How One Thing Can Lead To Another

It all started with a Facebook post by a girl I went to school with. (Stick with me; after the boring part is a kind of funny story, I promise.)

She asked if any of her classmates remembered going to school with a girl named Lisa D. (last name withheld). She had read the name on the local radio station's web site in a news report where this lady had allegedly murdered someone, and the name had sounded familiar to her.

I replied that we had gone to school with a Lisa D., that she was a year ahead of us, and that I was actually distantly related to her through my Dad. I then checked the radio station's web site myself to see if there was any other information. It listed her name and her age as being 44, which would be right, but there were no other clues as to whether it was the girl we'd gone to school with.

Well, now I had to know if my memory was correct that I was related to this lady. So I called my Mom's house, and my sister Lois answered. She didn't know anything about the news report, but confirmed through Mom that Lisa D.'s grandmother Helen was a cousin of my Dad's.

Now here's how some of the conversation went from there.

Me: I never really knew Lisa that well. I knew Toni and Timmie (her half-brother and sister) better.

Lois: I think Lisa was raised by her grandparents after her mom and Jimmie married. I remember Lisa vaguely. It was a long time before I knew that she was a sister to the Felts kids. I can remember the school bus going down into the valley and picking her up at her grandparent's house, and then picking Toni and Timmie up at their house and wondering how they could be related if they lived at different houses. I hadn't had any knowledge of that kind of family unit where all the brothers and sisters didn't live in the same house, and it kind of confused me for a while.

Me: That's funny. We were kind of naive, weren't we? Even all of our extended family were in regular households with one mother and one father. It's funny how kids can get confused about things like that when they're first aware of something different.

Lois: I remember asking Mom and she had to explain it to me.

FUNNY PART Me: Oh my goodness, that reminds me of something Mom once had to explain to me!! Remember the Higdons? (Two sisters, one unmarried but with a daughter, the other single.) I remember wondering how Marie could have a daughter but still have the same last name as her sister. (I was nine at the time.) So I asked Mom. She looked at me kind of funny and said, "Well, she never married." So, naive, sheltered little girl that I was, I asked how she could have had a child if she wasn't married. Now, earlier that day I had seen the rooster getting on one of the hens, and I'd told Mom that the rooster was fighting with the hens again. So after this (simple and perfectly reasonable to me) question about Marie, I guess Mom thought I needed to have The Talk. Or maybe she heard an entirely different question from what I was actually asking. So she took me to her bedroom and started telling me about the birds and the bees. Or should I say the chickens. (Lois is laughing hysterically by now.) I have absolutely no memory of what Mom said to me, except that she started it by saying, "Remember when you told me about the chickens fighting this morning? Well, they weren't really fighting." I do remember sitting there thinking, "Oh my goodness, she's telling me about sex!!" All I wanted to know was how you're allowed to have a kid when you're not married! And I remember thinking that there was no way I was going to tell her that she wasn't answering my question -- I was too embarrassed to say anything! I know I didn't know the mechanics of sex at that age, but I did know that it took a man and a woman and that there were physical parts involved. I had seen the dogs and cats, after all, and had never, up til then, wondered about the physical aspects of a man and a woman having sex. I just honest-to-God didn't know that you could have sex and not be married!!! And that's all she would have had to tell me to answer my question. So, anyway, I let her finish, and I never did tell her the truth about it. I guess I eventually figured out on my own that marriage didn't always come before sex.

(As funny as that was, if you knew my Mom, it would be even funnier!)

Lois (Once she'd stopped laughing -- she does know Mom): Do you remember that Andy Griffith episode where Andy thinks Opie is asking him about sex and tells him the facts of life?

Me: Yeah, and afterward Opie's friend asks Opie if he told him he already knew all about it, and Opie said, "Nah. I didn't want to spoil it for him."

At about 9 minutes and 32 seconds in:

A Loss

Copper died suddenly and very early this morning. Eler Beth got up at 5 a.m., and shortly after that found him. We have no idea what caused his death. Perhaps he'd had a parasite that finally did him in. They are prone to several different types of parasites, and for the past several months he'd had some trouble with his back legs that left him slower than usual, although he never appeared to be in any pain.

My girl handled it very well. We cried together for a couple of hours, talked, hugged, and reassured one another that it was nothing we'd done. Eler Beth is a very fine steward of her pets.

This afternoon, all by herself, she dug a tiny little grave beside my yellow irises in the back yard, and we laid him to rest.

Rest in peace, Copper. You were a very special, tiny little companion for the time we had you in our lives, and my daughter so appreciates having had this unique opportunity to care for you. We'll miss you!

The Game is On

If you haven't already seen the new BBC series, Sherlock, you must give it a try.

I had second thoughts about a 21st century Holmes and Watson, until I read this review, from a blogger whom I respect. After reading that I couldn't wait to see the first episode, and there is no way I could write a better review than she did, so please use the link and read it yourself.

The first episode is called A Study in Pink. It is available to watch on the PBS website, on Masterpiece Theater, until December 7. You can watch it here. Well, go ahead. I'll wait.

Okay, so just make sure you DO watch it. I tell you, I was prepared to dislike it, and 18 minutes into that first episode I had my first laugh-out-loud moment. I was watching it on my laptop, lying back in bed, and I woke Thomas up. So I had to explain, and the next day he and Eler Beth and I watched it together, and they agreed it was very well done. There's a nice little surprising twist at the end, too, that has nothing to do with the mystery. That's all I'm going to say.

I love a show or movie where the main characters can communicate as much with a look or with body language as with words, and these two fellows do that. Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood were brilliant at that, by the way.

I'm picky about portrayals of Holmes and Watson. I want to be able to like and even sympathize with Holmes. He's always right, is arrogant and self-absorbed; not too easy to like, right? But the writers of this series and the actor, Benedict Cumberbatch got it just right, I think. Also, I don't want Watson to be short, short-sighted, or not an equal to Holmes. Again, the writers and Martin Freeman did a great job with him. I even liked how they did Lestrade!

The second episode is The Blind Banker, and I'm just going to let you look forward to that without saying anything about it. It, too, is available to watch online until December 7.

The third episode, The Great Game, airs in some areas this Sunday on Masterpiece on PBS. I haven't seen it yet. But make sure you watch the first episode so you can see how Holmes and Watson got together before you watch either of the other episodes. That's an order.

Burning the Biscuits

I made breakfast for dinner tonight. I decided I wanted biscuits and gravy, and since no one else had any objections, I fixed omelets for whoever wanted them, fried some sausage, and made home made biscuits and gravy.

When my biscuits are done, I always turn on the broiler to brown them on top for a couple minutes just before I take them out. While they were browning I was stirring gravy, and wouldn't you know it, I burned the tops of the biscuits! It wasn't too bad, just bad enough for Andrew and Eler Beth to scrape off or take off the tops. Thomas and I just ate them. Some were more burned than others, but they really weren't that bad! And the gravy was so good, that it didn't matter if the tops of the biscuits were a bit darker than they should have been.

But that reminded me of my Uncle Johnny, my mother's baby brother. He liked his biscuits burned. He would have approved of these, and might perhaps even have preferred them a bit blacker on the top than they were. I don't know why he liked them that way, but whenever he and his family would come up to visit us, Mom always had to "burn" a batch of biscuits just for him. It became a family saying -- "these look like 'Uncle Johnny' biscuits." Well, that's what I made tonight, Uncle Johnny biscuits.

And by-dogies, they were really good!

Another Commitment

Back in September I decided that I must lose a bit of weight over the next few months. I say a bit, but you know I mean a LOT!

I can lose weight quickly, if I really try, especially if I walk a lot. However, when I do that it ends up giving me lots of trouble with my back. When I walk I first lose around my hips and waist, and I guess that causes a re-distribution of weight that effects my scoliosis, bad discs, and the nerves that are already damaged down there.

But if I lose slowly, it doesn't pain me as much. Since slower is the way to go, anyway, I set myself a simple, reachable goal of 2 pounds in the month of October. I know that doesn't seem like much, but I figured if I reached it, I would be encouraged and more likely to keep it off and keep taking it off in future months.

I began October at 1*5.8. Yesterday morning when I weighed I was 1*3.4. So I reached my goal, plus 4 extra ounces. Yay, me!

My goal for November is to lose another 2 pounds.

First Day

Okay, so this is my official NaBloPoMo for today, although I don't really have much to say. Eler Beth did MUCH better with her first post of the month.

Of course I can excuse myself by saying that I was trying very hard to get 1,667 words written for NaNoWriMo, and that took priority. I made it to just under 1,300. Close enough! There were also other things to do today, like teach school, clean, cook, do laundry, and run errands.

So how am I going to make time to write? I'm going to try to set aside 90 minutes each morning just for writing. And I'm going to MAKE myself write before I check Facebook or email. Thomas leaves for work at 6 a.m., so between that time and 7:30 I should be able to get some good writing in. Then it's breakfast and morning routines, and then school. The only problem is that many mornings Eler Beth is already up at 6 a.m. This morning she got up at 5!!! (But I love it the challenge!)

Okay, so that's it for today. I'll try to be a bit more interesting tomorrow. I have all kinds of subjects to write about running about in my head, but I'm too sleepy to write about them tonight. Until tomorrow, then!

NaBloPoMo

I decided I would do NaBloPoMo again this year, as well as NaNoWriMo, mostly because Eler Beth decided she would do it. I figured if I did a blog post every day, first thing in the morning, then wrote on my NaNo for an hour or so, that would be a good way to start the day.

Is anyone else doing either NaNo or NaBlo this year? It's not yet too late to sign up!