Resolutions (a.k.a. Best Intents)
By Eydie Wight
Well it’s officially (and somewhat past) the advent of the New Year. I rang in the year all unawares as my Croat co-worker Marija and I ran from floor to floor at our hospital giving respiratory treatments and answering calls. It was midnight plus 23 before we met up to give each other a hug and say “Happy New Year.” Then my phone rang again and we got back to work as Marija said “Vat do dey vant now, wen I am trying to vish you a Happy Year.” I love Marija, working with her makes for much happiness in the workplace.
She, friend Carole, and I had gone out for dinner and a movie one night (Sylvia honey, we missed you!) and as we had talked straight through the start time of our movie we decided to just talk more until the next show started (uh, and have dessert and another beer.) We got to talking about men, a conversation inspired by our cute-until-he-opened-his-mouth server Brad, or, as he told us “That’s B-Rad.” (Like P-Diddy, but we middle aged ladies ain’t too down with that. We still live in the land of cool, don’tcha’ know.) Anyway, I said, “What would be your favorite physical characteristics in a man, strictly physical looks, what kind of man are you attracted to?” Carole went first, she said, “I like the Italian men, dark hair and eyes, and physically fit, like a boxer.” I went next, “Easy answer, give me a tall, braw, red-heided Highland Scot.” I asked Marija, “Your turn, what would your ideal man look like.” She considered a minute and said, “Vell, he vould look like he has money.”
I’m typing this as I sit at my mom and dad’s kitchen table. My dad had a total knee replacement this past Monday (thanks to everyone who sent prayers and good thoughts his way) and I came down to give mom some company and chauffeur her back and forth from the hospital. Dad’s doing pretty well, supposed to come home tomorrow, but is plagued by nausea.
It’s Thursday now (the computer decided to freeze up last night which it does occasionally) and I’m up in Dad’s hospital room waiting for him to be discharged. Today started out as a brisk sunny day with blue skies and I had a wee walk in mind down past the farms at mom and dad’s. But now the clouds are rolling in and I hear that snow is on the way. A little snow never bothers me but I didn’t bring proper footwear. But wait! I do have my winter “survival” kit in the car. Boots, coat, hat, scarf, gloves, sleeping bag, granola bars, water, signal flag. I sent Sammy down to Georgia over Christmas with his kit in the Saturn. It was the topic of some amusement when he arrived down there to 70 degree weather!
Brother John had suggested (as we were talking about the bloggless end of last year and our resolution to do better this year) that something New Year’s-ish might be nice. Each year I resolutely resolve (like millions of others) to change, change, change. Me and the president elect have a bond. Hopefully he will do better at his resolutions than I have over the past years with my vows to stop eating an entire block of cheese with pretzels as I read novels, control childish outbursts of @#$%*&(!@#$ when working on the wood stove pipe, stop gardening in my pajamas, or finally finish that poetry book (oh wait! I DID do that last year, Yipee!, one for me!)
This year I kicked the resolutions up a notch. I resolve to create, to shine, and to genuinely like myself, nay, even love myself just as I am. I have a pretty blessed life, any change for the good is icing on the cake. I resolve to accept this gray hair that never grows as fast as I’d like, this cellulite that pirouettes with me in the mirror, the odd surgically removed organ here and there that requires replacement medication, these varicose veins. How about, as a friend said of me, I shine that thousand watt Celtic smile on the world and drop some of the guilt.
This year, I resolve to relax and enjoy the fact that I’m married to a man for whom there are never enough exclamation points in a love letter. I resolve to embrace my pajamas (’cause they make me happy) and not worry that the Jehovah Witness ladies found me in them Christmas eve.
And now, our Dad has just been sprung form the hospital and I must go.
Happy New Year!
A visit with Brother John!
By Eydie Wight
Like I said, Sammy and I were having a really good weekend. On Sunday, we decided to drive down to Lansdowne to visit Brother John and Kathy. My parents were going to be there and the menu was BLT’s with fresh homegrown garden tomatoes, fresh homegrown corn on the cob, and fresh homegrown peaches for dessert. Our dad has the Midas touch, the ultimate green thumb of gardening. It’s like gardening is a religion and he is the high priest. Each year he brings us buckets and small cartloads of fresh fruit and veggies. Both Brother John and Kathy, and Sammy and I strongly believe that it is the deepest sacrilege to let any of this bounty go to waste. (In fact, Brother John wrote his first, and only poem about just that very thing! Check it out in our Poetry Section). And since I have my own albeit less than worthy garden, we’ve learned to improvise. In true Bubba Gump fashion I make fried squash, squash in salads, squash casserole, squash pancakes, squash bread, squash pickles, canned squash, squash soup, squash and broccoli in cheese sauce. I’ve been known to lie awake in panic thinking I should get up and go eat a raw squash just to reduce the sheer numbers needing consumption.
Well, shortly after we arrived, Dad, Sammy and I started husking corn. Now my Mom has the deepest of aversions to even the tiniest scrap of corn silk. So we sat outside in the warm (freaking hot) sun talking (and sweating) about gardening, the corn crop of Sammy and I that was beautiful and bountiful and inedible because the the sewage leak, and picked the corn silk off a dozen or so ears for about an hour. Then Dad started cooking bacon while Mom and I cut and peeled tomatoes (another ick for my mom, tomato skin), and cut up lettuce. Sammy peeled the peaches (naked fruit is popular in my family.) We kept trying to get Dad to let someone take over the bacon while he sat down (he’s headed for a knee replacement in a few weeks) but, no one, repeat no one, can cook perfect bacon like Dad. We didn’t argue with him too much because we all know that, no one, repeat no one, can cook perfect bacon like Dad.
After we ate to the explosion point (I did go light on the corn at only four ears smothered with butter and salted like the briny sea) and cleaned up the dishes, I wandered over to the music cases and got out the mandolin. I picked out a few tunes while Brother John opened up Sammy’s guitar case. Sammy was already deep in a postprandial nap sitting up on the couch with his head thrown back, five seconds away from the rumbling snores that accompany his Bipap-less sleeps. Dad was on the big chair with that glazed look in his eyes that said a nap was ambling in his direction. Brother John started poking Sammy in the stomach with the guitar, poking harder and harder until Sammy finally stirred with a “I don’t want to go to work, ten more minutes.” I made the mistake of getting up to pee and lost the mandolin to John’s possession is nine tenths… I hadn’t brought the fiddle this time so I had to sing. We don’t get together very often so we do more pickin’ (trying to find a good key) and grinnin’ (oops, not that key) than tuneful artistry. I always had the reputation of only being able to carry a tune if I had a stout bucket, and only having a maybe one octave range on a good day, but Mom sang in a barbershop quartet for years and Brother John and Sammy are no strangers to a melody so we get the job done. We played and sang our grandfather’s usual tunes (Redwing, Old Joe Clark, Sourwood Mountain, and You Are My Sunshine) and Wildwood Flower, and some old hymns like I’ll Fly Away and Swing Low. My mom stole the harmony parts which I usually sing so I was haphazardly doing lead. I hate being Captain Kirk, I want to be Mr. Spock. But it was fun. Mom and Dad left and we picked around some Celtic tunes I like (House Carpenter, Star of the County Down, Sweet Afton) and then it was time for us to go. We discussed the proposed mead adventure standing by our car outside in the beautiful evening air while the mosquitoes treated Sammy like my Dad’s fresh garden produce and then started for home.
The Adventures of Eydie and Sammy Wight 