Que será, será

I sing this silently at odd moments both day and night.

When I was just a little girl

I asked my mother, what will I be

Will I be pretty

Will I be rich

Here's what she said to me

Que será, será

Whatever will be, will be

The future's not ours to see

Que será, será

What will be, will be

When I grew up and fell in love

I asked my sweetheart, what lies ahead

Will we have rainbows

Day after day

Here's what my sweetheart said

Que será, será

Whatever will be, will be

The future's not ours to see

Que será, será

What will be, will be

Now I have children of my own

They ask their mother, what will I be

Will I be handsome

Will I be rich

I tell them tenderly

Que será, será

Whatever will be, will be

The future's not ours to see

Que será, será

What will be, will be

Que será, será

The Rest Song

Oh that evil demon cancer

It takes 10,000 lives.

It marched them up to the top of the hill

And it marched them down again.

And when you are up, you’re alive

And when you are down, you’re dead.

And when you’re only half-way up

You’re neither alive nor dead.

Nine hundred and seventy-three.

Has it been just one month since Christmas?

I can’t even remember it.

Seems like at least ten years ago.

So much has transpired.

A Mystery

I wonder what people do all day who don’t have Eddy.

Especially older retired people.

Verla and I have talked about our great aunts in our childhood days.

Aunt Amy, Aunt Jane, Aunt Vine, Aunt El -

the Carroll Sisters scattered from one end of town to the other.

What did they do all day in their twilight years?

No transportation – not one of them could drive or had access to a car.

No public transportation in our little town.

No telephones.

No television. 

Maybe radio transmission at night, if they had a radio.

No computers, iPads, iPods.

No library.

Nor did they have Eddy to care for.

What did they do?

The Phenomenal Body

I love my body.

In times past,

I have felt it has betrayed me.

Today

while listening to a guided meditation,

I realized that my body has never betrayed me.

It has kept me going,

active, alert, moving,

walking, stretching, swimming, triking

when pollutants of the environment

have sought to destroy it.

Above ground atomic bomb testing:

A detonated nuclear bomb

produces a fireball (which we could see from the school steps),

shockwaves and intense radiation.

A mushroom cloud forms from vaporized debris and

dispenses radioactive particles

that fall to earth

contaminating our

soil, water and the food supply.

CANCER. BIRTH DEFECTS. MISCARRIAGES.

Unhealthy inversions for years,

filling our heart and lungs with danger.

Processed foods poisoning our system.

Remember margarine?  Crisco?
Killer pills that make Big Pharma rich
and riddle my body with devastating side effects. 

Stress. Anxiety. Pressure.

Yet my noble brilliant body

keeps going.

No wonder I love it so.
JOYFUL  ENERGETIC  BLISSFUL BODY

A Blessing

My fervent wish for me

and all of my household who each has special needs

either temporarily or permanently.

I offer you peace.

I offer you love.

I offer you friendship.

I see your beauty.

I hear your need.

I feel your feelings.

--Mahatma Gandhi

The Barterer

“I got two pair of good sunglasses and one bad one (for Christmas),” Ed complains on Sunday morning.

“Do you want me to take the bad one?”

“I’ll trade you.” You wouldn’t want him to be one short. He has baskets full of sunglasses. He always carries three pair with him.

“I don’t know what Amy my favorite sister in the whole world was thinking,” he whines as he hands me his.

Since I didn’t have a pair to offer him at the moment, he took his bad one back.

Request

 I don’t want to die of cancer

an inch at a time.

I prefer to die

of sudden-geriatric-death syndrome.

Please.

Truth be told,

I’m not ready to die at all.

Please.

Physician, heal thyself

Now my Christmas Hiatus is over

I can resume my daily complaints.

The pains in my stomach

feel like a bladder infection, bleeding hemorrhoids, and

a bowel obstruction all rolled into one.

The first two may have been a bit responsible.

Nevertheless, I’m blaming it all on Tamoxifen,

the estrogen-inhibiting drug

for breast cancer.

I took myself off.

By evening that same day,

most of the pressure had subsided.

After a week, it still comes and goes,

but never as intense.

Sometimes you just gotta do

what works for your distinctive physiology.

Torture is a not on the list.

WHAT?

Warm oozing, chocolate syrupy fluid

saturating my clothes

and filling the toilet.
A horror scene.

Four hours later:

“Sorry,”

the Emergency Room doctor said

as he explained to me that the

ultra-sound showed

that I have a 4x5-½ cm
(the size of a tennis ball)

tumor in my uterus.

In post-menopausal women

it is considered cancer

unless proven otherwise.

Christmas is more

than gifts.

 It's Christmas Eve with family

 The Christmas story from the Bible after dinner.

 Someone has to be sick. This year it was Brigitte.

  a family of artistic cooks

And the only gift that counts on Christmas morn 

The Disguise - some people call them sunglasses.

 A few other things

Is someone going on a cruise to celebrate Ed's 46th birthday?

Fun games on Christmas day with Carol & Melissa 

Walks through the hollow in the soft snow

and on the boardwalk at the Bird Refuge.

And lastly,

Amy's birthday on the 30th.

Mary Poppins Returns

bento boxes

and more.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!