JESSIE'S VEGAS

We are  planning our daughter's wedding and it is a delight! I just came across my great grandmother's 150 year-old crystal reception glasses and punch bowl set and my eyes got a little misty. "Of course we will use those ,somehow, so grandma Sadie can feel present", I muse to myself. "I know she must be proud of our daughter too." It is not only a wedding we are planning, but a triumph of sorts. A triumph of a soul who has overcome! In the wake of the tragedy not before even imagined, the loss of twenty  tiny angel souls at the hand of deranged gunman, I must have my say. A part of my heart aches for Adam Lanza's mother. While I am celebrating the wonderful strides we have made with our daughter, Adam's mom  is lying in a coffin, having given up marriage, countless friendships and finally her life, to a neurological disorder that is at epidemic proportions in our times.   We have all heard the theories that supposedly cause autism. "It ...

I Went home to Idaho and found the air crisp with autumn wind and the sun a little lower on the horizon. The Canadian geese in the field had begun their migratory run south and seemed to be content not to fly, but to sit all day long in Taylor's field behind my parents home.  Their long necks and frequent honking made them like a lady's bridge club chatting merrily to each other while dining on their h'oderves. The grain must have still been plentiful in Taylor's field. As to the conversation of the geese, or honking, your guess is as good as mine The delightful weather caused Dani, Syd and I to venture a walk down to the Snake River. We followed the drain-ditch that runs parallel to my parents house. As we were walking, Dani asked, "I wonder if it would be faster if we just grabbed a boat and floated down the drain-ditch to the river?" "I'm sure it would be," I countered, "but just don't let Grandma DeAnn know you are in the ditch or...

I Went home to Idaho and found the air crisp with autumn wind and the sun a little lower on the horizon. The Canadian geese in the field had begun their migratory run south and seemed to be content not to fly, but to sit all day long in Taylor's field behind my parents home.  Their long necks and frequent honking made them like a lady's bridge club chatting merrily to each other while dining on their h'oderves. The grain must have still been plentiful in Taylor's field. As to the conversation of the geese, or honking, your guess is as good as mine The delightful weather caused Dani, Syd and I to venture a walk down to the Snake River. We followed the drain-ditch that runs parallel to my parents house. As we were walking, Dani asked, "I wonder if it would be faster if we just grabbed a boat and floated down the drain-ditch to the river?" "I'm sure it would be," I countered, "but just don't let Grandma DeAnn know you are in the ditch or...

My Grandma Thelma had a yellow chaise lounge. Maybe it was really more of the shade termed "maize". My mom used the maize color a lot in her wild-life oil-paintings(probably most during her  big cat phase). She always sold those paintings fairly quickly. Anyhow,Grandma's lounge sure reminded me of rows of sweet, tender "maize" or corn. It's yellow textured rows kept my lithe fingers occupied and I even liked the low hum my fingers emitted when I ran them over the rows fast enough during the Sunday afternoons we frequented grandma Goodwin's house.  I still dream of her house some nights. She passed away over five years ago, and Grandpa Goodwin passed away over eight years ago. Whenever I see a chaise lounge I think of Grandma and when I smell cigar smoke , it is my Grandpa Frank's slick white hair and impeccably buttoned shirt that come first to my mind. I was running today and passed a garage sale with a chaise lounge out front. Usually the item clo...

I sleep with my socks on. It reminds me of the time we visited Dodge City Kansas when I was in 3rd grade. At the cowboy grave yard, it was implicitly explained that every gunslinger was buried with their boots on. I couldn't figure out if that meant they were going to rematerialize and start a flurry of bullets around my head or that they had a happy shooting range in heaven. Nowadays,  I wonder if they just had cold feet like me. Anyways,  that was one memorable trip! My dad had turned a school bus into a motor home and painted a dragon on the side. He aptly named it the "gross dragon" and loaded his 6 kids and his best friends family up for a 21 state tour. There were some perks to having a Mormon hippie dad with ADD. I have seen all but 8 states, even if it was in the belly of a colorful purple bus dragon. Two days ago was my dad's birthday.  It took me a couple of days to call him. I was practicing up. My dad was a colorful character,  but he was never big on th...

"Sylvia, come on back!" The voice belonging to the woman behind the lab counter sounded "all business" when she called a new patient back. Her tone remained short and concise when I saw a Travis and a Paul go get their arms poked by the vampires in white coats too.  I couldn't help but chuckle a little to myself when I saw poor Juan come in with a brown paper bag.  It was obvious by his stooped stature and his unshaven face he wasn't feeling quite himself.  The contents of the bag would have remained "secret" except the woman behind the counter demanded to see the three specimen containers. Being a former ER nurse, I already knew the stool specimens the bag contained.  Juan blushed and conceded he had not been able to fill all the containers. The woman behind the counter let out a huge sigh. "Ohhh, well if you can't fill them all I don't know what we are going to do!" She stood up and looked at Juan like my mom used to look at me ...

I have not enjoyed attending doctor appointments a lone.  It is not so bad when the subject of the doctor's visit is my own body.  I can deal with that.  What I haven't been able to stomach very well are the doctor appointments where I receive some unusual news about a child.  The next time I find myself in the position to review test results about a child while I am alone sitting across from a physician, I am going to wear a sign. The sign will hang from my neck with yarn or string, doesn't really matter, and display a large HEART. If it were possible I would somehow show the heart beating and then of course the words "FRAGILE--HANDLE with CARE" embellished above the heart. I don't know if this would help or not, but I'm willing to try anything to soften the blow.  When I received the news last summer that one of my daughters "Might be in a vegetative state" someday, if I did not find the proper medicine, I stumbled out of that office and hyper...

Well, I could blame it on caffeine.I had more than my share today, ya' know.  I think it might be the grinding teeth in the night or getting kicked in the ribs more than the caffeine, though. We are having a slumber party to finish off a FABulouso President's Day weekend.As I see the tiny bodies and hear the gentle snoring surrounding me, I think of the best advice on parenting I've ever heard. "JUST ENJOY THEM". Sometimes when the chips have been down, the cards stacked against our tiny family, we have dropped everything and ran to the closest source of joy.  Maybe this has been like the old saying ," When you are hurt you can laugh or you can cry". Whatever the gurus say, this approach has put many,many miles on our car, but maybe it has ALL paid off. This past weekend,  when our oldest graduated from the first step on her college journey, CNA, my heart soared. We were at a church for the ceremonies.  The girls fought over who got to go in to see her....