I AM COLD

I am cold.
I am so cold
I think
I died last night whilst in my bed. Was
I in bed long enough last night that
I could have died and grown so cold?
I went to bed at ten and if by eleven
I was dead, then yes, there was time.

But now the question is, Why hasn't rigor mortis set in?

FLY BY

Gentle Readers,

I really hate it when I'm walking from the bathroom to the family room or from the family room to the bathroom or sitting in front of the computer or sitting in the family room reading a book and . . .

SOMETHING FLIES PAST ME AND I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS!


It really freaks me out and I hardly ever find anything flying around or dead on the floor later.

Quite some time ago I discovered a LIZARD in my house and it disappeared and . . .

I NEVER FOUND IT!


I know someone who had a BAT flying around in her house and it disappeared and . . .

SHE NEVER FOUND IT!


WHERE DOES THIS SHIT GO?


I just wanna know. Can someone please explain life to me? There's so much I don't understand and it's depressing me and I can't accomplish a fucking thing.

Infinities of love,

Lola

HOLIDAY

Pardon me, Gentle Readers, but I'm going on holiday (that's my faux British speak for taking a vacation). I'll return soon with great and amusing photos because everything I shall encounter will be great and amusing.

Infinities of love,

Lola

BOTTOMS UP

Gentle Readers,

Do you ever feel like there's something sticking out of your poop chute and you don't know if a poop has popped out and is hanging on or if it's a hemorrhoid?

You don't?

Oh.

Me neither.

Infinities of love,

Lola

THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS

Gentle Readers,

How I do love my dear Ann Patchett. I recently finished reading her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, which LL says is her fave among Ann Patchett's. My favorite remains Bel Canto (I love its elegance), but Patron Saint is very good -- certainly as good as Run, though the two are quite different. Bel Canto is even more different.

That Ann Patchett. She simply refuses to be pigeonholed.

In The Patron Saint of Liars, Ann Patchett uses images and symbols associated with Catholicism to develop the theme that God provides a family for us in our times of greatest need.

Rose is a young married woman who discovers she is pregnant. Rather than tell her husband, she drives away to St. Elizabeth's, now a home for pregnant girls but once a beautiful hotel where people stayed to enjoy the healing waters. Girls at St. Elizabeth's have their babies and give them up for adoption. The girls and the babies are never seen again.

But Rose changes her mind. She gradually takes over much of the kitchen work from the elderly Sister Evangeline -- who becomes her dear friend -- and then she and Son, longtime handyman at St. Elizabeth's, make a momentous decision when Rose tells Son she no longer wants to give up her baby and she does not want to move on.

"Stay here," he said. "Marry me and they'll let you stay."


I turned around and looked at him. He looked at the fire for a minute and then turned to me. "Marry me, Rose," he said. "I'm not going to try and talk you into something you don't want to do, but it makes good sense. We'll stay here. We'll bring the baby up together."


And so Rose marries Son of God, stays at St. Elizabeth's after she gives birth to their daughter, and Son is a good father, while Rose is a somewhat distant mother who sees girls arrive and give up their babies and leave, and she takes care of Sister Evangeline, who knows the future, and finally, develops stigmata.

 Patron Saint seems a quiet, unassuming novel, but Patchett can really pack a punch when she feels like it.

I'm afraid I can't tell you more than that without spoiling the novel. You'll simply have to read it for yourself, and I most certainly do recommend reading The Patron Saint of Liars, which was made into a TV movie. I have never seen it, but after I finished the book, God and U-verse provided me with the movie and it awaits me on my close, personal friend, DVR.

Happy Reading!

Infinities of love,

Lola

THERE'S A LOT I DON'T KNOW

Gentle Readers,

Favorite Young Man was but a babe in arms, undergoing the inspection of two older women. They admired his tiny blue terry cloth shorts and top.

The shorts are getting too small, I said. He won't be able to wear them much longer.

They felt the waist band of the shorts and replied, Why, all you have to do is take out the elastic and blahblahblah make them bigger.

I don't know how, I said.

YOU DON'T KNOW HOW? they screeched.

No, I don't know how. I don't know how to sew.

I thought they were going to have heart attacks and die on the spot and rather than be responsible for calling the paramedics and have to clean up the damn mess because most people barf when they have heart attacks so I bade them a fond farewell and prayed to God I would never have to look at their stupid faces or hear their screechy voices again  for them to be healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Yes, there's a lot I don't know. It's really easy to say that something is easy when you already know how to do it. But what's easy for me, like writing a blog post or creating a Web site, maybe somebody else wouldn't think it's so easy.

My skills are pretty limited, and I blame it on my mother, as we all must blame our mothers for something that's wrong with us, but don't go getting any ideas Favorite Young Man and Someone I Love.

Mother made my older sisters cook and clean, but in general, as the youngest, I was not allowed to do anything. I would not do it right.


I did not glory in my place of honor as Mother's baby who did not have to do the work. I knew my sisters hated me for it. I actually tried to step in and help at times. Once when I was home alone, I --GASP! -- washed the dishes. Mother yelled at me for not getting all the dish soap out of the cups and I was told to never do it again.

If I tried to wipe off the kitchen counter, I got it too wet -- as if it would never dry. I was not allowed to add an ornament to the Christmas tree because I would not do it right. I couldn't even put on a single fucking strand of fucking tinsel.

So, here I sit at my computer. I don't know how to sew. I don't know how to can corn. I don't know how to do this, that, and the other thing because Mother wouldn't let me and I'm still afraid I won't do it right.

BUT . . .

You want your Chaucer read in Middle English?  I'm your woman.

You need some great quotations from poetry or Shakespeare or want an original poem for a special occasion? I'm your woman.

You need a 14-inch article? Give me the facts and in 20 minutes it's yours and will require little to no editing.

You need a wound cleaned and bandaged? I can do it as well as any doctor and I won't get grossed out and barf.

I have my talents. They just don't involve sewing machines or putting food in jars. It's not a problem. There are people you can pay to alter clothes. It's their job. And -- I know this one is hard to believe but I swear to GOD it's true -- you can buy food already in jars at a store that's meant especially for selling food in jars and cans.

I think Mother was proud of me for a couple of reasons when I was young: She loved it that I was very thin --didn't know I was anorexically thin -- and people quite often commented on how cute I was. Mother would whisper to me with delight about how someone behind her had been whispering about me, Oh she always looks so cute.

And if Mother were here today, I don't think it would bother her that I can't sew or can food or do a lot of the things she did. She would be thrilled that I finished college and that my writing has been published in magazines and newspapers. She would show strangers on the street my byline.

She would go on and on about how hard working and good looking Favorite Young Man is and what a cutie Little Chick is and how sweet LL, RL, AR, and NL are and how talented and beautiful Someone I Love Is and oi! she would love Brilliant Buff British Boyfriend.

And she would still think I'm cute, especially since Sam cut my hair in a wedge recently and it's absolutely the most adorable hair cut I've ever had.

Yes, there's a lot I don't know.

But I managed to jump in and learn how to do a few things and then teach my children how to do those things and then they learned even more on their own.

Best of all, I know how to love, and I love God, my children, my friends, and my dogs. And I know that the more I love, the more love there is. The supply of love is never depleted because you've shared it. Love expands constantly. It's a law of physics.

That's why I have . . .

Infinities of love,

Lola

THE EXECUTION OF WANDA JEAN

Gentle Readers,

I watched an excellent documentary recently called The Execution of Wanda Jean. It was very well made, and of course, it reinforced my belief that our country should do away with the death penalty.

The movie came out in 2002, and it's not easy to watch Jean's (the name she used most often) family go through the ups and downs of appealing her death sentence.

Wanda Jean Allen was in a lesbian relationship. She shot and killed the woman she loved because Gloria Leathers was leaving her. Jean had also killed once before and had received a very lenient sentence. But the second time, she received the death penalty. The lawyer who represented her during the trial openly admitted that he was not qualified to do so, and he did not present evidence of her brain damage and low IQ.

Evaluations revealed that the brain damage (she had been hit by a truck and suffered a head injury as a teenager and had been stabbed in the head) kept her from processing everyday logic that most of us take for granted, and she did not understand cause and effect relationships. Her IQ was 69.

Jean also lied and said she had graduated from high school and completed two years of college. Maybe she was accustomed to telling these stories to try to feel smarter. I don't know; the clemency board didn't seem to care that she was actually a high school dropout. They decided that if she had that education then she couldn't have such a low IQ.

By the time more qualified experts took on the case and presented the evidence that should have been provided during her trial, it was too late. No one had any mercy for Jean. Even Jesse Jackson could not convince the governor of Oklahoma, Frank Keating, to spare Jean, who was upbeat and seemingly more happy with her life as a prisoner than most people would be. I suspect the routine was reassuring to someone who had difficulty with day-to-day life.

Jean was sentenced in 1988, but not executed until 2001. As she went to the table where she would receive her lethal injection, she danced and stuck out her tongue at her lawyer, whom she liked. She believed she would return to her cell in the morning.

One of Leathers' family members was aghast at her behavior, which I can understand. He lost a loved one.

But it seems pretty apparent that Jean, despite all the coaching she received from her lawyer, really didn't know what was going on.

How can we execute people who don't know they are being executed, who do not understand the consequences of firing a gun? When I lived in another state, there was a lovely woman with whom I was acquainted. She had three children, all elementary school age. Her husband kept hunting rifles in the house. One evening the children were playing upstairs and their eight-year-old son shot and killed his six-year-old sister. Should that child be executed for killing his sister?

I don't believe that Wanda Jean Allen knew what she was doing any more than that eight-year-old child did.

The United States should not execute people for the following reasons:

1. Too many innocent people have been executed or sentenced to death. The Innocence Project has proven this and it was well known even before DNA evidence came into use. The execution of even one innocent person is too many.

2. The former chaplain at Huntsville State Prison in Texas, Rev. Carroll Pickett (where they carry out the highest number of executions in the nation), accompanied 95 men and women on their journey toward death. He states in At the Death House Door -- another excellent documentary -- that prisoners who are placed in solitary confinement are so miserable they beg to be executed. So wouldn't society achieve a "higher" level of punishment by letting killers rot in prison?

3. Where there is life, there is hope. When we kill people, all hope for redemption is lost.

We can achieve separation of church and state and still behave as if we are a Christian nation.

Infinities of love and life,

Lola

BABY BABY BABY

WELCOME

TO

THE


WORLD

BABY

GIRL!!!!!

Eight lbs., 13 oz.

No pictures yet. Merely thrilled!