Dear Yous Guys: (Been talking with some New Yorkers lately, not to mention my east coast relations).

Wednesday February 1 was a wonderful day with friends I hadn't see in a very long time all gathering, at random it actually seemed, at a neat health soul food eatery in town called Uncle Monte's. The sun was shining, the weather not bad for Indiana this time of year. Went visiting a dress shop owner friend of mine, tried on blonde wigs (actually bought one, shade #27 for those of y'all who follow those wiggery codes!) and it won my close to 29 year old daughter's approval.

"Mom, you can WORK that one!" My generation translations for those not hip to the lingo: "Mom, you look nice!"

Did I forget to mention that before my day began the sinks in both the main bathroom AND the kitchen stopped up so bad (thanks to my cuisine-gourmet health food low carb cooking 22 & 3/4th year old college student--the youngest of my three) and I'm sure there's a collection of ricotta cheese and cold gravy with hairballs from shaving (both his facial hair along with some of my own chin hairs when my tweezers showed no mercy) in the drain pipe playing freeze tag together. But I still had a wonderful day.

Then, as married life would have it, my spouse and I petty spat over who said what and who meant what over a company that seems to have run off with our investments in Texas. (Hmmm, wonder if a certain native son of Crawford could investigate???)

Yeah. . . RIGHT!

Anyway,  we were both having such a wonderful time until we were nyhuh-nyhuh-nagging each other
over "If you didn't buy that blonde wig I would have remembered to stop the payments" to "Well you were just three blocks down from the bank at your school (Kenny's a teacher) so you could have at least jumped the fence and sprinted there before using up 1/8th of a gallon of called not-so cheap gasoline before coming to pick me up."

Again, we were FINE until we got home and realized we still couldn't figure out what this company in Dallas has done with our money. The letter they sent saying they were no-longer-in- business-have-a-nice-life actually was hand written, and the "i" in my given name was dotted with a, no kiddin' y'all, a big fat circle. . . i.e. smiley face with no expressions.

Website? It's still up.
Emails? They bounce back
Money? After investing, shall we say, four figures worth for "our future interest" (hey, I bet Ken Ley's got it!) your guess is good as ours.

And like most married folks. . . we started to argue about who should have stopped a payment to a company that put the screws to us (that's the nicest way I can say it to still keep this story "Rated G" for "Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!"

As a result, when I was just ridding one of my five e-boxes of junk email I got a pain that felt like some little ganglia of nerves just got sick and tired of our pitiful portrayal of Al and Peggy Bundy, (Upset Negro-style) that a vise-like grip of a pain shot from my lower right collarbone (clavicle for those of you more technical. . . doggone y'all pain is PAIN!) and richter scaled with light speed to my inner ear on the same side.

Needless to say, it stunned me. For a good five minutes it literally STUNED me! And so being a good ex-nursing undergrad student before I abdicated the medical profession to become of all things. . . a WRITER!. . . I googled up a batch of "Signs of Heart Attack and Stroke."

Now I love research but somehow I was really hoping this time my search was not about what I was feeling.

Then about 20 minutes later wondering if I should have called 911 and risked yet another medical bill on top of all the ones from my husband's cancer surgery, etc. etc. last April, I took my blood pressure.

155/83.

That made my galloping gourmet exercise science major son go "Whooooo! Mom, you sure you feel alright?"

Of course I tell myself no child of Reeba's is going to wimp out over a little pain. Just did too much.

A few minutes later, I check my pressure again.

153/over. . . oh I don't care I still don't like that 150 figure. Why isn't my Benicar on the job? Do I get a refund from the pill I took this morning that obviously isn't working? MEDIC!

Why didn't I mention that my husband was there when all of this happened? That's because he did what any man would do when his wife tends to be in a state of petrified paralysis as she grabs her neck and says nothing and grimmaces to the point of tears for about 5 minutes. . . .

He gets up, puts his hands on my neck where it hurts and where I promptly remove it. And then staring at me from behind while I sit at my computer in my little once-bedroom, now office of creative magnificence. . . he handles it like any man. . . . and goes off to plunge the sinks so they flow smoothly.

Man's brain must be thinking: Well, she ain't sayin' nothin' so she must be okay. . . .

Well, by that time I don't know what I'm more peeved at. . . the company that went AWOL; the spouse who put on his Liquid Plumber costume, or the fact that my body is at least half a century old and can't wait to remind me that I'm not the young spry thang I used to be when I was in college just. . . oh well, read my bio and guess my age.

So having proved to myself that when I type something out this long and the mistakes seem to be waining, but not completely gone as I backspace backspace all throughout this personal exposition even though I'm no longer second grade "spellin' bee chamPEEN in Mrs. Daubenspeck's class of Westvale Elementary School, I know someone out there is with gaped mouth and slobbering lips saying: "My God how long can this woman type out a long running sentence?"

My answer? As long as they keep looking for nucular weapuns of mass deestrutshun (that was originally retyped from a script written by a White House intern who was used to test out that "No Child Left Behind" thingy) then I'll keep on putterin' along, but for now. . . this little woman must take a brief rest.


Happy Ground Beef. . . I mean Ground HOG day!
blessin's. . . i love yous. . . guys an' gals!
cynth'ya
     

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