While Raymond blogs, I film

(By the way how do you like the neat header Connie sent me, Raymond?) He wrote today in Austin about how his show "Bohemian Cowboy" went last night, his thoughts about his filmed series he started at Metro Arts called "Caffeine!", ( http://www.caffeinetv.net/) and his runaway dog (I know that dog is fast and I warned him before he left watch out she does not run away, so now he knows he has to leash her anywhere but the dog park after she ran away and was caught by two bloggers er I mean joggers. See his blog, Bohemian Cowboy). And in the meantime I was filming all morning talking about a playwrights co-op which I could not seem to get off the ground no matter how I tried. Now I know why. Raymond is focused on coming back to do another season of Caffeine! which means he will be filming instead of doing plays on stage. I can understand why. There has got to be more money in it. The stage for a lot of reasons still seems impossible. Not feasible. Filming is where ite has been at for me the last few years. He might possibly do "Bohemian Cowboy" on stage here sometime.

Just as long as I know what he is working on so I can get somewhere on the same page as he is. I know Dan is working on the Caffeine website because he was talking about it at Thanksgiving. He wrote and directed at least one of the episodes with Dante in it. Dante was Sidney. I have a photo of them at that time.



Raymond says he has 14 shows to go in Austin before he returns. Brave man. I do not know if he plans to come back here and film more Caffeine! or what. Stick around to find out.

Dante's Thankgsgiving visit

Dante spent the night last night which is always an occasion. I fixed him delicious spaghetti with cheese in it instead of meatballs. I use the homemade pasta I find at Farmer's Market of which there is none better. I try to have all his favorite foods on hand for him in these days of spare income. Sounds like his mom is working cleaning houses and the kids' dad has been recruited to tend his little children since he cannot find work in the construction business. He was not tending for a while for smacking the kids. Angelina keeps good track of her kids and is not above a real sacrifice if she thinks it is best for the kids. He really should cooperate and do something to help out. Cleaning houses is hard work!
Well: his dad called and I had to get Dante up early to send him on his way. His mom will pick him up later at his dad's for Sunday services more than likely.
My neighbor next door is showing his Christmas decorated house at 5 pm complete with candles burning. He has 5 trees decorated in his living room so far. As soon as it is completely decorated he says, I can come over and photograph it for you all to see.
I am looking forward to December and shopping for Christmas, picking out books for everyone. I collect them all year long. I decided to buy some beautiful cards I saw with an Arizona motif. I will scan it for you. I won't be able to afford too many of them, but will send out at least a package of them. I love picking out a special card or two to send each year. Everything about Christmas is fun for me.
I found a couple of gifts to the Farmer's Market yesterday I want to get.
Doc and I have been making videos every day, some have been hilarious but not suitable for uploading. I am going to go down and edit more of Doc's play, "The Shetland Pony" as he is chomping at the bit. (another horsey expression of mine) And maybe I will be able to think of something to talk about to bring a laugh.
I am enjoying my son Raymond's blogging about theater. DB who writes Vagabond Journeys is back on line again. It is always good to have people blogging who never run out of things to say that are entertaining and insightful.
I recommend Postcards of My Life to you again. I am enjoying it so much, just photographs with a witty, moving, or insightful caption. Sherry is very good at that. These postcards have been a poignant way for her to express missing her daughter who passed not long ago.
Missy who writes What's Next has gotten her stomach reduction surgery and is recovering very well. That was a big relief to me as people who have had such surgeries in here have had mixed results. Some have had fabulous success while one met with complications she could not overcome. So now I hope we will be celebrating Missy's weight loss with her unti she gets to the shape she has in mind. I am always intrigued by her energetic approach to life.


I have been having fun putting photos up on Facebook, lately of my son Dan. I put his basketball photos up there, as his best basketball playing buddy is on Facebook, too, and this is another way of saying hello. He and Smitty (left) are pictured in the photo with baby Jamal after the game was over. I also put photos of Raymond up with the opening of his show in Austin. See my Facebook albums. Oh yes, and I was glad to see blogger Connie on Facebook. I am sure we will have fun on there.
I was just thinking how my daughter Ronda could get involved in theater through Raymond if he returns to Phoenix. She is such a performer. I can just see her playing a dancer, can't you? She could write her own play. I am going to have to suggest this to her. I know there are plenty of young playwrights Raymond has helped so much to write in high school that would love a playwrights co-op. If Raymond gets the idea of sharing the leadership then he would not feel so tired when he thinks about such a thing. It would just be everybody's burden. He said he would respond to my ideas today. I hope he does. I might do a video on it.
I read all the theater news in the papers. Thoughts and ideas about theater keep germinating.



P.S. I have just noted that my sister Ann has posted an entry called "Massacre" in her blog Kanyonland King in a book review about the Mountain Meadows Massacre committed by Mormons against an emigrant wagon train years ago, which crime has haunted the church ever since. Since a violent rape was committed in her family of a niece's daughter during the holidays with drinking involved, she is writing about violence, with affecting depth I might add. Sometimes we have to deal with violence to mar the holiday spirit very close. I think you will find this blog entry of troubling substance an insightful one.

Day after Thanksgiving

I fell into kind of a defunk on what is known as the shopping day of the year, Friday after Thanksgiving, since I was not ready to shop. I could find no action on the Internet. That is not until a while a go when my son Raymond, the only family member not with us on Thanksgiving, blogged from Austin, Texas with an entry called "Test of Faith." And I thought, oh here is the answer to my prayer, somebody trying to do something out of the ordinary, communication on a higher level which is what I call art. Hmm, I read, and think, well, looks like he is having a day in the doldrums, it is tough selling theater to the masses, and I wrote to him, it was always tough to sell theater, 40 years ago, yesterday and today.
David Goldstein, head of the biggest theater company in Phoenix, in fact, it is regional and plays in Tucson, too, had a bad outing with a new Elaine May play this past week. I am sure loyalists did not let the play lose money even though the critics did not like it, but there was no buzz. No hit. He must have felt discouraged. With the brilliant Elaine May as the playwright and director he probably thought he had a sure thing.
Now I think there is no question that Raymond has the play, it is good, people like it when they come to see it, but getting the word out via the press is what can kill you. If they don't review it in time, if the public just never learns about it as money runs out, well, this has been the story of theater risk for years, not just today by any means, although there are always today's factors that contribute.
So you know what I told him? Son, come back to Phoenix. You all know I am a playwright, right? You should know it by now as many plays as I have posted up on Youtube, and my idea is that Raymond should return and form another playwrights' co-op. Clifford Odets was a playwright who made it big in the depression from just such an idea. There might even be some grants that could be found for such a thing. I know Raymond learned a lot from his first venture with a theater company. I learned from the formation of that company, too.
I know I wanted a bigger say than I got because the woman who seeded the company at first was not a playwright yet she wanted the biggest say. I thought the talent of the playwrights should have counted for a lot more than it did with her. With irreconcilable differences, Raymond had to walk away from that partner with nothing, leaving her with whatever profit she could take out of it from the purchase of the building, even seeded by other patrons. So we know the wrong partner can be fatal. That was one costly divorce even though he was not married to her. But she drove a very hard bargain when he wanted to split the partnership. Partnerhips with theater are risky. Too much riding on just one other person. And one person can't do all that work.
Raymond might be hit a little too fast with my idea, but we want him here, because we know he understands theater. If you want to do original theater, he is the big kahuna you want involved. He is Mister Playwright himself, having written and produced so many of his own plays and the plays of others!
I am not done thinking a playwrights' co-op coming out of the recession its self would work here. Why the first play I would want to do is this play I found in my closet, the fisherman's play, maybe call it "Fishing, Fightin' with Family, and Love on East Deer Crick." Doc might even find that becoming a lead actor for this co-op would be worth sobering up for. Doc has got a very good head on his shoulders, if he could decide something was worth doing. This idea, I am sure, is big enough. Because he won't be an asset even in the building if he is drunk. I will have to go down and run this idea past him.
Because I feel in my bones, Raymond is not done with Phoenix. Austin is hard. He is going to start thinking, hey, I know a thousand people in Phoenix, so it would not be this hard, no matter what.

It is so easy for theater to fail it is not even funny, but if first you don't succeed, here there or anywhere, try again!

Thanksgiving Dinner at Ronda and Chad's house

Ronda with her best helper Chad do the finishing touches. I know Ronda would weary very fast cooking Thanksgiving dinner every year if she did not have his help. He cleans up and washes dishes, too! I made the fruit salad, but otherwise not worth much.












Gary is keeping an eye on the game. He drove Dan and me out there in his work truck. No traffic like last year!





















Ronda set her brother Dan to work. He keeps the patter going.
















Jamal and his girlfriend (drat, I got her name and forgot it again) but she's a cutie. She goes to nursing college and he to business college at ASU. She takes all her classes downtown just down the street aways from our complex!







Here I am with Ethan. A great day was had by all.

We thought of you in Austin, Raymond, and hoped you found some turkey. Scott we found out from Dan motored to San Francisco to have Thanksgiving with his mom, Linda, and sister Carissa. Dan and Gary are trying to figure out how to put his pool table back together again which had to be taken apart in his move from the other house. Gary was talking about lucking out and getting a job in Lake Havasu coming up. He works in the office on the bidding, a job requiring considerable skill, especially now days with construction jobs scarce. Chad told us that next year he will be traveling to China, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, and Europe, etc. on his new job as general manager of his company in Phoenix. All I can say is wow. Ronda is presently working at her nurse job, giving swine flu shots right now to elementary school children. Dan has the weekoff from his job at the Sheraton. I am so thankful everyone is working.
We arrived early, by 12 and left around 3 as I did not get much sleep last night and badly needed a nap! I like it when everyone seems to enjoy each other, and I was very happy that Gary joined us this year.

Cataract Surgery coming right up

In keeping with my current philosophy of documenting all important events in our lives on camera I am talking in the video below about the date I made yesterday to have cataract surgery on the 6th of January. Doc is all for me having it Monday, so he won't have to listen to me dread it. He watched me on camera and realized I would be a trooper as I have always been when it comes to having something done I have dreaded for years. I admit I have avoided the eye doctor for going on 3 years. The doctor was shocked at what I called seeing fine. I guess I thought everything would suddenly go dark when my cataracts were ripe for surgery, but Doc is worse than I am believe me.
I have not avoided the general doctor we have in common as he has. He does not do blood tests. He does not even try to follow our good doctor's advice to stay healthy, but he is afraid to go without his blood pressure pills, so he has them fax the doctor for prescriptions. But my nurse sister went on the family site and asked us if we had had our yearly eye exam. Yearly? I did not know it was a crime in old age to go longer without an eye exam. But I have found out from her it is.
Isn't it enough to have had a CT scan? By the way my doctor has not reported whether I will live or die from that 'renal mass'. I will have to call next week before my nurse daughter Ronda has a spell. But the CT scanner said that if anything really crazy was going on I would probably hear that day. I take it from his euphemism that meant terminal. But nobody called then.
And oh god, I just had a bout with some soft water the manager decided to gift us with in our complex. It was so soft it felt slick in the shower without even soap. Well, I think I was allergic to it as my stomach is very sensitive. I can't even drink diet coke two days in a row. I started having pain over everything I ate. I thought if I get swine flu I am a goner, and with the help of my sister passed on and meditation I figured out the possible cause, drinking our own water, okayed by the city. All you need to do is leave your container out two days to remove the chlorine taste. But that was before softening was added to it. I bought Arrowhead and now I am starting to feel better. You see my sister's ovarian cancer metastisized into her intestines, so she knows what the bad stuff is all about. She died of it. She knew I needed help. So death has been averted, the cataract surgery challenge will be met, and Happy Thanksgivng.

Raymond in Austin

The above photo is one of Raymond and his Dad, Dean, singing to one of the early Blue Grass Festivals that eventually morphed into the Boulder Heritage Festival that has been held every summer since in Boulder, Utah, my hometown, fostered and promoted by my nieces Cheryl Cox, Camille Hall, and my son Raymond King Shurtz.
I just read Raymond's most recent blog on his mighty struggle in Austin, for you do struggle when you come to a big city like Austin, unknown, to find an audience that will make the effort worth coming. (Cowboys and Bohemians on my blog list)
Dean, Raymond's dad came alive when he could sing. If you could just get him going he could entertain a crowd all night singing with his cousin, Pole Griffin, Camille's father. Camille is carrying on in his footsteps with her twelve string guitar and the many songs she has written. She always has a couple of new songs for the festival each year She and her husband Doug Hall who accompanies her, playing base, guitar, and he can do piano, always provide a set. They own and run the motel, Pole's Place, right across the street from the festival site at the Anasazi Indian Center.
I always felt the ghosts around when I was with Dean. His mother died of pneumonia when he was four, leaving five children. Dean was four and the youngest. He never lost his sadness over her death. I would cry, too, when he would sing, "I'll have the last waltz with Mother" and so would others. But in that song, sung in his beautiful voice, heaven was reached, his mother was there, you could not doubt it. Dean knew sadness and heartbreak as well as any man I have known. So singing with Raymond in these Blue Grass Festivals was a dream come true for him, the highlight of his year.
So you don't think the ghost of Dean won't be in Austin along with his guitar player who sang lead while Dean harmonized, his cousin Pole who died over 10 years before he did? I think his cousin Sterling will be there, too, who almost taught me to sing in one night he was such a good teacher. They'll be there because Raymond has done just what Dean did, he has reached heaven with his plays, learning the guitar and writing songs, to unite with his dad through music, song, and magic words. In this play, he is proving once again, through his art, that we do not die. Ghosts will be there, filling in the empty seats, and the people will find the theater evangelist whose magic can unite us with our family passed on, often all too soon. His father disappeared out of Raymond's life when he was only five, but he managed to stay alive long enough so that Raymond, who was determined to have a father, could unite with him in later years to sing many nights in Boulder.

Would you vote me in as your first woman president with Doc as my running mate?

Raymond started the latest battle by sending Doc a personal invitation to come to Austin to see Bohemian Cowboy. This germinted in Doc's mind until he was ready to fly us there at his expense. He acted as though this was the perfectly sane thought of a normal man. I thought it over and found myself making a video with him where I actually beat up this man on camera, for I had realized that Doc was not ready to meet with the big boys at all. Raymond, by opening this play in Los Angeles, taking it to San Francisco, and now Austin, Texas is starting to make his run for national attention. Long time playwright, song writer, actor-singer, he is ready.



Me, I am digging my old plays out of old filing cabinets, polishing them up, getting them ready to go. I found an old fishing play last night. Great comedy, all ready to go on Broadway when some producer decides I deserve a big break.
And how is Doc acting? Like a baby who can't give up his pacifier. This man has got to be crazy. He has fallen into a gold mine of talent, and he still thinks he has reason to drink. He is a stubborn old peasant despite his attempts to be a sophisticate.
You have to be flexible, on your toes, to run with the big boys. I always tried to inspire my kids to keep doing something until they mastered it. Write plays until you know how to do it. Dance, act, sing until you can entertain the crowd. Keep practicing. Broadway takes energy, consumes energy and demands more. Vision. So your mind has to be clear to stand out. Eat what's good for you. You have to be in the best shape you can be. You reach the stars with plenty of fire power.

Shetland Pony Series (1 and 2) "My GF, Gerry, almost has a cow when I knock on her door on the 9th floor riding a Shetland Pony!" Doc

Women are always worried about breaking the rules. Instead of enjoying the little Shetland Pony I brung her to remind of the old days, my GF can't stop fretting and stewing about it in her apartment on the 9th floor and bugging me to get rid of it. Sheesh. What a wuss. I thought the whole thing was a hoot. There will be more to come in this series. We stretched this little story about a Shetland Pony to hell and gone.





Xmas card header by Connie

"Crazy Loco Love" teaches us about the love between a man and a woman as well as love and acceptance of all the 'familia' of man

After the stimulating discussion inspired by Sheria Reid who writes the blog, "The Examined Life" on Facebook about immigrants, I decided I had to review this new book "Crazy Loco Love", just out in the libary, by Victor Villasenor. I was fortunate to spend 20 years on the westside in an area that was 90% Mexican, because here I interacted with many Mexican people, at work, in bars, in grocery stores, in thrift stores, out walking, on the bus, and my two younger children grew up with Mexican best friends. My daughter went on to college to learn to speak fluent Spanish, went to Mexico City several times connected to a Christian church she joined, and even spent a couple of months down there living with a family, improving her Spanish language skills and learning about Mexico. My best friend for 8 years was Gilbert, who I met in a pool bar (owned by a master). He had characteristics Villasenor describes as some of the most remarkable in his people. The next 12 years Sandy was my best friend who had a Yaqui mother and a German and Spanish father. We met nearly every day for coffee in Fry's for discussion along with George, a down and out white guy, who was always mysteriously silent about his own life.
Villasenor's father was born in Mexico, his beloved mother was Yaqui Indian, and there was a revolution we don't hear much about here in which a million people died. His mother walked with his father to the border of the US to save their lives. The countryside was devastated. They were starving. When Villasenor's father was only 12 he was arrested here for stealing food and ended up in prison where he was treated badly as a Mexican illegal.
I well remember that illegals were treated badly, and the victims of the revolution were not recognized as refugees. The immigration of illegals continued and people always justified their bad treatment of them as acceptable because they had broken the law by crossing the border. Still there was always work for them that kept drawing them north. Villasenor was raised speaking Spanish because his parents had not learned English, and he recalls a lot of bad treatment by his teachers of English, to the point that he was never able to learn English well enough to read. He did not learn to read until he had graduated from college! He got through college by having people read to him. When he decided he had a calling to be a writer, he knewe he had to learn to read. So he went back to fifth grade books and began again, but he says he believes the bad treatment in his classes froze up his mind. He displayed brilliance in several ways. For example, he was a phenomonal chess player in high school and could beat everyone, no matter what kind of reputation they had. He also was able to theorize in math in a way one teacher told him people had stopped doing centuries ago.
He was able to deduce that much of what he was expected to learn was simply memory work, not reasoning about anything, which bored him silly. Later when he studied the Mayans and Aztecs he learned that they had devised the most perfect calendar ever. They also theorized about mathematics starting with zero as the basis which made it a fascinating study tied to the mind in a way that is not taught in our schools. I related to this because I found math very boring. I wanted to go back to the beginning and theorize why math was invented. I thought somehow that was the key to fascination with math. It had to relate to you. You had to have an exciting reason for learning it or it was just going to to seem too fixed in stone and therefore boring.
Along with his instincts about making even math pertinent and alive, he had great psychic powers I think developed through the beautiful influence of his mother and father's love and their philosophy of what needs to exist between a man and a woman to make their children strong. His father kept telling him he needed to know who he was and where he was going so he could find the woman who would help him through the power of the mother in her as he had found in Victor's beautiful and loving mother. His father thought all children should be raised their first seven years to express their feminine side, learning from the mother, because she understands the meaning and purpose of children better than the man by conceiving and bearing them. He worshipped the strength of his Yaqui mother who had saved him with her strength when so many around them died. He would weep when he talked about her long walk with her children, starving, because there was no food. She would tell them to do little tricks to fool the mind so they could forget how hungry they were!
His father became wealthy in the US eventually through his hard work and brain power, so he was able to give them more, and did not know that at one point his son Victor became so confused and had been made to feel so lowly as a Mexican who did not even speak English when he started school, had strange emotional ways, and such intense feelings for girls, he made up his mind to castrate himself so he could live up to the priests' idea of being without sin in the Catholic schools he attended. He was all set with the knife intending to do it as they did the cattle his dad owned on his ranches when an eagle he thought was the spirit of his brother passed on swooped down out of the sky and hit his hand so that the knife sliced into his leg. His father was shocked that his son had actually almost done such a crazy 'loco' thing.
Well, it was pretty loco all right, but bad treatment can do shocking things to the mind.
I know this is so, and if we don't want young people to act crazy, we will not treat them badly in our school systems or any place else. Since I have a half Mexican grandson, Dante, who has been half bored out of his mind in the school system, I can relate and feel alarmed about this. My son Dan went to one school he attended and he said that all but two of his teachers had lost control of their classes. They were not connecting to the kids at all. They were just talking, and the kids were not listening, just like Dante. He said it would have been impossible to listen. So the idea of just shoveling kids through school and demanding they put up with bad teaching is kind of horrifying, but I am afraid that happens all too often. In the teaching of Mexicans especially, some outstanding teachers exist with a calling, but more often than not the education system is not inspiring the kind of dynamic exciting teachers than can hold the attention of young active minds. We are afraid of that kind of teaching. I believe it is us who have lost our way more than the young who are forced to sit in school as though in prison just waiting to get out, get old enough that life can begin.
I am afraid that too much of that kind of teaching existed back when I was going to school, too. Most of my high school classes in a big city, where large minorities went, black and Mexican, classes were extremely dull and boring. I even contemplated quitting school at 15 but knew my dad would take a horsewhip to me if I started rebelling against school that young. I educated myself in the public library and just put up with most of my classes.
So I think we have a long ways to go in teaching the young, but books like this can give us ideas and more courage to allow our young to think, question, say they are bored, instead of beating them down to accepting dullness.

Another award and some good blog entries

I went to get this award from Herrad who has several blogs I read while I was searching. I have put one on my blog list that I thought had outstanding writing in it, even though it was posted two years ago. Herrad has been diagnosed with MS so the blog where I picked up this award is MS related. We get to pick one and I liked this one. Awards are fun. Her blog links are: http://notinthishouse.blogspot.com/ on my blog list posted 2 years ago and http://accessdenied-livingwithms.blogspot.com/
where I pcked up this award.
I got interesting responses from my Kreativ Award recipients that I am still enjoying. I liked reading Sheria's 7 things you might not know about me in her blog Examined Life. Sheria also just inspired a debate on Facebook about immigration I thought was outstanding. We need her kind of vigorous examination of the issues to get us thinking about and expressing ourselves on stuff that can inspire dangerous reactions out there among the most violent of our populace. She is keeping her fingers on our national pulse for us and we need to add assistance.
I enjoyed Connie's reaction to my kreative blogger award to her 5 blogs because they are all so dang creative! You have got to see the absolutely remarkable footage she just took of wild life in Connie's Photos right in her backyard so to speak, deer and wild turkey that took my breath away, both in photo and video. Then there is her Christmas Story in graphics already out, and her latest Windswept Whispers entry I really enjoyed, too. I always love her Secret Garden and she has new snags in her Snag a Tag. You can go from blog to blog as Connie is always trying some new tech. By the way this is her Thanksgiving header that I liked so much I put it on early.

Strong as the sun

you came back
sat down
made yourself at home
you said you finally
understood
why I insisted
it had to be this way
because now it was so easy
places did not matter
barred doors
you drifted through the wall
entered like the sun
through my window
never heeded locks
did not need keys

I always knew
it could happen any time
and it would have been
a tragedy
the old way
the orthodox
the earthbound
you could climb
9 stories
I'd see you
waving to me outside
my window
smiling like the sun
now you are relaxing
looking over my shoulder
seeing that I am
writing about you

gerry

"Bohemian Cowboy" opens in Austin, Texas 11/17/2009 in Hyde Park Theater (1)

Here is a smiling Raymond. His Dad and Raymond in the header photo making music together one of the last times they were together before his dad's last disappearance but by no means the only disappearance which I talk about in my videos, one and two. He disappeared a lot of other times!


Dean was mighty handsome when I married him, and with that singin' voice, I was hooked.

Early Xmas decorator at the Westward Ho

Linda's main tree and mirror on her south wall.


Her futon looking out into the street.

Linda asked me to come see her little apartment and it was fixed up so cute I asked to photograph it. I said I did not know you loved Christmas so much you are an early decorator. Linda is special to me because she has accepted with a lack of bitterness a permanent trach in her throat that did not have to be. A doctor told her when she was living here before that she had cancer of the thyroid and operated. It turned out she did not have cancer but Hashimoto's as I do, but shortly after she suffered respiratory failure and had to have a permanent trach put in her throat. She had been permanently damaged in the surgery.
Another reason I have special regard for her is because when Ellen of the Westward Ho spent nearly a year in the hospital after things went wrong for her with stomach reduction surgery Linda became her steadiest visitor and was with her when Ellen finally elected not to be kept alive any longer and went into hospice care. Linda said it was very hard toward the last.
Linda returned to live to the Westward Ho and has fixed up her one room apartment to look like a lovely Xmas card!



Here is the north wall of the apartment and a little tree.



A 'window' picture over her sink makes the room look larger. I have never seen such a cute one as this. Linda decorates mostly out of the thrift stores. She carried the colorful rugs home on the bus from Goodwill. She said she bought the larger one for $3!

P.S. I brought Linda up to my apt. and showed her the photos and what I had written about her on the Internet. I also read your comments to her. She was pleased and happy!

"Red is not afraid to appear naked to the public" Act III-3 end of play about outlaws

Above is a picture of the guy who inspired the character Red, taken from his memorial services program. His outlaw life was hard on him and he died relatively young, 61, but his likability caused a lot of his outlaw friends to go to a church to bid him farewell. I wrote the novel about him I promised, and even sent him a copy. Although he had dyslexia which made it very hard for him to read, he got through it and told me he had some suggestions about how to 'fix' it, but on the whole he was pleased. I did not dare say I thought he had a bisexual side, since he denied it, and I knew the town where he lived could not handle such shocking speculation, let alone his dad and older brother. I might wait until his older brother dies, if I can outlive him, then I will put that vital possibility into the novel because I think it is a big key to Red's character. Then I might try to sell it again. Red was not happy with men nor do I believe he was ever happy with a woman. Like so many bisexuals, he was torn between the two worlds. HIs lusty feelings for women made me think he was molested into being bisexual by his elders. There were too many around ready to take advantage of a curious and reckless young boy.
His mother was an alcoholic and drug addict who died in her late forties of a drug overdose. His uncle, her brother, had burned himself up and a child he was tending at the age of 28, another alcohol related death. Both Red and his older brother were thought to be terrible alcoholics, never drawing a sober breath for years, taking after their mother's alcoholic clan. His father was considered possibly the handsomest man in town, greatly in demand as a dancing partner at the local dances. But both brothers operated big machinery well, as did their father, one on the road crews, and one in the timber, a top skidder operator.
My father is the other outlaw bisexual in this play. I would say that his behavior toward my son indicated that he had crossed that line before, possibly being molested himself at a young age, and as an adult becoming the molester. This is how it went in that country. Predators are victimized young and in turn become predators themselves, a very common development in a culture largely kept secret. People do not want to know these things, so they oblige the predators and make it safer for them to victimize.

Doc wearing shirt in honor of veterans: "Red brings drunk kid to dance with Brownie" Act III-2

When I went to Doc's this morning he was wearing this shirt in honor of veterans. I thought that was nice.
I edited another scene of Act III of "Red and Dandy: Outlaw Love Story," my play. It is quite a funny one where Red brings a very drunk kid from his hometown to dance with Brownie. Brownie is getting tired of the boyfriends Red brings to party with her and is ready to go back home to her hard working husband. Her son is with her, but kids aren't too much in evidence in plays. In case you are wondering.
There is always a price for hanging out with outlaws as Dandy finds out when her dad finds his cut garden hose.

Outlaw personalities fitting into society: "Red cuts Snarl's new hose and sighons gas out of his truck" Act III-1

I am going to post the last 3 scenes of Act III of "Red and Dandy: Outlaw Love Story" starting with Scene 1 today. I wrote this play because I thought it was important to study the outlaw personalities which we have so often glamorized in the movies, but have suffered from when these rebels could not control their outlaw ways, and upset us and broke our hearts in one way or another. These men can include our dads who can involve us in the outlaw way of life so to speak from birth, making us still more susceptible to the outlaw breed of the younger variety.


So often the rebels and outlaws are endowed with personalities and talents that beguile us and give them a sense of power they never learn to control. I have pondered the reason why a guy like Doc clings to his outlaw personality personified by his drinking. He had to go to bed yesterday while it was still light, and I was still going strong and went home dissatisfied and let down because he gave out so soon. He is a crippled partner. But I think he became convinced early on that whatever he did was probably okay because he was so intelligent and talented he just could not do something stupid even if he tried. Wrong. Stupid is stupid. I don't care how intelligent you are. So I think what it comes down to is a rebel will have a feeling of superiority that causes him or her, there are certainly women like this, too, to think they can get away with anything. You might call this a 'spoiled' person who the people around them are unable to control even as children a lot of times.
I was the oldest child and had to take part in the controlling and disciplining of the younger children a lot more than I really wanted to. Why? Because I was too young and they would not listen to me. But I have found myself playing that role throughout life, getting involved with an obviously spoiled child and trying to help society discipline him. There would be need of this because the outlaw and rebel personalities can come into our midst and wreck great havoc.
We had two powerful personalities in this complex this last year who management felt had to be evicted their rebelliousness went on so long. Nobody really wanted to see them go, but they just could not stop upsetting people. One was older and one is disabled and life was not going to be kind to them in less protected environments. I knew they were going to have a tough time paying higher rent even, with the possibility of work remote. I have worried about what was to become of them, even though they both tortured me in their own ways. One threatened suicide. Oh, I hate that. I remember my second husband holding a gun to his own head most of the night years ago, threatening to pull the trigger. He had been drinking, of course. Even though I was pregnant and close to giving birth I told him the next day that I wanted him to either get rid of the gun or leave the state. I thought to myself he will have to go anyway after this baby is born. But I felt that I needed his support for the birth. Well, I barely got that and then I sent him on his way. As an oldest child, I accepted the fact that I would have to raise this baby by myself. His father was not capable of being a part of it. Gone. Alone. But he was too hard of a guy to live with very long, but I felt that what help I had given him would keep him from committing suicide at least. He had other older and younger children who have seen a lot more of him since. He is still alive and I do think I played a part in dispelling his determination to commit suicide just by caring about him.
Why did I get involved with him? He was a physical force you could not ignore. He was just too compelling, but oh so troubled.
There is no doubt that a person who wants to commit suicide has had severe trauma to deal with, but these people are some of the hardest to help. You can only do it so long, but still the help that they get is what is going to dispell their profound depression.
I kept trying to emphasize over and over to my second husband that violence toward others or aimed at himself was simply not the answer. He needed to stop getting himself into such a tizzy and calm down and try to think of better solutions. Alcohol, of course, impedes calm rational thinking, and should be avoided at all costs. My second husband certainly became a lot more stable when he gave it up.
One of the powerful personalities evicted from here is a gifted wordsmith which talent made him feel superior naturally. But accompanying this gift was also a tendency to needle people. Well, he needled one too many people, including the manager. I still can't have too much to do with him even though we could communicate via the Internet quite well. He still needles me. I just won't be needled very long.
I have had the hardest time convincing two younger sisters that at my age I won't fight and argue with them either when they 'criticize' me too severely or raise their voices to me. I am going to have peace in my old age. God knows we have fought many battles. But fighting becomes a habit people miss if they can't do it! Have you ever known people like that?
Well, they don't count the cost of a fight naturally, 'having words', disagreeing heatedly. Takes energy that I do not have.
One evicted man is now off the street where he landed in his extreme rebellion, apparently into a good recovery which certainly relieves me, but I don't know whether he will do what he needs to do to forestall anymoe of his suidical drinking. He is very gifted in fixing computers. He just has not learned to use them well. He's still too old fashioned in this modern world to use them to connect to people when he's on his own. What do people in isolation do? The computer was invented for them. This is how they talk to people! They have to send e-mails, blog, go on Facebook, whatever it takes to forestall isolation that can trigger off suicidal despair.
Men especially seem to have more trouble than women fighting the isolation that envelops them like the creeping crud. Doc. He wouldn't see or talk to anyone for days if it weren't for me. He will talk to the world every few days via a video, if encouraged at all. I encourage it because it keeps a talented man alive.
That other one, the wordsmith, still tries to control me via the Internet. I won't play games like Farmville on Facebook. I could not believe that he was chiding people to think of playing this game like it was supporting a health plan or something. Not. I don't have time to do that either. I have given up TV for heaven's sakes, because my aging eyes could no longer take it. I wont gamble on poker on the Internet. I won't even play scrabble on it, my favorite game. I am failing, little by little, departing slowly from this world in the natural way the aging go. So have mercy!

"Dante, ROTC and war, mom without a job, my life"

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This photo is of Dante's mom, Angelna, and Dante in front of the church where they go. Angelina, who has been kind of a mother to her younger siblings since the age of 6, saw her own dad in the military get murdered when he intervened in a domestic violence incident where a man was beating a woman. The man left and returned with a gun and shot this promising young father. So the thought of Dante going off to war at 18 is going to hit her especially hard, but she gets up every morning to drive Dante to drill practice, probably because he is motivated to go, and 3 hours of drilling works off some of that boundless energy of his.


Dante has confided in me this visit he is very bored in school so he has taken to drawing constantly in his classes. He may have inherited some of the family talent for drawing as both my sisters LaRae and Linda did, as well as his father and my son Dan. I asked him why the classes bored him. He cited one teacher who complained all the time. He said he likes the history class. He seems to think it is the lack of teaching talent that is the problem.
Unfortunately, I think that if a teacher is good enough to get the attention of some of these wild young students, he or she is very apt to become controversial and unable to function within the 'system' long without getting into trouble themselves. I had to admit that I experienced the same kind of problem in high school, and I know that my 4 children kind of slept through high school, experiencing similar boredom.

I think we are afraid, as a society, of the kind of dynamic teaching that would fuel interest in the young generation. Why? What are the answers?

I made Dante stop playng games on the computer at 3 AM and had him sit down and actually talk to me. He protested that he was talking on the Internet most of the time, not playing games, to people all over the country as well as here. I said, "Okay, talk to me." So we talked about communicating, and how he has been coming to visit Grandma, quite often staying overnight as he did last night, for years. He actually visits me more than anybody in my family, and knows more about how I live. He even interacts with Doc. He has gone down to his apartment quite often and watched the videos we make on his screen, where I edit them on his computer. Last night we mostly talked about communicating and the problems everyone has with it. I said how each person has to develop muscle in this area, so they don't repeat the same kind of behavior over and over that kills communication. I said one thing was getting too angry in the attempts to talk. Getting into a heated argument instead of actually discussing. Another problem is doing it enough. You can't become a good communicator I told Dante just doing it once in a blue moon.
I always found Angelina, Dante's mother, to be a talented communicator but I think too many people rely on church involvement to take care of the problem of communicating. The only problem with that is if there is some serious doubts about doctrine or as is usually the case, services that fail to hold the interest of the young rebel, then the skeptics and rebels depart from church, which is usually one or two of your children and what then?
I doubt Dante will remain a Christian once he is 18 then his mother will feel she has failed to do her job and will also likely blame my son and even me for his falling away. I must say he is attending church much better than my son Dan did who on being asked if he wanted to return to church again at the age of 5, firmly proclaimed, "No, it's too boring!" And he meant it. He also announced he would not return to day care one day at about that age, and fought going back so hard I had to allow him to pick his baby sitter since his mother had to work. He finally agreed to Mickey. He would also accept his Aunt Linda when she was available. But Dan had a mother with skeptic tendencies and Dante's mother is a believer.
He is better off with her than with my son, as his job requires him to be away many hours in the day which would have left Dante unsupervised. As it is now she has two younger chldren and up untll just a year or so ago stayed home with them with their father providing funds to live on.
Unfortunately he went from a good paying job as an operator of big equipment to no job at all in the Arizona construction business deep recession. Unemployment benefits ran out. And this proud man employed many years in the construction busness seems lost in how to go to a lesser job to care for his kids. He had given up drinking, but Dante says he is back doing it, so is not reliable to tend the kids while Angelina works. She has separated from him. So it is tough times for this little family. My son Dan is helping out with some child support and taking Dante on Saturday when he is not in school and he is not working too long of hours. On Sunday Dante usually returns to attend church. Last night, for example, Dan worked 12hours and more yesterday so Dante stayed here.
Hopefully Dan's job in one of the big downtown hotels will hold up. He is lucky to have it. He works in the media department that provides equipment to the big conventions and sets it up and sees that it runs properly. My son Gary who works for a construction company also and is finding it tough to find jobs let Dan move in with him. He bids jobs for his company, but said he thinks he can swing his new mortgage even if he gets laid off. Gary is experienced at many jobs, so if he can't keep workng, you know the recession is biting deep.
Dante got to go to sleep after a while and is still sleeping peacefully as I write. I have his breakfast ready for him. He requested orange juice and a sausage and egg biscuit from Circle K. Maybe we will talk some more when he gets up!

Kreativ Blogger Award

I like receiving an award for being creative which I always strive to be but Robyn from Creative Corner has given me this one. Here is her link: http://mycreativecornerandthings.blogspot.com/ and I have also placed her blog on my blog list.
Next I need to tell you seven things you might not know about me. Gee, that's going to be fun thinking those up.

l. I won first place in a writing contest in school for the 1st to the 4th grades. I loved my teacher so much and was so grateful she appreciated my talent when I was only in the first grade! I do not think the other kids much liked having the youngest one in the room win the prize, but that was the last bit of appreciation I was to get until the 5th grade, so it had to last. It was a fairy story and right then I determined to become a writer!

2. I received my first stetson cowboy hat from my father after I came home quite impaired from the mental hospital. I always thought it was an award from him for living. I requested black, and black it was. My hair always bleached out in the summer so I thought I would look the most fetching in that color. I never wore it unless I was riding horses.

3. My first horse also given me by my father was a fast stepping litle mare named Wissy, but my father warned me she had been gored by a long horn cow, so she would jump sideways everytime a horned cow got near her. Jump sideways she did. You never knew when she thought she might be gored, so I did not ride her very much.

4. I had a pet pig named Black Velvet, well, my sister Margie and I shared him, and a more delightful pet could not be had. He rooted us out of bed if we slept on the lawn. I would scratch his scales as he grunted blissfully but he grew up to be a big razor backed hog slated for market and caused trauma when my father got nervous and took him off to the pen. But he seemed to know when market time came because he fought as hard as he could to keep from being loaded. I refused to get attached like that to the next runt our father brought home for us to rescue.

5. I never liked to sew but I loved to garden. My mother always planted our garden in what she called Chinese plots, in which you just let the water run until it filled up, but my father invariably spoiled the watering by getting mad every year over her Chinese garden. He was for everything traditional.

6. There are a lot of things you don't know about me since I have lived for 78 years. Name a year. Let's see, I did not see Grand Canyon for many years. I figured I had enough canyons to see right in my own backyard, like Hell's Canyon, deep and awesome, looking off from Hell's Backbone Bridge.

7. A fascinating road I always wanted to see was the Burr Trail with many switchbacks It looks like it goes up the side of a steep canyon wall. It did not disappoint when I finally made it out to the Circle Cliffs and beyond. Had to go through Long Canyon, the longest in the world when you were driving a herd of cattle through it on a horse.

And now I will list 7 blogs to receive my Kreativ Award. I am to go to each one's blog and in a comment tell her or him I have an award for them here, which they can pick up to show on their blog, and do just what I have done here.




1. This is my very own sister Ann's blog Kanyonland King up and running now a few months. She is writing it all in poetry form with a striking photo of some sort to head it. Ann is a former English teacher, disabled by a rare disease of the pancreas that required removing it, so she has diabetes to the max. But she is still extremely busy all the time, tending grandkids, being a great grandma, writing books, and all that finds its way in her blog. http://kanyonlandking.blogspot.com/

2. I also have to list another relative's blog because you don't want to miss what is coming up in Cowboys and Bohemians written by my son Raymond who just arrived in Austin, Texas for a run of his one man show in a theater down there, "Bohemian Cowboy.' It is a true theater blog. http://cowboysandbohemians.blogspot.com/

3. This is my chance to feature my friend and grephic artist Connie's blogs, I love the name of one so much Windswept Whispers, but then there is The Secret Garden, and Connie's Photos and Halloween II and and, but I will give you the link to one and on it you will see links to all her others. I know she's going to do a great story on Christmas featuring fantastic holiday graphics!http://windsweptwhispers.blogspot.com/

4. I have been reading a very touching blog this last while about a very brave mother with MS who lost her beloved daughter at the age of 34. Sherry's love for Nicole has been so apparent, causing her so much pain with her loss, but you know what, a mother's great love for a child is truly moving. Sometimes I can't read her blog for several days, but when I come back she has recovered a little more from the raw pain. And I think this is how you do it. This is how you do it. http://wordsalads.blogspot.com/

5. I am going to give you the name of a blog to read which is lucid, penetrating and sometimes very moving which I think is so pertinent to the times. Sheria and I don't agree about everything, but I respect her writing. She is a black lawyer from Morth Carolina and she first became a fan of Doc and me when we were making DVDs of my play Aunt Santhea and sending them out free. She actually had an evening viewing of it for some friends. How marvelous is that? I will never forget that as long as I live, and now she is commenting on the times with President Obama never afraid to tackle any issue even if it makes her sound like 'an angry black woman'. Racial issues are tough. http://theexaminedlife-sheria.blogspot.com/

6. I could name other outstanding and enjoyable blogs I read regularly as Nelishia's which Robyn has already nominated. Some blogs are just simple daily accounts that the blogger makes interesting and enjoyable to read. A blog like that is Missy's What Comes Next? She is always changing. I never know what she is going to do next. Now she's on Facebook. She changes her blog names. But she has always blogged about some very important issues like anorexia and Chiari's Brain Malformation which is one of her big causes. We went through her knee surgery with her. I was riveted to her blog when blood clots developed, and scared. She has a genetic tendency to form kidney stones, and her kids have it, too, and she is always well informed about her issues. I have learned a lot from her blog about medical problems I really knew very little about. She's got another controversial surgery coming up and you won't want to miss her blogging about it. Missy's blog is not responding but she is on Facebook as Missie Ramer Ruth.

7. Last but not least. I read some blogs regularly--that country gal Paula from Texas comes to mind who I think is very creative with what she does with her country tales. I swear she can come up with an interesting take on something probably nobody else would notice. Her sight is keen as she travels the country roads with her male companion and rancher John. I have always related to her country life, her cows, and now her turtles. They remind me of all the cows I have loved before in my country many years agoooo....http://pl78064.blogspot.com/

Got that over with! Strangest Tenants Meeting!

I had my CT scan this morning which was not too bad. I did walk all over the earth trying to find the building. Everything well well. Next week will probably get the results.
Went to the Westward Ho tenants meeting last night. Nikita was supposed to be sworn in a the new chairman. We voted last Monday, but she was the only one running so was sure to get it.

Well, to my surprise, none of the new officers showed up until the last few minutes when Reggie and Bill came who were sworn in as parlimentarian and I believe treasurer. George, last year's treasurer, completed his report and we all went home after 30 minutes. I finally asked, "Where is Nikita?" Reggie said all he was told that she had to make an emergency trip to the hospital. The night of the party she seemed a little worn out as she had done bingo the night before. She said it has been a strenuous week. The flu is going around, too. I haven't been able to find out today what happened to her.
I just saw Daniel, my next door neighbor, and he said he had been sick with the flu since Halloween. I was playing pool with my next door neighbor Scott who was supposed to have been sworn in as the new vice chair and didn't show either. Scott said he had asked that his name be taken off the ballot so they will have to delegate the one with the next most votes to take his place. I told Scott that was the strangest WHo meeting I have ever attended.
I am glad to get my CT scan over with, and now I will have to schedule an eye exam. Always somepn'.
Doc was my alarm clock this morning, but I had two alarms set, too, just in case, and they both went off. At least I know they work well. He offered to go with me, but I said that wasn't necessary, and I was fine. Now I am full of barium and must stay near the bathroom.

Texas bound: I am going to run this header a while until Raymond gets Bohemian Cowboy up in Austin, Texas

It is very exciting to have a son going to still another big city to perform his one man show, Bohemian Cowboy. A woman he met in Los Angeles knows how to set these shows up, and she believes in Bohemian Cowboy. By now Raymond expected to be blogging and telling you all about it himself, but his new computer is still on the way to him from China! He will have to get an address in Austin before it can be sent to him there. So he along with Baby has gone to rent a place to stay while he is there. Raymond has another angel in Utah who is backing him with a grant so he can go to Texas.
This is the first time Baby has been on the road with him, but I think Baby will make lots of friends for him as she has a winning personality. Pretty soon she will figure out she is a show dog and nothing will stop her from going to the top right along with Raymond. A cute dog is just like a cute baby.
Then of course we have got Doc in his new video trying to get to the top as a country western singer. This was all his idea. Nothing but do I had to come and be his manager. Doc is tireless in his endeavors. He would make a new video every day if I would cooperate. He wanted to sing karaoke all afternoon yesterday, but I balked. You can find his latest on my blog list in Rick n Doc Emde or on his Youtube Channel emdedoc or on my channel GerryKing40 in my favorites. When I am in a video with him I put it in my favorites. He called it "My karaoke manager hates me" all because I said his timing was off when he was too drunk. I don't like that cutesy stuff he does either he got from playing jazz, to tell the truth, because he can't quite pull it off. Too much drinkee.
We did not dare put any of the Halloween Party Video he filmed up on Youtube, but it was either a hoot or bad taste or he should be run out of town. He would concentrate on such features as their bad teeth or cleavage that said boo upside down. When I protested he said, "come on, it is Halloween. Nobody cares." He also pushed something and made us all look fatter. Grrrr. My butt looked twice the size it really is. Finally he antagonized so many people we ran him off, but he come back and filmed us singing karaoke. He made Daniel so mad trying to sing along with him, he told him if he had wanted someone to sing with him, he would have asked him, so sit down and shut up!
But I have decided just to try to accept Doc's drinking as I do people's smoking, over eating. It just is. Daniel quit drinking 11 years ago so he has little patience with it. He said next time we had a party we needed to ban anybody drunk. But he also wants to refuse to let people eat who won't stay for karaoke. I do remember when Pierre and others prepared a sumptuous feast for the residents to entice them to stay for his karaoke party that cost the tenants $500. They ate and all got up and went home! Except a handful who did enjoy singing. Pierre sang a lot of songs. I even sang a few, but it took the heart out of Pierre for giving karaoke parties. I hope he can find some good karaoke parties where he went in the great beyond.
I admit I always get excited when there is a karaoke party. I am hoping each time that my teacher will be able to help me carry the tune better, or at least find it once in a while. I have had a lot of guys trying to teach me to sing with varying degrees of lack of success. My first husband Dean wouldn't let me sing hardly a lick. My second Ron succeeded in teaching me to play pool but not to sing. Pierre and I sang for hours at home with his karaoke machine and I thought I was getting closer. But Doc said he wasn't always on either judging from the karaoke CDs I made him watch, so how could I be? What do I know?
I know Doc steeps himself in music all day long. He cannot understand why I don't do everything with music. I am not used to it. It distracts me. Raymond gave me Mozart years ago which he said he listened to when he writes. I looked at the recording a lot and felt guilty, but I admit I did not play it while alone. For some reason I cannot listen to music by myself. I have to have company just like I do when I drink coffee. Maybe that was because about the only time I heard music as a girl was when we went to a dance. At home we were so tired from bottling and all the stuff we had to do we just fell into bed at night, hoping for a few winks before we had to get up and start all over again.
I do intend to put the rest of my play reading up, "Red and Dandy: Outlaw Love Story." There is only one act left. Now the plays are all up there I wanted to get produced. They have been produced on Youtube!
I went on Facebook and went to look at all the theater luminaries in Phoenix up there. I ran into a photo of the theater critic who ran me into the ground, saying he did not like my first play, "Prince from Saturn." These critics can kill your career in Phoenix without a qualm. If they don't like your stuff, they can pan the play so a bigger theater company wont do it. I don't know why Phoenix theater critics did not want us local playwrights to succeed, but my theory is that they are rivals. And if you get a chance to kill off a rival, do it. What else is a poison pen for? This particular critic is retired now but we have his book to look forward to. I will probably be wiped out of his history, too, like I never existed. No, the only place I had left to get a play up before I died was Youtube.
Raymond said he might do his show in Phoenix someday, but he has to get credibility somewhere else. He could not get it here due to tepid response from the critics. In every city, you are dealing with a different set and you might hit it lucky, which Raymond did in Los Angeles. Those practically rave reviews he got in the Los Angeles Times for Bohemian Cowboy are theater gold.
May the sun shine on him in Austin, Texas! And I pray Baby remains safe. She is still a baby and likes to run away if she can.

Speaking of Dante, his dad Dan gave me these photos last night

Here Dante is with his little sister, Bella Rosa, and brother Carlos, just before he started school this last summer. I believe his hair was at his longest. Surely!



Oh what a difference a haircut makes. Dante is hardly recognizable as the same 15 year old kid in this ROTC uniform. He looks very mature. In fact I felt a tug. He could be going off to war! I just hope it's over by the time he really is old enough to go!





Angelina is a strong mother to get the wild Dante attending church with her as regularly as she does. He rebels some, and she has blamed his skeptic dad, but she said I told him as long as he is under my roof he will abide by my rules. So now Dante cooperates because he really does love his mother. In these hard times, when the little kids dad got laid off from his construction job and fell into a defunk, she has been working hard to put food on the table. Dan had to help her out with some money tonight for a car payment. She can't afford to lose her car which has room for both little kids to be strapped into their car seats. She had to change job because her paycheck on her maid job kept bouncing! Now she is working as a telemarketer where she knows she will get her pay.
I remember hard times of working to keep everything together after a divorce, so I know what she is up against. She has a few maid jobs on the side. Her sister who gave up her own kids to a difficult ex-husband is tending the kids for her now in exchange for board and room and what Angelina can spare. Their father would smack them out of his 'job frustration' and Angelina could not tolerate him as the baby sitter. She is being a protective mom.

My son Dan was moving into his older brother Gary's house last night. In hard times brothers move in with brothers and cousins and sisters with sisters. I found out that since my sister Linda's house is in foreclosure and will be auctioned off this month, Gary offered his home to her son Scott, too, as a temporary refuge. Scott has been waiting to be called to work where Dan works. He has been okayed. He has been staying to the house, doing yard sales and selling on E-bay what he could.

I told Raymond it is a poorer America we have now since this big recession and so many people, even the rich, lost money and also became poor. But I like to see people helping people to weather hard times. This may even be a good thing. I think whatever brings people closer together is a boon.

We have had a consumer driven economy which means we bought a lot of 'stuff.' Well, now it's less stuff and maybe more emphasis on human relations.

Raymond has been trying to get his brother Dan to move in with Gary. I think he feels he needs family around since his heart attack.

Raymond and his dog Baby playing in the park

Raymond stopped by on his way out of town to Austin and we went to Margaret Hance Park close by for a photo session. He wore Baby down by throwing the ball to her. I got this cute photo of them. Lucky me. Then after a short chat he took off. He has to find a place down there to live for a month, get his theater space set up for doing Bohemian Cowboy!
The people who sold him his new computer did not tell him it had to come from China, and it did not arrive in time. Guess they needed to sell something too badly. He has to send them an address in Texas.
He said he went to watch my daughter dance at her West Coast Swing dance club, and he said he thought she was the best dancer there! She has been dancing west coast swing for 15 years. She loves her club. He enjoyed getting better acquainted with his nephew Ethan. Talked to Chad, my SIL about his new job as general manager of his company. (He's a very capable guy) Raymond has hired Dan to redo the website on their series "Caffeine." Dan is recovering from the flu and should soon be able to work on it. I think he did go back to work.
People here in the complex have not been hit with the Swine variety yet. I am concerned about the really ailing ones which they say the virus is hitting hard.
I made an appt. to have the CT scan done on Friday. I don't know if Doc plans to go with me or not, but he did promise to wake me up in time! I have been talking about me dying all week He thinks I am overeacting. I hope so, but you can never tell. I never had any symptoms of anything so my doctor was really on the ball to be doing sonor readings on our parts.
I think my new diabetes pill is working well. My poor sister Ann is taking shots all day long.
Raymond and I compared my grandson Dante's behavior in this very park park when he was a wild little cuss and his dog Baby, and you know they acted an awful lot a like. In fact I had to put a leash on Dante so I could catch him. He fought it until I told him he could be a little dog along with the other Westward Ho dogs, and he liked that. Talk about a hyperactive kid. His dad was too. His dad said they will never drug my kid! They were athletes, natural born. I told Dan if he would take Dante out and run him every day he would calm down and act more housebroken. That's what Raymond has to do with Baby. When Dante got a wild dog to play with in the house everybody else ran out. His mother gave that wild dog away and kept Dante.
Baby is so cute. People fall in love with her, so I am sure he will find people to help him with her in Texas!

Raymond calls and I meet Baby, my granddog: Plus karaoke videos

Oh was I happy to meet my new granddog at last in the above photo. The photos were taken by a relative up there a while back. She is a little bigger now but it is still her. I will try to get a current photo if I see them before they leave. Baby is so smart. She is only 8 months old and she can already sit, fetch, and roll over! Never have I seen such a smart dog! We went to the park and she showed me her stuff. Raymond and I enjoyed catching up, and then he was off to his brother Gary's, who he hasn't seen yet. He saw Dan last night, but Gary was not home. I may see him again before he leaves for Texas. He spent two night to his sister Ronda's house. Baby bonded with their dog Bailey.
Doc and I spent the day recording some of the karaoke songs we sang last night, so you could get the flavor of our party. The first one I will embed features both Doc and me on Country Western songs. The last one is my favorite that Doc sings--"You never even called me by my name" by David Allen Coe.