Bad Moon On The Rise

It was a weird day from the jump. I worked a closing lunch shift and while getting ready for work this morning, Massey told me to look at Ziggy's eye. It was so red you couldn't even see the boy's pupil. As a matter of fact, he could barely open it at all. I left Zig in the capable hands of his day nurse and headed to work.

It was a bizarre day.

One dude came in, toting his small dog under his arm. He told the hostess it was his service dog.

Yeah, right!

The tiny dog had more gray hair on it's face than I do on my head (which is a lot) and his little feet looked like scrawny chicken wings. When I went to greet the table, the dog was on the booth next to him. (no vest)

The dog sat up and started yelping like he'd just been hit by a car.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge dog lover but certainly wouldn't take mine out to eat with me, especially at a place like the one where I work.

Luckily this was well into the afternoon and all the other tables were outside and out of ear shot.

I also had a group seated outside who were very nice, although one woman just couldn't pick up what I was putting down while explaining the menu and concept.

Me:

"It's designed to be small plates, sharable items. Choose two or three things per person, try a little bit of everything that hits the table and basically consider it a communal dining experience and I will keep you supplied with clean plates and silver."

Her:

"I just don't get it...how small are the plates?"

Me:

"Tapas style."

Her:

"I don't know what that word means."

Me:

"Small sharable plates of food."

Her:

(picking up the six inch round plate up in front of her) "I mean, are they this size?"

Me:

"Some are, depending on what you order."

Her:

"I still don't understand."

Bitch, please.

Finally someone else at the table said "Just order something. If you want more...order more."

Me: (mentally) Thank YOU!

I know I'm weird but it was even beyond my weirdness.

Even the music was weird at work. It's a very eclectic and varied collection they stream but at one point, even asked the bartender..."Is it just me or has this same song been playing for the last thirty minutes?"

True to Florida fashion,  was also stinking hot outside and had several tables on the patio. You could have fried a basket of chicken with the grease on my forehead and sweat was trickling down the front of my flat  little chest.

I made great money and my last few tables were actually normal people but was still flustered by the oddness of the entire day.

On my way home in the car around six, looked up and saw the moon almost full, rising in the sky.

BINGO!!

Some months the full moon comes and goes, barely noticed.

Sometimes it makes you feel as if you're living in a parallel universe.

Obviously it's gonna be a parallel universe kind of full moon.

NOT the best time to serve the public for a living.

I usually make great money during the full moon...or totally crap out.

Yep...am a professional gambler.

I may be wrong, have been... many times, but I got a feeling.

There's a bad moon on the rise.

God help me...

Til next time,

COTTON

A Dog Gone Hard Day Off

When the temperature hit the mid eighties today, knew it was time...and perfect timing. It's my last day off until Monday and could barely stand the smell of our three dogs.

The above photo shows them in our backyard when we lived in Georgia, where winter is wet and summer is dry.

Have quickly learned it's dry as dust in Orlando during the winter months, even though still in the eighties most days.

It rains almost every day in the summer months and sometimes two or three. Every thing is lush, green and vibrant.

I guess could use my sprinkler every day and run our water bill up to keep the grass green like the one neighbor down the street, but ain't gonna happen in a temp rental house.

Back in Georgia at least when they scrubbed on their backs, had a little bit of grass and hard Georgia red clay. Down here, they scrub on no grass and black sand/dirt.

So I'm a slow learner...duh!



I kept thinking it was some Florida thing. My house, especially my bedroom always smells like someone just cooked and burned breakfast sausage.

I hate breakfast food.

I'm a night owl.

It took me a while to get used to smelling the water while taking a shower or brushing my teeth.

I had to buy a Brita filter and pitcher just to have water to drink at the house.

I figured the  burnt sausage smell was something else you had to get used to when moving to Florida.


Seems it was my three stinking dogs.

We have an oldest, blind dog who doesn't get along with our youngest more playful one.

 It freaks (blind) Ham out when Ziggy, with his freakazoid self runs up or tries to play, which quickly turned into dog fights.

And then we have Charlie...also known as Switzerland.

He's okay with being with either dog.

He's neutral to the max.

 Actually, he's too lazy to be bothered by either of them...or any thing.

So Massey and I took them out to the front yard today, one by one to bathe and de-burnt sausage that awful smell.

Ham went first.

 He's blind and if out of the house he's come to finally know wall by wall and room by room, especially in the front yard where they never are, is a nervous wreck.

He started shaking before we ever put the hose on him. He smelled the most like burnt sausage so got the first appointment. We both soaped and scrubbed him, then did it again.

I took him for a walk to dry off while Massey brought Charlie out, burnt sausage number two of three.

The minute Massey put the hose on him, his coat turned from white to black from scrubbing in the backyard black sand of Orlando.

While she bathed Charlie, I walked Ham on a leash up one side of the sidewalk to dry off,  then crossed the street and led him back, crossing once again. For a blind dog, the old man did great.

Ham is the best dog ever.

We tried to get his eyes fixed but just couldn't when broke as jokes.



Then I dragged Charlie on the same walk after his bath. I didn't need a leash, I needed a cattle prod. He schlumped up one side of the sidewalk, huffed and puffed across the street and stopped to pee twice...never hiking his leg but instead squatted like a girl.

Bitch please.

Then I went back to hand off Chas to Massey and get Ziggy who was just getting finished being de-burnt sausaged.

The boy wore me out.

Strong as an ox, weighs almost as much as  me and insistent at plowing ahead. (we need to work on the leash thing) We got three houses down and I got a cramp in my foot from trying to hold him back...from nothing!!

We made it to the next house, with me pulling him back like a frothing idiot.

 A woman pulled into her driveway and sat in her car like I was walking Cujo past her.

We crossed the street  and I (he) led us back up the street to our  temp house.

Suddenly the smell of burnt breakfast sausage is gone.

My house now smells like an issue of  Better Home and Garden...the "Scent" issue.

Number one, will never eat breakfast sausage again.

Number two, am buying a lot more dog shampoo and every day when  over eighty degrees am bathing my hounds. It's not like they can do it for their self or even know when to ask me to do it... for them.

But I do.

Yes I'm crazy...have been for quite some time, but have always been loved.

Sometimes crazy is good.
Being loved is amazing.

Sure beats being Apathetic.

Til next time...COTTON

Making Kelly Great Again!

Being a professional gambler for a living is a tough road to hoe. I should have seen it coming, banked like Milburn Drysdale last week so should have expected the sinking of the Titanic this past weekend.

The cards and stars simply didn't align in my favor... what a bummer. I struck out two days in a row.

At least left both nights with more money than I'd walked in with and got off earlier than usual but still kinda bummed me out.

I got off way early last night with way too little cash but at least got to blog, watch Netflix and stay up way too late.

I woke up on the couch this morning around eight, surrounded by dogs as my blanket.

My body suffers from Waiter's Syndrome.

After almost forty years of toting and slinging plates from the same hand, arm and side of my tiny body am all jacked up like I've been watching the shower scene in  Pyscho for the first time, over and over again.

The left side of me is great...the right side sucks like an F4 tornado on the ground in Kansas. Sometimes (most always) feel wound up tighter than a Top.

Dang...do they even make Tops anymore...and how old am  I?

Tim was pleasantly pleased I'd crashed on the couch and let him sleep through the night without being on the computer all night in our bedroom.

He got up and cooked breakfast for Massey and me.

I got breakfast served to me in bed, after moving there around nine AM and bonus points, complained so much about how my right shoulder and back hurt that Tim rubbed my back, shoulder and forearm.

(waitresses, never forget that forearm. (Tim taught me that)

It's all connected.

Perfect Spot No. 5 — Massage Therapy for Tennis Elbow and Wrist Pain

Just beyond your elbow, all the muscles on the back of your forearm converge into a single thick tendon, the common extensor tendon. At the point where the muscles converge, in the muscles that extend the wrist and fingers, lies one of the most inevitable myofascial TrPs in modern civilization: Perfect Spot No. 5. It is constantly and greatly aggravated both by computer usage today and by the use of a pen in simpler times — and by the occasional tennis match, then and now. (Click/tap heading to read more.)

for pain: in the elbow, arm, wrist, and hand

related to: carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis), golfer’s elbow (medial epicondylitis), thoracic outlet syndrome, and several more

muscle(s): extensor muscles of the forearm, mobile wad (brachioradialis, extensor carpi radialis longus and brevis), extensor digitorum, extensor carpi ulnaris

I'll have to give it to Ole Jed... the man knows how to make a stove up ole waitress happy.

Yep, he tried to rub so hard  I'd say "Stop, that hurts!"

Didn't happen.

It was almost better than sex. (not kidding...way  better than sex)

I endured the pain and the results were phenomenal.

My sinuses drained, my right side went numb for a bit but went into work feeling better than I have in literally months.

My next guilty pleasure will be a professional massage.

Every (lifer) server needs one.

Til next time...a very contented Cotton (for now)

When You Wish Upon A Star

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you
If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do
Fate is kind
She brings to those to love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing
Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true

I was coming home from work after a pretty lackluster shift. Just wasn't in the cards for me. I made okay money but nothing to write home about.

Yeah... it's a bummer when don't bank big every shift but is what it is when a professional gambler is your chosen occupation.

I had a lot on my mind and was thinking about things about (fixin') to happen or not (fixin') to happen while driving up the Toll road towards our cracker box  temp rental home.

I learned quickly after moving here it's not called the highway (even though the speed limit is 70 mph) but called a Toll road.

Just like those squawking birds beyond our back fence in the retention pond aren't flamingos and storks (although look big enough to be) but crazy enough are called cranes or egrets.

I still call them flamingos. Some stand on one foot more often than not and more than a few have a pinkish tint to their feathers.

To any person from Jaw-ja, "That is  a flamingo."

To my three big dogs from Jaw-ja, "Looks like chickens to me!"

Anyway...back to my story.

So I'm all thinky-like, riding home alone in my car after work when the biggest shooting star I've ever seen zoomed downward through the night sky and tapered off.

I quickly squeezed my eyes shut and made my wish.

No joke.

The last time I wished on a shooting star was right after my Diddy died.

Yes, back in Jaw-ja call your father "Diddy." (at least we did)

Now it's gonna get long winded and lengthy but trust me is worth the read.

To give this all reference maybe you need to read a blog post of mine from back in 2002.



"Ten Days Down The Nile"

I have always been blessed to have had the greatest parents brother and sister a person could ever hope for . We grew up in a small community on the outskirts of Atlanta , Georgia . My Dad was a blue collar worker , selling parts for lift trucks . My mother was a stay at home mom who was always the room mother president of the PTA and about a million other committees and projects . She could sew like the wind ... making all of our clothes even suits for my Dad , upholstering for our furniture …evening gowns for my sister , and even the cheerleading and majorettes uniforms when my sister and I were in high school . Shortly after making my sister’s wedding dress and of course all the bridesmaids dresses , we were all shocked and deeply traumatized by her sudden death from an aneurism while out shopping with me and my sister . She was dead before the ambulance got there , and the funeral was the largest our church had ever seen . We all went home to our now empty and seemingly lifeless house to try to figure out how to go on without her . It wasn’t easy , especially for my Father whose main function was to bring home a paycheck week after week at a grueling thankless job and to be the undisputed head of household . Now he was stuck with the task of having two of his three kids still at home with no idea how to cook for , discipline or show love to without his mate of 27 years . We all struggled especially me , the lost 17 year old with a chip the size of Texas on her shoulder and no regard for the financial struggle that my Dad was going through . Always expecting to go first he had almost no life insurance on Mama and the hole that he found himself in was only deepened by my thoughtless and careless spending as a senior in high school with thoughts for no one but myself . Yet my Dad still loved me even after 2 years of partying at college bouncing checks and living it up with my new college friends . Once home I started my career as a waitress ... one that I still have at the age of 46 . I finally found my niche … using the PHD that I have in BS . My Dad so lovingly forgave me for all the wrongs I had done in my wild and crazy youth and supported me fully in a marriage to a wonderful man that I met gaining a 4 year old stepson that I adored and in-laws anyone would love to have . Things went along .. I had a son , Zachary joined later by a daughter Massey who of all things , was born 18 years to the day that my mother had died . My mother’s maiden name was Massey, so I took pride in giving my daughter the gift of her grandmother’s name. Once a horrible day to remember in our family was now my little girl’s birthday … August 19 . God took so dearly from us but gave back so sweetly . I still feel mama was cheering me on that day . As the years passed my dad never remarried , dating and breaking the hearts of many women ... none of which could measure up to the loving relationship he had shared with my mother . He finally seemed content with a sweet woman he met in his neighborhood who was sharp as a tack and truly loved my dad . They enjoyed going up to her little shack in the Blue ridge mountains working on the little house clearing brush and just enjoying the peace of the mountain air . Right before his 77th birthday we all began noticing little quirks and inconsistencies with my dad . Always sharp and quick , he began to lose interest in things he had always loved … tennis , reading , crossword puzzles , even going to his church . I think the first big clue was when he held his fork upside down at the dinner table at my sister’s house and tried unsuccessfully to eat his brocoli . Unknown to any of us , his doctor had told him a couple of years back that he had the beginnings of Alzheimer’s and put him on medication . His fear of what may possibly come to pass was terrifying to him and he tried to keep it from us as long as possible . We all tried to cope as well as we could trying not to baby my dad but be there for support . He seemed to know his limitations , like not driving too far or not at night . The day before his 77th birthday everything changed and definitely not for the better .We asked him what time he would like for all of us to meet for his birthday and his reply was to put it off a day or two saying he just felt “yucky” . He claimed to just have a bit of a bug and we believed it to be nothing but . He lived in a downstairs apartment in my sister’s house giving my sister the knowledge that we could keep on eye on him discreetly without him feeling pampered . My sister called me at work to say she was worried about him , finding him downstairs staring at the 3 D flashing screensaver on his computer saying that it was bothering him . The next couple of days led to no real improvement so my sister took him to see his Doctor ( who was as old , if not older than my Dad .) That proved to be one mistake we made in letting him go to a physician that we had no faith in . My sister mentioned that we were concerned about west nile virus to which he replied “If it were that , he’d already be dead ." My dad had also worried tremendously about skin cancer that he had had from years of playing tennis and wore long sleeve shirts in the sun along with his floppy white hat . Knowing that he had the beginnings of Alzheimer’s , he truly dreaded possibly contracting the west nile virus that was at that time just coming to attention of the medical world and media . The old codger of a doctor , gave my dad a prescription for penicillin saying that would take care of whatever my dad may have and sent us on our merry way . We kept a close eye on my dad and watched a sudden and rapid decline . I took off work on a Friday night to sit with him and watched him lay on his sofa with no TV , music or sound and seemingly drift in and out of a troubled sleep . The next day his girlfriend Elizabeth took the task of staying with him on the pretense of just having someone around in case he needed anything . My sister called me at 7:00 in the morning to tell me to come to her house immediately …something was definitely wrong with my Dad and could I come quickly ? The feel of impending doomed followed me all the way to her house and I was shocked to walk into my Dad’s bedroom to see him sitting in a chair by his bed totally nude and wringing his hands together . Elizabeth had spent the night with him and said he paced about all night long making no sense or reason with the statements he made . Something big was wrong and we all knew it needed more than a visit to his tired old outdated doctor . We pulled him into his pajamas and assisted him into my sister’s car for what we know now would be his last car ride anywhere . We took him straight to the emergency room of the hospital and had to get him in a wheelchair just to get him through the doors . The man I brought to this hospital was a stranger to me , so frail and unresponsive . I felt that the nurse taking information from us was thinking that we had brought in an old feeble man whose senility was almost gone . How could this be .. I wanted to say .."This is not the state of mind my father was in less than 48 hours ago , you just don’t know what a sharp man he really is .“ But current facts don’t lie and it broke my heart to see her write “altered" on his metal status . I think this is the moment that we all felt our hearts slowing voices became fuzzy , none of it made any sense . This is a man whose tennis partner is 81 . A man who leads services at nursing homes for invalids . This was NOT our father and please do something to bring back the man we love . After finally getting him through the piles and piles of paperwork and insurance , we wheeled him back so that we could get all this mess cleared up and return to the life we had with him . This was not to be the case and with every hour that passed the dread I felt building seemed to crescendo and pound into my brain that something huge and horrible was happening to us at this very moment . When the doctor entered the curtain in the emergency room our first question was “Could it be west nile virus ?” His answer seemed to quiet our worst fears saying that it was a one in 114 million chance that my dad had the dreaded disease .We didn’t a know what he had but were all a little bit eased by the odds in his favor . Test after test were run all coming back negative for many things . About seven hours into the hospital visit I called my husband to bring me some clothes . I wasn’t going anywhere until we figured this mystery out . The last test was a spinal tap . It wasn’t very pretty , having to sedate my dad did not go over well with him and he was rolled back to his ER cubicle sweating profusely and totally altered by this point . After waiting what seemed hours the news came back … he may have some form of encephalitis . The words seemed to come from a million miles away not from across the bed as the doctor spoke . By this time we called our brother who lived in Orlando at the time and said “You need to get on the next plane “ . Everything was changing and none of it for the better . My brother arrived ... a big burly charismatic person that everyone who had ever met fell in love with . We weren’t close as kids but the older we got the closer we became . He is a carbon copy of my Dad personality wise and is probably the reason for him being so well thought of by so many people. He was close to my father , even though he lived farther away . I felt immediate comfort just seeing him walk through the hospital doors and knew now we would get to the bottom of this unfortunate mystery . Doctor after doctor talked to us giving us all their opinions options and suggestions . Things with my dad , known to all of us as “Diddy” got worse more quickly than any of us wanted. His first night in the hospital his temperature spiked at 106 and we were witnesses to what exactly goes on in the all night world of a hospital . They wanted his exact weight so they could give him the maximum amount of medicine to try and bring his fever down . I remember swabbing my Dad with cool cloths to no avail and then the staff had us help put my Dad onto a hammock type weighing device to get his exact weight . I should remark here that my Diddy was extremely close to his God, having raised us all in the church and lived his life as a total man of God. I never heard my Dad curse and neither one of my parents ever drank alcohol or lived their lives in any way but the straight and narrow. My Dad , delirious at this point called my brother Chris “A son of a bitch” for rousting him onto the scale to which my brother replied “ Diddy , you aren’t the first person to call me that even today. “ They brought in a cooling blanket that filled with cold air to try to bring his temperature down and even had us put on masks at one point thinking that he may have some “contagious” disease . That lasted about 20 minutes with me and my brother and sister . We just knew in our heart of hearts that it wasn’t some communicable disease and it felt almost like being scared of our Diddy to wear the masks . I remember one of my friends from work coming into the room around midnight to check on us and from the look on her face I knew we all looked frantic desperate and losing any positive attitude we may have originally had . That night my brother and I slept on the fold out couch in my Dad’s room with the thermostat set on 60 degrees praying prayer upon prayer that the morning would bring a glimmer of hope . The nurse came in the next morning asking how we had slept and my quick witted brother remarked “You know it is cold if you feel like spooning your sister”. The nurses that we were blessed with were the sole companionship we had for ten days and the most professional caring people that one could ever hope for in this situation . They never treated my Dad with anything but the utmost respect and caring and never catered to the fact that he was in an altered state . My respect for these women is huge , and my gratitude will be undying to them … they made my Dad’s last few days ones of dignity and of the premium care that I wanted for my father and I was so fortunate to have had him receive . To this day… years later I still send the nurses a Christmas card with a note to thank them once a year for the professionalism, patience and love they showed not only to my Dad but to his children as well. The next day we got our first glimmer of hope with a great neurologist that we got lucky enough to be assigned to . He was a small stature of a man but came quickly to be a giant in all of our eyes. He never pumped us with false hope but gave it to us straight and never pulled any punches. I felt such gratitude to this Doctor that a couple of months after this experience I felt compelled to send him a Thank You note as well for all he did for our Dad. He came in the next day for an examination of our father asking him to say such phrases as “Today is a sunny day” and asking him if he knew where he was . My dad answered that yes he knew where he was … "The Blue Ridge Mountains." That answer seemed prophetic to me as if that was where he really wanted to be.

The neurologist said that my Dad’s B-12 level was very low and that had been proven to be a big determination of diminishing memory and comprehension . We were all excited that maybe with monthly B-12 shots his Alzheimer’s may be helped to be kept at a minimum. He also said that he had sent a blood sample off to the CDC in Atlanta for a test of the West Nile Virus , but it would not be back for a while. He said the treatment for any Encephalitis was the same but if it was in fact Encephalitis his chances were not good . He said younger people could fight the sickness and come through fine but given the fact that Diddy was 77 it did not look good. We all still clung to the fact that he had a one in 114 million chance of contracting West Nile and that at this point in time his chances seemed pretty good. The fever was down yet he remained in a state of constant sleep which is one of the main symptoms of the illness . He woke up once that day and recognized two of his life long friends from the church and even called them both by their nicknames. I took this as an encouraging sign as we hadn’t had too many and we all continued our constant bedside vigil. The next day was much of the same … sleep, sleep, sleep. On the third day in the hospital my brother decided to take an hour off and go eat at the Varsity in downtown Atlanta. Cindy and Elizabeth were in the room with Diddy. I had stepped out for a few minutes . Upon my return I noticed how ashen my Father looked. I feel like had I been sitting in the room with him the change was probably so gradual that I likely would not have noticed as my sister hadn’t . He just seemed almost ghostly. I immediately went to get the nurse who by now was our best friend in the world. She came to his room right off and after taking one look at him called a code Blue. Then it all began to happen. I have never been through a more surreal period of time as when it all started to escalate and time seemed to freeze. The cardiologist came first followed by a team of nurses aides other doctors, and assistants. My sister and Elizabeth and I were asked to leave the room, but I just could not leave. If he was going to have all these people that had never met him working on him I felt he would need me there all the more. The cardiologist said he was having a massive heart attack. I have never been struck so harshly by words and the panic I felt almost took my breath away. They allowed me to crouch beside his bed holding on to his hand and letting them do their best to save my Father. The monitor started dropping, they were losing him. The doctor asked if my Dad had a DNR and I said that he had expressed to all of us children that he never wanted to be kept alive by a machine. Being the one in the room at the moment I was at a loss, asking the Doctor what he would do if it was his father in that bed? He responded, “I would bag him to get his he heart started again and see if he could come back on his own”. I replied, “Do it.” His heart rate had slowed to 5 beats a minute and although I prayed and willed it to come up on its own it did not. They started compressions and bit by bit his heart seemed to come back to life. He was moved immediately to the ICU, a trip none of us wanted to make but reluctantly followed. By this point in our journey we had a support group of friends that astounded us completely. My sister’s best friend seemed to be there with a hot thermos of coffee every time we started to fade. People from my work collected money to pay my bills since I had walked away from my job. Teachers from my kid’s school brought baskets with snacks , magazines, drinks, candy , and a different friend of mine was picking up my kids from school every day taking them home with their own families and not letting them worry one bit. More than that I didn’t have to worry about my kids at all, they were totally taken care of. My husband was taken groceries and my yard was being mowed. I will never forget the immense sense of true friendship that I experienced from all the co-workers relatives and extended family members that hovered around us the entire time we were at the hospital. All I had to do was worry about Diddy and that was consuming all my time, emotion and energy at that point. They had to shock him twice in the ICU to get a rhythm back and it was a totally frightening situation we all walked into in the small world of the Intensive Care Unit. I think by this point we were starting to grasp at straws... hoping for a miracle or just hoping to wake up from a dream. The nurses that my Dad had had upstairs came by after they got off of their 12 hour shift to see how my Dad was doing. We came to make more friends in the ICU but it was a different group... more people prepared for the worst and praying non-stop for the best. We met and lost several new friends that day and it almost came to be a common thing to be sitting in the waiting room with people who learned while you listened that they had just lost a loved one. We met a man who lost his sister the same day my Dad was brought down to the ICU , we probably took her room... but the next day he called the ICU waiting room to speak with us and see how our Dad was doing. In the time of his own grief he felt compassion for us three kids sitting in a room with no way to help no way to understand.. Yet he reached out to us in our time of need. I will never forget the friendship that he managed to show us in his own time of grief . We spent another night on chairs in the ICU waiting room which had come to earn it’s name… we were waiting. The waiting gave us plenty of time to reflect on the years we had all shared. We truly bonded with each other those couple of days remembering stories laughing at the good times we had shared, and crying over the bad ones. I would not take a million dollars for that time spent with my siblings, growing closer to them than I ever had in my life.

The morning brought us a visitor from the hospital’s infectious disease nurse to tell us what we all knew at this point in time was destined to happen. The CDC had confirmed that my father had indeed contracted West Nile Virus, in fact two different types of Encephalitis. Suddenly we were faced with some pretty heavy decisions. Should we keep him on life support to fulfill our desire to have a father or let the brutal nature that had encompassed his body let it take him from us completely?

My father never regained consciousness after his massive heart attack and my brother and I spoke several times about the fact that Diddy was such a good man of God that he probably had been gone from this Earth since the heart attack. We were just consoling ourselves by pumping air into a body that God had already taken home.

After we all talked... my brother , my sister , Elizabeth and I we all knew it was already in God’s hands… a place that we all four needed to be now. The papers were signed and the forms filled out.

Now nothing was left except our goodbyes to a body that used to house the most incredible man in our universe.

I remember finally being able to push all the tubes wires and ventilators to the side, and crawl into bed with the man that had shaped... formed and brought me in to this world and now ironically I would lay next to him as he left it.

Somehow it was very comforting to be with him even in his disparaging state. I will never forget the prayers apologies and promises I made to him on that bed and hope that by the time I was saying them he was already at peace with my mother wishing us to not be sad but to be grateful for the chance to have been his children...and hoping he had done a fantastic job of being a good and faithful servant.

The heart monitor slowed down to a mere beat per minute and finally but not willingly I knew he had gone Home.

I miss him every day of my life but am so grateful that I was lucky enough to have had him in my life at all. By the time I reached the age of 42, I had witnessed the death of both of my parents.

Two people who still remain so vivid in my heart that they will be with me every step I take and visit me in my dreams every night.

Time marches own... memories dim but the chasm he owns in my heart and soul will be his and etched in my mind for a lifetime.

Ten days down the Nile .. A trip that I never wanted to take but one that God had destined for me to experience.

I went back to work a day after his funeral...way too early and was an emotional wreck the entire shift.

If you hugged me, I cried.

If you simply sympathetically said "Oh Kelly..." I immediately fell apart.

I left work that night a total mess.

As I drove up the hill from the parking lot where I worked, a shooting star streamed across the dark sky.

I stopped my car and started to cry once again.

I said...  literally outloud  between my sobs, "Was that a sign from you, Diddy?"

I sat there in my car and muttered through my sobbing , "If that was you...just send me a sign so I'll know everything will be okay?"

Not two seconds later another shooting star zoomed across the sky, brighter than the first one.

They were the game changing seconds in time for me. 

The stars, the heavens and even my Diddy had my back.

That's the moment, the exact moment knew I was blessed.

Whatever else happened in my life from that very moment on didn't matter. It was going to be alright because I'd been lucky enough to have Frank and Ann for parents...and their blessings would follow me every step of the way through my own journey in life.

I say it a lot but can't say it enough, am one of the luckiest people on this earth.

Thanks if you read this post, know it's a long one... but so has been my journey.

If you want a thumbs up in life, give someone else one.

Til next time...COTTON

It Was The Best Of Times

Where it all started...

2545 Bayard Street. My parents would love how our childhood home has been restored. Massey and I attended the open house when it went up for sale this past spring.

Our father bought it the year I was born (1960) for $15,000. This past spring (2016) was up for sale with an asking price of $250,000.

Trust me, it was worth a million dollars to every single person who ever walked through the door when my parents owned it. It was a house filled with love and laughter.

There was always a glass of iced tea to drink and  dinner on the table every night at six.

My mother's sewing machine was always out and used more often than not.

As insane as it sounds (these days) my parents were always happy with each other and never once heard them argue the entire time we all lived in that house.

Sometimes, especially these past few years have often wondered how and why I made it through the debacle which is my life?

When I think back to Bayard Street and think about the two people in the above photo, know absolutely how and why.

It's because of them and the way they loved and raised me and both my Sib's.

We weren't raised with lots of money but instead were raised with more love than any person deserves.

We were middle of the road and middle class but as far as love and laughter goes, were constantly in the fast lane and the upper echelons of happiness.

That's how and why I made it through.

I was lucky enough to be raised and loved by Frank and Ann Leach.

We lost Mama suddenly, in under a minute in 1977 and then Diddy in 2002 in ten days.


God took them both from us because they needed to be together again and wanted to watch over us together.

They knew they done good (as we say in the south) and knew would love and rely on each other.

And we did.

And have.

And still do.



I can't say enough positive things about my two older siblings. Both outshine me ten fold and then some. They have taken care of not only me but my own as well.

I used to think of myself as the black sheep and maybe was, during my reckless twenties... but still loved me anyway.

Now at the tender age of almost fifty seven sometimes feeling almost seventy seven some days know...

I've done okay.

It took me a minute or maybe a couple of decades, but I got this now.

I've made it this far because I am loved.

I am loved because I have turned out to be a pretty decent person.

I'm a decent person because I was raised to be one.

Webster's defines 'Decent' as: "Morally upright; respectable."

I'll proudly take that definition.

I like being the odd one, especially with my excellent back up support system.

Yes the past few years almost felt like they killed me...but didn't.

You can't keep a good woman down and (lucky for me) momma knew how to raise one.

We live outside the touch of time...an acurate and spot on  way to describe us.

Hope my own three kids feel that way too as they grow older together.

Sounds corny but oh so true.

Love is all you need.

All you need is love


Til next time...COTTON

The Weather is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful

I think the biggest change (and's been many) for me since moving to Orlando is getting used to it being summer year round.

Not that I'm complaining...I love it.

It's March first, have been here since the end of last September and haven't turned the A/C off  once yet.  The heat has never been turned on. I'd say we've had about a total of maybe five days when the temps dropped below seventy. I've yet to put on a coat and only used my sweater two or three times.

Talk about paradise!

I suffer from hot flashes so would be hot even if I lived in Antartica.

I planted a flower garden from seed packets in November and it is still blooming like crazy.

That ain't gonna happen in Antartica during November.

A lot of the people I work with are either from here or been here quite a while. I remember one day  it actually dropped into the sixties and everyone at work was like "Oh, we're gonna be slow because it's too cold to go outside!"

It was sixty eight degrees.

People had on Ugg boots, hooded fur lined jackets complete with scarf and gloves.

My flip flops are worn on a daily basis.

The only downside is having to keep my toenails polished.

Nail polish on finger and toe nails is great but you gotta keep it up. I hate to see it half chipped off or barely still on.

My momma raised me better'en that.

The leg shaving's not such a big deal for me anymore.

Random fact which have only recently learned from personal experience.

Apparently a woman's leg hair retires in it's early fifties. If I want to stay silky smooth can shave my legs once a month. I only shave up to my knees. I have virtually no hair on my upper legs.

I've also learned (again from personal experience) that when hair retires from a woman's legs, moves directly to her chin.

It appears like a sprout.

That one random hair... which wasn't there last week but just as suddenly appeared in the form of that single half inch long, grotesque and mortifying discovery when looking into the magnifying side of your make up mirror while applying your war paint.

Is it not enough we push a human out of a hole in our body, the size of a dime?

Is it not enough Aunt Flow visited us uninvited, twelve times a year for decades?

Is it not enough to have raised those humans we not only carried inside our body but also painfully squeezed out of it?

Is it not enough,  our compensation for it all ends up being eternal nights of sweating like having the best sex of our lives when are simply just trying to get a decent night's sleep?

I really want to blame it on men but in good conscience simply can't.

Bitch please...you make me hate apples.

Til next time...COTTON