The Writing Group (TWG)

Nothing like starting out a wonderful weekend with a bad dream.

This is the weekend for the Garden for Connoisseur's Tour, for the benefit of the Atlanta Botanical Garden, so I'm looking forward to a long, inspiring day visiting elaborate (and expensive!) private gardens..

Better still, my brother will be in Sunday from Phoenix for a week for Mother's Day. We'll go see some art, hear some music and scrounge some junk shops. Doesn't get any better...

I tossed and turned all night with one of those dreams--Phil and I were somewhere and we got separated. He was the driver, so I was stuck.

For some reason, I had all five of the grandkittens with me, and they were all over the place. I didn't have my cell phone to call Phil and get a ride back.

Several of my friends came in to whatever this place was to have breakfast, but when they saw me there, they left and went somewhere else.

As a result, I pent the night chasing kittens and trying to get a ride home.

What started out as a delightful morning has taken a turn, as life usually does. My 16 year old daughter surprised me a bouquet of flowers before leaving for school. My early happy mom's day gift. Very sweet of her & I was truly surprised & touched.

Over the last few months I helped grant a Make A Wish for a 13 year old boy. All the furniture was delivered and I was suppose to go to the house to complete the room with the finishing touches earlier this week. The appt was canceled due to the child's health. Just got a call that hospice is coming to the house this morning and I need to get there to finish the room.

Don't know how I am going to hold myself together but I need to find the strength for this family and finish the wish.

Thanks for letting me vent.

update: The wish is complete. The family all seemed very happy. Mom was happy to see her son smile.

That's awesome, Spuff! What an original idea for a little person, how sweet of you to make that come true!

vwomack, I hope your weekend is all you want it to be! (Grandkittens just cracks me up!)

lostmutt, I LOVE the picture! Hippos are some of my favorite animals and to see the momma gently nudging her 'little' one to the surface...priceless!

I have to work this weekend and I have been blessed with an horrific head cold...lucky me! You all be good to each other, and Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there!

Well, a busy last couple of days getting back to normal after the May Day event. Not quite there yet, but making progress.

Mostly quiet otherwise on the home front. The girls were here last night for dinner; it's an off weekend for me, a long one indeed...

Got home a few minutes ago from a little after work gathering at a favorite watering hole with a couple of friends. We lucked out weather wise; a violent front passed through last night and flared up the early part of today. Beautiful warm evening though...

~~~~~

And though the week long study of evil is over, it is not, nor ever will be truly done. One of our own...kidnapped, drugged, defiled repeatedly and then dumped (gratefully he hadn't the guts to pull the trigger even though he'd threatened during the long, cruel night.) She will be okay, thank God, but the bastard is still on the loose. I can only hope that this pathetic excuse for a human being, the one who said "I do" and then didn't, will find himself on the wrong end of his own gun. Or perhaps he will make his cell mate a fine little woman someday. Either way, our family has been hurt and revenge and anger and worry are the code words of the day.

I'm always inspired after doing the Gardens for Connoisseurs Tour. I go home and put my arms around my garden and comfort it--"Dont worry, I still love you!"

A couple of pictures from yesterday...

It's been raining here so often lately, I'm beginning to think I live on the plain in Spain. Another rip-roaring storm just rolled through. Tornado watch as well; fourth or fifth this year. And it's that time in May when you're wondering if we went back to early April...it is chilly!

All this rain brought back a fuzzy memory of an early summer night at the drive-in with my parents and my older sister. The movie was The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston, Yul Brenner and a cast of thousands ("Moses, Moses, Moses...that's all I ever hear.")

I was probably 5 years old. I recall this drive-in had a playground at the base of what to me looked like a giant screen. My sister and I, along with many other children, spent time there before the feature started and during the intermission.

About halfway through the last half of the movie, the heavens unloaded with a torrent of rain. Couldn't see or hear much of anything, but the movie played on. We stayed, feeling older than Moses by the time the movie ended, which was sometime after midnight. Back then, that was late.

The rain hadn't let up much by the time we left. Although slow going, we made it home. My sister and I had no trouble going to sleep.

The next day at dinner, my mother and father discussed the storm, in particular, a newspaper article about several cars that were washed into a swollen creek resulting in several fatalities. Turned out the road crossing the creek was the very road we took coming home from the movie. We apparently had crossed the creek some scant minutes before the cars involved in the fatalities.

My sister and I always said Moses must have been in the car with us.

~~~

I remember when I was in my late teens, my date and I went to a double feature at the local drive-in. I was parked along the main path to the concession stand. We were waiting for the second feature, watching the promos, when a young lady walked by heading towards the stand. As she passed our car, we noticed the back of her dress was unzipped down to her lower back. The poor girl had no idea. Me, I couldn't imagine how it happened.