Odd, But Not

On the work voice-mail this week: Deb? this is Joanie . Hey, did you change your e-mail address again? You haven't responded to my e-mail. Stella and I are getting worried about you. CALL ME at xxx-xxx-xxxx, right away. Let me know you're OKAY.

WDDD?

I don't know what possessed me to pick up the land line at home. I so very rarely do anything quite so risky. But, I did and on the other end, a sales/tele-marketing person? Nooooo, a ghost from the past. A former supervisor. And while he made all the hey, how are you, the kids, and all noises, the real purpose for the call was to find another of our group. They apparently had kept in better touch since the business dealings forced our separation. but recently seemed to have lost touch. He wondered if I knew anything, had heard anything. I didn't. I don't. I hadn't.

She and I hadn't been in contact for quite awhile now as she never seemed interested in any real cultivation of friendship. She had become one of those kind of e-mailers and has long since fallen off my radar. Obviously, I don't wish her any ill will and I told our former boss that I'd see what I could find out. I checked a few data-bases to no avail.

This has been a week for calls from past lives. Another former co-worker, going back much further than the decade or so the former boss represents, called my office line. She and I were friends and we'd kept in touch for a time after she left the company in '86? '87? Anyhoo, she said, "guess who this is?" And while I nearly said her name, I reacted as if I had no clue. The voice had a familiar ring but was tinged with time, leaving it slightly altered from that which I'd stored in memory.

We talked, laughed back and forth as if no time at all had elapsed. Fun, that. Continuing on this path will fill me with much glee.

So, this week worth of calls has been a mixed bag. To have heard from each of this entities in the span of 5 days after having not heard from them (Joanie's emails aside) in years, decades is the kind of thing my mom would have looked up in her numerology book toward finding lottery numbers to play, when she was into that sort of thing.

Any hidden meanings in the confluence of events? I don't know, but they certainly added some additional twists to an already twisty week. For all the calls I did get there are a few I didn't.

Dear friends, please know you're on my mind and in my heart. ♥

May I?

Preface: Any resemblance to persons, places or events is purely coincidental.

The wind whips about my head at gale forces. I wait for a bus at an un-sheltered stop, no edificial barrier against the un-tamed winds trying desperately to stand firm against the beast. The wind begins to bite.

Lacking any defense, I seek refuge inside my mind.

Not surprisingly I find her there. More specifically, I find her spot there. That soft, supple, delectable place just behind her left ear weaves a memory, conjures the taste of vanilla in the recesses of my mind.

The taste so potent, the hunger so present I’m prompted to growl back at the howling wind.

I recall lying in the folds of the comforter, enveloped by her embrace. My lips nestled upon her skin, resting in my favorite place. Our bodies not yet completely silent from the last hurrah were beginning to settle when deliberately, I allow my tongue to find her spot once again. She whispers a mild protest, I return an urgent plea….may I?

Think Again

We (me and Neta) have had a few conversations about my conservative taste in clothes, over and under wear. I don't deny favoring comfort and function over style. I prefer slacks over skirts and dresses. I prefer plain shirts over frilly blouses. I prefer pockets, nice deep pockets. I prefer flat shoes. Actually, I can / will only wear flat shoes. She's decided that I should break out of my box (so to speak) now and again. I don't totally disagree and as luck fate would have it a new catalog arrived in the mail yesterday.

I don't, however, think any of these selections quite fill the bill.
At least not for day wear.

. . .there's sumpin' 'bout your love that makes me weak and knocks me off my feet. S. Wonder

Mama Grand

My maternal grandma, Big Mama we called her, died 19 years ago. We had many conversations, Big Mama and me. Mostly they were of the "go fetch" variety, as in, "go fetch me a swalla o water, gal" but once in a while more was covered.

Only once did I bring just a swallow. My grandma drank heaping mugs of water. When she said "swalla" she meant to fill her favorite mug to the brim with ice cold water.

I still have that mug.

As is usually the case when someone dies there are things you wished you'd told them, had a chance to tell them. It occurs to me that I'd never told Big Mama that I loved her. Of course she never said those words to me either. She wasn't that type, but I knew she did and I presume she knew I loved her as well.

In the years since her death I found myself trying to recall our last vocal exchange and I just can't bring it forth. It was likely something inconsequential. Or perhaps having to do with plants as by that time I was into house plants and she was quite the guru when it came to keeping greenery indoors.

During my recent illiness my imagination ran a bit wild. I found myself fantasizing thinking about all kinds of things. Big Mama flitted across my mind and I found myself fabricating an exchange with her. It went something like this:

Me: Big Mama, why Gunsmoke?

Big Mama: Miss Kitty. Now go fetch me a swalla o water, gal.