The things kids say.....

Lora Leigh really does have an amazing memory.  We were on our way to the Boo at the Zoo tonight, our second visit to the annual event.  Last year, we made the mistake of taking her on the Ghost Train.  She was terrified.  Tonight, she told us she wasn't going near it. Then she started rattling off all the parts of it that scared her last year?

"I remember, Mommy," she said.

"I have a memory like a Hippopotamus."

Now we're at home. And Tennessee and South Carolina are playing football on TV.
 Lora Leigh wants to know if the Tennessee team is the Pumpkins or the Home Depot ...

This Mom ROCKS!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxT5NwQUtVM


Turn it up!!!

I did not write this, but I wish I had.

The other day a young person asked me how I felt about being old. I was taken aback, for I do not think of myself as old. Upon seeing my reaction, she was immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting question, and I would ponder it, and let her know.

Old Age, I decided, is a gift.I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be.  Oh, not my body!  I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt.  And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother!), but I don't agonize over those things for long.



I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly.  As I've aged, I've become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend.  
I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio.  I am entitled to a! treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.  
I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.  
Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?

 

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60&70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love ... I will.


I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set.

They, too, will get old.


I know I am sometimes forgetful.  But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.

 

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken.   How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car?  But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion.  A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.


I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face.  So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.    

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think.  I don't  question myself anymore.  I've even earned the right to be wrong.



So, to answer your question, I  like being old. It has set me free.  I like the person I have become.  I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be.  And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it)

Two years later

I was not in New Orleans on August 29, 2005.  In fact, I was far, far away, in Natchitoches, LA., safe and dry in a cozy but cramped apartment with my stepdaughter, her two roommates, my husband, my daughter, my husband's ex wife and her husband.

I don't even live in New Orleans, but in a suburb. A nice, safe,  high and dry suburb that escaped the wrath of Hurricane Katrina unscathed.

I only spent a week in my self-imposed exile.  I returned to my house five days later, cleaned out the fridge, spotted the mouse that had moved into my kitchen and went to a friend's house for a few hours until the turned my electricity back on. That night I slept in my own bed. But I had to go days without cable.

I did not lose everything I owned. In fact, I did not lose anything I owned.

Well, does one's sense of security count?

I now spend my summers making mental lists of what I must pack when there is a hurricane in the gulf. I find myself mentally filing away the names of hotels along the way when I drive out of town. They are potential places of refuge. I have spent two years scanning in my old photos onto my computer. I have bought a DVD recorder but have not yet begun transferring all the video to disk.

I have Lora Leigh's special things in a stack so that I can snatch them up quickly -- her  Lora Day Box which contains all the keepsakes from her finalization day, her baby box, her baby book, her two scrapbooks. She's only 6. She hasn't accumulated as much -- YET.

I have prioritized my own -- the lock box, the bill basket, the hard drive, the wedding album, the one photo album that has pictures of my brother and me as children, the two books I've written but haven't published yet, the French silver, the silver tray, the videos and as many photos as I can cram into whatever space we have.

I also have a brand new canvas luggage holder for the top of my car -- so I can pack more stuff.

And I have a 6-year-old who is still traumatized.  She is terrified of the daily average thunderstorm. She plays "evacuation" with her friends. She has nightmares about the day another storm comes our way and we have to leave. She won't let me watch any of the anniversary stuff on TV.

It is two years today since Hurricane Katrina tried to destroy the city of New Orleans, the mother ship of  us suburbanites. We who are counted among the metropolitan area's population, and who count ourselves, count on that city for much of our existence. We count on it for our culture, our way of life, our uniqueness in this world and, well, for our jobs.  It is our tether, our home base.

Katrina cut us off for a while, but the ties have not been severed. I have been there. I am not afraid to go there. I just don't like to drive there.

We're famous! Sort of ...

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-08-12-blended-families_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip&POE=click-refer
Read the story here!

Moments that matter

Back in the summer of 1991, back when my shoe size and my dress size were the same number,  I attended my very first Louisiana Sports Writers Association convention.  It was in Baton Rouge, at the Holiday Inn.

Poorer than I am now, I stayed at my sister's house. But I went to the events. In a foreshadowing of what was to come, we had a casino night, with fake tables and fake money. It was a lot more fun, I gotta say.

Back then, I was the young, shy, green newcomer that nobody knew.  I stuck close to Ted and Bummer and Ron, the only people I really knew, and J.J. and Hilburn, whom I had just met. And I even won a little award -- a third place for prep event.

I just came back from my 17th LSWA convention -- in Baton Rouge. Now, I know  most of the people there -- but it's hard sometimes with all of the turnover in our business.  And I attended all of the events -- the welcome dinner at LSU, the casino buffet dinner (but we skipped the gaming) and the awards banquet.  I even won a little award -- third place in Prep Writer of the Year.  (I like it when I don't leave empty handed).

But even better,  I got to sit at the head table, the one reserved for officers.  I am the current reigning secretary of the LSWA. And that third place means more to me than the other.

By the timelines that were laid out this week, I could be the president of the association in three years -- just about the time that the 50-year dream of an actual Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame comes true.  The concept is difficult to grasp.  I can't imagine myself cutting that ribbon. I can't imagine myself on that stage, giving that speech, handing out those plaques to Louisiana sports greats.

OK. Yes I can.  I can't wait, to tell the truth. (But I have started the diet .....)

But it may be difficult for some other people to imagine.  A woman will open the Hall of Fame.  This woman will.

After the birth of my daughter, my wedding, and my two Prep Writer of the Year wins, this could be one of the defining moments of my life.  It might even move up to third.

Dream Weddings and such

When I was planning my "dream" wedding back in 1994, my mom and I butted heads -- A LOT.

You see, I had had many dreams about my wedding day -- what I would wear, where it would be, the color of my bridesmaids dresses and flowers.  I went through the whole, "Rainbow Wedding," dream, the "Barefoot on the Beach," scenario and the "Sound of Music," epic idea. I toyed with the idea of  a tiny roadside chapel, St. Louis Cathedral and Sacred Heart on Loyola's campus.

None of it came to fruition, however. I married a man I never dreamed of in a place I never thought of, angy at my mother.

She never had such dreams, she said. Didn't understand the fuss. She just didn't get it.

But just the other night as my little girl and I cuddled in those last minutes of the day before sleep (my favorite part of the day, mind you), I found out that I was not the only one in my family who dreams of such things. In fact, my 6-year-old daughter laid out her plans for her dream wedding -- as only a 6-year-old can.

"What color will your wedding be?" I asked her.

"I want to wear white," she said, giving me the "silly-for-asking" look.

"No. What color will your girls wear?" I asked.

"Show me your toes," she demanded, then pulled off the covers to look at my silvery  toenail polish. "That color."

"What color will your flowers be?" I asked. Again I got the "silly-for-asking look."

"Mom. I think you know," said my pink-obsessed child.

"Who will be your bridesmaids?" I asked her.

We listed all of her friends -- Carolyn, Marissa, Paige, Chloe and Ashley, her half-sister.

And Courtney gets to be the flower girl.....

"But," she said. "I haven't picked the boy yet."

"You have plenty of time," I told her.

The conversation had begun in a discussion of death -- and life. Would I still be here when she graduated from high school? Would I be there at her wedding? Would Nana? Would Grandma and Pappy? Would Daddy?

"Daddies are supposed to walk with you," she said.

And I thought of Lena. and of Rhett. He got to walk me down the aisle, but not her.

We can only hope we'll all be there, I told her. I want to help you get dressed and make sure everything is just as you dream it.

Then she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep -- and dream.