Journal — Day three:   The natives continue to war furiously with one another.  They bedevil me with evidence of their nightly raids, leaving their litter across every corner of this tragic little island.  I cower in my tent, tossing cookies at the beasts with waning hopes of satisfying their bottomless appetites.  I’ll try to sneak out tomorrow to build a signal fire on the far side of the island.  If captured, I can only hope my demise will be swift and sure, these words somehow found to serve as evidence of my torturous existence in the midst of such savage surroundings.

Oh, look!  Is that a glass of Chardonnay in my hand?  Perhaps this isn’t such a bad place after all.

Okay, so here we are — Scarlett, Wilson and me … day two of being Home Alone … and all we’ve done so far is to devolve into a ridiculous recreation of the story of those poor British school boys stuck on a deserted island.  Sadly, we’re not governing ourselves any better than they did.

With no responsible adults to give supervision, we’re already dividing into camps of Bigguns and Littluns.

Wilson, nicely misinterpreting the role of Piggy, has managed to drag in an entire tree from the backyard and then litter the house with every toy he owns.  Nice job, Wilson!

Scarlett has volunteered to play Ralph only if she gets to set the Island on fire, claiming it’ll match her beautiful flaming red hair.  Great, Scarlett!

And me?  I’m about to be captured by Ralph and Piggy and my only hope is that that handsome Navy officer will come home and save his poor little wife from the onslaught of these savage beasts.

Okay, so it’s not exactly the plot of Lord of the Flies by Nobel winner, William Golding, but it sure feels similar.  Poor Dan is going to come back to a mess of scattered toys, tree branches, dirty dishes and a wife hanging by her fingertips off the edge of a cliff.  I guess it could be worse.  We could throw a cat into the middle of it all, you know!

In case you can’t read the sign, it says, “BASSETS FOR OBAMA”

Regardless anyone’s viewpoints in this highly-charged political climate, those Bassets are absolutely the CUTEST!!!  Yeah, I know … I just used THREE exclamation points.  So much for being a mature writer.

For three days I’ve not left the comfort of my jammies.  I’ve not had a meal that didn’t include mashed potatoes slathered in butter and salted with tears.  I’ve not had an hour in which I haven’t caught myself staring off into space with something like prayerful utterances falling from my lips.  I’ve been conspicuously absent here from the Bloggybirdery, as well as, from myself.

You see, the beautiful Loretta has died.

The first time I met Loretta, she was already well into the confusion of Alzheimer’s disease.  But she looked at me with eyes that seemed like soft blue velvet.  She held out one small hand, frail as a sparrow’s wing, toward my direction.  “I can’t see you,” she said.  I realized then that her eyes were soft because they no longer held the hard visions of life.  Forgetful AND blind.  She held onto my hand, but she couldn’t hold onto my name.  Nevertheless, from that first moment of introduction, she treated me as if I were a beloved.  “Would you like some chocolates, dear?  Someone brought them to me, but I don’t know who it was.”  It was me.  “Can I get you anything, sweetie?”  Oh my, if only she could. “Dan says you take good care of him — thank you.”  Such grace.

Those little snippets of conversation became commonplace.  She had every reason to be a bitter woman, swallowed by a wheelchair and all the reasons that confined her to it.  But she was always as soft as those blue velvet eyes.  Always dear.  Ever a lady.  The mother who taught my husband to pick up his socks, put his coffee cup in the dishwasher, and always … always … treat me as an equal.

When I met her, she was already in a nursing home surrounded by a staff of caretakers.  One of the residents, a gentleman named Ivan, had proclaimed himself her “proper suitor,” doting on her every gentle movement.  Loretta ignored him.  “He’s too old for me,” she would wink.  Then she’d retreat within those eyes of hers and stay lost for hours.  Now and then she’d come up for air, admonishing me to “do everything you can before you’re old and blind like me.”  Her own “Bucket List” was all but forgotten.  Nevertheless, she reminded me often to work on mine.

When the phone call came the other day, it wasn’t altogether unexpected.  For two decades, she had been in a long protracted holding pattern, waiting for this day.  Knowing Loretta, it was an elegant landing.

Now I’m messing up her perfect moment by splashing tears and laments all over the place.  Dan is on his way to Seattle for his mother’s funeral.  I’m home alone with the doggies, my miserable leg, and all those little moments when a prayer slips across my thoughts.

God speed, dear Loretta.  May those blue velvet eyes see the Heaven you are surely in now.

It’s been several weeks since I broke my leg.  I’m making progress; thanks for asking.  I’m told that in a couple more weeks, I may be able to gingerly try to place some weight on that leg.  The operative words are “maybe” and “some.”  The physical therapist says it will be many months before I’ll be close to normal.  The interruption of life on a broken leg has been at times painful, at times merely inconvenient, but mostly it’s been an opportunity to reevaluate and explore writing for unexpected sources.

Spending hours at my computer, outlining, drafting, or perfecting anything of any substantive length is totally beyond my current capacity.  But that doesn’t mean that I’ve had to give up writing.  Au contraire, my dear Bloggybirdery friends.  An old Italian proverb says, “The river does not swell with clear water.”   Neither does a writer fill with only one thought.

I’d never have thought to write opinion pieces for the prestigious HuffingtonPost, much less be honored with their acceptance of my submissions had I not been stuck with my leg in the air and a laptop on my chest.  In the political blog world, they’re the Big Boys and I’m still all “who me?” because they published my article.  I’d never have thought to spend time writing some thoughtful poetry and short articles to add to my portfolio.  Shoot, who’da thought the misery of a broken leg would be a resume item.

Certainly, I’d rather be off running to my favorite latte joint to work on book edits rather than stuck on my couch for what now feels like half a lifetime.  I’d rather be SHOPPING, for heaven’s sake.  Or playing with the dogs.  Or going out for dinner with my hubby.  Anything other than dragging a three-pound leg weight across the landscape of this couch with permanent bed head, hairy legs, and the disposition of a wet scorpion.

The good news is … yeah,  there IS good news somewhere in all this, not the least of which would be those nice folks at HuffingtonPost (Hi, nice folks!) … this isn’t forever.  The other good news is that Dan’s golfing buddy is bringing dinner tomorrow night.

I know those people I live with have stolen my frog.  I’ll just sit here and wait for the ransom note, which I’m sure will be written on my kibble.

It occurred to me today (I’m admittedly slow on the uptake here) that, as of September 29, I’ve been blogging now for two years.  I thought it might be fun to take a walk down memory lane and re-publish my very first post.  Here it is:

Sunday is my day to read, gather clouds, make wishes, light candles. It’s my Starbucks-Grandé Latte-No-Foam-Please day. It’s also my day to think. To rest my fingers from the other days of sitting at my keyboard tapping out strings of words that may or may not make the cut for my next book or treatise or corporate-commissioned bullet list. I guess it’s good to rest once a week. My cat, Lily, an improbable tortie, rests probably 23 hours a day. She needs her rest after spending her one awake hour a day snuggling on my lap during our morning coffee and paper reading event. It must be exhausting, poor thing.

For anyone who may happen across this page, I welcome you. If you want to comment, please feel free. Ask me questions if you wish. I’ll try to answer … or I’ll be honest and tell you that I don’t know. I’ll do my best to respond with comments on the process of writing, the missteps, the possibilities, the ah-hahs that come in the middle of the night. In the meantime, know that I think of you (whoever you are) as I’m writing my next book. I’ll confess, though, that I’m hardly a good source of knowledge. I’m just a simple person with a desire to write things.

Thanks for sticking with me, or if you’re new, finding our little Bloggybirdery here at DancingBirds.com.  Happy two years!

Here’s today’s Depression-era recipe — this one from my grandfather who could make an old boot sound delicious:

Cemetery Stew

2 slices of white bread, torn into bite-sized pieces
1 cup milk
(sprinkle of sugar if you have it)

Mix ingredients together and enjoy like a bowl of cereal.

Tomorrow we’ll explore Wilson’s favorite dish, Dirt Pie.

I’m collecting recipes that are easy and affordable for today’s times.  Here’s one of my grandmother’s Depression-era recipes.  She called it Poor Man’s Bread.

1 Cup flour
1 Teaspoon baking soda
Water

Stir in enough water to make a batter and pour into a greased skillet.  (Grandma said to use a cast iron skillet.)  Fry until brown on each side like a pancake.  Tastes great with homemade butter and jam.

Homemade butter?  Sure, Grandma had cows.  I just have Scarlett and Wilson.  Now about that chokecherry jam …

It’s a day’s work moving me from my soft and pillowed spot on the couch to somewhere else … especially when that somewhere is away from the house. Before … when we had only Lily the Cat and we didn’t have Scarlett the Dog and Wilson the Other Dog, and Before, when I had two good legs and one good head, and then, Really Long Before, when we were young and portable … moving from here to there was really very simple.

We just stood up and moved.

Now, we’re a full Cecil B. DeMille production, complete with lead actors and a cast of thousands. The script is always fluid and marred by missing pages and writers on strike. We’re a Keystone Cops flurry of nonsense and all we need is a piano player to embellish our silent movie comedy.

Going somewhere starts early morning with a one-legged Pat Morita crane pose over the kitchen sink to wash my hair and other reachable body parts. Then it’s a literal hop, hop, hop through the process of dressing, hair, makeup and, most likely, a wardrobe change somewhere in the midst of it all, simply because I’m such a raging diva.

We’re an uncut movie of scenes; coaxing Wilson into his crate, transferring me to a wheelchair, bump, bump out the door and down one step, into the car (the one with the wide door), then back into the house for a frantic search for a forgotten book, a left-behind purse, Oh, oh, my shoe. Get my shoe, please. And my pen. Do I have my pen?

Close the door, start the car.

Down the street 200 yards, then a U-turn and back up the driveway. Poor Dan. I thought you went. Sorry, I forgot. We truly are a drama of entertainment. Thank God the shooting of this movie’s halfway done and in the can.

Popcorn, anyone?

P.S.  Thanks, Fotosearch.com, for the really nice stock photo.