a hearty and heartfelt “thanQ” to
those of you who touched my life
in some way this weekend!
{oh, yeah…you know who you are.}
it was a beautiful and memorable
birthday weekend,
to be sure.
humbled, grateful and amazed…
~ yvonne elizabeth
* um, who gives the best birthday gifts?
YEAH, i do!
…this year it had to be this
since i used up my other three sets
creating a personalized accent table!
r’s day
to you, JRA,
my hero-
larger than life;
the first man i ever loved…
the only one that calls me “baby”
my daddy
i’ll love you forever
i’ll like you for always
as long as i’m living
my baby you’ll be! ~rm
ok, here is an exerpt from The Master’s latest novel, “Duma Key.” just a little nibble for ye; go to cheap-mart and drop your own $16.88 and you can experience the entire entree! i am certain that the best is yet to come, but i already have a huge shit-eatin’ grin {whoever coined that disgusting phrase?}, and i just opened the book!
his wit, craftiness and sarcasm is what draws me to him, and keeps me hungry for more. i also happen to cherish the way he secretly names people according to their personalities or traits…
for you Constant Readers, you well know that although he has been called “the master of horror,” the body of his work is not always terrifying monsters that jump out at you in the dark. sometimes it’s the very real, palpable terror of what transpires in the deep dark regions within the mind.
…just at page ten, already reeling me in with his introduction to characters so familiar, they could be people we all know:
…”Kathi Green the Rehab Queen had only been divorced once, but she and Tom were on the same wavelength. I remember her sitting cross-legged in her leotard, holding my feet and looking at me with grim outrage.
“Here you are, just out of Death’s Motel and short an arm, and she wants to call it off. Because you poked her with a plastic hospital knife when you could barely remember your own name? Fuck me ’til I cry! Doesn’t she understand that mood swings and short-term memory loss following accident trauma are common?”
“She understands that she’s scared of me,” I said.
“Yeah? Well, listen to your Mama, Sunny Jim: if you’ve got a good lawyer, you can make her pay for being such a wimp. Some hair had escaped from her Rehap Gestapo ponytail and she blew it back from her forehead. “She ought to pay for it. Read my lips: None of this is your fault.”
“She says I tried to choke her.”
“And if so, being choked by a one-armed invalid must have been a pants-wetting experience…”
******
My next visitor was Dr. Kamen, the psychologist who gave me Reba. I didn’t invite him. I had Kathi, my rehabilitation dominatrix, to thank for that.
Although surely no more than forty, Kamen walked like a much older man and wheezed even when he sat, peering at the world through enormous horn-rimmed spectacles and over an enormous pear of a belly. He was a very tall, very black black man, with features carved so large they seemed unreal. His great staring eyeballs, ship’s figurehead of a nose, and totemic lips were awe-inspiring. Xander Karmen looked like a minor god in a suit from Men’s Warehouse. He also looked like a prime candidate for a fatal heart attack or stroke before his fiftieth birthday.
He refused my offer of refreshment, said he couldn’t stay, then put his briefcase aside on the couch as if to contradict that. He sank full fathom five beside the couch’s armrest (and going deeper all the time–I feared for the thing’s springs), looking at me and wheezing benignly.
“What brings you out this way?” I asked.
“Oh, Kathi tells me you’re planning to bump yourself off,” he said. It was the tone he might have used to say Kathi tells me you’re having a lawn party and there are fresh Krispy Kremes on offer. “Any truth to that rumor?”
o.k., that’s all for now. gotta go…back to Duma Key.
a close girlfriend called to tell me her dad has crossed over. he was 81 years old, and suffered from dementia. he spent a couple of nightmarish days suffering MI’s in the hospital prior to slipping away, while surrounded by his loving wife and children.
in short, losing a loved one always hurts. whether you are close or estranged, no matter if you last spent time with them 3 hours ago or 3 years ago.
i can only imagine that it hurts worse when he has just celebrated his birthday, and father’s day is right around the bend.
this lovely sentiment was in the bulletin at his wake, formatted and printed by his granddaughter. i had never met the man, but was quite moved nonetheless. add to it the increasingly popular photo DVD set to music, and several picture collages the family had prepared…and i was reduced to mush.
i know i am incredibly fortunate to still have my daddy on this side, and to watch my son grow into his role as an amazing father to little miss abigail.
***
death is nothing at all….
i have only slipped into the next room.
i am i, and you are you.
whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
call me by my old familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way you always used.
put no difference into your tone.
wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
laugh as we always laughed
at the little joke we enjoyed together.
*
play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
let my name ever be the household word that it always was.
let it be spoken without effort,
without the ghost of a shadow on it.
*
life means all that it ever meant.
it is the same as it ever was;
there is absolute unbroken continuity…
why should i be out of your mind if i am out of sight?
i am waiting for you at an interval,
somewhere very near, just around the corner.
all is well.
-henry scott holland
a heartfelt “happy father’s day” to all of you who are blessed by children, no matter how old, no matter how far away.
there is an extra-special connection between fathers and daughters…no matter how old i become, i will always be my daddy’s “little girl.”
*please take a moment to visit: http://www.zhibit.org/yvonne/calligraphy/silent-house-lyrics
here is the lovely miss abigail, now crusing and exploring.
she has an insatiable need to handle any and all
remote controls in the immediate vicinity,
and insists on referring to Big Fat Kitty as “gog?”
it’s hard to explain th
at he’s not a dog since he’s bigger than some “gogs” i know!
Little Miss Abigail….. damn, but we do make some beautiful babies, eh? This little darlin’ was baptised last Sunday in a touching Catholic ceremony at St. Peter’s Church in Westfield, MA…. Benjamin took up residence at the baptismal font, and the priest tried to get him to make room for Abby’s Mom and Dad, to which Benjamin responded, “But, I am the UNCLE!” with all the wisdom and candor of an 8 year-old.
This is a tasty dish Papa Dan calls….how you say?….Madeleine Autumn Stew….a hearty meal on a chilly new england evening……mmmm….tender young chunks of delicately sauteed Maddie…. blended with the perfect combination of herbs and spices…
This little doll-face is baby Abigail, born to Bruce and Katie on 24 July 2005. Her current interests are nursing and teething (OW!)
what lies within 
