Welcome To The Family

Most people know everyone on their immediate family tree, at least down to cousin level.  I, on the other hand, do not. 

Dad came from a large family.  He was born in Morovis, Puerto Rico.  He was one of sixteen siblings. (!!)  So many aunts and uncles equates to a lot of cousins.  As the cousins all went in different directions, it was hard to keep in touch (pre-Facebook), resulting in lost connections with most of them.

Mom came from a much smaller family.  She was born in Vienna, Austria and it was only her and her two brothers. 

Her younger brother, Leo, was a painter (pictures not walls).  I say "was" because he passed away last year.  That's sad because I never got to meet my Uncle Leo.  The timing was never quite right.  He visited America once when I was living in Florida and I couldn't go back for his visit.  Then in 1987, when I visited Vienna with my parents, he was living elsewhere and didn't come home for our visit.  Leo never married.  He was living in southern Austria with his lady friend when he passed away.   He had no children, at least none that we know of.

Thomas is Mom's older brother and he still lives in Vienna, Austria.  He is seventy now.  He was married but recently got a divorce.  He and my Aunt Elisabeth have one daughter, also named Elisabeth (I like the way they spell their name--with an "S" and not a "Z").  She keeps in touch with me through Facebook.  I haven't seen my Uncle Thomas since July 1998, when he came to America to attend Dad's funeral.

You would think it would be easier to keep track of Mom's family tree than it would my Dad's, you know, since there are a whole lot less of them.  I thought so too, until I received a phone call from my mother this morning.

I found out I have a new cousin.  She was born on March 14, 1975 (yes, in 1975--that is not a typo).  Her name is Felicity Savage and she is the daughter of my Uncle Thomas.  Surprise!!

Mom said she told me about Felicity years ago when she first became aware of her. Felicity called out of the blue looking for her father. She said she even told me that Felicity was an author of science fiction/fantasy books.  I don't remember Mom telling me this, but that may be due to old age on my Mother's part...or just maybe on mine.

For those of you who do not know my Uncle Thomas, he was quite a character in his younger days and also quite the ladies man.  He worked as a truck driver, the eighteen wheeler over the road type.  He used to drive all over Europe and back in the 1970's he even came to America for a while to drive our roads.  That is where this story began.

From what my mother told me (again?), Uncle Thomas met a lady from South Carolina named Helen.  Thomas was living in Charleston when he lived in the States.  Together they had a daughter, Felicity.  She was born in Columbia, South Carolina (not too far from where I am now).

Uncle Thomas may have had a hand in naming Felicity, as my grandmother's name was Felicitas.  I think it is too much of a coinicendence not to be true.

The reason for today's phone call to Mom was to get in touch with Thomas to inform him that Felicity's mother, Helen, had passed away.  Mom obliged and gave the caller (Felicity's aunt in Boston) her brother's address and phone number.

A Google search turned up a few pieces of interesting information about Felicity.  I found her website.  She is indeed an author of about 20 novels and short stories.  She was very popular in the SciFi world and published her first novel at the age of 19.

This is where the story gets a little confusing. 

I found a short biography written by Felicity at age 20.  In it she said, "her southern belle mother met her father, a Viennese truck driver, in Paris."  She said she grew up in France, Ireland and Scotland.  She also said her mother died when she was 14 and she and her brothers were sent to the US to live with an aunt.  That is when she started writing. 

I'm not sure what's right and what's wrong in this story.  I may never know.  What I do know is I have a cousin out there that I am going to try to contact to officially welcome her into the family.

One last note--I found a later biography of Felicity on Smashwords, a publisher of E-books.  In it it says that Felicity lives in Japan with her husband and two cats.  I knew instantly I was going to like this woman!

Welcome to the family, Felicity!

~ P

The Rope

It's raining here today in Blacksburg, SC.  It started last night and has rained on and off all day.  It's hard to get motivated when it's raining.  It's a good time to take a nap, watch an old movie or play Words With Friends on Facebook.

That's what I was doing when I found myself sitting idle waiting for my opponents (I have 7 games going at the moment) to play their words.  While waiting, I decided to organize my Pictures folder on my computer's hard drive. 

I started with pictures of my cats (naturally).  I noticed I had cat pictures in several different folders.  I started searching for all my cat pictures and moving them into one folder.  In one particular folder that had a bunch of different pictures, I came upon these.

I received them in an email.  The subject line was THE ROPE.  The date I saved the pictures was 9/1/2006, so I've had them for quite a few years and didn't remember that I'd saved them.  Stumbling on to them today seemed like a wink from God.  There's a message here I believe He wants me to share with you.  You may have seen this before, but it is worthy of repeating.



Isaiah 41:13 (NIV) says, "For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you."

Whatever it is that you may be going through, holding on to, or trying to get away from, just let go and let God.

~ P

The Secret to Losing Weight

I’m a big fan of Dr. Phil.  He makes sense to me.

I like his older shows from several years ago the best. I remember when he first started appearing on Oprah’s show. I would watch him when I got home from work. I’d even find myself telling people things I'd heard Dr. Phil say.

Dr. Phil is full of statements that make you think about yourself and what it is you want out of life. Have you ever heard Dr. Phil say,

·          How’s that working for you?

·         Are you doing what you're doing today because you want to do it, or because it's what you were doing yesterday?

·         Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the decision right.

·         If you want more, you have to require more from yourself.

·         Awareness without action is worthless.

·         Failure is no accident.

·         Sometimes you just got to give yourself what you wish someone else would give you.

·         You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.

Gosh, these are all good.  Dr. Phil is down to earth.  He’s a plain speaking Texan who can look at a situation, sum it up, and give advice that is logical. I like that.

On one particular show, the topic they were talking about was the difficulties of losing weight. Of course I listened. I’ve had a problem with putting on and taking off weight for many years. I listened as a lady from the studio audience was talking about how she found it so hard to stick to a diet, that it was hard resisting the cravings, how she would always “fall off the wagon” after just a few weeks, that she had been on so many different diets and nothing seemed to work. That lady could have been me.

I needed to hear what Dr. Phil had to say. I just knew he would have the answer to her (and my) dilemma.  I leaned forward giving the show my complete attention and waited for Dr. Phil to speak. When he did, I was surprised at the simplicity of his words.

He said, “Why don’t you just grow up!”

Grow up?  What kind of answer is that?  This was not the answer I had been expecting.  I don't know what I expected really, but asking a then almost 60 year old to grow up and stop acting like an immature little kid and take responsibility for her bad eating habits was not it.

That was a few years ago. Today, when I find myself saying “I can’t do it” or “it’s just too hard” or “just this one time,” I tell myself to “just grow up!”  Sometimes I listen to this Dr. Phil advice.  Other times, I give in to that little kid inside me and for the moment, I’m satisfied.

There’s another pearl of wisdom I’ve heard Dr. Phil say.

 “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.”

If that’s true, I may never grow up where my eating habits are concerned.  But I have hope.  I still have a few more years left in me to “grow up.”

Thank you Dr. Phil.

~ P

Choices

I started my Spring cleaning this week. 

Aside from the normal cleaning I do each week, once a year I get out the toothbrush and really scrub the place down.  I am not a whirlwind cleaner so it takes me a few weeks to get it all done.  Why so long?  Because I don’t let cleaning get in the way of other things I like to do, such as spending time with Rick, getting on the computer, writing my blog, watching my favorite TV shows, reading my Nook, and occasionally getting out of the RV so I won’t become a hermit.  Besides, cleaning is work and you do remember that I am retired.

My Spring cleaning begins with reorganizing.  Reorganizing can take a lot of time, especially since I have 37 cabinets, 24 drawer, and 7 closets to deal with.  But this is the part of Spring cleaning that I like the best.  It is so satisfying when you’re done and everything is neat and in order again.  It’s also an opportunity to see again some precious things I tucked away for safe keeping.

I started in the bedroom this week (11 cabinets, 11 drawers, 3 closets).  I unloaded every cabinet, drawer and closet (not all at the same time) to see what I had, what I wanted to keep, what I wanted to give away and what I wanted to toss in the trash.  My bed was covered with stuff.  As I went through everything, I came across a few items that made me stop and reminisce.

Tucked away in my office drawer with paper clips, pens, stapler, etc. and underneath everything, I found some cards I had received (from my mom, my son, my sister-in-law Debbie, my friend Barb), our wedding napkin (it says, Our Wedding Day, Pat and Rick, February 3^rd, 1989), a note Rick wrote to me (it starts out, To My True Love…gosh he can be so romantic sometimes), and two quotes that I liked enough to write down on paper.

One quote is by Joseph Epstein and says, “All men and women are born, live, suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about. We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.”

I really like this.  On the one hand it takes the pressure off because I didn’t have a choice in beginning my life.  But on the other hand it puts the pressure on because now that I am, I must be.  I must choose my own path.  I must create and fulfill my own dreams.  So profound.

Just yesterday I was on Facebook trading comments with a former classmate from Junior High and High School.  We were talking about our days in Junior High School.  We were picking songs from that time that had meaning to us back then.  My choice was, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, a 1965 song by the Animals. I was just fourteen. 

At fourteen, I wanted to grow up too fast—get through school, drive a car, get a job, get married.  I wanted it all.  However, I didn’t always think things through.  I didn't always make good choices.  I sometimes made bad decisions and sometimes let my peers make decisions for me, and not all of them were good ones.  Looking back today I see where I went off my path.  I didn’t dream big enough.  I didn’t demand more from myself.  I settled for what I thought I could attain on my own power when I should have looked to others for guidance.  Maybe that was me just being fourteen.  I don't know.  There was no manual for me to go by.  Am I sorry?  No.  It was my choice and I believe I’ve had a pretty good life.  Could it have been different?  Yes.  Better?  Who knows.  What I do know is that I am happy where I am and that is all that matters.

The other quote I found in my office drawer says, “From the outside looking in, it’s impossible to understand.  From the inside looking out, it’s impossible to explain.” 

Yep, that’s my life in a nutshell.

 ~ P

The Cat Who...

Anyone who knows me knows I love cats. I would have more of them if it weren’t for litter boxes, hairballs and the fact that my husband Rick says two are enough. That said, I sometimes get my cat fix by reading about them.

My mother is an avid reader and so am I. She will occasionally send me books to read that she thinks are good. They are usually about cats. She has sent me Dewey, The Library Cat and Homer’s Odyssey, a story about a blind cat. They were both fun to read. But the books my mother thought were really good were The Cat Who books, written by Lilian Jackson Braun.  So good that Mom sent me 28 of the 29 books in the series.

The Cat Who books are mystery novels featuring a reporter named Qwilleran and his two Siamese cats, Koko and Yum-Yum. The books titles all begin with the words The Cat Who. The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, The Cat Who Sniffed Glue, and The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts are some of the titles. All the books follow a similar storyline with a murder or crime of some sort and Koko helping Qwilleran solve the mystery. Qwilleran believes Koko has a 6^th sense and that is why he can help solve these mysteries. Qwilleran attributes this to the fact that Koko has a total of 60 whiskers while ordinary cats only have 48. I once tried counting Lucky’s and Halle’s whiskers to see if they were “ordinary” but they wouldn’t sit still long enough for me to count and I kept losing my place. I enjoyed reading the entire series (except the last one, which my mother didn’t like so she never sent it to me).

Now that you know the premise of The Cat Who books, I need your help solving my own Cat Who mystery.  I assure you no murder or crime is involved.  My cat Halle is The Cat Who Likes To Lick Plastic. She seems to like Wal-Mart grocery bags, zip lock storage baggies and the plastic that surrounds a case of water. This last one is her favorite, but that just might be because it is kept on the floor and easily available to her.  When she’s not eating, sleeping or looking out the window, Halle can be found licking plastic wherever she may find it.

Halle getting her "fix" from plastic

Can all that plastic licking really be good for her?  I have tried stopping her by saying, “No Halle.” But that doesn’t deter her. She will stop for a few moments then as soon as my focus moves on to something else, she starts up again.

Halle licking a zip lock baggie I keep receipts in

My online search for an answer led me to some reasonable and some pretty wild explanations such as, cats like the noise it makes when they lick it; plastic bags are made from corn and cats like the taste; they have OATD—Overactive Tongue Disorder and will lick most anything. These all sound somewhat reasonable to me, but my favorite one is that our cats want us to think they are crazy. It's all part of the kitty plan for world domination.

So what do you think? Noise? Smell? OATD? Or do you believe Halle is planning world domination?  To be honest, I think Lucky and Halle have already established domination here in their little part of the world. Whatever the reason, Halle seems content to lick plastic so I think I’ll just ignore this strange habit of hers and get on with my day.  Who am I to judge.

~ P