This and That, Tying Up Loose Ends

No fresh ideas today, no new pearls of wisdom or bon mots. That doesn’t mean I have nothing to say. But I’m going backwards in order to go forward.

First off, Melanie and I are still dealing with the auto accident we had on September 15th. Between insurance, physical rehab, various doctors, car repairs, and lawyers, it takes a LOT of time to get back to normal. We continue to covet your prayers, grateful for so many who have supported us in various ways.

I wrote about my new life in Texas in To Be or Not To Be (a Texan). Still doing the work to fully adapt and adopt the habits, vocabulary, and foibles of Texans. I still don’t own a gun but I did look at some handguns a few days ago and thought, maybe some day. I try to use “Y’all” whenever I can, though it still sounds foreign to me. I am still a fair distance from “All y’all.” Maybe it’s my grammar brain or the years living in CA and IL. I can’t yet say it with conviction.

I’ve learned NOT to refer to nearby highways as “The 121.” We Texans simply use the number or name. Thus, “Go north on 121” or “Go north on Sam Rayburn.” Maybe a Texan can explain to me why a highway that runs decidedly east-west (and it’s not close) is labeled as north-south.

Yes, Mindy is still pregnant, as I mentioned initially in A Life in the Day Did you know I Love Lucy was the first TV show to utter that word? True story. Anyway, Minders is due at the end of March. Ruby is totally amped to have a little sister, unlike Mindy who was firmly opposed to having a little sister. I can’t judge; I was no fan of my younger sister for a few years, though we’re besties now. Mindy has had some significant aches and pains, learned to sleep on ice packs and soldier through.

Plans are underway to move Rubes to another room and get the new baby’s room ready. Ruby wants a wild animal motif for her new digs. No surprise. When we bought this house, we all thought it was gigantic. With each year, it seems to shrink a bit more. By the time I die, they’ll have trouble finding a corner for my urn.

If you missed my piece on scars, I recommend a re-read of that piece. It’s well worth your time–Trophies of Living. I recently found my packet of get well cards from my third grade class after my ganglion surgery. Quite a few names in there, I have no recollection. Nada. My apologies to Judy, Michelle, Edward, and several others. I’m sure we were very close friends.

A few observations: Apparently, kickball was THE game on campus. Ken told me to hurry back because the games are getting closer (7-5 and 10-9), and my absence was keenly felt. Clearly, I was the MVP of that league.

The default message on the cards was some form of “Roses are red, violets are blue…” I suspect someone wrote it and several others copied the template, a 1969 version of copy and paste. Ginny Gannon riffed off the norm and wrote, “Bombs are black/Bombing you out/You better come back/Or you’ll get a wack.” Not sure what to do with that.

Finally, several folks told me we had 271 points in class. That was vitally important to many, and I have no clue why. Some sort of third grade competition concocted by Sister Diana. I’m sure my team won. After all, I was the MVP of kickball.

I saved the best for last. One of my first posts was entitled, Thanks A Lot, Mike Gallego, from 9/8/23. It detailed my futile efforts in 1990 to get an autograph from Mike Gallego, then a second baseman for the Oakland A’s. After that blog post, my cousin Billy procured for me an signed baseball card. Very cool, right? But wait, there’s more.

Over a year after that post, I received a FB message from someone named Nicole who lives in New Jersey. Almost all the time, those notes are bogus spam or something more nefarious. Not this time.

Though we have no past and no friends in common, Nicole had read my post. She’s a big baseball fan and was attending a camp where, guess who, was one of the instructors. Yep, THAT Mike Gallego. She shared my story with Mike (we’re on a first name basis now). He not only signed a card for me, he made this short video.

Nicole was kind enough to send me the video and mail the autographed card. How cool is that? I have ideas some times to do stuff like that, but I rarely follow through. I’m sure there’s a message in there for us.

A very Merry Christmas to all. I hope to be back before the end of 2024 to pen some final words for the year. I also hope to release my third book, a collection of short stories.

Thanks for reading!

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