My friend pool tends to be dwindling!

 I am on facebook.  A couple days ago I was notified of a friend who was having a birthday, so I clicked on the "wish her the best" button and sent her a happy birthday wish.  Yesterday I got a message from her daughter that she had passed away 4 months ago.  Of course I had been meaning to call her.  Mother always said "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."  And of course momma was right.  

So in my inimitable way, I looked for someone else to blame for my neglect of my friend.  Blame it on Covid.  Blame it on my having a 4 year old to take care of while his daddy works.  Blame it on the Pueblo Chieftain for raising the price of a subscription so high that I can not afford the paper and thus can not read the obituaries.  

Darn!  It seemed that only last week I had seen her at Walgreens and we talked about lunch.  Her step daughter and I were friends.  But as I set here thinking back, I do not know the last time I seen her!  It was not this summer, or last summer.  Maybe 3 summers ago.  Nope! Longer than that.  She does not know Bret has a son and that son is now almost 5 years old!  Damn!  I am not sure she even knew about Sherman and he passed in 2012!

A lot of my problem is this damned pandemic!  I could always keep track of time because I attended church every Sunday and that started my week.  My church has been closed since March, so there is no longer a start to my week.  The days just run together.  Monday and Tuesday are Bret's days off, so if he is hanging around the house during the day, I know it is Monday or Tuesday.  After that it is all down hill.  I may have to actually go find a church that will let me in just so I know what day it is.

Now I am setting here realizing that I am suddenly old. My life is marked by milestones.  There is the period before Kenny.  That is anything prior to 1980.  Then there is life after Kenny.  That is 2003.  And there is life now.  Not sure it is very much to write about, but it is what it is.  I tend to spend a lot of time just wondering where this is all going to end.  Hopefully I will just wake up dead some morning and my ride will be over.  This is going to surprise a lot of my kids who are harboring the idea that I will live forever!  And every morning that I open my eyes and look over at that clock that continues to mark the hours and minutes of my life, I am amazed.  Mainly I am amazed that I have managed to spend this many hours, days and years on this little green and blue ball without sending it spiraling off course.  But then I am not done yet, am I?

A friend sent me, completely out of the blue, a gift the other day.  It came in the mail and when I opened it I was pleased to find a beautiful  purple tee shirt.  I love purple!  And this was the perfect shade!  I called him when I got it and before I opened it.  I had a little trouble grasping what it said on the front in big white letters, but reflecting back, I realized that he had summed up my life with these words: 

UNDERESTIMATE ME

That'll Be Fun

So, thanks, Ross Barnhart, for reminding me that there are still people out there who care and think about each other.  I like to think that some day our lives will go back to normal and that we will be able to meet for lunch or pop in Starbucks for coffee.  It is sad that this year had to happen, but maybe it will wake us all up.  Maybe I will start calling people and checking on them.

Or not. 

God Bless us everyone!

It is fall of the year and once more time to gather my friends. partners in crime, or what ever you want to call them together.  Here we have Pastor Faye Gallegos and going to her left we find Sister Barbara, Paul Gilbert, Sister Nancy, Sandy the nurse and the empty chair is mine.

W

We dined on mashed potatoes, chicken and noodles, then finished up with pudding filled cream puffs.  We drank Chamomile tea so we wouldn't be too rowdy.  And of course there was home made bread. 

We had lovely conversation about the work at Los Pobres as well as what is going on around our church, the churches in the Springs.  We missed Maurine and Max Hale.  They have moved up North and do not travel down this way much.  We discussed shelter, or lack of one, for our homeless population.  I do not entertain much, but this is one of my high points.  I gotta tell you, this started out years ago as a Liver and Onion lunch, because very few people like Liver.  I missed last year for some reason so I was adamant about having my Liver Lunch this year.  I invited the ladies and Paul and then Pastor Faye told me Sister Nancy told her how much she was looking forward to Chicken and Noodles over mashed potatoes!  Since both menus are easy, I went with the noodles.  Paul and I can eat anything that does not eat us first!

Any way it was a day of friendship and catching up.  I cherish those times because they are so few and far between.  So tonight I am tired, but happy.  I just ate a bowl of leftover noodles and I think I am going to go eat that last cream puff before Mikie gets home and snarfs it down!

Good night all and sweet dreams from South Road to your house.  God bless us everyone!

Happy Birth Day to Samuel Rueben Seeger!!

Many years ago in a land far away, lived a simple woman who dreamed some day she would have a son and she knew she would name him Samuel Rueben.  The first year she had a daughter and named her Debra Louann.  The next year she had a daughter and named her Patricia Lynn.  The third year she had a daughter and named her Dona Marie.  The fourth year she had a son and when she told the sister in the Catholic Hospital in the Catholic town his name was Samuel Rueben they gasped and crossed themselves and told her that could not happen.  Samuel Rueben was a Jewish name and she was a Protestant.  She insisted.  Now you need a little background on this simple creature so here it is....

Back in those days religions were set in stone.  She was not Catholic.  She was not Jewish.  She was not anything in particular, which made her a Protestant.  Back then it mattered.  Her husband came to the hospital to peer at the baby boy through the glass and his work was done.  He would be back to get her in 5 days.  He did not care what it's name was so she was alone in her protestations that the name was Samuel Rueben.  The sisters refused to write the name.  Finally, the day came to leave and the baby had no name.  She knew she had to do something so she named him Earl Edward, but in her heart he was Sam.  They let her go home with the baby now that it had a "proper name."

Her husband was stunned that the baby was not named Samuel Rueben, but Earl was his given name, so he accepted that.  It was 4 months before her mother asked the baby's name.

"What is the baby's name?  I know it is Samuel, but Samuel what?"

"His name is Earl Edward."  And thus came the tear filled confession that she had let the Catholic sisters bully her into naming him something besides Samuel Rueben.

Never was the baby ever called Earl by anyone.  He was called Sam.  It is now 54 years later and he is known in the work place as Sam.  He is known at home as Sam.  He went to school as Sam and Earl Edward is only used on legal papers like wills and such.  He was named after his father who was Earl, but he called him Sam.

You might ask why I did not insist on putting it on his birth certificate, but you would have to have known me back then.  I was a very weak person back then and second guessed everything I did.  I tried to please everyone around me.  I still fight a daily battle to know that I am really worth something in this world.  It is called co-dependency and is a complicated little personality disorder.  I read books on it.  I went to a couple meetings on it.  It is very common in conjunction with living with an alcoholic.  I married 3 alcoholics in rapid succession and divorced them in rapid succession before I decided it was my problem and not theirs.  People who know me now just think I am an overbearing b----, and they may very well be correct.  That is alright.  Some people actually like me!

So there you have it...Another confession from the warped mind of Lou Mercer.  The more I write about things, the more I understand myself.  Hopefully, some day, I will no longer be a work in progress, but will be a normal person with normal wants and needs.  When that day comes, I hope I am no longer afraid of spiders, because I gotta' tell you, that is a big one!

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."