Bubba & I are watching "The Fugitive", again...it is a great one. I am so nervous. Been that way all week, inventory, and now, tomorrow, gotta make the rounds with the friends, folks & family...you may have heard me remark on the drill...I'm skeert. Step Mom Rene is so outta her head...constantly accusing my 82 yr old father of sleeping with other women in the bed next to her..the head nurse(no jokes), the minister's wife, the nurse's aides...she's always been like that. Untrusting. Maybe cuz she was Mom's best friend when she was sleeping with my Dad back in the day. I dunno. Maybe they used to "swing." She is now, a withered, pained, sad old harpie..and Dad, always pleading w/her to get it together, and all the crying... And I love my Mom, and while the Paxil keeps her mellow, all she really wants is cigarettes. I missed last Sunday (thanks for the support, gang, by the way). I have to go tomorrow. It isn't getting any easier...later daze. So glad to have y'all on my side. Bubba time, now.

We were joking around to pass the time, on the day before Thanksgiving, waiting to conduct our banking transactions, and caught up in a long line of folks that snaked their way past the doors and into the cold. Only two tellers had open windows, and one was occupied by a couple who only spoke Spanish, and a new employee who didn't. My new buddy's uniform shirt told me his name was "Jim," I didn't really know him, but we were both sociable folks and spent the time talking & laughing. For roughly 40 minutes worth of time, we inched our way forward, as essentially only one teller was serving the rest of the crowd. I was making my meager attempts to do all the paper work I would need to have completed in order to expedite my banking opportunity, once it had finally presented itself, when I noticed my car keys were not in my coatpockets. Nor were they in the pockets of my smock or slacks, nor were they in my in my purse. I have three sets of keys to manage for my job. Considering my frequent inclinations to space out, I figured that perhaps the missing keys were still in my car, and all would be well, once I got out of the bank and back on my merry way. Finally finished, I hurried back to my car through the light snow and frigid wind. No car keys. Not in the ignition, not on the floor, not on the pavement. Mr. Jimmy tried to help me find them, but gave up and had to leave. Seriously stressing, I retraced my steps into the bank with a frantic, worried expression on my face, and right away heard three people asking if I had lost my keys. It was all a blur, but they were the words I needed to hear, and I recognized my purple carribeaner that connected all of my personal keys, and exclaimed "Oh, Yes Thank You, thank you so much. This is great, oh! Now it WILL be a Happy Thanksgiving...Happpy Holidays, thank you!" The keys were extremely warm when whoever it was pressed them into my hand. Hmmmm...the warmth seemed to indicate that someone had been holding them for quite some time standing in that long line, and immediately, I wondered why no one had spoken up and asked if some one had dropped their keys. I hadn't gone three steps towards the door, when I stopped in my tracks. My little purple Greatful Dead Dancing Bear key ring was not attached to the rest of the keys...just the carribeaner was there telling me that that these were mine. All the keys seemed to be there, but no purple bear. It was a gift a few Christmases ago, from my young Deadhead friend, Myra. It had sentimental value only, as it had been tossed and lost by me countless times since over the years. Now, I was conflicted. I had already been stressed out, and created a minor scene in the bank, and I dearly wanted to be on my way...but evidently, whoever it was that had found my keys, had stood in line behind me, methodically working the little bear off the rest of the key ring-that's why they were so warm to the touch, and that's why no one had spoken up immediately after picking them up. And then I remembered my role-model, Maude. She would take and subsequently leave any car she desired with a universal set of keys she had acquired from a friend. Her set only" required some variations for the newer models." She wasn't stealing the cars, she explained to Harold, just "serving as a gentle reminder" to "not get attached to things." I turned back to look at the crowd, and whoever the culprit was must have held their breath for that moment. Yet, all I said was "Happy Holidays" to the blur of folks in line. I missed the lil bear already, but it was, after all, just a thing. And if they wanted that key ring that bad, then I should let them have it. Having the keys was the important thing. As I started to leave, again, I began to laugh aloud. I laughed all the way to the car, where I started it, and turned up the heater. I was still laughing when I called 2 friends on my cell to tell them what I was laughing so much about. They didn't get it. What was so funny? "Oh , Honey! They can have the bear and the bad karma that goes with stealing it, if they want it that bad," I told them. And I swear when I turned up the radio Mick was sympathizing with my situation, letting me know, once again, that "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need..." I'm still laughing.

Yes, Virginia, opposites do attract. Don't as me why, but it works for us. Music bothers Bubba. I don't think he was ever really introduced to it as a child(none of his family really cares too much about music, one way or the other.)Then, 30 years working in a loud factory constructing engines has affected his tempanic membrane adversely. He has tinnitus, and all music just sounds like a bunch of noise to him-an irritant to his nervous system. He does have a favorite song, "Everything is Beautiful In It's Own Way", by Ray Stevens, but he really does not want to listen to it right now, thanks, or any other time, for that matter. I suspect that it is just his "token" favorite song...he's got to be feeling some void regarding the wonders of music, but he just does not get it, and you can't miss what you never had. We compromise, I wear headphones when I'm jonesing for tunes, but rarely play music aloud when he is around. We watch too much TV together and we enjoy it. Except, I do have a lil bit of a rough time as he is a champion channel surfer, and the fact that we only have 7 channels to choose from, does not deter him from continuously surfing the seven. That's why I have a tube in the bedroom, lots of DVDs, a king size bed w/a Bubba-built add-on throne for Princess Peggy Sue, a mutitude of pillows, and the only spot in the house where I can access dial-up for my trusty laptop. I am never bored, there is always something to do, or procrastinate doing. Bubba has to be busy, usually constucting something, or working on the house, or keeping the cars & trucks(2 ea) running. Dialogue in movies bores him...perhaps some more hearing difficultis...if a DVD has too much dialogue, he's up and gone accomplishing something. We both love to watch "House" which is mainly dialouge, but the rapport is reminiscent of a modern-day "MASH", and even Bubba's got respect for classical quips. All that being said, Bubba watches a lot of PBS...(I like it too, but enough with the surfing, already!). He watches a surprising amount of PBS while surfing, and one Saturday he stumbled on to "The Red Green Show", and we both just cracked up over this classic Canadian comedy. We are strange, that way...Red Green is a middle-aged manly man utiilizing his eccentricities as a slap-stick, tongue-in-cheek comedy vehicle...you gotta see it to get it, and even then, it's all a matter of your perception. Red Green likes to invent things utilizing "the handy-man's secret weapon"-lots of duct tape. From this TV show, Bubba got the bright idea of duct-taping 2 push lawn mowers together with a coule of rebars for stabilization between the mowers(Bubba asks that I warn y'all he's got a patent pending). He enjoys mowing the lawn, and this is 2 1/2 summers he has used his "Double Push Mower" on our lil green acre, much to the amusement of the neighborhood. Folks have been known to stop and take pictures. It's quite a work out to push two mowers at one time, but, boy-howdy! It keeps the boy in shape...I BS you, not! We have both memorized "The Man's Prayer" from Red Green's lodge meetings,"I'm a man,but I can change, if I have to. I guess." He incorporates the "prayer" into many of our conversations, both of us knowing full-well, that the only changing he will ever do will be something that sneaks up on him. I sure as heck don't want to change him. And he loves me the way I am. He never objects if I go to see Santana or Hookahville...he even bought me a port-o-pottie for me to take on the 3-day camping wkends bi-annually that Ohio's infamous Acoustic Hookah hosts. All Bubba asks is that he does not have to go along, and that I keep in touch if delayed or in trouble. Even though I've quit drinking, Bubba does know that from time to time I do indulge in an illegal smile. He asks that I not indulge when he is around, and that I keep us both out of trouble when indulging. He asks that I keep a low profile, and that has never been a problem for me, in fact it has always been a goal. Bubba married his high-school sweetheart, they had 2 boys, and were married for 23 years,(like my Mom & Dad were.) When the boys were old enough to leave the nest, his ex wanted to leave the nest, as well. She left him. I dunno why-he never talks about her, good or bad. At family functions he never makes eye contact with her, nor ever says word one to her.OK...here's the best part...I am the only other woman Bubba has" known", in the Bibical sense of the word. What'd I tell ya? Opposites do attract! I know he will always be true to me, and believe you,me-I ain't never doing nada to endanger our love. We have lived together for 13 happy years. I'd marry him in a New York minute, but Bubba feels the surest way for us to get divorced is for us to get married. "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need...."My sometime is now.

He's about 6'tall, and bears a rather sticking resemblance to Crockadile Dundee. He spends most days working on something, anything in the sun, so he might have a few more wrinkles than the movie star guy, but he is just as nice to look at. He is the eldest of six boys, and from what I can see, he is the one most involved in his mother's health and welfare. His father died of Cancer last February. He'd just came in the door from visiting his father in the nursing home, and the phone rang. I answered it, thanked the nurse, and told him that his father had passed. He went outside in the back yard with the dogs for a while, and looked up at the moon and stars. Then he came in, and we went to bed where he held me without words all night long. He is a man of few words. He is soft-spoken, never curses or cusses(never ever), and blushes when my girlfriends or sisters tease him or talk to him...he blushes if I tease him or make some loving insinuation, and when I get choked up trying to tell him how much he means to me, how happy I am, how much he has changed my life for the better...he blushes. He never repeats dirty jokes, and most of them that he hears he pretends not to understand if they are the slightest off-color, and he blushes. He laughs a lot, thus we laugh a lot, and he can turn the conversation to hilarity as he is so good at coming up with spur-of-the-moment zingers. His father would often keep him out of school during Bubba's high school years so that Bubba could help him out with the construction company his dad had hoped to form with himself and his six boys. He taught Bubba a great deal about construction, and it is now just second- nature to him, at this stage of his life. He built the house we live in-he is still building it all around us. It will be wonderful when it is done, and it is Jim Dandy right now. His father drank alot, and long before he ever had his license, Bubba was picking up his Pa at the saloon, and driving him home in various stages of incapacitation. Bubba has never had a drink with alcohol in it, never, ever, not once. He's never smoked anything, legal or otherwise. Once, in our early years, I was fascinated with his innocence, and asked, "Well, what were you doing in the '70's when everybody was doing something?" Without hesitation, he drawled, "Well, I reckon I was workin'." He has a deep Southern accent. He worked for 30 years in a large, local engine factory. Now that he is retired, he continues to work at a local salvage yard from 7AM until 1:30 PM, then he almost daily comes home, picks up the 3 dogs and walks to the nearby wildlife refuge and the 4 of them walk deep into the wood, off the beaten path, and the dogs explore those woods and chase all the many Bambi's about, unleashed and joyous! He has blond hair& I've always had a "thing" for blonds. He used to wear it in a pony-tail, but found it a hassle so, he just cut it off. He always cuts his own hair-"I don't care what my hair looks like, all the rest of the world that has to look at it, let them worry about it if they don't like it." It looks good to me. He's never read a book. Not one book, ever. It probably had a lot to do with his Dad's alcohol problems and the respnsibilities of being the eldest, and helping his Mom with the other kids, or driving his dad around before, during, and after the bottle. He rarely did his homework, cut school alot for either fun or work, and almost didn't graduate and to this day doesn't regret it. I've devoured book when ever possible as far back as I can remember-I cannot fathom never reading a book and not regretting it, in fact, he's proud of it. All the reading I've done has never left me with the knowledge of how to build a house,two garages, a patio and back porch, and fence the entire acre in so the dogs can wander freely and safely about the place. He likes to cook his own meals, and likes for me to cook for myself or he shares what he has with me. he takes only $50 a week from me for groceries, and he does the shopping as it is dangerous for me to go into stores, copulsive-buyer syndrome.He pays all the utilities, taxes, expenses and rarely lets me help. I usually pay the vet bills, but he usually helps, He calls me "Dear"and "Angel" and "Cher". He takes me to the movies, and buys us DVD's as we enjoy spending time together watching mostly action and Science Fiction flicks. And he wants to go to bed now, so I am going to comply, and maybe talk more about how opposites attract and the love of my life, another time...

She gave me the poem and I, too, saw myself in it's words...but I've since lost the poem, though I may remember the gist of it...it went something like this: I walk down the street. There is a hole in the sidewalk, and I don't see it. I fall in. I can't get out. It's not my fault*I walk down the street. There is a hole in the sidewalk. I see it. I fall in, anyway. I can't get out and it still isn't really my fault.*I walk down the street. I see the hole. I try to walk around it, but I came too close to the edge, and I fall in again. I cannot get out, and it's not my fault.*I walk down the street. I see the hole. I walk right into it, and fall in. It is my fault* I walk down a different street.(forgive me...being a novice computer enthusiast, I know not how to set margins and write out the lines properly for poetry. will teach myself, some fine day). But you get the gist of it, dontcha? I can see it when I am about to make a mistake, but I usually go ahead and make the mistakes, somehow thinking that this is what I need to do, and the consequences are never for the better, and eventually I see the futility of my actions, and if I've learned my lesson, I change my entire situation, and I change my life. I used to make a lot of mistakes and knew it was my fault, but still maintained self-destructive tendencies...until I met Bubba.