Sister Love

When I try to think about the best way to describe Sister's Week-End I can never come up with the right adjectives. To say it is perfect or wonderful or joyfully therapeutic is just not sufficient. If am inspired by my sisters, I am loved unconditionally by them and I'm uplifted by them. They think I am wonderful and I think they are wonderful. We laugh together, we cry together and we sometimes embarrass ourselves together. We eat a lot and we shop a lot, we sing and sometimes we even dance. My sisters are the bees knees, they are the wind beneath my wings, they are so beautiful to me and they are my heros. They tell me what colors to wear and which ones not to wear, they tell me when my ass looks too big and when I dress like an old lady. They tell me you are so beautiful in red and they tell me I'm funny and smart. They truly, truly sustain me. I lover babies you sisters.

Small Grandchildren Calling

This afternoon I was at work busy typing up notes from a meeting and my cell phone rang, it was my eight year old granddaughter calling to tell me she had just gotten a cell phone from Jason, her mother's boyfriend/notyetfiance. She chatted excitedly for a minute and then asked if I wanted to talk with her brother? More importantly, did he want to talk to me? You see Landon is all if 3 years old and is quite decisive about who he will talk to on the phone and who he will not talk to. I probably have not had the honor in about a year. But, today, he has consented. "Hi grandma! I'm playing with my hotwheels!" "Wow, I tell him, that sounds like a lot of fun." I'm suppose to be working and I'm discussing play activities with my grandchildren. Hope no one in the surrounding cubicles is listening, well fuck them if they are. Brooklyn gets back on the phone and tells me before calling me she had just had a nice conversation with her friend from soccer named Pickles. "Why do you call her Pickles I ask?" Brooklyn hmmms and haaahs and says, "well I don't really know but she is really nice." I caution her that she might be using up too many cell phone minutes and she suddenly agrees. "Yes, I need to go" she says.

On the drive home from work I tell Dean I had a call from Brooklyn and Landon on Brooklyn's new cell phone and he is instantly disturbed about the idea of an eight year old with a cell phone. In the back of my mind I completely agree but the whole experience was so darn cute and she was so excited. Was it Dylan, all those years ago, that said?, "...the times they are a'changin"

Sweet "B", she is like my own.

Emotional Day

Returning all the "stolen" stuff today. Dealing with Dean, could be that Rich and Rox will be there at the ranch. Daddy is stressed. Boy, life can be really, really strange. I love and hate the "stolen" stuff all at the same time. My heart breaks for my daddy because he is so conflicted about selling the ranch. He doesn't want to hurt his brother, but Richard leaves him no choice. God damn it!!!!

My Father, My Uncle

My family has had a long standing struggle with property we own in the Sierra Foothills. Recently I took some things out of the family homestead to preserve them because the home has been vandalized several times. I was accused of stealing those items by my uncle and my aunt. My heart has been broken ever since. I have been so profoundly sad about the whole situation I have been unable to look at the items sitting in my home waiting to be returned to the ranch. I didn't really think I could get any sadder about the situation until I opened the box of photos and found this one of my father and uncle when they were boys. It was taken 1944 when my dad was about 16 years old. Those were the days when they were best friends. My uncle has professed that my father, pictured in the front, was his hero. They camped together, hiked together and dug bottles together. When I was a child I remember my father talking on the phone with his brother for hours. Now, they barely speak at all. My dad is 80 years old now. He just wants some peace in his life. All the stuff I "stole" goes back on Friday. Instead of stuff I have the love of my father, I have the love of my siblings, I have the love of my family. Poor Richard doesn't understand once all the stuff goes back, I still have the treasure.