Magnolia Girl News

1927 - 2011

2012-01-12T07:06:00.003-06:00

My sweet Mama went to heaven on the sunny afternoon of December 19. In our home, in her bed, with her children by her side, without a sound. -

One Year Later

2011-07-22T14:39:00.004-05:00

Mama's stacks of cards are all around the room we sit in most days. We call it the white room. But some days we call it the blue room because one of the walls is still sky blue from the previous owner's decor tastes. Pretty cards and letters came from all over - New York, San Antonio, Memphis, Seattle, Minneapolis.

To be continued.

Sleepless in Clearwater

2010-07-23T21:24:00.004-05:00

Tonight I tried to sleep but all I could think about were my mother's words as I kissed her good night. "Did I get any mail today?" I had been planning on writing fake letters from friends and relatives, putting them in envelopes, and pretending I'd gotten them out of the mailbox, but I just didn't have time. Since her dementia from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's has gotten worse, communication from friends and family is more scarce than Republicans at a peace rally.

Mama is a communicator. She learned to send e-mail with her webtv over a decade ago and wrote hundreds, if not thousands of e-mails to family and friends. She didn't send funny jokes very often or chain e-mails promising good fortune or blessings. She wrote simple lines to ask how someone was and to share a little bit of encouragement. She was funny. On purpose sometimes. And often without knowing it.

When she broke her left hand (she is left-handed), she learned to use her right hand to handwrite letters to her sister Louise in Alabama. In the building she lived in for 17 years, she knew everyone. She went to the doors of people who were ill, or who just didn't seem to have family or friends nearby. She'd give something from her kitchen cabinet or a bauble she could do without, always a little gift. She delivered mail packages to folks on 3 floors. She watered the plants in the building lobby every morning before daylight. For years and years and years. She always always found something positive to say about the people who came across her path, even when she had to look hard to find it. She made friends with folks from call over the world, who spoke in languages she couldn't understand. She was, and still is, "a friend to the friendless". Everyone knew "Sara". Everyone knew Sara cared.

I tried to sleep tonight. God knows it was a long day. She smashed her forehead into her bedroom door last night around midnight. I woke up to hear her calling my name. I was mad, having just gotten to sleep and hoping to recharge for a productive Friday. I didn't expect to see the blood rolling down her face, the covers soaked in blood where she'd tried to stop it herself. I stopped the blood, threw the bedclothes into the washer, and held her til she went to sleep.

I'm thinking tomorrow I will do anything and everything I can to make her happy, to feel loved, to feel safe. Will I find and make the time to write the fake letters? Will she buy it? Will I find fake people to come by and pretend to be her mother, her sisters, her family she talks about so lovingly?

I don't know. But I will try to sleep anyway.

Lessons from 2009

2010-01-01T08:04:00.004-06:00

Because of a friend's post today about lessons learned in 2009, I've decided to scribble out a few of my own.

First, and I'm pretty sure I'll be needing refresher courses on this one - I've learned I can write stuff and put it out in the world even if it's not some arbitrary "perfect" or "exactly how I wanted to say it" collection of words.

I've learned that sometimes it helps to get angry when you need to accomplish something. I'm not saying to let anger consume you, but just if a little heat can get you moving, then let it fly. My example is my little now green house I bought October 23. I had only a certain amount of available money and had just about given up on finding the location and requirements I needed. I knew I'd be pissed probably the rest of my life if I let this "buyer's market" time pass without making a deal. It was a Monday when I called my real estate agent Tom and asked to look again at a house I'd passed on earlier. I called right after I cried out to my computer screen, "I'm never gonna be able to get a house for $%#K!". I put on my rose colored glasses and envisioned all the whacky colors gone, most of the windows and doors replaced, the yard leveled, and on and on and on. The result, including a very firm right bicep, has been and continues to be as satisfying and smile-producing as just about anything I've ever done.

I've learned that even though I trusted a man with my money who tried to keep it without producing anything for it, I'm still going to trust people who want to work for my money. I'm just not going to pay them up front unless they leave their tools with me.

I've learned that a handful of cashews can keep me upright a few more hours when my thick skull won't let me stop for anything more.

I've learned that no matter how many times my mother loses her glasses or puts something I need where I can't find it that I'd rather have a day full of this kind of aggravation than any day at all without her.

I've learned that no matter how tired I am and how I think it might be a waste of productive time I still need to find time to dye my hair.

I've learned that I still have a problem with people who are unkind to old people, little kids and animals. And people who use religion to promote veiled self-serving interests. Okay, I didn't really learn that this year, I just had it reinforced.

Oh there's more, but now I need to get started on that lesson called "When to Shut Up". Or maybe not.

My Black Box

2009-11-12T04:31:00.002-06:00

Each time I've moved through the years, as the agony of packing boxes and loading them into my vehicle continues, one item seems to sit until the very end of the misery, or rather I leave it until the very end. This time it is a foot locker, spray painted black with a little of the gold left on the hinges and lock. My mother's neighbor, Dottie, gave it to me fifteen or so years ago and I've used it as a coffee table, an end table, and in recent years as the repository for every sentimental snippet of paper I could find no good reason to part with. It's so heavy now I'll need two grown men to lift it....

When Everything New Is Old Again

2008-06-26T10:02:00.002-05:00

By SANDRA WEBBER
The Tampa Tribune
Published: May 21, 2008

The first days of spring in rural north Alabama brought the usual chattering from cardinals, blue jays and robin's nests, the revving of lawn mower engines tuning up for the season, even higher pitched conversing from the neighborhood kids. The sound that announced the season for me, though, was the rattling of the metal ball being thrown back and forth in a can of spray paint.

It was my father shaking the can. When I heard him, I would rush out to wherever he was and watch and wait for so long that my child brain would grow incredibly impatient until I could see the droplets rain down onto whatever surface he'd chosen to make new again.

Cans of paint lined two wooden shelves in the clapboard shed Daddy and my older brother built one summer. Lots of glossy black, shades of green, a variety of reds and oranges, engine primer and even chrome paint that I 'd later use to cover the rusting rims of my 1977 Honda Civic.

The metal glider in the backyard always got a fresh coat. With an unused square of sandpaper, he'd rub off the winter's rust until the surface was smooth and would, he told me, "hold the paint." I quickly picked the daffodils that sprouted along the legs of the glider before he started the spraying.

Our mailbox, no matter the need, also would be improved on, and again would stand out against the ordinary silver and white boxes, gleaning compliments from the postman. And the lunchbox Daddy carried to the coal furnaces on his graveyard shift, sitting on top of a stack of newspapers on the kitchen linoleum with Mama nearby commanding him uselessly to "Stop that painting inside!", would glisten black like a shiny pair of patent leather Sunday shoes. The kitchen scene played out often through the years, regardless of the season.

Along with the sound of rattling from a can of paint came the season's first steady purring from my father's roto tiller. I'd sit on the back steps early mornings and watch as the tiller led him along the patch in the corner of the yard, turning the still-damp black dirt over and over again between the blades until, by the heat of noontime, the soil was as fine as biscuit flour. When it was time, he'd let me drop the okra and squash seeds, showing me exactly where, exactly how many.

Through the years I've looked for surfaces to make new again. I hand-painted my car's fading roof once with hundreds of coats of something like fire engine red, and made pretty again rusted metal tables I'd picked up from roadside piles of discarded junk. In every season, I've stretched out on a sugary white beach and sifted sand through my fingers until the sun disappeared. I've sat in folding chairs on small patios and dug my hands into pots filled with dirt from plastic bags boldly printed with needless instructions, ingredients and warnings, until the blackness seeped under every nail.

These days, when my spring morning's slumber is broken by the chattering of unnamed birds, I drift back to the sound of the mixing ball in a can of spray paint and to those fleeting images of my father and me. The noise from a neighbor's lawn mower that I imagine to be a roto tiller stirs the same memories. And I am back again under the cover of clear blue skies and skinny pine trees looking for a piece of plywood to spray or a spot of ground to drop a few seeds.

Trading Places Bonds Mother, Daughter

2008-01-18T15:57:00.000-06:00

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 23, 2007

My mother is in her ninth decade. That makes my own age look like a typo when I'm asked to write it on a page and sound like an outright lie when I speak it.

The truth is that she is old. And I am old. But through her eyes I am still her baby, at times six months old and rarely more than eight or nine years.

And in my view she is in her 40s, wearing ragged tennis shoes and walking me down a red dirt road to the bus stop.

In that dream, I am comfortable with the roles we played.

Nowadays things aren't quite so clear.

Fourteen years ago, I drove 1,200 miles to bring her to Florida. I had no plan and should have been worried, but I didn't have time. I was just plowing through a bunch of muck to get to what I hoped would be the sunnier side of both our lives. I needed a sign and found one, both literally and figuratively when we moved to a very old stucco building at the corner of Springtime and Sunset, me on the top floor and her in a downstairs corner unit.

Since then, the roles have been changing. Back and forth and back again.

For my childhood and most of my adult life, my mother's main concern and the focus of almost all our conversations was her asking if I was warm, fed and safe from harm. That made me angry - didn't she trust I could take care of myself?

She's never stopped asking me questions like those, despite all sorts of proof that I am warm, fed and safe. But now I am asking her similar sorts of questions. Things like, "Is your front door locked?

"Did you take your medicine? How are your bowels today?" Yes, dear readers under 40, one day you'll need to talk about such things.

Once, when I was around five years old, Mama watched me run out of the doctor's office when I heard the nurse say I'd be getting a shot in my rear. I don't recall Mama dragging me back in. So now, if she chooses not to take her medicine, what can I do?

Suggest, cajole, rant and rave, or all of the above?

I'm not so good at letting things be, especially when I am certain letting things be will hurt her. And me.

She makes me crazy in other ways, too.

Like when she not only listens to but heeds the advice she's gotten from who knows who about a subject I consider myself if not an expert on, then at the least very well-informed. And Lord knows, if it's a man, she's doubly apt to listen! I'm told that's a generational thing, but I have my doubts. Like any daughter, right?

I worry about con men and women trying to sell her time shares and hurricane windows. She worries that an Internet boogie man will come after me.

I don't have children, which in addition to that making me an expert on how others should raise theirs, gives me more time to worry about, nag and boss her.

Mama lets me do that without fussing back from time to time.

We look out for each other. That can mean asking uncomfortable, pestering questions full of all sorts of room for misunderstandings and hurt feelings.

It is simple if I let it be. We don't always listen to each other and rarely do we take the other's advice explicitly and immediately. We say stupid things, and then we say we're sorry. And sometimes our motivations are not always unselfish.

But if she wants to send me home with an extra blanket, or fry me up a pan of chicken, I won't mind. I can save my lecture for another day.

Sandra Webber is a freelance writer living in Clearwater.

Grace in the Time of Alzheimer's

2008-01-18T15:53:00.000-06:00

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 16, 2007

I'm always leery when a potential employer seems too eager to hire me, kind of like how Groucho Marx felt about not wanting to belong to a club where they'd accept him as a member. But when the woman who interviewed me told me this job would be "just having fun" and didn't raise her eyebrows at my colorful resume, I accepted her offer.

The first morning of my new job I sat in a kid's size wooden chair in the "activity room" of the Alzheimer's unit of the assisted living facility. The 20 or so residents seated in gliders and rockers were clearly waiting for the person in the kid's size wooden chair - me - to do something. Written on the white board beside the piano were promises of all sorts of interesting fun "activities" for the day ahead - exercise, cooking, word games, singalongs and so on.

It was my job to make those things happen.

I stood up and walked around the room and introduced myself. Some held my cold clammy hand a long time, concerned about my obvious lack of healthy blood circulation. I asked where they'd been born. A petite woman with cornflower blue eyes whispered that she couldn't remember her home state. So we decided she could be from Ohio, where the pretty lady next to her was from.

I'd spent a large part of my Alabama childhood in the near-constant presence of elderly grandparents, aunts and uncles, and so while I was comfortable on one level, these folks had no connection to me, no reason to think I was up to any good. Would they trust me?

But little by little, we grew to know and like each other.

Most days I couldn't believe I was getting paid to do something I enjoyed so much. Other days, it was painfully clear that I worked for a corporation, didn't play office politics very well and couldn't turn my head when I saw corners being cut in resident care.

When those facts had me down, I never failed to get a reminder of the bigger picture that I was privileged to be a part of.

On one of those particularly difficult days, during the conversation I had every afternoon with a tall, handsome gentleman with deeply intelligent eyes and a slight Southern accent, when he'd ask where his car was and I'd lie to him that I'd sent it to be washed, he told me, "You know, I remember you the most."

There simply was no higher compliment.

These folks were locked behind doors with numbered keypads, often unable to decide for themselves what they'd wear for the day or what they'd like for lunch, or the names of their children. And things would only get worse. Yet still they smiled, still laughed, still thanked me for every tiny deed I did for them. They didn't mind if I forgot ingredients when we baked cookies, if my jokes were lame, that my singing was painfully off key or that my dancing followed a rhythm you won't likely see on "Dancing with the Stars."

They ate, laughed, sang and danced with me anyway.

Their graciousness belied any infirmity.

This job was so much more than "just having fun."

Every day, I was reminded of the value of enjoying the present, that the past is best remembered however we like, and that worrying about the future is a waste of time. And for that, I would remember these people.

The most.

Sandra Webber is a freelance writer living in Clearwater.

Grace, Mama, and the Tampa Tribune

2007-12-23T09:45:00.000-06:00

My first column, "Grace in the Time of Alzheimer's" was published on December 16. It's about my first job working in the activities department at an assisted living facility.

My second column, "Trading Places Bonds Mother, Daughter" was published December 22. I tell the story of how my mom and I aren't quite sure these days who's the mom and who's the daughter!

If you'll click on the title above and go to "Commentary" (near the bottom of the page) you'll find my columns.

I hope you'll read these, forward them, and demand to hear more, ha!

Merry Christmas and Happy 2008.

Tampa Tribune Chooses Me!

2007-11-03T10:48:00.000-05:00

Good news came in a phone message lately saying the Tampa Tribune had selected me to be a "Community Columnist" for the paper! Over 200 folks applied and I was one of 22 selected, so I consider it a real honor. I'll be opining on whatever I'm asked to opine on, starting I believe in December or January.

I was shocked when I got the call. Now I'm entering the nervously excited part. What will I say? How will I say it? Will the editors rip away mercilessly at what I think are my little word and paragraph gems? Ahh well, my questions will be answered in due time. For now, I'm basking in this good news and happy for the opportunity.

Bad News Travels

2007-09-13T17:48:00.000-05:00

I googled my ex-husband recently and found out he had died five months earlier. I found his obituary on his hometown newspaper’s website on page eight of my google search. One of my favorite pictures of him, in his Navy uniform, smiled across my computer screen. I signed the guestbook. I felt like an intruder since I’d not been in touch with him or his family for years. He was just 49 years old.

Since I found out I’ve been thinking of John and remembering as much as I could of our years together. I’d met him on a dating website and was amazed I’d found someone so wonderful. For our first date we met at a seafood restaurant on the water where I jokingly told him I was packing heat just in case he wasn’t the model citizen he’d proclaimed throughout our two weeks of e-mailing. He was charming, effervescent even. Tall and slim, with cornflower blue eyes and wispy blonde hair. I didn’t want to our conversation to end after dinner and felt so comfortable I invited him back to my apartment for key lime pie. He asked my permission for a good night kiss. He sent flowers to my work the next day. Every night he called and we talked for half an hour. We had a similar self-deprecating sense of humor. We went to restaurants and told each other our stories and laughed and fell in love. John was full of life, of so many good things, and one bad thing, at least. He had a demon he’d fought more than half his life. Alcoholism. When we met, he wasn’t drinking. Nor did he drink when we were together. I never knew how hard that was for him.

He asked me to marry him on the night we went to see Tina Turner perform on her “farewell tour”. We told strangers sitting next to us we were getting married and listened to Lionel Richie sing “Endless Love” in the opening act. I planned our wedding, happier I think, than I’d ever been. It was beautiful, at a blue painted clapboard bed and breakfast on a North Carolina river with just our families. I wore a dress from the local thrift store that still bore the original price tag from the 1950’s. I proudly paid thirteen dollars for it. John told me and our families just before we cut the cake, that I was “smart, but not cocky”. It was one of many of his uniquely wonderful compliments I play back in my head now.

I decorated the two bedroom apartment we lived in with things that reflected our personalities and made us both smile. I would have been no happier in the Taj Mahal. We sang together badly while John played his electronic keyboard. He brought me gifts from the “everything’s a dollar” store and bouquets of perfect roses of every color. He always opened my car door. When he walked into a room he lit up the house.

No one ever truly knows the heart or mind of another. Maybe I chose to only see what was good. If there were demons, they wouldn’t hold up to the positive forces of love and light. And they wouldn’t hurt us. Or so I thought.

And so despite loving each other in the ways we knew how, our marriage ended. It was one of the two hardest things I’d gone through in my life.

If we’d stayed together, could I have helped him wrestle his demons? Though most of me says I would have lost, too, I can’t help but wonder now.

The last time I saw John, when we’d left the office where we’d signed the divorce papers, he opened his arms to hug me. John was the best hugger in the whole world. When I read his obituary, I pictured his life, full of adventure, of helping people, of accomplishments, of all the silly things we did and how we laughed. And I tried hard to imagine his arms around me still.

Learning to Dance

2007-08-17T10:43:00.000-05:00

I’d never done more dancing than leaning into the guy and resting my head on his shoulder, shuffling my feet a bit so that I wouldn’t keep standing in the same spot for a whole song.

Until I met Marge.

The day we met I was sitting on a couch upholstered in floral plastic in the Alzheimer’s unit of the assisted living facility where I worked as the activities director. A group of us had been singing along with a videotape to old songs like “Bicycle Built for Two” and “You Are My Sunshine” . She came right up to me, five feet if that, her smiling, blue eyes framed with neat shining white hair and took my hands in hers. She wore a bright yellow button up sweater and white tennis shoes on her tiny feet. She kissed both my cheeks. Her son and daughter-in-law stood back nervously observing the room and smiled, too. Marge moved in later that week.

Music soothes us, inspires some of us even to dance. I soon discovered that it was Marge’s comfort too. When the bad days came and the frustrations became too much, it was music that calmed her. If this disease that takes away our memories of the mundane, the names of people we loved, the details of our recent past, and so much more, it can leave a remarkable ability to connect---with music, with beauty, with kindness. I have seen it many times.

Marge had rhythm and timing. She’d danced thousand of steps in her eighty plus years. Not a note was played in her earshot from the CD player of old waltz’s or polkas or ragtime tunes that didn’t cause Marge’s feet to move, her hands to clap and her face to light up with her infectious blue eyed smile.

In time, I was drawn into the music and on many days in those short moments I had to spend with her, we danced.

It didn’t matter to either of us what mistakes I made, what turns I missed, how nearly impossible it was for me to follow the rhythm. Marge just gently made her steps around mine, gently leading me around the floor, never critiquing, always smiling.

On the many days I was reminded that I worked for a giant corporation when I’d had to sit through pointless meetings and contain myself through rounds of office politics, I sought Marge out. She was my comfort, my reminder of the value of creating and staying in moments of joy for as long as one could.

One Friday afternoon for our “happy hour” show I’d hired a trio of old style country crooners to entertain the folks. I brought Marge and several others from the special care wing (memory disorders) over to the main dining room where a group of about fifty other residents waited for the music to start. I served ginger ale and root beer on cocktail napkins, and hoped their attention would hold for the duration of the show. My own was growing short as I thought of paperwork and phonically, things I’d forgotten, things I needed to do before I could end my day.

That’s when I recognized the first notes of “The Tennessee Waltz”. We’d danced to it many times over the last months. Marge looked up from her chair and I bent down and reached to take her hand in mine. In our unsure grace, we moved through the dining room until the last note played, curtseying our way back to our table, not sitting back down until the last set of hands finished clapping.

After a few more songs, I walked Marge and the others back, the double doors locking behind us. I left work and drove home, the waltz still playing in my head, and knew that in the future whenever the question came up as to my ability to dance, thanks to Marge, my answer would be yes. I can dance.

The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need...Really?

2006-04-13T20:53:00.000-05:00

Well, that's what neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall says. He wrote the book, "The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need." Clever guy.

In a nutshell, so to speak, he's not so happy with Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, and most of the other self-helpers out in book and TV land. Here's a few of his ideas:

On self-esteem--"High self-esteem can be damaging to you and others around you. Try a little humility."

On hope--"Let go of hope---and savor today rather than desperately focusing your energies on tomorrow."

On grief--"Grieving is not a symptom. It is a necessary life process. Because we die, we were made to grieve."

On perserverence--"Give up. Strength means knowing when to engage in enlightenened surrender, willingness to give in and move on."

On blaming--"To err may be human, but to forgive is not always divine."

And these are not just his "opinions"--they're based on 30 years of actual case studies and his own battle with cancer. He says among other in-your-face suggestions that "You have to learn to love others before you love yourself."

Wait a minute---I thought we were supposed to love ourselves first??? Can we ever get this stuff? How many more books do we need to buy, scan, borrow, and listen to on tape before we really get "it"? Whatever "it" is...

Well, just one more. This one.

Humorous, Helpful & Odd

2006-03-31T18:00:00.000-06:00

So I'm in Barnes and Noble this afternoon slumped into my favorite just-right stuffed chair when I look up and see this sign on a table of "impulse buy" books near the coffee counter: "Humorous, Helpful & Odd"

Indeed.

Humor, mostly self-defecating, I mean uh, self-deprecating, has helped me survive several lightning rounds in my life. Laughter releases dopamine, it's been proven. A girl needs her dopamine, just ask my ex's.

Helpful. Oh, God, yes. Please let me help you. Read this book, recite this "affirmation", take this supplement, look up this website. And let me give you a hand moving that dresser, will ya?

Odd. The opposite of even. Yep.

I love a good sign. Just look at my "Anala Yoga" pic. Okay, maybe I desecrated it with my little joke, but still....

So, "Humorous, Helpful & Odd"--seems you've lost your place amongst the crowd, but your cover might tempt the impulsive guy or gal, right? Or something else...I'm not sure. All I know is that I like a good sign.

It's not "I wean my wack" afterall!

2006-03-22T12:43:00.000-06:00

According to an article in the NY Times today, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is not the happy bouncy melody many of us thought.

By SHARON LaFRANIERE
Published: March 22, 2006
JOHANNESBURG — As Solomon Linda first recorded it in 1939, it was a tender melody, almost childish in its simplicity — three chords, a couple of words and some baritones chanting in the background.

Elizabeth Nsele said her father's song about the sleeping lion had roots in a hard childhood protecting cattle.

But the saga of the song now known worldwide as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is anything but a lullaby. It is fraught with racism and exploitation and, in the end, 40-plus years after his death, brings a measure of justice. Were he still alive, Solomon Linda might turn it into one heck of a ballad.
________________

The story goes on to tell how Mr. Linda was never duly compensated for his creation and died with $22 in his bank account. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but seems they do turn. Mr. Linda's descendants have reportedly now been paid a "comfortable sum" from Abilene Music and Disney (for the song's use in The Lion King).

The repeated phrase is"Wimoweh, NOT "I wean my wack"....which just shows to go we hear what we want to hear, that music, like art, is interpretive,and that I can't understand half of what I hear...and the other half, I just make up...

Does this make anyone else laugh??

2006-03-15T16:00:00.000-06:00

This is the kind of thing I see while I'm driving around town---And this is the kind of thought I have after I see that kind of thing--And then I feel the urge to share it with my blogdom!

Money Lessons

2006-03-08T15:12:00.000-06:00

I was just two years old when my mama snapped this picture of me outside my uncle's country store in north Alabama. If I had a dime for every sucker, a nickel for each chocolate bar, and a penny for all the icy cold 6 1/2 ounce coca-colas I consumed during the first ten years of my life, I'd be a rich woman---and not just in sweet experience.

But I don't. And I'm not.

When I got old enough to handle money, about a year later when I was three, and became a regular paying customer, I was taught one of my first "money lessons". Now I don't remember the first time it happened because I was only three years old, but I'm just as sure it happened as I am that dreamsickles cost 15 cents.

The "it" I'm referring to is when I would get my candy and chips and sodas all totaled up and bagged and then find out I was a few pennies short of payment in full. My uncle did not offer "credit", at least not to family members. He made it clear that I was to walk the fifty or so yards back to my grandmother's house where my parents were and return with his penny, pennies, or nickel before the chill wore off the Hershey bar I'd taken from the cooler where he kept them.

So I did.

Rain, sleet, snow, or dark of night did not keep me from paying my debts. Nor did the thought of coming up short deter me from my confectionary desires.

I don't eat so much candy anymore. And nowadays, even a little rain on a dark night can keep me behind closed doors, where no one will ever know if I have enough. Or not.

American IDOL-Atry

2006-02-23T10:29:00.000-06:00

A great performance on American Idol is a drug to me. For that one minute and forty-five second blip of time, I am transported on stage, swept up in the emotional energy of words and music and dreams. Forget the judges, pretty boy Ryan Secrest, the commercials, the contrived "packaging" of these youngsters for their own and others' eventual monetary gain.

Just listen.

And sure, call me "Paula-annish", but I think they're all winners.

But of course, I cannot resist going out on a limb and picking my favorite. For now anyway. Male favorite is "Face", or is it "Ace"....yes, yes, he's the pretty boy. But he can sing, no doubt. And female, I like Lisa Tucker. She's got the "real" factor.

Now I must go and practice. I do the same song every week. Roberta Flack's, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face".

2006-02-14T08:46:00.000-06:00

Funny Valentines

2006-02-13T16:05:00.000-06:00

Oh, to be 8 years old again with my shoebox covered in tinfoil stuffed full of pink and white envelopes holding declarations of eternal love and forever friendship! To gorge on high fructose corn syrupy cupcakes until my teeth hurt. To find that one over-sized envelope, red or pink preferably, from a special boy who saw me as his special girl....

Instead, my choices for Valentine's events 2006 include:

1. My weekly support group of women done wrong who decided to meet at a local bakery so that we can remind ourselves once and for all that food really does make us happier than men.

2. A poetry reading at Barnes & Noble by angst ridden, pierced 20 something's, albeit with an open mic invitation should I so choose to pull a page from my own binder of sordid lover's poetry.

3. An evening of "Dancing with the Stars" ---By the way, has anyone else noticed Lisa Rinna's lips are plumping up like a couple of freakin' ballpark franks while the rest of her is shrinking like a tube of toothpaste in Tony Robbin's bathroom! And if I'm mistaken and "Dancing with the Stars" isn't on on Tuesdays, nobody tell me...I'd rather like to delay the disappointment.

The only thing I'm looking forward to this Valentine's Day is.....the day after Valentine's Day. Then I can purchase for half price or less a few boxes of assorted chocolates and if I'm having a really good day, maybe a plant or a bouquet of soon-to-wilt wildflowers.

Or maybe I'll get stupid and nostalgic and rifle through my collection of elaborate, pretty, expensive cards promising grown-up love. Cards I saved through the years that suggest that maybe, just maybe, the best love is yet to come.

What is the sound of one flip flopping?

2006-02-07T12:27:00.000-06:00

I was in the bookstore the other day, sunk into one of the few remaining comfy chairs, doing my weekly reading. It was raining. I picked up the James Frey books, "Million..." and "Leonard". With every paragraph, I thought, "No way! That did NOT happen!" And put them on the table in front of me for some other fool to read.

So I went on to loftier reading. I'd picked up "What would Buddha do?" and skimmed the pages. As the urge to glance up at my surroundings crept in, I noticed I was smack in the middle of "Womens' Studies" and "New Age". Titles were calling to me left and right...But if I got out of my chair, well, then some other creeper would settle into it and I'd be forced to snuggle into a hardbacked kitchen type seatery. So I sat and forced myself to turn the pages of "WWBD" , and in between skimmed "Mental Floss" and "The Oxford American".

That's when I heard it. The flip-flop guy.

He'd come in from the rain and was flip-flopping all over the quiet aisleways of Barnes & Noble. Interrupting my serenity! Back and forth, even swishing right by my chair so close I could have reached out and tripped him.

I didn't.

The Lynching of James Frey

2006-01-26T15:24:00.000-06:00

James Frey, the "Million Little Pieces" guy is on Oprah's hot seat, getting the public tongue-lashing he and his publisher, Nan Talese deserve. Frey looks like an 8 year old in the principal's office waiting to be expelled for a bad deed. He looks more terrified than I imagine he looked when he was getting those two root canals without novocaine. Oh, but wait, he didn't receive novocaine during those procedures, now did he?

I'm not feeling any better though.

Memory is not photographic. But as readers, we expect it to be when we read a book with "memoir" on the cover. After this, for any reader to believe they are reading a police blotter detail of a person's life when it says "memoir" is foolish. Maybe our expectations as readers also need to be altered. How many celebrity memoirs would hold up to a test of "absolute truth"?

I'm worried about James Frey.

Yes, he is responsible for what he wrote. So is the publisher, who absolutely knew that a sensational "memoir" would sell better than a book of fiction.

James Frey is paying a price for his truth. Let's hope it's a price he can afford.

Why is there NO music on MTV? Or VH-1???

2006-01-15T16:43:00.000-06:00

Is it my imagination or can I NEVER turn on MTV and find a flippin' music video? Same with VH-1! What does Danny Bonaduce have to do with Music Television??? Yeah, he pretended to play guitar in the Partridge Family band. And now he's got his own, "Danny's on Crack, And Has Big Muscles" reality show? I mean, if I did crack or any other mind altering substance I would not know where to turn to find music to fit my mood, you know? Which I suppose is another good reason for avoiding crack and crack-like substances....

Oh well, gotta go and watch "America's Top Model" now....on VH-1

MG

What the heck is the Magnolia News?

2006-01-08T20:55:00.000-06:00

What's it all about? Well, it's a little bit about a lot of things. Tidbits of information, opinion and good humor from the perspective of a late blooming, baby booming, Southern born gal with an ax to grind. No, I'm kidding. No axes, maybe a nice Swiss army knife though.

Late Bloomer Blogger

2006-01-06T14:40:00.000-06:00

Greetings One and All!

So this is where I come to spit and spout all the eternal wisdom I've garnered for the last #* years? If it's not, it wouldn't be the first time I've been in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, with the wrong people. But take heart, it usually only takes me a couple of years to realize it, so it'll go by quickly and painlessly if we all stick together....

This debut post will be short, since I have to go and wash the 1.98 facial mask off my face now before it becomes permanently attached to my skin.

I will make this one small, self-serving announcement though. Well, first, let me tell you that I'm a writer/humorist/photographer/designer. I have a Ph.D, a perfectly hypothetical degree and an insatiable obsession with pretty things, funny words, and sarcasm, not necessarily in that order. To wit (I love to say that:), I have created a commercial venture for those who love and appreciate such at that internet Godsend for the ADDer's among us, CafePress. My "shop" is at http://www.cafepress.com/MagnoliaGirl.

Currently, I have dedicated 90% of my profit on several item's profits for the next 30 days to be placed in a fund for the West Virginia coal miner families. My own father inhaled coal fumes for30 years and died partly because of that. So I relate to their suffering and wanted to find a way to help with the resources I had....I do hope you'll stop by.

Okay, I'm out of here. I promise to reply to anyone who says nice things.

Sandra
AKA Magnolia Girl
http://www.cafepress.com/magnoliagirl
http://www.magnoliagirl.com