about all. 
Before we moved to this little town, I scrolled through the archives of the town paper to become familiar with the events in the town in the previous year. 
My heart is sick about the extreme hate and violence in this country today. The past ten years have gotten worse than anything I could have imagined growing up in this country. Growing up in a dysfunctional family was difficult, but there was a patriotism that we learned by example from adults around us. Listening to the adults talking about politics did not seem to cause anger enough to get a gun and shoot someone.
Today is my son's birthday. 
Reading blogs in preparation for the Christmas holiday, I enjoyed reading about the different traditions families have established and maintained through the years. It has been a joy to me to read between the lines of the kindness and exhilaration each year as people unpack their decorations and invite their loved ones to participate in the rituals of the holiday. 
This is a picture of my father. He was born 89 years ago today and is three years old in this picture. He had his sight at the time of this picture. At age fifteen he lost 98% of his sight. He and his friends would hunt in the woods and drink homemade hootch. Sometimes things like gasoline would be added to it. Ignorance is definitely not bliss. Of his group of friends, my father was the only one drinking bad homemade brew and it caused major damage to his optic nerves. I don't know what it would be like to be legally blind, but by the time I came to know him he was a very unhappy man. Just about every day I was around him which wasn't all the time as a young child, my father drank. A lot. 
Reading some books is like walking through fields of thistles. Struggling to walk through brambles and thorns sometimes while stepping over and around obstacles. Clothes and limbs bleeding when the end of the book is reached.
Our first trip to the library in our new little town was a great exerience. Checking out books and devouring them in two weeks time has been our pattern. I admit to having expectations of the small town library as being less than adequate to meet my reading needs.
She was in the eighth grade in a Catholic school. The graduation party was at a private residence with a pool. The graduates had opted for a pool party instead of an evening dance party. This was a great concession for the principal to agree to a swim party. That meant (nervous drumroll) gasp! Bathing suits.
When my three children were young my time for myself was often when I had a bath. Having an evening bath has always been relaxing for me. 
The week we were moving the washing machine died. We were able to get a really nice newer used washer delivered and the old washer hauled away the day before we moved. 
