PHOTO FRIDAY - BEST OF 2004

"Tell the world which photo is your very best from 2004.  It can be one already published on your site, and it's perfectly alright if it's one you've already submitted to Photo Friday in a previous Challenge."

I was blown away when I saw this sunrise in October.  Everytime I see the picture it takes me back to that breathtaking morning!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A SEA CHANGE

Time once again to look back on another year winding down.  I look over the resolutions I wrote last December and it makes me laugh.  I think it would be better to make a list of things I dream about doing. Compile a wish list of outrageous wild and crazy stuff. I think I will enjoy that rather than an overly optimistic old list that makes me feel guilty in time.

On the other hand, a multitude of wonderful things occurred in 2004.  I got married to my sweetie of close to seven years (of getting to know each other).  My daughter moved away and began a life as a responsible adult.  (I never thought that was going to happen!)   My Mom had successful open heart surgery and is better than ever, fit as a fiddle. I realized one of my BIG dreams to go to Ireland.  It happened and could happen again.

I reconnected with a first cousin in LA.  I found a friend whom I worked with some 20 years ago, still living where she had always lived.  I have spoken on the phone to my very first childhood friend, who lived down the street until the day we shot off to college.   2004 was definitely about realizing how important friends and family are to me.

2004 was a stellar year.  So, what outrageous things would I like to do in 2005?  I'm toying with career change.  Just rolling it around in my head, getting a feel for it.

2005 is going to be very interesting.

Very Merry Christmas

KITTY AND ZORRO Dublin, Ireland MAY 2004

Sitting here this morning reading journal entries I realized I had not posted a MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE shout out!  How unthoughtful of me!

Actually, this has been the most screwed up Christmas ever due to the weather in the Cincinnati area where Zorro is stuck. He missed his families celebration Christmas Eve.  I went with his three children.  We spent most the evening realizing the life of the party was missing!

Bridget and her boyfriend Scott came over and received their gift  (B's father and I went in together and got them a Dell computer!!!!).  Then left to have Christmas eve with his family.

Christmas Day I woke up, packed up and headed North.  It is true! Love leaps over any barriers! 

I hauled his butt home this morning and he is sleeping on the couch right now. We go to my Mom's in about an hour for the celebration for my side of the family. 

I think I try and play it off, that I am so tough and so together that I can handle him being anyway for extended periods.  I am feeling so at peace right now, with him asleep on the sofa with the remote control clutched in his fist.  It is a wonderful Christmas with him home.

Kitty, my Aunt we visited in Ireland, sent a Christmas card...she is expecting us girls (me and my two sisters) this early spring!  Can you imagine!  A trip with three of "us"! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL.

WHAT I SEE

WINTER STORM DECEMBER 2004 

All day yesterday the alarm was out, winter storm coming! I was disappointed as it seemed the storm was passing us by. When my alarm went off at 430 am, I was greeted with the sound of ice pellets hitting the back of the house. I quickly found out they were bombarding all sides, including the roof! A thick sheet of ice encapsulated everything. As the weak sun appeared and cast down muted light....it was a winter fairy land. So naturally, I called in took a personal day.

I grabbed my camera, bundled up and hit the sidewalks. I began my journey walking down Broadway. As I reached Main Street I realized that I was on a very familiar path. One that I took most mornings on my way to grammar school because I always missed the bus. The sidewalk led me to downtown, passing in front of the churches that line the street. First, the abandoned Catholic church (now a catering facility) followed by the large houses that sit back atop a hill with expansive front yards ending with the spectacular rock walls. In my graceful youth, I balanced myself from one worn round rock top to the next precarious rock. The Episcopalian Church, the Baptist church, the Presbyterian church and then you were in the center of town.

I took pictures of everything that I fancied. The empty lot where Hobbs once stood, the site of my first attempt at being a criminal...shoplifting.  Now a hole in the ground that will be the expansion of the library.  The library was at one time confined to the top floor of the adjacent building. The smell of moldy books all bound in that rich earthy maroon tone are my childhood memories of The Logan Helm Library. My Mom took charge of the archaic excuse for a library and changed it for all time. The new Court House built on the site of the old Court House that burnt to the ground in the early 1960's. The Corner Drug Store still there, on the corner, changed  though eerily remains much the same.

Through the scary park, behind the Methodist Church behind the town center, where I was not allowed to play because of bums living down there. Where did those so called "bums" go?

I ended up at the cemetery. For one brief moment the sun shone through a small break in the granite gray sky. The above picture is the result. Much more dramatic in person than I could ever convey with Photoshop

REMINISCE, REGRET AND COFFEE

MEMORY BOX :  L. AND C.F.

I started off calling this Pandora's Box. Then I realized it was not that, but a magic box full of pictures from my High School years and early college. Each picture transforms the box into a music box, the sweet melody of the memories gently nudging my day dreams.

I saw C.F. this past week. There is no other like her. There never will be a replacement for her, the space she holds in my heart. She is the closest thing I ever had to a sister after my two blood sisters. Circumstance, alcohol, bad marriage, guilt and trauma, maybe post trauma stress syndrome accompanied with death, mental illness, denial, and loosing everything has transformed my best friend into someone I do not know. I will never have C.F. back the way she was before life and alcohol beat her down and rearranged her.

The woman was wearing a camel color car coat length jacket tightly belted at the waist. Around her neck was a long knitted scarf dramatically wrapped, the ends flying like wings on either side of her. Her legs appeared skinny under the long tailored pants, balanced on spiky high heeled shoes. On her head was a jauntily angled cap. Her hands were encased in leather gloves. Extended out for balance as she confidently jay walked across Short Street. A cigarette dangled between the fingers.

I never saw her face, but I know it was her. No one crosses a street with such astyle as she. No matter the amount of alcohol and regret that ravages her, she can still stop traffic.

LONG LOST COUSIN 16,000 TIMES REMOVED

NANA circa 1914


Sometime last year my Aunt surprised me with a letter from a cousin named Hugh. I was rather shocked that I had cousins I knew nothing about. It was then I realized there was a lot about my Dad's side of the family of which I knew very little. In particular, the multitudes of relatives I have in England, Ireland, and God knows where else.

Hugh and I have been sporadically emailing each other ever since then. Anyone who has ever pried the lid off a Pandora box will understand how overwhelming it can be. Yet thrilling.

My Grandmother was a beautiful woman. I found her listed on a manifest in 1913 coming to the United States through Ellis Island. She was to join her husband, who I will call R.P., who was already living in NYC.

It is a tale of woe. R.P. was an alcoholic who abandoned his family leaving Nana  to raise three children alone. Gerald, who is pictured above, died at an early age. Nana cried and grieved for Gerald to her dying day. Nana's family helped, opening the family house in NYC for Nana to stay and have a home for her three surviving children. When her mother died, the family home was overtaken by the oldest (unmarried) brother and Nana was literally put on the street.

Bad Blood was born.  They were never mentioned before I saw the letter from Hugh looking for us! That is why finding all these cousins is such a shock.

I'm writing about this because I am excited. Today I have been contacted by yet another cousin...as she puts it LONG LOST COUSIN 16,000 TIMES REMOVED. She is English and living in Alabama!

Ain't Life Grand?

I GOT THE BLUES FOR YOU

I have just popped my second hydrocodone of the afternoon because my latest outbreak of shingles is hurting like a mother! I have it in a most uncomfortable area! (Someday I may write about my first outbreak.) Last night I felt the tingling of the beginning, "Gads, that smarts ........oh freaking nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!" The only good thing is the supply of hydrocodone, which I do not need after the first 24 hours but save for those special times when I desperately need them. Such as giving to Zorro so he will fly! Bad pun, I mean to enable him to get on a plane.

So I may be a little loopy.

I'm home alone while my sweetie is up North working. I have my Irish music on the stereo, Lunasa, at full blast. I have spent all afternoon reading the greatest book, POSTCARDS by E. Annie Proulx. I have been practically unable to put it down since I started reading it the other day. Fantastic literature. Best of all, I am on the computer to my hearts content without someone shouting at me from the living room, "What are you doing in there? Blogging AGAIN!!!!!!!" So I should be in heaven, right?

I am so over the thrill of being able to do anything I want. I miss my sweetheart and I am melancholy...especially  so being so pumped full of hydrocodone. Some of the worst parts are looking for my "lost" stuff and having no one to immediately blame. Having no one to wrestle over the remote control...(why is it that men feel they should be in charge of the remote)? No one to come home to and cook dinner for.

Thinking I lived for the weekends before....?

I had no idea.