Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Another Chapter, Closed...Beauty Beautician...

Once again, it feels summer-like.  By the end of the week it is supposed to feel fallish again.  Why oh why is fall my favorite season and why oh why do we live where fall is fleeting and summer is eternal?  A question that will never be solved on a blog.  Very early this morning I tried to beat the heat and get the two bags of mulch that we didn't get out in the flowerbeds this weekend emptied into the beds, but I didn't beat the heat, the heat beat me.  So, for now, until later, there is mulch in big piles around the plants and all over the decorative rocks that surround the flowerbeds.  Good thing Tuesday is HOA inspection day.  This early morning attempt at helping Roy who wrenched his back on Saturday doing this very same thing, kind of put a crimp into today's plans.  I had an appointment that I canceled and I didn't feel like I could make it to a birthday breakfast for a friend.  So, I've been laying low today but not completely.  The hall closet which seems to accumulate stuff we don't know where to put seems to find a home in what is supposed to be a temporary place.  I found Roy's winter gloves and a long forgotten box with a Charlie Brown Christmas tree in it.  We have also accumulated throughout they years many, many reusable bags and totes, yet most trips to the grocery store the groceries come home in paper or plastic.  Really, all these accumulated tote bags from conferences are one of the many reasons why I don't attend too many conferences anymore.  No, actually I refuse the bag and just say no.  I did find one bag in the closet that was really the bomb diggity that Roy came home with from a compliance conference.  It is actually useful and not embarrassing to carry.  So, I don't know why it was relegated to the back corner behind the vacuum cleaner.  Oh yea, it went into the closet of no return.....  When we bought our house, David Weekley Homes sent over a welcome bag which is also an insulated bag for cold or hot items.  Again...found it in the closet of no return, but I have rescued it, at least for the time being.

No surprise here that I extend a post into the next morning.  It's that time of the morning where the skies begin to lighten and a pinkish hue gives shadowed dimensions to the trees and the houses in the distance.  It's that time when I can pretend I am looking at mountains.  I had an unusual dream last night.  Classic dream of being back in high school and it wasn't about not remembering my locker combination or not being able to find a classroom or missing the big exam....I dreamed I missed all of volleyball season my senior year.  I was so upset that I had missed it and no one had told me and when I talked to the coach she merely said, I saw the opportunity so I took it.  In real life she and I didn't exactly get along.  Back to this interesting dream...because I know your attention is riveted to the screen.  I came home crying and told my mother about missing the season and what the coach had said and my mom began to hug me, holding me tightly and said, I'm sorry you missed your senior year playing volleyball, but didn't you enjoy all the time we got to spend together?  Boom....I wake up in real life, not the dream.  I think I know what brought on this dream.

Two years ago yesterday, October 28, I found out from someone who had been sworn to silence by my father, that my mother was in the hospital and not doing well.  Later on I found more details on FB.  I called my father, told him I had heard the news but before we could go on any further we needed to confront the elephant in the room.  That day had been a major appointment with the cardiologist and my heart was not responding to meds and treatment.  It was the beginning of wearing a monitor for a month but I had been told that undo stress and heat was the kryptonite that caused reoccurring heart episodes.  A few weeks before all of this Roy had asked my father to talk to him about issues and the like, not me.  He asked my father not to call me during the day to save me from the now repeating episodes that took so much out of me.  This sent my father over the edge, went victim as is his practice and thus the instructions were given to the rest of the family no news for Nancy.  As much as one can, I thought things were somewhat resolved and as long as we were of beneficial use to him, all things were put aside.    My mother's stay in the hospital was the beginning of the end of her life here on earth. Thinking about this, with several pictures I saw on FB of volleyball teams and winning seasons made it really obvious of why the dream.

This morning I decided to Google my coach's from long ago to see what came up.  I kind of remember that she retired in 2006 or 2007 because my father had seen something in the neighborhood newspaper about a reception for her as she retired. He wondered if I was interested in attending...uh...no and he knew that.  He was trying to get a reaction. She had gone from coach to AD.   To my surprise she had passed away also in 2011 a month and a half after my mom.  She died of lung cancer.  I remember she pretty much was a smoke hound and she was always really tan.  You know back in the days of baby oil and iodine in the sun, so I figured smoke or sun would get her.  I only saw her once after high school.  She was on an opposing team we were playing in softball.  I was the catcher and I talked to her when she came up to bat.  Finally on her last bat I asked her if she knew who I was?  No, she didn't.  Lucky for me, a play at home plate happened and as she slid into me, I tagged her hard, really hard.  She was out.  As we stood up and she saw how tall I was, I could see her trying to figure out who I was.  I finally told her and she kind of just went, oh yea, I remember you....I kept talking to her as she walked back to the dugout because I thanked her in my most sarcastic voice for being the first and major contributing reason for my knee problems.  We never got our knee pads till the first game of the season.  She smirked and I walked away.  Nothing surprised me about her response.  Like I said, we never really cared for each other...I was way too Christian for her and well she was way too...uh...let's see...oh, a member of the other team.  Her 'roommate' tried to teach my mom how to swim at the Y.  Maybe it was because my friend Beth and I called her Beauty Beautician....because she was going to cosmetology school at night and in the summer.  Her second choice of profession had us baffled.   She must not have done anything with it because it was not mentioned in her obituary.  Close another chapter in the book of teachers. 




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