Blurred Lines

Number one, America knew about coronavirus late December of last year...

yet the government didn't take serious action until early March.

Hopefully Johnny Mathis wasn't right in the late seventies.

I wake up every day and think the same thing right off the bat.
Did I dream this?


I can remember a time when  I would have never thought or imagined (growing up in  the sixties) that I would ever have my own personal cellular phone which could also double as a computer...much less all three of my kids have one, and by the time they even hit high school.

And now this?
I'm simply a Flinstone, trying to get by in a Jetson world.
#truefact

I could go on with the gloom and doom, but as of late , we all hear enough of it.
 Every single day.



Instead I will switch gears and share a few of my own observations over the past forty odd days of sitting at home and not getting paid to do so.

You know you're bored when you shave your legs at the age of sixty, during a shelter in place order.
 With the amount of hair left on a woman's' body after menopause, I could've plucked my legs quicker.
So there's that.

I haven't put on a stitch of makeup since March 16, hence no need to look in the small magnifying mirror I use for just that purpose. A magnification mirror is no friend of a sixty year old woman's face.
True fact.

I got out the magnification mirror today (day forty five of not leaving the house except for the grocery store or bank) and discovered I was growing a goatee, comprised of three different, sporadically placed wild hairs, almost to the point of curling. It totally grossed me out, and as I shaved them off, silently thanked God for letting my husband's eyesight be as bad as my own.

Thirty two years down the road of life together...now everything's blurred lines, for the both of us.

I also need to send a Thank You card to the older woman (yes older than me) at Great Clips, who last cut my hair over six weeks ago.

She scalped me. It was  even hard for me to look at myself in the mirror for well over two weeks.
I still can't believe not one person asked me how my brain surgery went.

Week three (above) it looked semi okay again, but still short.
 I made Massey do my highlights so at least it was blonde instead of gray at the roots.

Fast (didn't seem fast) forward three more weeks. My hair is perfect!
Of course every person with short hair will tell you. The minute your hair looks great and is complimented on, it's fixing to look like a bad wig in about three days.
That happened to me yesterday.
At least the Ole Gal gave the best bang for my buck!

I let Massey cut my hair let Massey day before yesterday...she couldn't make it look any worse, and she didn't!

Thank goodness I'm just hanging around the house. Massey and Tim probably have secret meetings while I'm in the shower (maybe twice a week...I've become very european) laughing about how I wear the same thing three or four days in a row, and bet each other about which one of my two outfits I'll put on next.

I've started calling it my costume.

In my defense, I'm tiny.  I haven't been lifting heavy weights in a sweat suit three times a day. Unless you call pulling weeds lifting.

Anway, back to "Costume.".
When Zachary was little, about the age he was in the above picture, my sister was taking him somewhere in her car. They passed a private school as the kids (in uniforms) were being released. Little Zach asked her if they all wore the same costume every day?

Zach has always been good for a chuckle, especially (pretty much only) when he was (as we say in the south) a Lit'lun. TJ was always such  a sweet but serious little guy, and Massey didn't say ten words before she turned four.

Wow, three decades can certainly fly by.

My favorite Zach story of all time was when he was around the age he was in the above photos.
We call them his happy years.

Although I was raised going to church at least three times a week, sometimes more, I dropped the religion ball with my own kids when they were very young. Oh I taught them about right and wrong and the Golden Rule, but organized religion was not part of their early life like it was my own.

My best attempt was to blast Jesus Christ Superstar over the stereo every Sunday morning while I cleaned house and cooked.


I know every word..seriously.

 It is still one of my top three albums.
Jesus was a Rock Star in our house, so there's that in my defense.


The week before Easter one year, we were headed over to my sister's for dinner. We passed the little country Methodist church near our house. They had the three crosses draped out front. I turned down the radio, intending to use it as my teaching moment.  I looked in the rear view mirror at him in his booster seat and remarked, they had nailed Jesus to the cross, by his hands and feet.

Zach's reply?

"I thought they hung him with a rope."
I then explained the term hung.

Then he asked why there were two other crosses? I explained that two robbers were on either side of him as well. I followed that little bit of info up with...

"You know what the last thing was Jesus said to all those people, who had done this to him, as he hung on that cross? He said, I forgive you."

Zach kinda stared out the window as we drove on by and thoughtfully replied, "I would have said I will get you."

My reply?
"Well that's why your name is Zachary and his name is Jesus."


Which brings up an even better "Church'in" story.

(when we started taking them to church on a semi regular basis when they started a pretty good non denominational one at a local high school, Zach would get in the car after his youth service and say "That was some good church'in."
 I tend to call it "Getting muh Jesus on."

One of our neighbors , way back in the late sixties or early seventies, was talking with my Diddy one day out in our front yard. He wasn't a church goer at all, but was a nice enough man. Our Diddy, on the other hand, was a devout member of  East Point Christian Church. He was a deacon, an elder, a Sunday School teacher and on various boards and committees.

That's him in the middle on the front row..

Anyhoo...
Something came up about race in their conversation...after all, it was the sixties and the south.
The man mentioned something about caucasians (old school term for whites) being the superior race, just like it said in the Bible.
My father didn't miss a beat or sound accusing in any way, but simply said "You know, I've read the Bible cover to cover more than a few times and don't remember that specific passage."
Our neighbor replied that it was in the book of Noah.
Once again my father calmly and casually said he didn't remember there being book of Noah in the Bible.
Our neighbor solemnly said (I kid you not):
"Well there was, before Roosevelt had it took it out."
(yes he said took)
...was this man totally and completely serious?!

He was.

Total rimshot moment.


As Leslie Jordan says, you can't make this shit up...and I didn't.

It's been a wild, almost sixty year long ride, and would do it all again in a heart beat...if it meant we'd still wind up here, in this place, in this house, with all the same loved ones in my life, who crazily enough love me as well.

That, my friends, is a win.




Coronavirus has upended the life and livelihood of basically every person on this planet. We've lost more Americans to this virus in the past three months, than we did all those years our troops fought in the Vietnam War.
Any conspiracy theory is a denial of true scientific data.

That's not a blue statement or a red statement. It's a red white and blue statement.
And therein lies the difference.

Yes the economy is crushed. You don't have to tell me that. I was big ballin along at the age of almost sixty, finally just working twenty hours a week but bringing home well over $500.

I've been  paying into the unemployment system since the year 1975, but after forty five days of being out of work, the system has given (returned to) me $195, and it took forty days to get here.

What about the people who don't have a spouse(like I do) who's still working...or wonderful family and friends like we are fortunate enough to  have?
Ask them about a conspiracy theory and they will most likely point the finger at unemployment.
And who can blame them? They are tax paying citizens.
My motto about Florida's unemployment system is "If it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it probably is a duck...but with a 'F."

This too shall pass...but what will the final body count be?

It's not a hoax, trust me.

 Til next time,
a temporarily broke plate slinger...
COTTON

Surrealistic Heard!

Once you meet me (especially the adult version) I'm kinda hard to forget.

Sometimes it's a good thing, and some of the time it isn't.

It's like batting .500 in the game of Life if you ask me.

I'm over halfway to that perfect season ... not even sixty  yet, and still in pretty good shape if pics a lot of people my age post on social media are any indication.

Number one, a man doesn't need to leave the house in a wife beater unless he is Sylvester Stallone and the year is 1976.

And women, bedazzling denim and shirts went south before the wife beater did.

Who ever looked good in a bedazzled jacket?

As I've grown older (which now means late fifties) I have  also grown increasingly aware that I am the one in control of my limited, albeit sometimes spotty humanity cell service in  life  and will  more often than not... have absolutely no guarantee on the longevity of my current performance here on planet Earth.

Make Life Count.

It took me well over half a century but now I get it.

I realize and totally own this.



I was born and  raised by a true southern, Christian couple...with open minds and deeper  hearts.

Unfortunately for me, they are both long gone... and currently at the party Upstairs.

World events going on right now are simply hard to comprehend.
How did we get to the point of this new normal?
Better yet...
will we ever return to the old normal?
If only I had a nickel.
But I don't.

I've been out of work since March 16. Realistically, I don't see the restaurant reopening any time in the near future.
My best guess would be mid summer.

Lucky for us, my husband has a great job.
Lucky for him, they kept him working.
He had to take a ten percent pay cut, but we'll be just fine.
He and I have spoken with each other (more than once) about how if this had happened ten years ago;
If it had, we'd be homeless right now.

What boggles me, is how divided this country continues to be...even (especially)now.
Mostly in the news and even more so on social media, they fuss and fight...constantly.
Do they really think they are going to change another person's mind with their rapid fire postings of links to a story which totally (doesn't) validate anything, and is more often than not outdated or a post from twenty years ago.

Is this really the time to debate whether democrats or republicans are the only  "Be all" party of choice and only smart option to make and/or take?

I've voted across the red and blue aisles  since 1978.
Do I tend to lean more one way than the other?
Of course, but that's just me...and my opinion.




Did I vote for Trump? Certainly not, and I will not. I wasn't a fan of his when he was on The Apprentice and I certainly wasn't a fan of his as a candidate, but it is what it is.
For now.
So as an American of course I don't want him to fail...as our president, but I sure wish he didn't make me cringe so much and so often.
#Literally

Currently I'm hoping those four people behind him on the podium, at any given point in time, (during this global pandemic) while he makes an address, are as smart as they sound when they get their chance to speak.


Everything else will come out with the wash, in its own good time. It always does.

Look, I could post all day long about Trump and how much he disgusts me, but what good's that going to do at the end of a day, several months from an election?
Several months from now, that's when it truly (and only) counts.
The rest is just white noise, small pun intended.


Till next time. COTTON from six feet away

The New World Order?

 I would have never,  ever imagined when I was a little kid (1960's) that a virus could/would shut down any country... especially this one.

The most powerful nation in the world.

Guess what?

I was wrong.

All of the sudden people who originally called it a hoax, manufactured manipulation and political fear mongering, are sitting in the same boat alongside others, from across the aisle, who have been worried for more than a couple of months.

The boat just got a lot smaller.

Now is the time to stop politics, finger pointing and character assassination.

Let's worry about listening to doctors, mathematicians and scientists more than politicians.

We've known about this for over three months...

and shit just got real??

I'm out of work as of yesterday. 

They  will reevaluate next week.

I'll probably be out of work for at the very least one month, and that's a best case scenario.

Servers don't work paycheck to paycheck, they work shift to shift.

Oh we save money in jars , drawers or secret spots for that emergency fund, which is usually a quick vacay or bond money (when you're young). 

It's hard to save money as a server unless you are extremely disciplined...

which I am NOT.

If this pandemic happened ten years ago, Tim and I would have been hands down out of luck. We talked about it last night.

We would have lost our home in Newnan, for sure.

We were both suddenly unemployed, drained our 401k, then our savings...and finally made it on a wing and a prayer.

In other words, we were blessed by many.

And still are.

This is time for every person to practice diligence, listen to what they are asked to do...and do it.

I work with mostly kids in their late teens or early twenties.

It's kinda a joke to most of them.

They think it is all over hyped.

They're mad because the restaurant closed with little, basically no notice... obviously not realizing  the  gravity or severity of the situation at hand.

It's not the time to have hurricane parties.

This stuff is serious. Ask anyone in Italy, China or Korea.

Shelter at home. 

Yeah, we'll miss a few paychecks and have to do some creative financing for a bit.

Seems to me a small price to pay in order to stay alive.

It's time to pull together instead of apart.

It ain't rocket science.

Till next time...COTTON

My (not so) Lost Boy

I remember thinking Zach would never make it on his own, when he turned tail and drove back to Georgia three years ago, after just living here in Orlando for three days.

Yet here we are, three years down the road of Life, and Zach is doing just fine, and still living in Georgia.



Zach has always marched to the beat of a different drum. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what kind of drum that is.

I know he's had some minor difficulties and bumps along the way, but has pretty much done every thing he said he was going to do when he left us here in Orlando...and never asked us for any help.

He didn't have a cell phone for the longest time; telling me he didn't need one. It about drove me nuts(ier) and finally bought him a pre paid used phone. I had Massey set it up and shipped it off to him. She and I alternated paying the $30 a month, just so we would have some way to get in touch with him...or (more importantly) vice-versa.

I bet he's lost or broke four different phones during the past three years. He's never asked for another one, instead he would just randomly text us from someones' phone and let us know he didn't have the phone anymore so we should cancel the pre pay.

He's a hard working kid, pursuing a career in the culinary field...and doing quite well.

He's not getting rich but he's getting by, and doing what he loves.

Every person should be so lucky...and know I am grateful to be one of them.

There is nothing worse than going into a job you hate, day after day after day. Week after week after week. It will literally suck the life out of you...hour by hour, week after week...and then some.

Then the months turn into years and before you know it, you're a jaded and resentful puppet, receiving your seemingly tiny penance for dancing for the boss man.

My husband had a job one time, many years ago. He worked it for well over ten years...and hated it every single day. The employer/owner berated him, called him names and treated everyone horribly. They would call Tim at three or four in the morning because they couldn't figure something out for themselves.

But it paid our bills so he went in. Every single day.

In over ten years, he never missed one day of work. That's the kind of man I was lucky enough to marry.

I'll never forget the time Tim told me, his boss told him (in a meeting) he was nothing more than garbage floating in the ocean.

For my husband...

the man I know and married thirty years ago, to put up with that kind of constant hostile bullying is a credit to his great character, as a father, husband and provider.


When we hit the skids (shortly thereafter) Tim went through another really hard time. It seemed no one was begging to hire peeps in their fifties, in the year 2008.

Then I lost my job, for giving my kid a scoop of ice cream at work without ringing it in...when they already knew my husband had been out of work for well over a year.

I'll never eat  LongHorn again. (but still love several peeps I know from there)

Then a year later our 401(k) was gone and we were broker than broke.

I spent years and years being pissed off at Tim's former employer and even more so with a sour business deal which went south right after that, leaving us with a $38,000 IRS debt we are still paying off...not to mention the restaurant which hung me out to dry after thirteen years of doing a pretty great job for them.

Here's the thing.

Be diligent in life, never give up, never give in and never let the enemy win...in any facet of your existence. Think like a boss.

Zach is doing exactly that. He didn't want to move to Orlando. He wanted to be on the opening team of a really cool and eclectic restaurant and do something to wow everybody, in the little ole town of Newnan, Georgia.

And he did.

We miss him, and hope he misses us too.

Whatever trail he follows is up to him.  I just hope it crosses ours from time to time.

I worry about all three of my kids, all the time. 

But Zach is a rebel.

And so was I.

It worries me when one of mine is a lot like me.

It may be a good thing, but who knows for sure?

Till next time...Cotton