Sweet Pepper

 

Pepper, aka Peppersroni, aka Wouldn't You Like to Be a Pepper Too Lyons-Luquet crossed over the Rainbow Bridge on Thursday, Nov. 7 at about 7:30 p.m. He went gently, quietly, without making a sound. Thankfully, he was in no pain, but it was definitely his time to go.

Pepper came to live with us on October 11, 2020, after a somewhat sketchy first decade or so. I don't know much about his previous life other than that he was left alone a lot by his owners. He ended up in the care of the Creole Poodle Rescue Group, who previously let us adopt Leigheaux, and he found his way to us not long after Leigheaux passed away. I didn't want Lola to be an only dog. Yes, I did get my dog a dog. 

He was the sweetest thing when he came to us with jet black fur. I can only imagine how scared and confused he must have been to be just dropped off at a strange house with strange people. He already had cataracts in his eyes and his foster mom said he could still see out of only one. After a day or so we thought he might be deaf as well, but I think he had very selective hearing. 

He slept. A lot. And very soundly. But as soon as he heard my voice he was up and wagging his tail, knowing he was about to get treats. If I went in the kitchen to fill my metal cup with ice, he was there, fully expecting a treat. I think he could smell me too because, sometimes I tried to sneak past him.

And wherever I went, he went -- bathroom, kitchen, sofa, even upstairs for quite some time.

But he waned quickly. Before long he could no longer make it up the stairs. He had way too many accidents inside, even with a doggie door that was open all the time. He was incontinent a lot.

In recent months, Pepper lost his remaining sight. He was completely blind. But I'll be damned if that dog didn't map this whole house in his little brain. He knew where everything is and how to get from Point A to Point B. He would follow the walls all the way around if he had to. It was pretty amazing to watch. He even could get through the doggie door at times, but started to have a hard time getting back in. He got lost in the yard a lot so he would bark until one of us went to rescue him.

But he only fell in the pool once. Marty found him swimming. It never happened again. But he did enjoy the float!

Lately, he would sleep in his little bed in the laundry room and bark when he needed to go outside. We would pick him up and take him out and wait for him to bark to come back in. Until the last few days. He also would bark sometimes just to get us to answer him to let him know where we were. If we were in the living room watching TV, he would painstakingly make his way there to his little bed under the TV. 

His slide was quick and heart-breaking. He was skin and bones with an arthritic backside and a weird claw that grew extra long and extra thick. We had to take him to the vet to let them cut it every few weeks, but he slid on the wood floors a lot.

The last few days he just slept. Stopped eating and drinking. Today he refused treats. And I knew.

I wrapped him in a soft towel and sat outside with him, holding him like a little baby, thinking it would be a short time before he left. But I guess he enjoyed it too much to go. He was there, but his breathing was soft and shallow. Every once in a while he would try to bark. On the first Thursday of the month in the River Parishes, all the plants test their warning sirens for several minutes at noon. We were outside and it was quite loud. He seemed to be trying to howl with the sirens for a moment.

And the whole time we were out there, there were two giant dragonflies that hovered near us. If you know me, you know dragonflies were a sign from my late brother. I now have them all over my house. It's a thing for my whole family now. I know it was a sign -- and it doesn't matter who it was from.

I spent a few hours outside with Pepper until I needed to go inside. I put him in his other little bed in the living room. He was in a doggie coma though, not very responsive but still breathing. I checked on him every few minutes, watching to see if the towel was still moving up and down with his little breaths.

After dinner, I had to go do some work covering a football game in north Louisiana, so I headed to our little office while Marty stayed in the living room.

 At halftime, I went to check on him. The blanket wasn't moving. He was still warm and soft. But he was gone.

I wanted so badly to be holding him when he left us, but I just missed it. I tried.

Daniel had come over during the day to help Marty dig a spot in our little pet cemetery in the front yard. Laycee, Lucy, Lyon and Shelley are there already. Lollee and Leigheaux were cremated and their ashes were sprinkled at the nearby park where we walked every day for many years.

While we were in my swing today, I kept telling Pepper he needed to go and that he would be met by Laycee and Lucy and Lollee and Lyon and Leigheaux -- but he might have to convince them he was really mine because his name didn't start with an "L."

"Just tell them your mom sang a bunch of silly songs to you all the time and they'll know," I said.

I hope they are all together, running free, hearing, seeing, chasing dragonflies. And I hope they are all waiting for me.

I'll miss you, Peps.

All dressed in white

                                             

On Lora Leigh's third birthday, we gave her as magical a princess-themed birthday party as we could without traveling to Florida.

All her invited friends were asked to wear their favorite princess dresses for the occasion. We served them all a fancy princess dinner with little flower-shaped finger sandwiches and magical macaroni and cheese. The cake was a gorgeous castle-shaped concoction that broke my heart just to cut into. And we rented a castle-shaped bounce house.

Lora already had dozens of dress-up costumes, including several princess gowns that she loved to wear to the grocery store. But on the morning of her birthday, I surprised my perpetually pink princess with a brand new pink Sleeping Beauty gown -- the nicer one.

As I tucked her into it and closed up the back,  she stared at herself in the mirror in wonder. "Is that really me?" she seemed to say.

I saw that look again just the other day when my now grown, no longer pink princess of a daughter walked out of the dressing room at Pearl's, the same bridal salon where I purchased my own wedding dress 30 years ago.

For a long time, Lora has insisted that she wanted to wear that long, straight beaded gown that I absolutely adored and that has been tucked away in a sealed box since January of 1995. The problem is, my sweet baby girl who was adopted at birth has none of my genes. 

 I was and still am 5-feet-2 inches tall. She is 5-feet-7. And we have very different body types.

So my dress, which is in perfect shape after we carefully peeled it from the sealed box, does not fit.

Originally, we thought we might be able to alter the dress. I have the 6-foot train of satin and beaded lace to go with it, so perhaps an adept seamstress could use it to add some girth to the dress to make it fit -- plus some length to the bottom. Can it be done?

We took my dress back to Pearl's to ask -- but the indifferent bridal specialist (hmph) told us they don't do alterations. Haven't in a long time. Well, it has been 30 years since I've been there, so...

... but here's a rack of dresses in your size.

We carefully combed through the gigantic poufs of white and ivory tulle, satin, and lace to see if there was something she could try on. 

There was....

She took the first one into the dressing room while I waited in the chairs.

"Do you need help?"

"No. I got it."

And then she came out, all white lace and promises, to stand on the little podium.

And I'll never forget the look on her face as she looked in wonderment at herself in the mirror.

"Is that really me?" she seemed to say.

And so did I.

"Is that really her? Is that my little princess all grown up? Is she really about to be a bride, all dressed in white (or champagne)?"

Yes.

She did not say yes to the dress that day -- although the wild bridal party in the other half of the salon apparently did, judging by the screams, yells and cheers.

On our side, my daughter and I just shared a smile and a memory.

Childless

 

How it started... 

I've never really used this space for politics before. If you know me, if you're friends with me on Facebook, Twitter (nobody calls it "X"), or in real life, you know there is NO doubt about which way I lean.

But when I became a teacher at a small private school, I was asktold to tone down my rhetoric. I had pretty much blocked and deleted everyone who called me a "Libtard" by then anyway, and it was about the time there was a change in office, so there were fewer arguments to be had. 

But now we're in another election cycle. I still haven't missed some of those rude people, but, sadly, there are new rude ones to take their place. And more politicians who are being stupid out loud.

And they really pissed me off this time.

According to them, I am a childless woman.

More than that, I am a hopeless childless woman destined to be a weird, lonely old cat lady with no stake in the future of America. And I don't count as much as women who actually gave birth.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, or know me in real life, you know that I have poodles. I also have two awesome stepchildren. In 1994, I became a Bonus Mom, Semi Mom, Extra Mom, Stepmom -- whatever you want to call me -- to Daniel and Courtney when they were 8 and 6, respectively.

Then, in 2001, Marty and I were extraordinarily blessed to be asked to adopt a baby girl, Lora Leigh. She came to us after six years of trying, bouncing from doctor to doctor in search of answers, and a couple of science experiments. We stopped short of IVF because it is an outrageously expensive procedure that our insurances did not cover. I wrote a book about the whole experience, too.

We also had more than one heartbreak when we were not the chosen couple, and another in which we were chosen but had to say no. It's a long story for another blog post.

Thanks to those three human beings and my husband, I have spent the last 29 3/4 years doing all the things parents do:

• diapers, burps, and bottles 
• nightmares and ghosts in the closet
• stomach aches and sore throats (both real and fake ones)
• trying to get the car seat in and out of the damn back seat of the car
• carrying all the baby gear like a pack mule 
• plays, practices, concerts, games, birthday parties and school Parent Nights
• one season as a Brownie leader
• homework and last-minute science and social studies projects
• nearly 1,000 mornings and afternoons waiting for the bus
• 12 epic Pinterest-worthy birthday parties
• Halloween costumes, an annual Boofets for family and friends, and hundreds of miles walked while Trick-or-Treating
• thousands of hours watching Pocahontas, The Wizard of Oz, The Little Mermaid and Grease
• countless pediatrician visits with nice doctors, mean nurses and all those shots
• one terrifying 7 1/2-hour surgery
• one nasty case of head lice
• countless hours of rocking, reading and Linda Ronstadt 
• a small fortune spent at Disney World (not including the anniversary one just for us)
• SIX graduations
• I don't know how many dorm move-ins and outs
• so many tears ... and laughs .. and memorable moments... 
• one daughter-in-law
• one future son-in-law
• two beautiful granddaughters
• one grandbaby born sleeping

But, according to the man who is trying to be the next Vice President of the United States and the woman governor of the state just north of Louisiana, none of that matters. They say I'm not a "real" mother. The Governor of Arkansas even said I have nothing to keep me "humble."

Well, Sarah, I do have children. And I want you to know, that my children do not keep me humble. My body humbled me by failing at its major biological function and I have no idea why. Being a stepparent humbled me. Praying for and asking another woman to allow me to raise the baby in her arms humbled me, as did understanding the enormity of it all. 

My children, Mrs. Sanders, have made me incredibly proud. They are good, kind, nice people who care about their family, each other and me. They have a wonderful mother, whom I consider a friend, and a terrific father, whom I love dearly. They are smart and successful, make more money than I do on Social Security and are wonderful humans with successful lives and careers.

And I would die before I let anything happen to them. That makes me a parent -- and a real mom.

Because they are mine. They belong to me even though all three have another mother. They are the people I root for, cheer for, cry for, and brag about on my Facebook and Twitter pages. And even though they are now grown and on their own and don't need me like they used to, they are still and always will be my children. And they have brought me their in-laws and their siblings and stepbrothers, and we all are a great big happily blended family. And I absolutely am invested in the futures of my children and my grandchildren -- especially my granddaughters. And I will fight for their rights, not sit idly by while they lose them.

So, whether you like it or not, J.D. and Sarah, I am not a childless woman. And I don't have a cat.

Our BIG blended family. 

My children

Two Peas in a Pod

 What do you do when you're officially retired, have a husband who is bored out of his mind and you're a blogger with a blog that only a handful of people read and you're game to try something new?

You start a podcast of course!

Yes, The Coach and I have started our very own podcast -- That Sports Couple Podcast, a weekly show about high school sports in the River Parishes and other things. 

Each week we'll talk about the previous week's games and the players that stood out, then we'll preview that week's upcoming slate of games. I can tell you all about the history of the games, the rivalries, what it's like to cover The Big Game. Marty will talk more X's and O's because he likes to talk about that stuff.

We also hope to have other cute sports couples like us on the show -- coaches and wives, coaches and husbands, former players, etc. 

We hope you'll check us out! Like, share and subscribe please! We also are on Spotify!

Read The St. Charles Herald-Guide story about us! 

Retirement training

 

Does anyone know if there is a support group for retirees?

If there isn't, there should be. Maybe I'll start one.

I think I need help.

My name is Lori and I don't know what to do with myself.

It's been more than three months since I tore down my paper palm tree and packed up all my beach gear from my classroom.  On the last day of school, The No-Longer-A-Coach (not by choice) and I walked out of Riverside Academy hand-in-hand with no idea what would come next. We just kind of threw "retirement" out there in case nothing else came along.

And I spent the summer months like most teachers do -- relaxing in my pool, reading, staying up too late, and watching TV. 

I also had a fun little summer gig covering a collegiate league baseball team called the Baton Rouge Rougarou. I didn't have to go to the games. Every night I'd watch them on a livestream then write a little account of how they won or lost. Once a week the owner suggested a player to do a feature on. I got to dust off my rusty sportswriting gears and earned a little extra paycheck to help pay for my upcoming cataract surgery.

I made my annual summer vacation trek to Natchitoches, Louisiana, home of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame for this year's induction ceremony.  The first thing I did was check to make sure my name was still on the wall from my induction last year. It was.

We were all very excited that former Saints quarterback Drew Brees would be joining us for his induction, but alas, he punted at the last moment to go to Japan. Or Alaska. Or wherever he went that wasn't Natchitoches. We had fun without him and he'll never know what cool people he missed out on.

I still had fun because one of my local coaches, Frank Monica, was inducted for his extraordinary career. He showed up and had a blast. 

And we've found out that just about any opportunity to get out of the house is worth taking.

We went to the grand opening of the new funeral home that just opened across the street from our house. 

Sadly, we also went to two funerals for people who left us much much too soon. 

And I've done my 6,482 hours of online training to become a substitute teacher again. 

But sometimes I don't know what day it is. I barely can keep track of the time. It doesn't really matter anymore. Fridays mean nothing anymore and I no longer dread Mondays on Sundays. Hump days are just another day after Tuesday.

But I can't shake this overwhelming feeling of guilt! I always feel like I'm playing hooky from something, like there's something I should be doing instead of whatever it is I am doing. 

I need someone to tell me that it's OK to not have anything to do or any place to go for days at a time.

I need someone to tell me that I've earned this right to not have to get up, get dressed and go to work -- like I've done for most of my life.

I need someone to tell me that it's OK to stay up until 4 a.m. watching all the old movies I've never seen and reading all the books I've been meaning to read. And it's OK to stay up all night if the inspiration hits me to work on that book I always said I would write.

That it's OK if I want or need to take a nap in the afternoon because I stayed up too late the night before.

I need someone to tell me that all these things are OK because I'm having a really hard time believing it, even though there are a lot of t-shirts telling me otherwise.

"Retirement is wonderful. It's doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it."

Yep.

"Retirement sounds like fun until you realize you're too old, too broke and too tired to leave the couch."

This is true too.

But after only two weeks, I'm getting kind of antsy. 

"The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off."

Maybe I need one. 

Idle Time

 

It's been a month since school ended and The Coach and I walked away from the little private school in Reserve. From what we can gather, they were kind of expecting him to -- maybe even hoping he would. My departure surprised them, apparently.

Since then, I've tried to keep myself busy.

I've freed up a lot of hangers by cleaning out a lot of red and blue clothing in our closet.

I've rearranged our daughter's bedroom and turned it into a mermaid lair.

I rearranged my bedroom.

I found spaces in my home office for all my blue accessories from school.

I've worked on my tan in my finally-blue- again pool.

I've scooped out a bunch of stuff from the Chinese Tallow tree.

I rearranged the stepping stones.

I've carried my little blind and almost deaf poodle, Pepper, in and out to pee and cleaned up a lot when I didn't get to him in time.

I've given both of my dogs lots of treats.

I've watched a lot of baseball and written a couple of game recaps and feature stories for the Baton Rouge Rougarou (my summer gig).

I've binged a few shows and watched a few movies.

I've tried to finish this one damn book.

There have been a few naps.

I've continued my workout routine (go me!) and increased my plank time.

I'm doing some tutoring.

I made a little trip to Natchitoches for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction to welcome the new class of sports legends then updated the website for the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. 

And I've felt a little lost and, well, guilty.

Aren't I supposed to be doing -- something? Grading papers? Planning lessons? Working? Looking for a job? 

"Lori, you're retired," says the Coach, who also is retired but apparently has no feelings about it one way or another.

But I don't feel retired. I feel ... anxious, unsettled, strange, and yes, lazy.

It's not easy to get into your head that your days of doing the daily grind of getting up, getting dressed, putting on eyebrows and going to work are truly over. Oh, he reminds me that I do still have to do something. The plan is to return to substitute teaching in the fall, but I'll still get to choose the days and, for the most part, the places I want to go. 

We also are planning to launch a podcast in the fall. I have been working on developing that. 

And just yesterday I was approached by a sports website to do some feature writing for them. 

So I'm not completely out of the game.

I guess I'm semi-retired. But try telling that to my work ethic, my brain, my soul. Remember the post I wrote after being laid off? I don't do nothing well. I still don't.

But today I saw a simple meme that put everything into perspective for me and changed my way of thinking. 

This is so true. And I needed to read it.

After all the years and all I've been through -- the fucked up childhood, the bullying, meandering through college, being the woman in the man's world, proving myself, being criticized for it, striving to be better, deadlines, mistakes, taking care of dogs, cats and a husband, doing everything possible to become a mom, so many heartbreaks, juggling motherhood and career, hurricanes, taking care of our elderly parents, trying to be everything for everyone, losing grandparents, parents, my brother, my sister, my job and my identity, then rebuilding, scraping up and scraping by, starting a whole new career and surviving a damn pandemic, I have finally come to the realization that ...

I'm not retired. I'm just tired. 

And it's OK to take time off. 

May Days

I don't know why, but it seems there is something about May days in my life.

 "Mayday" is, of course, the widely recognized word for distress. Pilots, ship captains, and fishermen all use it to say "Help me!" or "I'm going down!" or "Oh shit!"

To my knowledge, "mayday" is not commonly used among journalists or teachers. Mostly, teachers just count down the days until the next vacation or the end of the school year.  Journalists, on the other hand, just say "oh shit" a lot. 

But as a former full-time journalist and, now, former full-time teacher, I've come to realize that there have been several May days in my life that have been "Maydays." (See what I did there?)

It was a balmy night in May of 2012 when I first learned that my employer of then-26 years, The Times-Picayune, which was owned by Advance Publications, was about to be sacrificed on the altar of digital technology and profit margins. The night Phillip Phillips was crowned the winner of that year's American Idol, I logged into what was then known as Twitter (now known as X, but I'll never call it that) to see the overall reaction. 

Some loved him, some didn't. But buried in between the comments was a blurb by the New York Times, reporting that Advance Publications was about to give up its print editions of several papers, including ours, to go all-digital. It would revolutionize the industry, they said. It would save them money -- at the cost of hundreds of hard-working newspaper people.

A few weeks later, I was one of the 200 employees who was handed a white envelope with my severance package. My services as a prep writer turned perp writer/news clerk in the River Parishes Bureau, would no longer be needed after September 30. It was a devastating blow. A punch in the gut that left me a crumpled heap in my pool with a bottle of Boone's Farm Blue Hawaiian. 

Now, every May, my Facebook memories are flooded with the hundreds of "-30-"s posted by each of us as we got our packets. 

Mayday.

Some of my colleagues recovered quickly, finding new jobs at new papers, launching their own enterprises or changing careers completely. Not all of us, though. Some of us -- I -- landed one toe at a time and had to hang on for dear life. In distress.

A few weeks after my last day, my mother-in-law, Jane, had to leave her assisted living apartment and moved into my spare bedroom. I became a full-time caretaker for the next 18 months. There are a whole bunch of blog posts in my archives about that if you care to read them. Search for "vodka."

I became a freelance writer for several publications and websites. I wrote features and covered high school games, sometimes writing four versions of one game for different outlets. 

Once Jane passed away in February of 2014, I could begin looking for a "real" job. I found one -- temporarily -- at my alma mater, Loyola University. I was hired to work in the Office of Public Affairs to fill in for a woman who was going out on maternity leave. 

I'm not going to lie. The money was fantastic but it was boring. Public relations people don't write the stories. They write the pitches to try to get other people to write the stories. My first assignment was to write a pitch about a rooftop greenhouse on campus. I was all ready to go take pictures and interview the people working on it when they stopped me. "You don't need to do all that," I was told. "Someone else will." Oh. And I had to week to not write it. Well OK then.

I did enjoy being back on campus, though, and seeing all the joggers Uptown in the springtime. And I got to earn my Master's degree in parallel parking. 

But one day in May, at a big staff meeting, I was praised for my skills and my contributions to the office but then I was told my services would no longer be needed. 

Mayday.

From there I got a nice little job at the local library, which I really enjoyed. But I was only there a few months when I got a call from the local bi-weekly paper offering me the job as the sports editor. It wasn't May, it was November of 2015. And I lasted until August of 2017 when too many promises were broken, too many hours weren't counted in my paycheck and my mama started fading. She was next to move into my spare bedroom, but only for a few months.

Unincumbered and in need of a real job, I turned to teaching. It was a Plan B, but one I had always wanted to pursue. In August of 2018 I was hired as a middle school English teacher. It was new and very different. I had a difficult time keeping up with the paperwork. I killed lots and lots of trees. I wasn't great at it but I sure tried my butt off and I got better as I went along. I loved (most of) the kids in my classes. 

But in May, when they told me they were not renewing my contract for the next year, I was punched in the gut again. I felt like a failure.

Mayday.

I went back to freelancing for food, but then circumstances sent me to a small private school that I had been covering on my beat for decades. They needed an English teacher and a multimedia teacher, a couple of things I knew a little bit about. I was learning on the fly trying to get a handle on what the students and my principal expected. Six weeks later, Covid hit and shut down everything and I was trying to reinvent the wheel I hadn't yet invented.

When that May brought the end of school, it was a relief -- but not yet the end of the journey.

Over the next few years, I figured it out. I taught creative writing to a bunch of eighth graders who would rather kill things on their computer screens than create a character. I started a school news website and found a couple of students who were proud to produce it. I taught multimedia and web design to some creative students (and a couple who should be ashamed of themselves for not getting an A in the easy A class). 

But then May came again. 

The Coach struggled with his baseball team and with a bad back but notched his 500th career win and a trip to the playoffs. Late, but better than never, they found a rhythm and made it to the third round. But the day after his team lost in the quarterfinals, he was told he was no longer to be the baseball coach. Too old. Not young enough. They wanted a "young face" on the program.

It was a sucker punch right out of left field. It hurt. Like hell. And it left both of us reeling and fretting over what our futures looked like. 

Mayday.

Ultimately, we both decided that this was no longer the place for us. I spent a few weeks packing up all my teal desk accessories and my various props that made the kids laugh and roll their eyes at me -- my skeleton hand pointer, my various stress squeezes, all of my beach-themed decor. And I tore down the paper palm tree I'd been sitting under for more than four years. Not one grown-up came to ask me why.

And on the last day of school, The Coach and I walked out together into yet another unknown future with our fingers crossed and our heads high. 

The origin of the word "mayday" is believed to have come from the French phrase "m'aidez," which means "help me." We could use a little of that right about now -- thoughts, prayers, good wishes, good mojo, a winning lottery ticket -- because I don't know exactly what comes next for either of us. We have hopes and dreams, some of which involve the beach. We have some plans. We hope to make the best of whatever time we have left, however many Mays there may be.

May days or Maydays. It seems they're all the same.