DEVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD

I love to read. I think reading is one of the greatest joys in life. I don't understand people who don't read. What a world of new experiences, characters and knowledge they are missing out on! I hear people say so often that they'll just go see the movie, but the movie is never, ever as good as the book.

Right now I am reading "LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE" by Rebecca Wells. This is the first of a two-book set about the "DEVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD". The story is based in Louisiana in the early 1960's, and introduces the reader to the Walker family, namely Miss Siddalee Walker, her mama & daddy, her siblings, and of course her mama's gang of girlfriends known as the Ya-Yas.

"LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE" starts out with Siddalee telling equally poignant and humorous stories about the adventures and misadventures of the Walker clan and the Ya-Yas from a child's point of view. Every family member has his and her chance to give their perspective of the happenings.  It is truly timeless!

Siddalee, and the rest of the clan, move into THE 1990's and adulthood in the "DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD" and continues the story telling journey. I have laughed and cried while becoming totally captivated with this group of characters.  The nick names, funny little sayings (that only come from the south), the laughing, the crying, the trials and tribulations of life from the southern perspective is quite different from any other region in this country. And what a welcomed and cherished difference it is!

Rebecca Wells has received rave reviews for both of these books, and the "DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD" was made into a movie which is now playing on cable channels. In my opinion the movie is very good and definitley worth the investment of your time some afternoon.

But the book(s) is even better!

With all that said, if you get a chance and are so inclined, curl up on the couch with one of these books on a cold winter's day. I think you will be pleasantly surprised, as I have been, to meet these charming characters and live the 'YA-YA' experience, if not but for a few hours!

TGIF...........

Thank God It's Friday!  I got through another of Steve's birthdays without a hitch.  It used to be much more stressful worrying about what I should buy - always wanting to provide the perfect gift.  I don't even know if that's possible.  But now that he is older I buy some Eddy Bauer clothes and give him some money in a card.  I have it down pat. 

I don't even have to wrap anything because I found these neat little items called "Stretch Gift Trim" for $2 at Hallmark that is already decorated and adorned with cute little things like wooden stars.  You just stretch it around your box and to heck with wrap!  It's easy, looks nice and is really perfect for guys.  Perhaps for the ladies in my life I may go the extra mile and use some pretty gift wrap - oh!  I hate wrapping gifts!

I invited Steve and Danelle out to dinner, but since we get off work at 6pm and by the time we commute home to pick up the rest of the family, change our clothes and make it a restaurant it would be at best 7:30.  So Danelle decided to fix a birthday dinner which turned out very good!  She also made a fantastic German chocolate cake (Steve's fav).  It was 4 layers - yeah, count them, four layers high!  The whole thing was homemade.  She had chocolate frosting in between the layers (homemade butter frosting-yum!) and around the outside which she then rolled in sliced almonds.  She'd slathered the top with delicious pecan/coconut/butter frosting and latticed it with thin stipes of chocolate frosting, adorning the top with a marchino cherry.  It was absolutely beautiful and tasted every bit as good too!

Hmmmm, thought to self:  I may have to use Madison as an excuse to drop by and have another piece........

Well, ta-ta for now and have a wonderful day and weekend! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.......

Today is Stephen's birthday!  He is 34 years old today!  He was born on Thursday October 16, 1969 at 9:27pm.  He weighed 8lbs 14 ozs and was 21 inches long.  Mothers can always recite this kind of stuff that mean really nothing to anyone except themselves.  It's a kind of bragging right we have as Mothers.  It has always reminded me of guys that brag about how big the fish was they caught.

Birthdays at my house always come with a load of gifts and of course the perverbial birthday cake.  I always try to make it another HALLMARK moment, but for various reasons it usually doesn't turn out that way.  Either the gifts aren't quite right, size and or color is off, the cake falls, the giftwrap looks like it was used before, an unsuspecting guest steps in something outside and tracks it in (you know what I am talking about), the girls in all the excitement greeting people shreds someone's nylons....oh good Lord, it could be a host of things that would keep one of my birthday parties off of the HALLMARK'S GREATEST MOMENTS list.

But after the last gift is opened, the last bite of cake is gone, the last joke is told, the mess is cleaned up, the guests leave and the lights are turned out, I figure we've had a great time together and so does everyone else. 

We are already planning our next get together!

The Anniversary

One year ago today my blessed Mom passed away. I called Mom from work that morning around 9:00am to say hello and ask how she felt.  She had been hospitalized a month before with bleeding ulcers and spent a week in the hospital, but had not been recovering like she should have. 

Danelle had been staying with Mom during the night for the last few weeks, and I was surprised when she answered the phone that morning. She informed me that Mom had not had an easy night, and had been moaning in pain but refused to let Danelle call me.

It didn't sound good so I agreed to leave work immediately. As soon as I took one look at Mom, lying in her bed, I picked up the phone and called an ambulance. If death had a look, I was staring it in the face.

My sister and brother would meet us at the hospital. The three of us together could weather the worst storm. Thank God for siblings!

Later that day Mom was moved from the ER to ICU. She was given something for pain and slipped into a drug-induced coma. The doctor called the family into a small room and explained that she was suffering from congestive heart failure and had suffered irreversible liver damage. She was going to die.

I remember looking around the room at the familiar faces of my family, and watched helplessly the gamut of emotions that each person was experiencing. I couldn't believe it at first but soon came to realize that through all the rehearsals we'd been through with Mom over the years, this was the final curtain call. She had cheated death for the last time. I realized suddenly at that moment that I was losing the first love of my life and the best friend I ever had or ever would have.

I went to my Mother's bedside and took her hand in mine. I bent down and kissed her soft, sweet face. I tried reasoning with her and whispered, "Mom you can't die on Stevie's birthday. You have to pull through this." Steve's birthday is October 16^th and what a horrible birthday it would be to have his dearly beloved grandmother die on his birthday. My Mother loved him so much. Many times she said that his birth is what kept her alive all those desperate years. She loved him like he was her own child. And even in death my Mother proved to be selfless and to love unconditionally.

Mom passed away on October 15^th, 2003 at 10:15pm. She missed Steve's birthday by less than 2 hours.

Secrets ..... part 2

 

"What are you doing, Sissy?" My Mother murmured sleepily. She'd just woke from nap and found me standing at her bedroom window. I could hear her stir slightly and knew she was reaching for a cigarette on her nightstand.

Ignoring her question, I countered with one of my own. "What would you do if I told you I was pregnant?" I asked quietly, continuing to stare out her window. Too afraid to turn and face her, I blinked back the tears that stung my eyes. I heard my mother light her cigarette and set the lighter on the nightstand.

Never missing a beat my Mom asked, "Why, are you?"

"Yes." There. It was done. I had admitted it to the person that I loved and trusted most in the world. Would she despise me for compromising her trust? Would she be ashamed? I turned to look at her. "Are you mad?" I asked, sheepishly.

"No honey, I'm not mad." She held out her arms to me and I ran into them, crying softly. "Don't worry. Everything will be all right. We'll get through this together." She was stroking my hair with her soft hand, while holding me tight against her. Suddenly, I felt safe again. The fear and anxiety dissipated. I breathed a sigh of relief. As usual, my mother never failed me. I lifted my head and looked into her trusting face, tears streaking my cheeks.

"What will we do?" I asked, innocently and rightfully assuming we were in this together.

"We'll have us a baby, that's what!" She exclaimed happily smiling up at me.

I will always remember that day, and how my mother handled what I would consider a desperate situation only made worse by her 17 year old pregnant daughter. Here she was without so much as two nickels to rub together and calmly she assessed the situation I was in and came to the only conclusion - within a matter of seconds - that was feasible to her. What would I have done without my mother? I shudder to think! My Mother loved me unconditionally and I reciprocated that love. I have often asked myself if I would have handled the situation in a like manner. Not likely. I am not now, nor will I ever be even half the woman my Mother was.

On October 16, 1969 my son, Stephen was born.

Secrets

It was a cold day in February 1969, as I stood at my mother's bedroom window. Gazing out at the neighborhood that lay before me, I saw nothing. I may as well have been a million miles from that room at that moment.  What was going to happen to me after today, and what did my future hold in store?  Frightened, I was afraid to contemplate too much on any one question.

17 years old and two short months before my 18^th birthday, I was a senior in high school and would be graduating in June.

My mother's hopes were of my becoming a registered nurse. I so wanted to live up to her expectations. It was doubtful that was going to happen right now, if at all.

My mother and father were in the middle of a bitter divorce. My father had met the proverbial "other woman", and left his wife of 18 years. Turning his back on his family, he sauntered in and out of our lives as he pleased, barely giving my mother enough money to pay the utility bills and buy food. My mother was in and out of a dark depression, often drinking her sorrow and worries away with gin and vodka. I had never seen my mother like this before. She cried and drank deep into the night, stumbling off to bed in the wee hours of the morning. She always made sure she was awake to see us off to school in mornings though.

I had a habit of manipulating the situation and staying home with my mother. I'm not sure why she allowed me to stay home with her. Perhaps she wanted the company during the day, or maybe she was just too tired to fight with me about it. I invented headaches and sore throats at the drop of a hat. We become closer during this period of time than ever before.

I worried about my mother and felt so much empathy and compassion for her, that sometimes I couldn't stand it. Often times my feelings would turn into anger against her because I thought she was giving into all the hurt and depression. I felt she should fight for what was rightly hers. Instead she withdrew. She had invested 18 years of her life in a relationship with a man that she loved deeply, and now another woman was tearing her world apart.

Standing at that window that cold day in February, I wasn't thinking consciously about any of that though. All I could think about was the overwhelming feelings of anxiety, failure, shame and loneliness.

I was pregnant.

The Weekend

Today the girls are going to the groomer.  They don't know it yet and I am thankful that they don't understand and can't talk back.  Can you imagine if your dogs were sassy like your kids?  It sounds silly but think about it for a minute.  Since the girls don't particularily like going to the groomers, I'm sure they'd be crying and whining, pacing up and down the hallway after me bellering out, "Why, mom?  Why do we have to go?  I don't want to be cooped up in a crate for 3 hours!  Mooooooom!  Please don't make me go!  I want to stay home!  I hate that groomer.  She's mean!  Pleeeeeease Mom, don't take me!"  And since there are two of them it'd be double trouble.  Well, let me pull myself out of that self induced nightmare.  Thankfully it is all just a figment of an overactive imagination.

Actually if the truth were to be told I'd have to admit that I am more anxious having the girls out of my sight than they will be.  I hate it when they are away.  I worry about the latch on the crate not being fastened properly and the girls making their exit - because they are extremely fast little critters - out of the shop behind some unsuspecting dog owner who has just dropped off his own pooch.  I worry that the girls will not be put into the same crate together, and since they think they are joined at the hip, they would spend the next four hours in misery separated.  I worry that they can't go potty because they are in a crate which forces them to "hold it" until I pick them up.  I worry that they may get thirsty.  But the biggest worry is that the groomer will cut their nails a bit too short and make them bleed!  ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!  I can feel their pain - if there is any! 

On a lighter note:

While the girls are away at the groomers I intend to come back home and clean house, do some laundry, and take a shower so that I'll be ready to pick up my two little darlings around noon.  Then we will have lunch, the girls being so thankful to be home,  will curl up for an afternoon nap, and mom (me) will go shopping!  By the time I get home they will have forgotten about the groomers and once again their little black eyes will shine with adoration for me!

Can you tell I've done this before? hehe