Count on it...

The sun will always rise tomorrow morning, and set tomorrow evening...

Life will always find a way to go on, even when it seems an impossibility...

Love always finds a way...

and...

My mother will send me an emotionally barbed letter (bomb) this time every year. Not even the recent death of my father has deterred this annual event. Amazing.

(New reader? Want to know what I'm talking about? Read this.. and then this... if you have a lot of time to kill)

This year the letter was a bit different and instead of repeating what it said and then explaining it, I thought I would just paraphrase it and entwine my psychological explanation throughout.

Dear Elle,

It is that time of year again (your wedding anniversary, your husband's and son's birthdays, and your birthday) when instead of wishing you happiness and offering you congratulations, I have decided to lob an emotional bomb your way. This time, instead of actually writing out a letter, I have opted to photocopy a letter you had written me, full of loving sentiment, and write "fool" across the body of the letter, and simply add the statement, "what has happened to these feelings?"

The message being that you once apparently loved me a great deal, but have lost your way in your adoration of me and should analyze why this has occurred for surely there is something faulty in your thinking. See? I was adored by you, and should be again, for I have done nothing wrong to diminish these feelings you had for me, so please figure it out and crawl back to me at once! No, I do not think it necessary to ask myself that same question I scrawled on the bottom, as I do not see that I have ever done anything wrong in the years since those sentiments were written to me, clearly it is all within you....

signed,

Your mother, aka the Unibomber

Oh... did I mention the sarcasm I was also going to add throughout?

pictures

The first thing I did when he passed away was to look for old pictures.

I don't know who the photographer was in those days, but everyone is always squished in the bottom right hand corner and a thumb was just about in every frame.

There is a series of poloroid photos that my dad took of us using the automatic timer. I love these... he was so young and gorgeous. My dad was always gorgeous. (think young Al Pacino) He was 22 when he had me, and couldn't have been more than 26 or 27 in the photos. I was always smiling a giant smile showing you every tooth in my little loud mouth. My grandparents in the background and always around a ravished dinner table. The leather carafe of wine as prominent in every picture as that persistant thumb.

I cleaved to these photos during the wake and the funeral as if my memories were going to be ripped out of my life like my father was.

After the funeral, I was sitting in his kitchen and a friend came over. She's a bit new age, and she said she had been to a psychic. She said her (dead) mother came through and told her,

"Will's here (my dad). He wants you to know that he's okay, and that he chose this to be his time to die. And to keep looking at the pictures... "

No one knew I had those photos in my pocketbook. At least I thought no one did.

I am so unfabulous....

It always amazes me how wonderful you are... always...

I used to be a much better blog friend. I truly don't deserve you.. or your kind words or this ....

I'm supposed to pass this on to some more fabulous folks so without further adieu...

My oxygen:

Finn

Panthergirl

Angela Marie & Jen

Milkmaid

Tim

Neil

Dry Dreams

Mike

Thank you all for your words, your comments, your support and for always being fabulous.

Thank you Monty... you are the queen of fabulous!

You need a helmet...

If you are to sit with me in my backyard... You need a helmet.

Why??

Because the acorns are falling like meteors. It's Fall after all. I should know, I was just on the deck and had to come in as they was a gust of wind followed by a barrage of those suckers.

I have a house full at the moment.We are the Kool Aid house, where all the kids convene. I'm glad about that, I truly am. I want the kids to always come over and hang at our house, so I could keep my eye on them. Not that they can't do anything right under my nose. It happens. I know. I did it. My kids are young yet, but you never know when IT happens.

Recently I had a call from a friend. Her middle school aged kid was drinking. He was hiding vodka in his water bottle. She and her husband are savvy people and she was beside herself wondering how the heck this could have happened without her knowledge.

It just does.

I remember being astounded with how much my children change while I'd be staring at them. It goes too damn fast. So I understand how she could have missed this.

We tend to miss a lot where kids are concerned. We just do, and there is little we can do about it. You can be staring at them and they morph.

It's like my backyard. You can be sitting there staring at the trees and WHAMO an acorn comes down right on your head

Life. You need a helmet.

Hey... Remember me?

I used to be that quirky chick with a sense of humor who like to curse now and again and talk about her crazy life and her never ending mid-life crisis....

Remember????

Yes? No?

Well, she's back. Yea, so life kicked me square in the balls.. yet again... who's nuts hasn't it kicked? Sorry guys.

I have been lost in the woods for a while now, but I am winding my way back around and I am seeing the path from which I strayed... and I'm coming home... how's that for metophoric drama?

Anyway, I have not changed. My kids still drive me crazy, my husband still never reads this, and I am constantly in some form of angst...

Hang on lovelies.. it's going to be a bumpy ride, and that's okay... It is what it is...