Off with the Old, On with the New

I hope all of you have read the Dolberry Gaffe List. It's very good, and funny. If I were to write a gaffe list it would take days and days and would finally end up as being one of the bigger gaffes of my life. Dolberry 's list went back to his years at Trinity. Only 25 gaffes in all of those years? Wow! He deserves an award!

When I was about 10 years old, I tried to go from the top floor of our house to the ground with out using the stairway. My intent was to climb out the attic window and cross the back porch roof there-by gaining access to the plum tree, get into the plum tree and climb down to the ground. Great plan! My younger brother assured me I could do it. Problem came about when I missed the limb of the tree that I had planned to access. Ground came up to meet me! I landed on my belly and lost my breath. We 're talking major pain but I survived. It's been one gaffe after another ever since.

These last days of 2009 have been filled with reviews of the year that is ending. Some sad or tragic reminders and some happy or poignant memories. My year has been the same way. I have some really high points and some very low points.

I was lucky enough to qualify to have my house weatherized, so I no longer have two and three hundred dollar utility bills. I went to Florida twice during the year, both times in January. We had the Fitzgerald Family Fun Festival at Andrea and Travis's in June. There are now sixty members of our immediate family and almost all of them were in attendance. I
went to Emerald Isle, N.C. in July and had a wonderful time with lots of good food and laughter and the ocean air. Great time! We had other family gatherings to celebrate birthdays,a graduation, (actually a retirement party) and other fun events, picnics with the Lally's, the Kentucky Derby where I had the winner! Ball games, where Nathan umpired, all so much fun.

In between all of the fun things I found out that I had an aggressive squamous cell cancer growth on my head that despite frequent visits to the dermatologist had gone undetected. I had surgery in August to have the tumor removed and then started radiation on the 16Th of August. I had to have 20 treatments. I had had radiation a few years ago, 30 treatments that time, so I was not too concerned about these sessions until I found out what was involved. It was not an easy thing.

I find it hard to write about the fact that in between the surgery and the treatments I found out that Fergus was terminally ill. I am still not ready to go into that yet. Suffice it to say that my life changed drastically.

The radiation finally came to an end and I was so relieved and thankful that it was over that adjusting to the bald spot on my head seems not nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be.
I have, on and off, been doing some volunteer work at Meredith-Dunn. That's a good thing, I get out of the house and get my mind on something other than my woes. When I came home from working on the 11Th of November, I found that my house had been robbed. All the things you have ever heard about an incident of this kind are true. I feel so violated and insulted and injured! My safe place, my haven has been profaned. Many items were stolen, most of them were sentimentally irreplaceable.

While I am still dealing with the repercussions of that violation, an intruder forced his way into my home. He must have been mentally ill or drugged or something because he referred to me as 'Mama' and even put his arm around me and kissed me on the top of my head! I used my "don't mess with me" voice and convinced him to leave my home but it left me feeling very vulnerable. I now have chain locks, and a peep hole and I am wondering about a moat, with maybe a crocodile or alligator in it.

My last adventure was rather humorous, I was subpoenaed to go to court and testify against the perpetrator of the robbery and before leaving the Hall of Justice, I used the rest room and when I was ready to leave I found that the door to the stall that I was in, was blocked by something and I could not get out! Being trapped in a filthy public rest room stall is not a good thing. Linda heard my shouts and came in and liberated me.

The good the bad and the ugly. But when all is said and done it was a wonderful year for me because I survived! Eighty-five and still alive! HAPPY NEW YEAR! Ciao.