Veseventures

I knew it was going to be one of those days. When I wandered down the hall this morning, still half-asleep, my plan was to start the coffee maker, hit the bathroom, then have a large cup of coffee while watching/listening to The Today Show . Simple enough, right? My daughter, M.H., had bought me a new coffee maker for my birthday. It was greatly needed and appreciated, as the old coffee maker was nearing the end of a messy death. Let's just say that boiling water in a tea kettle, then slowly pouring it through the coffee filter and hoping that the heating element under the coffee pot just doesn't quite cut it. The old coffee maker was six years old, quite a bit longer than most of my previous ones had lasted. The new one is bright red and works well...as long as I remember to do things correctly. This morning, I got up, filled the pot up in the sink, poured water into the maker, put the pot in the dish drain ( The dish drain? you ask; yes, the dish drain; I'd wanted t...

I love to read. Always have. I blame my parents, in a good way. Between bedtime stories, watching both Mom and Dad reading a wide variety of books in their spare time, and receiving books for birthdays, Christmases, and just because , I learned that books were to be explored and enjoyed. A person can learn a lot from books. It was on one website that I frequent that I learned about another cool site called Goodreads . Maybe you've heard of it. Or not. But on Goodreads, a reader can keep track of books she or he has read, is currently reading, wants to read (oops, must add the Narnia series!), learn about what others are reading, what others feel are must reads and what can be passed on. One can connect with friends on the site and get emails when books (and comments on these books) are added to friends' lists. At the moment, I'm reading several books, a habit I got into as a kid during summer vacation. Getting home after the last day of school, I'd grab a s...

Yesterday was Christmas, and I'm okay with that. That might seem like a strange thing to say; how could anyone not be okay with Christmas? (If you've spent your life celebrating Hanukkah instead, or any other winter holidays, I'm not trying to disrespect you; I'm simply writing where I'm coming from and my point of reference. I'd love to read your writings on the subject.) But being okay with Christmas: You have no idea how long it took me to be able to say that. Sure, as a kid, especially if you've grown up in a middle-class family, as I did, Christmas was great. What wasn't there to love: First off, there were the presents, the extended family, the food, the lights, the whole ambience of Christmas. We may have had two trees, since I do remember seeing a decorated tree in a corner of the living room by our corner windows, and the big tree - the one where we'd find the presents - downstairs in the playroom. Most years, it seems, we'd go ...

My daughter came over today; she spent a couple of hours here. I'd called and asked her to come over, since I had a birthday card for her. I can distinctly remember the day she was born. I'd been told that I wouldn't be able to have any kids after her older brother; there were times when they were growing up when I'm sure they both would have preferred being only children ; instead, they were joined by two younger brothers. I tell M.H. that she's my favorite daughter; it helps, if you're going to be the favorite daughter, to be the only daughter. (For the record, she's married to my favorite son-in-law; he has informed me that I'm his favorite mother-in-law. I also have a favorite oldest son, a favorite middle son, and a favorite youngest son.) Several days before M.H. was born, her father and I put up our Christmas tree and decorated it. The night before she was born, I'd peeled several oranges. I was making homemade orange spice tea to giv...

On Friday December 14, there was another school shooting, this time in Newtown, Connecticut. News reports say that it is the worst school shooting in history; other reports write that it's the second worst. Either way, twenty-eight people are dead, twenty of them, children. This is horrifically sad...and crazy. When will this stop? I know that there are people who say that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." This may be true; people do kill others. And I know that the N.R.A. wants to protect Americans' right to own guns. But really, who the hell needs a semi-automatic .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle, a weapon that msn.com lists as a "lethal rifle originally designed for use in combat," capable of shooting up to six bullets per second. (See article at http://now.msn.com/sandy-hook-shooting-weapon-was-223-caliber-rifle-designed-for-combat ) Apparently, the shooter took this, and the two handguns, from his mother's house, and killed h...

Last night, my younger two sons and I went to our city's annual Christmas parade. Pinellas Park was talking up this year's parade, since it was the fortieth year the event had marched down Park Boulevard. In earlier years, the parade had been held in the morning, usually the second Saturday in December. Our family, in its various changes, would head out, sometimes picking up breakfast at McD's, sometimes picking up something to eat elsewhere. But within the past fifteen years or so, it was switched from mornings to evenings. Maybe it was so that anyone working during the day could make it to the parade, maybe it was so that the holiday lights could be seen along the route. No matter, though; it's still there. M., J. and I caught a ride to Publix's parking lot with my friend Kevin so that we could cross Park Boulevard at the light at Forty-ninth Street. We usually stop by the Busy Bee Restaurant, a small mom-and-pop place that Paul and I used to frequent, wher...

So Karma's been acting a little off the past few days. In this case, I'm not talking about the cosmic boomerang effect, where "you reap what you sow." Karma Kitty is our five-year-old black cat. He thinks of himself as a panther masquerading as a cat; it's the whole cattitude thing. But he hasn't been acting quite himself the past few days. I tried to pinpoint it exactly, and kept hoping that it was my neuroses tip-toeing in through the front door. Karma would run full-tilt through the house mid-morning, playing a rousing game of banking-off-the-walls-and-skid-down-the-halls-sideways-tag with his sister Drexie. They love the game, and have been known to include a sideways sweep of the dining room table when they're in full play mode. But by noon, he wouldn't want to play. Or drink. He'd eat a little of the crunchy food, look at the litter box, then slink off to sleep where he'd be undisturbed. He also looked like he wasn't feel...