I Hope He Reads His Notebook

Coincidence perhaps, but Daddy, your death triggered one hell of a heat wave. We had a streak of 21 days over 100 degrees, followed by 2 1/2 days of highs in the 90s (we celebrated 75 degrees on the patio with coffee in the morning and beer (non-alcoholic for me) in the evening). Yesterday? Right back up to 109 at 4 p.m. with the next two weeks looking just about the same. So could you do something about this? You must have someone's ear wherever you are - at least Harold Taft must be hanging out! Or maybe you and Harold are stretched out in recliners side by side, heartily belly laughing at all us poor schmucks making the SAME. OLD. JOKES. about the insane heat. Except for some time in Arkansas and one glorious summer in upstate New York, I've lived in North Texas for the majority of my 50 years. Every summer here sucks. Every few summers really sucks. Lather, rinse, repeat. The same pictures of car thermometers or screen shots of weather apps (hell, I'm guilty of posting ...

The past few weeks, I've had the honor of spending lots of one-on-one time with my mother. Granted, it was partially at the cost of losing my Daddy, her husband of 61 years. The past few years especially, I've tried really hard to visit my parents regularly. Like any adult child with a relationship with their living parents, I felt guilty I couldn't spend more time with them. With both of their health declining the past decade or so, they rarely went further than the doctor's office or grocery store pickup. They hadn't driven to visit us in Little Elm since their 50th wedding anniversary party we hosted for them. Mom has pretty advanced rheumatoid arthritis and hasn't driven or gotten around very easily in many years. Dad still drove them on their few errands and appointments up until his last hospital stay. The last time he drove, he went to Kroger to pick up their grocery order...after he'd just recently gotten home from the hospital a previous time. His d...

Don't give me shit for using a Friends-inspired title. I didn't even put it in title case! Hah! Warning: lame grammar references within. I happened to wake up around 3:30 a.m. Insomnia is my good pal when I am under high amounts of stress. And, well, uh. The unimaginative title of this stream-of-consciousness blog entry is a result of high stress and very little sleep. Spelling and grammar errors may occur deliberately. Or they may appear accidentally. Only the writer knows which is which. And I AIN'T TELLIN'!!  And now for my story. Our house had this dead cypress in the backyard when we bought it. Wisteria had intertwined and climbed all the way to the top. A few weeks ago, we cut through the wisteria vines so we could save the main wisteria and let them die off. I realized just now that we don't have a photo of it when the wisteria was alive. That kind of makes me sad. (And I can't figure out how to uncenter this paragraph. Even though there is a hard carriag...