Tag: memories

People are wonderful and amazing

For several months, I’ve tried to find information on a specific location that I once drove through. It’s been nine years, so I couldn’t remember enough details to find it online–plus the details I did remember were inaccurate enough to send me in wrong directions.

In the wee hours of the morning, I took a break from writing to try again to find the place. It’s such a small part of the (next Coventry) novel, but I want it to be accurate and do the spot justice. One of my google moments took me to the page of a poet who lives in that general area. I sent him an e-mail, hoping that with what little detail I could provide, it wouldn’t rob him of much of HIS time to help me.

When I woke up and checked my e-mail, not only had he responded, but he sent me a couple of links (with photos–oh, the wonders of photography that can transport us right back to a place) to web sites that corrected my misremembered impressions.

You’ll have to wait for the novel to know what I’m talking about, but I’ve had it confirmed for me once again that poets are among the greatest gifts to humanity and understand in their souls what Tennessee Williams meant about the kindness of strangers.

Edit: WTF is up with LJ that it didn’t catch any of my mistakes during spell check? Hopefully, I found them all.

Button Sunday: Happy Earth Day

This is from my own personal button collection. I got it at work in the 1990s. Ironically, my employer was one of the world’s top polluters. That’s all I’ll say about that.

We’ll continue to do the things we’ve been doing to reduce our negative effects on our beautiful planet. But in honor of the day, we did a few other things.
see photos

Remembering

One time, Jon at Blurbomat blogged about what it meant to him to be a father. (Edit: Jon’s post can be found here.) I can’t remember all the details of what he said, but his main point was that whatever freedom to pursue his artistic self-expression he’d given up, he had no regrets, because his family was the most important and fulfilling part of his life. I wrote him (I have no idea if he ever read my e-mail), because that day I read his blog over and over with tears streaming down my face.
click here for more emotional rambling

A tale for Rio

Dear Rio,

One time, I gave my friend Jeff a bunch of silly presents that included a marked-down Donna doll. (I wish I’d left the big orange sticker on her, dammit.)

In a very 90210 moment, he got mad and gave her back to me. Then he died. I don’t think the two events were connected, but I will say it’s never a good idea to mess with Tori, even Discount Tori.

Friday Moments

Both dogs had their checkups including booster shots and nail clippings and are in great physical shape. I love it when the girls are healthy. In fact, they didn’t even mention that Guinness could stand to lose a pound or two. Good thing no one tried to make her exercise today, because both she and Margot have been in comas after their hours at the “spa,” as we like to try to make them think of it. (Manicures! Pampering! Plastic stick up their butts–what, they don’t do that at your spa?)

Regarding exercise, Rex and Tim dropped me at the gym this afternoon before they went to the dog park. I expected either Tim or Tom to pick me up. So it was a lovely surprise to walk out of the gym and see Rex sitting like the model dog next to Tim on a granite bench. He’s really made great strides toward being the best dog he can be. Rex, not Tim. There’s no hope for Tim to be the best dog he can be, but he’s a great person, and that’s almost as good.

Unfortunately, I also got some sad news today. Lynne’s Aunt Audrey died. I could never have enough glowing words for what the women in Lynne’s family have meant to me since I was just a kid. They taught me so much about family and love and our strength as steel magnolias. It was at Aunt Audrey’s house that I first learned to play progressive rummy, and I remember laughing my butt off at some of the things that came out of Audrey’s mouth when all of us were together. Lynne’s mom died much too young, and sometimes when Aunt Audrey would say, “Oh, damn, Becky!” she would sound just like her. I love her. I’ll miss her.

And for my sister, another steel magnolia–I’m totally stealing that story you told me today. There has to be a way I can use it. I hope everything works out okay.

A little editor in all of us

I was reading Jeffrey Ricker’s blog, and he mentioned that at his gym, he recently noticed the signs “Mens Locker Room” and “Womens Locker Room,” with no apostrophes to indicate the words as possessive.

One of the most memorable mistakes I ever saw was when I was about twelve. It was Christmas season, and my father parked in front of a store with a huge sign in the window that advertised, “Neckless For Sale!” I still don’t know what creature was neckless; my parents refused to buy it because they said they’d be the ones who ended up feeding it. 😉

Do you have a favorite misspelled, poorly punctuated, or grammatically incorrect sign?