The Great Betty White Caper

Shermetta & I are in Panama City Beach, FL, right smack dab in the middle of spring break. We have decided that we could possibly commit murder, or at the very least rob a bank, and no one would suspect us because we are of a “mature age.” The perfect crime. We haven’t decided what crime we’ll commit yet, but I have a name for it once we have a consensus . . . The Great Betty White Caper.

We have turned a page . . . it started at check-in. The whippersnapper working the front desk said, “I gave you guys a room on the corner. It should be a little quieter than the rest. Normally we give out bracelets, but I think we can tell y’all apart from the ‘spring breakers.’” It continued at Wal-Mart. The elderly man working the door (a fellow AARP member) didn’t check our receipt to verify that we’d actually PAID for our bottle of wine (yes, you can actually BUY wine at Wal-Mart in FL, but don’t get me started on the ridiculous laws of TN).

Today we went to the beach to people watch (one of my very favorite pastimes). I was behind a gaggle of whippersnappers. I heard one young man advise to the other, “Okay, man, I want you to hit on every vag on the beach. Do you hear me? Every vag on the beach” (excluding any card-carrying member of the AARP, of course). About this time, a volleyball rolled in my direction. I tossed it back. The “vag” twins (as I’ve come to call them) immediately claimed me as their mother. No kidding. I took pictures of their group, and all the girls kept saying, “Thanks, Mom.” My advice to them was simple – “Don’t count on social security, kids. Oh, and don’t eat the fruit in the punch.” The punch comment was mainly for the girls – I’ve learned today that girls seem to be sloppier drunks than the boys.

Whippersnappers will also ask any person over the age of 30 for things their moms might carry. I had a guy run up to me and ask, “Do you have any sunscreen?” I did. But my favorites were the boogey boarders. There were four of them – two even wore wet suits. They stood beside of me for much of the day waiting for the perfect wave. During this time, they’d ask pretty girls walking by, “Would you like to make a porno later today?” (They had no takers – I could have told them the problem. Wet suits are just too revealing. Life lessons. These are simply life lessons). Finally, after several hours of watching them, I asked one of the wet suit clad fellers a question about boogey boarding. This young man, the very same fellow that had been making humping motions to his board just moments before, went into polite mode, “Yes, Ma’am.” I have become a ma’am. But, whatever. Betty White is a ma’am, and she’s the coolest woman ever. Am I right?

Another fun fact from our adventures today – I’m pretty sure Shermetta joined the Army while we were at the beach, so I’ll probably need to host a going-away party for her when we get back to TN. I'll have to make two stops for all my party needs because they don't sell wine at Wal-Mart in TN (I told you not to get me started on that).

I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring, but I hope a walking cane isn’t involved. Or laxatives. It would be nice if there are no laxatives involved.

Even the Rats are Smarter at Vanderbilt

Daddy has become a gym rat. That’s right, my senior citizen dad with the sweet tooth and diminishing turkey belly has become a gym rat, and he’s actually started running. Momma emailed me yesterday morning and wrote, “Your dad has been going to the senior citizen center to work out with Mr. West. He sets up the machines for Mr. West.” I emailed back and asked, “Who in the world is Mr. West?” Daddy is a social creature, so Mr. West could be anyone from the dogcatcher to the guy who makes his sandwiches at Subway. As it turns out, Mr. West is an 80 year-old-man from Woodbury that Daddy met during their rehabilitation.

Five months ago, I got a call in the middle of the night from Momma. Calls at 3:00 a.m. are never good news. She had taken Daddy to the emergency room with chest pains. They went to the ER at the Stones River Hospital in Woodbury. She left Daddy in the car and went to the ER door; it was locked (I could digress here and ask the question, “What the hell kind of ER locks their door??” but I won’t).

She rang the buzzer, but no one answered so off she goes to the main entrance. She does not find a single nurse, orderly, doctor, or mouse in the hospital, so she goes back to the car. Daddy is gone. Momma, a good Christian woman, thought, “My dear Lord has come back, and he has taken everyone but me.” As it turns out, the ER staff had answered the buzzer during Momma’s labyrinthine quest through the hospital looking for human life and had taken Daddy back to poke and prod him.

A nurse came to tell Momma, calmly filling out paperwork in the waiting area at this point, that Daddy had had a cardiopulmonary arrest, and the infant doctor, Dr. Cutie Pie, had to use a defibrillator to bring him back. When I arrived, Dr. Cutie Pie was a shaking mess. He couldn’t even figure out how to call Vanderbilt – thank goodness for his seasoned nurses! But, Dr. Cutie Pie, whom Momma keeps referring to as some woman’s (whom I’ve never met) grandson, had stabilized and saved Daddy’s life. Tony & I arrived before Daddy was whisked away. He was complaining that they’d ripped off his Auburntown Elementary School sweatshirt (where his granddaughters attend school). Now, that’s school spirit.

People always say that Momma and I look alike, but in fact, I am my father’s daughter, although, our appearance stops short after the sea blue eyes that we share. Daddy and I are both adventurous, fiercely competitive, cheeky, and social with addictive natures. But, people that know us well will tell you that just under the surface, found just below the cheekiness, we are extraordinarily kind and tenderhearted. My mother and brother were calm and cool, so strikingly different from Daddy and me. I began crying in the ER and didn’t stop for 24 hours.

Daddy was Lifeflighted to Vanderbilt; he had a 100% blockage. Momma & Donald drove to Nashville together, and Tony & I took my car. Tony drove, as I have no sense of direction. Driving in silence in the early morning hours, the song, “I Still Miss Someone” kept playing in my head. It is a song about a lost love, but the chorus is, “Oh, I’ll never get over those blue eyes . . .”

Daddy is doing remarkably well. He has changed his diet, he is exercising, and he has stopped smoking (cold turkey). And I can’t say enough about the staff at Vanderbilt. An intern named Matthew stopped by to talk with Daddy often. He was a nerdy, kind, socially awkward, young man from OK with a gynormous nose. Matthew would casually pick his substantial sniffer when talking with us. He will make a fine doctor someday, but I really should have told him that the whole nose-picking thing makes most folks feel a little uncomfortable (as I am cheeky, I tended to find it amusing/ridiculous rather than gross).

Our old family friends, Linda & Micheal, stopped by to visit during Daddy’s stay in the hospital. They found Momma & me eating Chinese food in the deserted cafeteria. We were sitting next to a window with a view of the courtyard. I heard Linda gasp and say, “I just saw a HUGE rat run by.” Even the rats are smarter at Vandy . . . of course they’d hang-out right outside the cafeteria. All the very best rats do.

I Work at the Moose Lodge, What Do YOU Do?

If you’re a longtime reader of my blog, you probably know that I’m a consultant, and I work from home. My sisters-in-law, Rita & Kay, were huddled together at my house last Thanksgiving, and Kay motioned me over. Kay asked, "Jenni, what do you do exactly? I asked Rita, but she just didn’t know." I never know how to answer this question because part of my job is explaining to gentleman with advanced degrees that, yes, cows can in-fact stand on a hillside, and no, two cow legs don’t become shorter than the other two over time. (May I please, please, please get my honorary doctorate now?) But, really my basic job description is the normal – tech support for the tragically untechy, proofing, writing standardized test questions, creating world peace, curing cancer, etc., etc. (although, Dr. Williams does understand my limitations . . . I have no sense of direction, and he refuses to use any marketing materials I create).

But Kay’s question reminded me of a trip to Knoxville Kay, her husband, Billy, my husband, Tony, and I took several years prior. Tony told me years ago that Kay, a fiery redhead, over a decade his brother’s junior, worked at the Moose Lodge. As a young, naïve girl, I took this as fact. I had never been to a Moose Lodge at that point in my life. BUT, my bestie, Desi, married a man named John, strangely resembling Reuben Kincaid from ‘The Partridge Family.’ John was a member of the Moose Lodge. John was also a serial killer. So, for me, the reputation of the Moose Lodge was forever sullied after realizing that they’d allow a member such as Reuben, errr, I mean John, to hold a moose head pin.

I asked Kay on this trip, "What exactly do you do at the Moose Lodge?" I had envisioned her basic job description to be holding the serial killers at bay . . . tricky, tricky. "What are you talking about?" she asked. "I’m the Parks and Recreations Planning Manager for the city of Smyrna," she explained. Tony asked, "Oh, when did you leave the Moose Lodge?" To my extreme relief, Kay answered that she’d NEVER worked for the Moose Lodge (although, my husband had been telling people that for years. Kay was THRILLED to learn that bit of trivia). I’m relieved. It is dangerous work dealing with serial killers on a daily basis.

An Exclamation Point at the End

I found this picture, and I really love it. Easy Lou has been teaching me how to play the guitar for the last year-and-a-half. He is a brave, untiring, long-suffering (and slightly deaf) man. I also play the piano. It came easily, but, alas, the guitar has proven to be a different beast altogether (by beast, I mean something making loud, yowling noises.) My fingernails have been nothing but nubs of their former selves on my left hand for ages, and I’ve developed calluses on the tips of my fingers. But my Dm and F chords are coming along. Progress. The dogs have stopped trying to hunch each other when I play. Progress. Even the Gambler said last night, "Hey, you’re really coming along." (I actually haven’t let him hear me play since the first, very painful "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," as the Gambler can have a very biting wit.) And, over the last year-and-a-half, I’ve grown less jealous of my childhood friend who plays by ear (which Easy Lou calls "wasting time." Trained guitarists can be very catty, I’ve learned).

But, I mainly love this photo because it reminds me of a very special man I met sitting in an oncology waiting room. He was listening to an iPod with a legal pad resting upon his knee and a pencil in his hand. The elderly, black man with a kind face would listen and jot, listen and jot. I asked to what he was listening. "I’m learning Spanish," was his reply. "I've always wanted to learn, and this is the time. Right here, and right now." We talked just a little about cancer and tumors, and he said the simplest, yet most profound thing to me. "Cancer is only a sentence within one paragraph. It is not my story." I went home that very night and told the Gambler I wanted to learn to play the guitar. My darling, my dear bought me a beautiful Taylor guitar that very year for my birthday. And I am forever left with the notion that a single sentence, even those having an exclamation point at the end, is never the complete story.